Rick And Morty Season 9 Episode 4 Recap And Ending Explained: What Happened To Reese?

Rick’s emotional unavailability and Morty’s emotional dependency are such contrasting, layered issues that even after nine seasons, “Rick and Morty” continues to find new conflicts in this dichotomy. In the fourth episode of the ongoing season, one of Rick’s failsafe programs is revealed to be a cruel set up to make up for his lack of attention towards Morty, and how his coping mechanism, limited solely to alcoholic tendencies,, has disastrous effects for him and his family. The overall zany mood of the episode conceals a tragic truth viewers have already known for a long time; Rick Sanchez’s paranoia, his failure to confront his emotional burdens, is going to be his doom.

Spoilers Ahead

The Truth About Reese

A way too drunk Rick fails to remember the password to his system, resulting in a full lockdown protocol being initiated in his workspace, which keeps him from accessing the system. Rick doesn’t trust anyone, even his family members, with crucial intel like the password, and he is not your average boomer grandpa who writes down passwords on a notepad in case of emergencies either. He desperately calls for Morty, who tries to keep things polite by dialing down the disappointment in his voice for his grandpa’s drunkenness. Rick, ashamed and insecure about his alcoholic tendencies, throws a tantrum at Morty when he suddenly receives a call about Reese’s arrival. Reese is Rick and Morty’s common friend, a very chill, wholesome Southerner outdoorsman who occasionally arrives to help the grandpa-grandson duo unwind by connecting with nature, doing outdoor activities like fishing and whatnot. Morty and Rick are super elated upon learning Reese is visiting them,  and they spend a whole day with him in the tranquility of nature, reconciling with each other in the process. 

The fun time’s over as Reese needs to go back to his old life, and that’s when Morty finds out the shocking truth about him as Reese turns into a terminator sentry-like robot within a moment to kill a poor raccoon which was trying to steal their food. Reese is nothing but a sophisticated synth created by Rick, who uses him as a failsafe mechanism to keep his password saved in his mind. He is programmed to be a lovable chill guy Morty can share a great rapport with, and who can bring stability to the emotionally turbulent relationship between him and Rick. Morty is deeply hurt at the bitter fact that Rick’s obsession with controlling every aspect of his life and escaping accountability has taken such a horrible shape, and he throws a tantrum. As usual, instead of accepting his fault, Rick seeks escape in his flask of endless vodka, and seeks to dispose of Reese. 

Morty, still emotionally connected with Reese, wants to save him, despite knowing he is not an actual person, and pushing Rick away, he initiates the tech lockdown protocol before escaping to the basement, taking Reese along with him. Using Reese’s defence protocol to pass through the prison realm, Morty helps him settle down in a world Rick has populated with Hog-men to work in a vodka distillery for his endless supply of booze. 

Hog-Men Rebellion And Furniture Battle

Rick calls the big cloud metallurgy department to have the lockdown enforcing metal hatches opened, and a cloud entity arrives to inspect the situation. The thing is, they need to possess a human to access the hatches directly. Rick lets one of the entities possess Jerry, and after enjoying the chance to explore the human world in Jerry’s body, the entity manages to open the hatch. However, by now, Morty has left Reese in the world of the Hog-Men, who were secretly plotting against Rick all along, and having Reese, Rick’s ‘password man,’ in their possession, they manage to initiate a full lockdown in the Smith household. Morty has unwittingly given them the key to Rick’s tech arsenal, and at present, they are sitting ducks, left at the mercy of the Hog-Men rebels. 

The Hog-Men trigger assault command by activating every single appliance and piece of furniture in the Smith household, which a paranoid Rick had fashioned as his defence mechanism to ward off any of his gazillion enemies who might come after him or his family. Now his inventions are being used against him by the people he kept enslaved for his selfish necessities. As the Smith family try to defend themselves from the aggressive appliance bots, Morty rightly mentions Rick should have treated people with kindness instead of locking himself away behind all the barriers and defence bots. Rick is irredeemable, and he isn’t going to learn from his mistakes anyway, no matter how many times his family has to suffer the consequences. 

Rick has a simple solution for the Hog-Men rebellion problem, he asks the entity to briefly leave Jerry and possess the leader of the Hog-Men by moving through a communication channel, thereby ensuring the rebellion is culled as the rebels are killed one by one by their possessed leader. Rick launches an EMP surge by flipping the house’s main switch to deactivate the murderbots and other defense mechanisms. However, the Hog-Men send Reese back, tinkering with his mind to turn him into a murderbot as well, and he manages to take Rick and Morty captive.

What Happened to Reese in the End?

While Morty tries to appeal to Reese’s senses, Rick mentions how futile it is to try to talk sense to a violent synth, and the duo get into an argument. It reminds Reese of their past interaction, and as he briefly returns as his older self, the overload of memory fries his circuits. The lockdown protocol deactivates, and Rick wastes no time in destroying Reese’s mind for good, ending the crisis once and for all. Everything in the Smith household is brought back to its former state, and it’s time for the high clouds metallurgy entity to take its leave from the family. Morty decides to let the entity stay by entering Reese’s system, thereby ensuring that Reese gets to live, even though he no longer has the original consciousness as programmed by Rick. However, the metallurgy entity is a nice guy, and he seems to be a suitable replacement for the original Reese anyway. Rick has done away with the bottomless vodka flask, and also bombards the world of Hog-Men to annihilate them as a lesson for their insubordination. Rick gulps down multiple flasks of booze, and as Morty watches his grandpa’s self-destructive streak with a mix of pity and disgust, a drunk Rick reveals he is going to end up just like him. Alcoholic tendencies are genetic, that’s what genius Rick believes, but it’s a genuine wonder how his grandson is nothing like him. 

Mid-Credits Scene Explained

In the mid-credits scene, it is revealed that a drunk Rick has once again triggered lockdown protocol by forgetting his password, and in his miserable state, is cursing Morty. A chill guy, Rex, who has recently settled in the neighbourhood, pays them a visit, and considering him as just another password keeper like Reese, Morty stabs him. However, Morty is horrified to find out Rex is a real person, and Rick has called in Reese’s replacement password keeper, another chill outdoorsman named Georgie. As I said, Rick is truly irredeemable, and despite the fact that he has somewhat grown as a person over the years, he continues to refuse to learn from his mistakes. 

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