Let's start off by flipping your whole world upside down and saying that the Morty Smith you've been watching for the past few episodes isn't the Morty you started off with. This notion is part of a larger Rick and Morty idea known as the Master Theory, created by Reddit user Rickest_Rick, but certain intricacies have been discussed by Tumblr user sneakyfeets, who postulates that Rick's original Morty got trapped inside one universe—a tragedy seen during the opening credits of each episode, when Morty falls over and is almost eaten by giant frog creatures. Left behind for dead, this Morty grows to resent Rick and orchestrates the events seen in "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" in order to take down all Ricks in all universes.

And we see exactly that happen in the season three episode "The Ricklantis Mixup," in which the so-called Politician Morty runs to become President of the Citadel. Politician Morty is about as sweet as a bowl of peaches, promising peace amongst Ricks and Mortys. That is, until he gets elected and becomes President Morty. Sick with power, President Morty assassinates a number of members of the Shadow Council of Ricks, and in a slow-motion sequence of legal documents and floating corpses, it's revealed that he is none other than Evil Morty—the same one an off-shoot of this theory suggests our original Morty became after he was abandoned.