Rick And Morty Season 8 Episode 8 Recap, Ending Explained & Mid-Credits Scene

Any Jerry-centric episode in Rick and Morty tends to be a mix of mellow and withdrawn, but very few of them actually appreciate who Jerry is as a person. Despite being the most ridiculed and sidelined character of an already dysfunctional family, Jerry is also the most mentally and emotionally stable person in the roster. Lacking intelligence doesn’t seem to be a problem when you are not on close terms with Rick Sanchez. Anyway, the eighth episode of the ongoing season of Rick and Morty takes Jerry through a multiverse journey; self-love gets a new meaning as he is accompanied by one of his alternate reality selves to look into the lives of other Jerrys across different realities. 

Spoilers Ahead

It’s a regular evening in the Smith household; Rick and Space Beth are getting into disagreements, Morty and Summer are arguing, and Jerry is gobbling down his cereal. Except, this stubble-sporting Jerry isn’t the real Jerry we know, who appears moments later and gets shocked seeing his doppelganger. Real Jerry chases stubble Jerry, whom we later know as Mooch, as he moves around different realities, mooching off of others. Mooch asks Jerry to keep his presence a secret from his family and requests him to buy him lunch. 

Mooch makes his intentions clear that he is just a trans-dimensional traveller who moves through different realities, but not using Rick’s portal gun, as it will bring unnecessary heat. He uses designated cracks present in every reality to slip through different worlds, and the pathway is simply called the Road. It also helps that in almost every reality Jerry is the most overlooked character, so Mooch’s secret never gets exposed by Rick or others anyway. As per Mooch’s request, Jerry takes him to his house’s upstairs closet, where such an interdimensional entry to the Road exists. 

Jerry distracts Rick with small talk while Mooch reaches to the closet and offers Jerry to join him in a hike through different realities. Typically not a risk taker, Jerry hesitates, but Mooch insists he live a little. Jerry agrees, and the duo go on a funky multiverse-hopping adventure. 

The first reality they come across is a world where ‘Blah’ is the only word used for every form of verbal communication. Mooch turns a coaster upside down in this world’s Smiths’ upstairs bedroom after arriving, mentioning it to be a sign marked by Jerrys of different realities to indicate the world is safe for them to visit. Anyway, from the blah world, the duo visit a frozen reality where the Smith family has perished after freezing to death—a morbid sight for Jerry. To not get lost in their journey on the road, different versions of Jerry leave a marker in all the realities they visit, and Mooch suggests Jerry do the same.

Next up they visit yarn reality and move through a reality where the Smith family are goats—quite literally; another one where everyone is partying with aliens; and a reality where the Smiths live on a beautiful tropical island and everything is chill between Rick and Jerry. Eventually, Jerry and Mooch become good friends, as Jerry shares bits of his life story. However, they end up accidentally missing their next gateway to the road, which was jumping into the portal that their present reality’s Rick and Morty had created, in the nick of time. 

Jerry freaks out when Mooch mentions that they can access this gateway after a week, as he fears Rick will end up replacing him in his reality after noticing him to be missing. Even though Mooch mentions that being a Jerry, getting noticed by his family is highly unlikely, Jerry insists on getting back to his reality. This prompts Mooch to see no other option except to move through Grand Central, a secretive under-burlap tunnel, to reach a reality that allows connection to other parts of the multiverse. 

The problem is, Grand Central is controlled by Boss Jerry, a villainous version of Jerry who has made Rick his servant of sorts, has recruited multiple iterations of Jerry as his thugs, and takes taxes from anyone who visits Grand Central to access other parts of the multiverse. To Jerry’s shock, he learns that both Mooch and Boss Jerry have been stealing from other Jerrys, and as he tries to protest, Boss Jerry takes all of Mooch’s belongings, including his multiverse map, and throws both of them in Mooch’s reality—putting them on a blacklist from Grand Central. Mooch starts to freak out when Jerry decides to visit his place to find a way back home and confesses that he ruined his own life by walking out on his family when he felt underappreciated, only to find out Beth has married Paul Fleischman. This is the reason as to why he has been living the life of a vagabond multiverse hiker. 

Jerry takes Mooch back to his family, and with Paul’s help, manages to let Mooch reconcile with his family. Everyone in this reality has a stubble, by the way. Mooch realizes that by considering that his family has taken him for granted, it was he who ended up doing that to them. After a heartwarming reunion with his family. Mooch is ready to take Jerry back to his family. Rick makes arrangements to let Jerry and Mooch get back on Grand Central.

Boss Jerry and his henchmen Jerrys chase the duo across the multiverse until they use the burlap dimensional gateway to leave and collapse it onto itself by cutting the rope within it. Boss Jerry gets caught in the temporal-spatial vortex, and his fate remains unclear. Jerry finally returns to his reality, and even though he requests Mooch to stay with them, Mooch refuses to be a burden and leaves. Jerry is happy after learning that Beth, Summer, Morty, and Rick were actually looking for him during the time he was absent. As the rest of the family leaves, Jerry turns the coaster on his upstairs table, indicating that he wants to have company with other Jerrys in the future. Rick notices this and questions Jerry about it, but it seems Rick already knows about the purpose of the gesture, as he states for a guy like Jerry, it (inviting other versions of him) might do some good.

The mid-credits scene shows a hilarious sequence of Rick and Jerry bonding by watching their favorite survival show, Naked and Alone, naked. Beth gets grossed out seeing them like this and hurriedly leaves after accidentally walking on them.