The episode opens with a classic Rick and Morty B-plot turned A-plot: Morty, feeling neglected, attempts to use a “Neutrino Bomb” to blow up the family dinner table. The intervention of Dr. Wong, however, subverts the expected slapstick. She is summoned to the Pentagon because the government has realized that Rick Sanchez—the smartest man in the universe—is “the single greatest security threat on the planet,” and the only one who can manage him is his therapist. This premise is brilliant satire. The military-industrial complex, accustomed to dealing with physical threats, is utterly unequipped to handle a narcissistic collapse. Their solution is to militarize therapy, turning Wong into a high-stakes hostage negotiator.
Simultaneously, the episode cleverly inverts the show’s trademark “Rick vs. the Federation” conflict. The physical antagonist is not a bureaucratic empire but a “Paradox of the Black Hole”—a Lovecraftian, spacetime-warping entity that appears in the Pentagon. To defeat it, Rick must do something he loathes: work with a team. The episode stages a hilarious montage of Rick assembling a “suicide squad” of former villains (including the delightful return of Mr. Poopybutthole’s archenemy, the Helicopter). Yet Wong remains on comms, not providing tactical advice, but emotional de-escalation. When Rick screams that the Paradox is “a metaphor for his unresolved guilt,” Wong calmly agrees, and in doing so, drains the monster of its power. The episode literalizes the therapeutic axiom: what you resist, persists. By acknowledging his feelings, Rick disarms the cosmic threat. rick and morty season 7 ep 9
In the sprawling, chaotic multiverse of Rick and Morty , few forces have proven as formidable as Dr. Wong (Susan Sarandon), the family’s calm, incisive therapist. Season 7’s penultimate episode, “Air Force Wong,” does exactly what its title promises: it weaponizes emotional intelligence. Shifting the setting from the claustrophobic Smith household to the endless corridors of the Pentagon and the void of space, the episode delivers a thrilling deconstruction of power, paranoia, and toxic family systems. It argues that the greatest threat to a tyrannical galactic order is not a superweapon, but a woman who refuses to validate your ego. The episode opens with a classic Rick and