Rick Sanchez was detained in a neuro-extractor at the Galactic Federation's maximum-security prison. Federation agents infiltrated his consciousness via a neural link, attempting to steal the core formula for the portal gun—the linchpin of the Federation's inter-dimensional domination. In a virtual diner setting, the agents posed as Jerry, Beth, and other family members in an attempt to lower Rick's guard, only to be immediately exposed. "You can't even get Jerry's maximum body fold limit right, and you dare use this piece of junk Model 9000 on me?" Rick scoffed. Faced with the threat of his consciousness being dissolved by the device, Rick feigned surrender and agreed to lead the agents back to "the pivotal day he invented the portal gun." Along the way, he even demanded a Happy Meal with Szechuan sauce—a seemingly casual detail that actually harbored a deep-seated obsession with his past.
During the memory regression, the young Rick turned down an offer from Prime Rick—the first Rick across the multiverse to independently invent inter-dimensional travel technology. Prime Rick had promised to share portal gun technology but demanded Rick give up his freedom. That night, as Rick was about to head out for ice cream with his wife and daughter, a bomb from an unknown portal detonated, reducing his family to ashes in an instant. Devastated, Rick collapsed amid the ruins and scrawled three lines of formulas on the ground with his blood—the portal gun was thus born. The Federation agents, ecstatic at the sight, immediately transmitted the formulas to their headquarters, failing to notice the sneer that curled at the corner of Rick's mouth.
Meanwhile, Earth had been taken over by the Galactic Federation. Leveraging his status as "Rick's family member," Jerry landed a cushy job at a Federation agency, soaking up flattery from his colleagues all day while remaining indifferent to Rick's predicament. Summer, however, firmly believed her grandfather had a plan. Defying Morty's protests, she dug up the grave of the "Rick corpse" in the backyard, inadvertently alerting Federation surveillance robots. In the nick of time, Summer used the backup portal gun Rick had left behind to escape to Prime Morty's original universe, only to be tracked down by Ricklandia agents tasked with hunting "illegal transporters." A fierce battle erupted on the alien planet; the local Smith family came to their aid but were all frozen solid when Federation troops launched a surprise attack. Before Summer and Morty were captured, they finally relayed the message "Rick is in danger" to the Ricklandia agents, igniting the fuse for conflict between the two factions.
At Federation Headquarters, technicians were horrified to discover that the formulas were not portal gun codes at all, but a virus capable of full control over the neuro-extractor. The virtual scene collapsed instantly—Rick's consciousness had long since infiltrated the agent's body via the neural link. The green saliva oozing from the agent's mouth was the physiological sign of a consciousness transfer.
By this time, the Ricklandia SEAL Team had also arrived, turning the Federation prison into a battlefield in an instant. Rick evaded the crossfire by inhabiting the agent's body, then transferred his consciousness into a high-ranking Ricklandia official. He subsequently activated a device to teleport the entire Ricklandia to the Federation prison, pitting his two sworn enemies against each other in a deadly free-for-all.
Amid the chaos, several core Ricklandia members seized Summer as a hostage, attempting to force Rick to surrender. "I don't care about her at all," Rick said coldly. His words pushed Morty over the edge—he snatched the gun Rick tossed him and pulled the trigger with a roar. The moment the bullet struck Rick, the hostage-takers lowered their guard, and Rick suddenly sprang up to counterattack. The gun was already engraved with the instruction: "Fake shoot me during the standoff." Morty's "impulsiveness" turned out to be the final piece of the plan. The grandson once dismissed by all Ricks as an "IQ buffer" had become the most crucial pawn.
After eliminating the enemies, Rick broke into the Federation's central control system and forcibly reset the exchange rate of the Federation's universal currency to zero. In an instant, the Federation's monetary-based system collapsed completely: Federation employees on Earth collapsed in despair and committed suicide upon realizing their salaries were worthless, alien colonies erupted in looting, and the massive interstellar empire disintegrated in mere seconds. Jerry fled home barefoot, his former sense of superiority vanished entirely; he could only cower behind the sofa, trembling.
When Rick returned home with Summer and Morty, the living room was in shambles. Leaning against the doorframe, he confessed to his stunned family: "This was all part of the plan, right from the moment I turned myself in." He had avenged the Federation's manhunt and punished Jerry's betrayal. At the end of the episode, Rick sat alone in the garage, bringing up the "memory" of his wife and daughter being blown up. Tears silently rolled down his cheeks. Whether this memory—dismissed by Rick as a fabrication—was a lie to deceive his enemies or a painful truth he dared not confront remains a lingering mystery throughout the series.