Rick and Morty Episode 87: Erickerhead

Rick, Morty, and Summer are at an alien restaurant where Rick is drinking heavily and eating nonstop, irritating the others with his sloppy behavior and impatience to leave. When Rick decides to open a portal and move on, Morty and Summer object because they arrived in Rick’s car and do not want to abandon it. Rick and Summer go through the portal argument first, but when Rick leans back through to keep arguing, the portal shuts at the wrong moment and **cuts Rick cleanly in half at the neck**, leaving Morty with Rick’s talking head and Summer with his body.

Separated on opposite sides, Morty and Summer are forced to deal with their respective half of Rick while trying to survive the alien environment and recover the car. Rick’s head remains argumentative and difficult, while his body, left without the head, is still animate enough to cause problems on its own. Summer takes charge of the body and tries to get it under control, while Morty is stuck hauling Rick’s head around and dealing with the immediate chaos of being seen as a kid carrying a disembodied talking head.

The situation escalates as local forces and other dangerous outsiders start taking interest in them, turning the siblings’ problem into a chase across the alien world. In the middle of all this, Morty and Summer each end up relying on Rick’s separated parts in different ways, but the head and body also begin acting more independently and clashing with each other instead of simply wanting to be rejoined. Their conflict becomes personal, with each half blaming the other for Rick’s worst traits and refusing to cooperate.

Eventually, the head and body go from arguing to openly fighting each other, dragging Morty and Summer into a bizarre showdown as they try to keep the situation from spiraling further out of control. After the confrontation, the two halves finally come back together, but Rick is left changed by the experience and starts acting much healthier than before, including exercising and generally trying to be better behaved. The episode ends with Rick dragging Morty and Summer into his new fitness routine, and the three of them later returning to the restaurant to enjoy the food and drinks again.