Season three episode seven of Rick and Morty, The Ricklantis Mixup, is one of the darkest episodes of the season. What makes this episode so disturbing is how it is painfully familiar to our own lives. This episode demonstrates the problems caused by society such as, but not limited to, capitalism, big corporations, and the school system. However, the most dominating topic in the episode is the divides between different groups of people and how it is normalized and handled.
One main divide in the Citadel is that between the rich and the working class. Ricks are forced into a system of repetitive work, only to earn a fraction of their boss's salary. The only thing that keeps them returning to work is the temporary freedom of non-working hours. The only small taste of freedom is granted to them by a wafer company, which gives the Ricks an illusion of freedom when the Ricks are only sucked further into the system by submitting to the controlling corporations. In the episode, one Rick is passed up on a promotion, and then revolts by killing his boss and tries to get out of his life on the Citadel. The CEO of the wafer company grants him what seems like anything he would ever want while stealing that feeling of freedom and selling to make more money. This sequence shows how large companies in America can manipulate the working class with illusions of comfort and peace, but it is all just that, an illusion. Companies will do whatever they need to to make more profit off of citizens. And they succeed greatly. As the other CEOs of the Citadel stated, they were the ones who really ran the Citadel, and large companies in America are also the ones really running the show.
The second divide in the Citadel, and therefore America, is that of race. In the Citadel, it is the divide between Ricks and Mortys. Ricks are stripped of everything that made them Ricks in the first place, and Mortys are forced into schools that teach them only to memorize certain things and that they must accept their place in life, or they'll end up in Mortytown, a reflection of crime-ridden slums in America. Ricks look down on Mortys, make fun of them, and don't take them seriously. But it is the Ricks and Mortys alike that are unhappy and oppressed by the system. As stated by Evil Morty in his speech, "we are too busy fighting each other to fight the real injustice," which applies to our own lives and our constant bickering with one another that distracts us from the real oppressors.
Ironically enough, the solution to the unjust, capitalistic society is what causes the fall of it. Evil Morty runs for president and expressed ideals of unity to defeat a larger force. Calling for minorities to band together to defeat a common enemy is a common trick used by politicians to get into positions of power, and Evil Morty does this flawlessly. Ricks and Mortys alike were too blinded by the utopia presented before them to think about why someone would promise it. In the end, Evil Morty used the problematic divide to manipulate people to achieve absolute power. The depressing ending only makes our own lives seem that dark. Whatever terrible problems are caused by the malfunctions of capitalism, potential solutions could only lead to something much worse. So, we must accept the inevitable difficulties and the knowledge of being stuck in a corrupt system incapable of ever being fixed.
