Rick and Morty's 'Rick Potion #9' Still Defines the Show 13 Years Later

When "Rick Potion #9" aired as the sixth episode of Rick and Morty's first season, it followed a familiar pattern established by earlier entries like "Lawnmower Dog" and "Meeseeks and Destroy." Morty, tired of being dragged into Rick's schemes, demands a favor: a love potion to win over his crush Jessica, voiced by Kari Wahlgren. What starts as a standard be-careful-what-you-wish-for premise — complete with vole oxytocin and a flu season awareness dance gone wrong — quickly spirals into something the series had never attempted before. Writer Justin Roiland uses the episode to pull back the curtain on Rick's true nature, revealing a character who has not only destroyed worlds but treats that destruction as mundane.

The episode's horror escalates in distinct phases, each more disturbing than the last. After the love potion spreads through the school via Jessica's flu, Rick's attempted fix introduces praying mantis DNA that transforms the global population into hideous monsters with mantis eyes protruding from rictus masks of their former faces. His second antidote creates a David Cronenberg-inspired nightmare world covered in shambling mounds of teeth, tentacles, and oozing flesh. The animators rendered remarkable variety in the twisted bodies attacking each other across the globe. But the true horror arrives in the final moments when Rick and Morty are killed by a device from the episode's opening, and their Cronenberg world counterparts bury them and assume their lives.

The Multiverse Changes Everything

The revelation that Rick is a multiverse traveler with no concerns about ruining an entire world and leaving it behind transformed the entire nature of the series. Rick has seen an infinite multiverse, and he's both destroyed the world and saved the day countless times. He's concluded that nothing matters, and he wants Morty to accept that same bleak truth. This philosophy shakes Morty to his core, manifesting in his haunted stare as Mazzy Star's "Look on Down From the Bridge" plays over the closing credits. The song choice underscores the emotional weight of a moment that refuses to offer the comfort of a reset button.

What makes the ending particularly devastating is the juxtaposition between two realities. In the original world, Morty's parents fight bitterly while in the Cronenberg world, the family appears happier without Rick and Morty around — even though they're surrounded by monsters. The episode asks whether the entire universe might be better without its protagonists in it. That question lingers across the show's run, resurfacing most notably when a portal reset in season 6 banishes Morty back to his original world. There he discovers that even the seemingly happy ending his family achieved was short-lived: his mother and sister are dead, and only Jerry, voiced by Chris Parnell, has survived to become just as nihilistic as Rick.

Body Horror as Narrative Language

The episode's visual language draws heavily from David Cronenberg's body horror tradition, but it deploys those images toward philosophical ends rather than pure shock value. The progression from mantis hybrids to Cronenberg monsters mirrors Rick's escalating disregard for consequences — each "fix" creates a more fundamental violation of natural order. The animators deserve credit for the sheer variety of twisted forms populating the screen, each frame dense with grotesque invention that rewards pause-button scrutiny. These visuals serve the episode's central argument: that Rick's science, when left unchecked, becomes indistinguishable from cosmic horror.

Comparisons to other media illuminate what "Rick Potion #9" achieves. The misfiring love spell echoes Buffy the Vampire Slayer's season two episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," but where Buffy resolved its magical mishap within a single episode, Rick and Morty uses the premise to fracture its own reality permanently. The show's earlier parodies of Total Recall and Freaky Friday operated in a meta register, winking at genre conventions. "Rick Potion #9" abandons that safety net, committing to the logic of its own premise no matter how dark the destination. That commitment established a template the series would follow: the funniest episodes are often the ones that hurt the most.

Consequences Without Reset Buttons

Perhaps the episode's most radical choice is denying the audience the sitcom reset that the fake-out ending promises. When Rick appears to avert the "genetic epidemic" and the duo returns home to normalcy, the show mimics the structure of countless episodic comedies where status quo is god. The subsequent revelation — that this is a different Rick and Morty in a different universe, burying their predecessors — rewrites the rules of engagement. From this point forward, every reset carries the weight of this betrayal. The psychological trauma remains even when the timeline doesn't.

This approach distinguishes Rick and Morty from its contemporaries. Most animated comedies treat continuity as optional; "Rick Potion #9" makes it inescapable. The Cronenberg world versions of Rick and Morty may have found a workable existence among the monsters, but the original Jerry spent years suffering for a mistake he didn't make. That asymmetry — some versions of characters escaping consequence while others bear the full weight — becomes a recurring theme. The show suggests that in an infinite multiverse, justice is mathematically impossible. Someone always pays for Rick's arrogance, even if it's not the Rick who committed the crime.

Why This Episode Still Matters

Thirteen years on, “Rick Potion #9” still serves as the Rosetta Stone that lets us untangle the duo’s dual identities. The show—always poking fun at pop‑culture touchstones like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Santa Clause, and even Prometheus—doesn’t shy away from the weighty side of its own absurdities. In that season‑one episode, the stakes it set remain the thread that weaves through everything that followed. Rick’s experiments, when left unchecked, can ripple across multiple realities. Every misstep drops a price on Morty’s emotional health, a price that climbs higher with each new escapade. For fans flicking back to the series on HBO Max, the episode is the first time the writers truly say what the show is aiming for. The Citadel of Ricks, the rise of Evil Morty, and the slow unraveling of the Smith family all sprout from that single moment—high‑school gym during a flu‑season dance that spirals into catastrophe. The dance itself, a seemingly mundane scene, becomes the literal and figurative launchpad that sends the rest of the narrative spiraling. The episode’s core message—that science without limits is dangerous, that consequences span universes, and that Morty bears a growing psychological scar—continues to echo in every subsequent season.