It was pretty hilarious watching the Smith household fill up with one oddball character after another - Pencilvester, Photography Raptor, Hamurai, Mrs. The subtext being, I suppose, that clip shows and lazy cutaway humor are literally the death of comedy. The very act of flashing back put the Smith family in ever greater danger. Each sequence spawned a new wave of parasites taking increasingly odd forms. But the best thing about the premise was that each cutaway mattered. Not that the flashbacks weren't entertaining in their own right, especially Summer's dream sequence/dance number and Rick's barbecue. Done wrong, this episode could have devolved into a simplistic Family Guy parody, with characters setting up random flashbacks and cutaways with no real impact on the plot. Poopy Butthole was inserted into the title sequence was nice touch. Poopy Butthole that the threat of these parasites is greater than even Rick can handle. Who is this guy? Why have we never seen him before? We very shortly learned the answers to those questions, while also realizing thanks to the suspicious debut of Mr. The introduction of Uncle Steve left the viewer slightly confused on on their guard. The opening scene was a great way of setting the stage for the week's conflict. The characters never even left the house, as they were forced to figure out who among the increasingly large cast of characters was real and who was a memory-implanting parasite. The plot also became a sort of sci-fi locked room mystery.
For once, the whole Smith family was involved in one overarching conflict, rather than Beth and Jerry doing their own thing while Rick, Morty and Summer explore the cosmos. Several elements immediately set this episode apart. It made for a wild romp of an episode, even if the payoff didn't quite live up to the build-up. This being Rick and Morty, it goes without saying that the premise was taken in a much more bizarre and outlandish direction. Much like the Community Season 2 episode "Paradigms of Human Memory," "Total Rickall" is a faux-clip show episode featuring clips and flashbacks viewers have never actually seen before. However, this episode created a stronger link between the two shows. Community and Rick and Morty don't have much in common beyond the fact that they're both comedies co-created by Dan Harmon.