Rick and Morty Episode 40: Childrick of Mort

The Smith family’s camping trip is interrupted when Rick learns that an ex of his is “pregnant” and drives the family to the planet Gaia, where Beth insists he deal with the situation. There, Rick and Beth end up helping raise a new species of clay-like children, while Jerry tries—and fails—to make the trip into the camping experience he wanted.

Rick, Morty, Beth, Summer, and Jerry start out on a road trip, with Jerry pushing the idea of an old-fashioned family camping vacation while the others are mostly distracted by their devices. Rick gets a call from Gaia, a sentient planet, who tells him she is having his children, and Beth forces him to go see what is going on.

When they arrive, the “children” turn out to be an entire population of clay-like beings born from Gaia, and Rick reluctantly stays to help develop them. Beth joins him, partly out of anger that Rick never raised her properly and partly because she wants him to act like a real father here. The two of them begin building a society for the new beings, including organizing them into productive roles and helping them progress as a civilization.

Meanwhile, Jerry takes Morty and Summer camping in Gaia’s wilderness, hoping to bond with them and prove he can lead the family. Morty and Summer are uninterested and openly rude, and Jerry eventually becomes frustrated and wanders off. He later ends up among a rejected group of clay beings, the “Unproductives,” and begins leading them by teaching them a camping-based way of life.

Morty and Summer, left to fend for themselves, get lost and eventually find a crashed spaceship. They try to understand and repair it, but they do not know how to pilot it at first. Summer ends up consuming some strange alien fluid and the two of them eventually use the ship in a way they do not fully understand.

As Rick and Beth’s civilization advances, the episode reveals that the beings are not actually Rick’s children in the way everyone assumed. A godlike figure named Reggie arrives and claims the children, leading to a confrontation with Rick and Beth. Reggie empowers Jerry and the Unproductives, which turns Jerry’s camping group into an opposing force against Rick and Beth’s city.

A battle breaks out: Beth fights Jerry, Rick fights Reggie, and the two sides clash as the new society threatens to collapse. Rick is losing against Reggie until Morty and Summer, in their damaged spaceship, accidentally crash into Reggie’s head and kill him. Reggie’s body then falls onto Gaia, destroying much of Rick and Beth’s city and killing many of the clay beings.

After the impact, Beth is nearly killed but is saved by Jerry. Gaia becomes furious over the destruction and chases the Smith family off the planet, leaving the surviving clay beings behind. Jerry admits he only wanted the camping trip so he could feel useful, and Morty and Summer apologize for how they treated him. Rick then lashes out at Beth, angrily exposing the fact that Morty and Summer caused Reggie’s death, which leaves the family more divided than before.