Summer: You tried to kill yourself!
Rick: Only in self defense.
A Rickle in Time is the first episode of the second season of Rick and Morty. It sets the stage rather effectively for what's to come later in the season.
Plot Synopsis
The episode begins six months after the end of season one in the same instant that it ended. Last season Rick threw a party that completely trashed the Smith house and would have likely gotten him kicked out. Beth and Jerry where about to enter the house when Rick froze time, essentially side stepping any consequences for his actions. Rick, Summer, and Morty have spent six months in the frozen moment fixing the house and screwing around. Having exhausted every fun option for the moment Rick starts the cosmic clock again but not before warning them not to interact with people lest they shatter into tons of theoretical shards. Time resumes and an irate Beth and Jerry storm into the house only to find it spotless. Rick expresses that he and the kids are so glad to see them to the point that it would literally kill them to hugged and maybe Beth and Jerry should go out for ice cream. Rick rolls five hundred dollars across the floor to Jerry who despite his misgivings and the extreme non sequitur of the conversation can't say no to free ice cream. Soon after their parents leave Summer starts needling Morty about his personal failings and the notion that Rick might drop him as a side kick. Morty experiences some uncertainty regarding how to respond and the timeline splits into two separate parallel realities. This leaves the two sets of Rick, Morty, and Summer in two identical Smith houses floating in a void filled with cats.
While Rick tries to avoid quantum collapse Beth and Jerry are returning from histories most extravagant Cold Stone Creamery trip when Jerry runs over a deer. What really should have been an unfortunate accident soon turns into an unhealthy obsession when Beth interprets an off hand comment by Jerry as a slight against her profession as a horse surgeon. Beth orders Jerry to load the deer into the back of the car and the two of them go looking for a vet so Beth can prove that she's more than competent enough to save it. The remainder of the episode bounces back and forth between the two groups with Rick trying to sync up both timelines, fighting the time police, and eventually sacrificing himself to save Morty, and Beth encountering obstacle after obstacle in her quest to save the deer and prove that she's a great surgeon regardless of what species she's operating on.
Themes
Rick's get out of jail free card in the form of freezing time turns out to have some pretty hefty draw backs which goes along way towards explaining why we don't see it before or after this point. It's important to note that the end of season one did a fair bit to make it look like they were giving Rick some positive character development only to have Rick personally rebuff it when he says his new catch phrase will be "I don't give a fuck." The first season does a fairly good job of establishing Rick as a heartless nihilist and made sure to end on that note only to turn around and show him to value Morty's life above his own. Rick's character remains a major focus of the season moving forward.
"Oh, sweet Jesus please let me live. Oh, my God I—I've gotta fix this thing, please God in Heaven, please, God, oh Lord, hear my prayers."
*Manages to fix the do-dad*
"Yes! Fuck you God! Not today, bitch. Yes I did it! There is no God! In your face."
- Rick Sanchez ... praying?
IRON NODER X: XTREME XCELLENCE