Rick and Morty Season 9 Episode 3 SPOILER Recap: “Rick Fu Hustle”

What happens in Rick and Morty Season 9 Episode 3 “Rick Fu Hustle”?

Credit: Adult Swim
While Jerry’s new pool-cleaning robot fails to do its job, Rick and Morty set off on a long-teased adventure to Boob World, stopping by Trader Joe’s to pick up some hash browns for the trip. On their way out, they accidentally rear-end an archetypal kung fu master named Lu Sin. Lu asks Rick to exchange information, Rick refuses as he believes himself to be better than Lu Sin as a “ Doctor Who/Loki-type,” and Lu Sin responds in kind by hitting Rick with the “Five-Point Exploding Heart Technique” which, as confirmed by Rick’s own scientific analysis, will cause his heart to explode if he takes five steps forward.
Even so, Rick refuses to apologize and is determined to science his way out of the problem, especially given that walking backwards works perfectly fine for whatever reason. Morty, frustrated at being denied the joys of Boob World yet again, heads back to Trader Joe’s to “eat his feelings” when he bumps back into Lu Sin. Unlike Rick, Morty admires Lu’s skills and so the master, taking a liking to the boy, offers him a lesson. The pair train in Lu Sin’s garden and Morty begins to feel a Zen-like peace when a contractor tells Lu that he can’t install his flat-screen TV only for Lu Sin to hit him with the Exploding Heart Technique.
Credit: Adult Swim
Morty calls Lu Sin out on murdering a guy who did nothing but his job, only for Lu to hit Morty with the Exploding Heart Technique as well, evidently his go-to response to any criticism. Morty walks back to the house backwards and tells Rick about what happened, whom, in a surprisingly affectionate manner, swears that they’ll make Lu Sin pay. Using specialized hover pods, Rick and Morty travel to the home of Lu Sin’s master, Gird Jurgens. They ask Gird to tell them how to reverse the Exploding Heart Technique, but he’ll only do so if they help him work things out with his daughter Stephanie, voiced by guest star Michaela Dietz.
Apparently, Gird and Stephanie are having a disagreement over whether or not she can bring all seven members of her polycule to her grandmother’s birthday party. The novelty of Rick and Morty’s pods gets Stephanie to agree to meet her father and the two work it out. From there, Rick is able to use Gird’s knowledge not just to cure the Exploding Heart Technique, but also reverse engineer all of martial arts, transforming himself and Morty into kung fu masters using nanobots.
The duo confronts Lu Sin and the three engage in a battle of increasingly ridiculous punching techniques, eventually garnering the attention and anger of a cartoon deity named Punchy, who according to Lu is “the ancient demon god of hitting things.” As punishment for their abuse of martial arts, Punchy sends a giant monster with literally one million pressure points named Punchenheimer to destroy them. The only way to stop it is a rapid-fire move called the “Splatterbolt Kick,” but Lu Sin stopped taking lessons from Gird Jurgens before he could master it.
Luckily, Rick and Morty know it thanks to the aforementioned reverse engineering of kung fu and agree to install the nanobots into Lu Sin after Lu finally admits that he rear-ended Rick on purpose because conflict is the only way he knows how to communicate with people. The three of them perform the Splatterbolt Kick together, defeating Punchenheimer, and Punchy congratulates them on learning the power of nonviolence (Feel like teamwork was more of the lesson here, but whatever), before fading back into the sky.
Oh, and remember that pool cleaning robot I mentioned at the beginning? While all this was happening, Jerry downloaded a long language model into the robot without looking at any of the lengthy safety warnings for the sole purpose of not having to hire a handsome pool cleaner named Keith who makes him feel emasculated for obvious reasons. This initially works, but the robot goes too far and ends up having sex with Jerry and falling in love with him, trying to force him to divorce Beth for her. This is the final straw for Jerry who opts to hire Keith on the spot and get rid of the robot.
The infuriated and jealous robot attempts to kill Keith, but he and Jerry get away, leaving her trapped in the pool. However, she eventually manages to get out of the pool and into the house, flooding it in order to make it easier for her to navigate. Jerry lures her into a false sense of security before he and Keith go in for the kill, just in time for Beth to get home and hear all about Jerry having sex with the robot. Amusingly, Beth is unphased by this, apparently deriving similar pleasure from her hair dryer.
Credit: Adult Swim
We wrap up the episode with the entire Smith family, alongside Lu Sin, Gird Jurgens, Stephanie, and her polycule, enjoying a pool party. Finally, there’s a post-credits scene where we see Beth blow-drying her hair. Jerry sees her and tells her “We talked about this” as she reluctantly puts a mask of Jerry’s face on the end of the hair dryer. Jerry walks away and the hair dryer, which has a voice box apparently, simply says “It’s not the same,” to which Beth agrees.

Is Rick and Morty Season 9 Episode 3 “Rick Fu Hustle” worth watching?

Credit: Adult Swim
In contrast to the respective plot-heavy and melancholic episodes of the past two weeks, “Rick Fu Hustle” is the hardest I’ve laughed at a Rick and Morty episode in quite a long time. The Jerry/Pool-Bot B story feels very Season 1-coded in the best way possible and the means by which it combines science-fiction with traditional kung fu movie tropes are inventive and often hilarious. Lu Sin and Gird Jurgens being old-school martial arts masters who also just live regular lives is a pitch-perfect gag, and I love the retro-anime aesthetic they used for Punchy.
Plus, the kung fu battles themselves are a ton of fun with stellar fight choreography and a delightfully fantastical bend to the moves. Moreover, it’s just nice to see a story where Rick and Morty are not only on even ground but genuinely care about each other in spite of their frustrations with each other. They’ll still call each other out of course, but at the end of the day, they have each other’s backs. I think this might be my favorite episode of the season so far and I look forward to seeing how they can keep up this momentum.