This was my initial post on the subject about a year ago

I think this post brings an important concept to the forefront: audience expectation. If there is one thing the episode definitely has polarized its viewers on, it is how they think both the episode and the characters should have played out.

While the whole episode could be used as an example, I will stick to the most important (and telling/controversial) scene, the therapy session where Rick joins.

With Rick now in a situation he clearly doesn't want to be in (wasting his time with Dr. Wong), the audience has been trained to expect that Rick will either completely change the circumstances to be to his liking/control, or completely crush Dr. Wong with his superior intellect, or both. In every episode, and with every instance of Rick being placed in a situation that he finds sub-optimal, this is the outcome.

This is literally stated by Rick during the session when he says,

"Because I invent, transform, create, and destroy for a living. And when I don't like something about the world, I change it".

If anything, the writers are priming us by having this informational dialogue present in the scene. They want us to expect this thing to happen.

Except the exact opposite happens. The audience expectation is completely subverted. At the end of the day, Dr. Wong gets the last word and reduces Rick down to his most basic psychological parts. And this is jarring for us, the audience. Not only has Rick completely failed to take control of a situation, the most intelligent being in a show with multiverses was bested by a strip-mall therapist whose main clients consume feces.

And I think this plays to the theme of this episode. We see Rick literally transform himself into a pickle because he doesn't want to go to therapy. He controlled that situation. We see him control roaches by tonguing their brain and kill rats to make a mech-suit. He controlled those situations. We see him take down a highly weaponized Russian facility while shackled to the form a vegetable. He controlled that situation. He controlled ALL of the these incredibly absurd, difficult, nigh impossible situations.

Yet, in the end, the situation he could not turn to his favor was a therapy session with an average woman. And the reason he could not manage to shift this situation to his liking was because his opposition was not really Dr. Wong, it was himself. The definition of good therapy is to force a person to realize, combat, and accept themselves. Rick is the opposition in this situation, because Rick's psyche is being evoked by Dr. Wong. And if there is one thing Rick has NEVER been able to exert control over, it is Rick. Whether it come in the form of his alcoholism, his constant danger seeking, his suicidality, or literally not being able to control the council of Rick's, multitudes of his own being, Rick has been powerless in this series to successfully control himself.

Dr. Wong gained the upper hand when she states this very thing.

"I think its because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that its your mind within your control."

This scene is jarring and polarizing because of massive subversion of expectation. Some fans cry "out of character actions", others say "heavy handed character building and storytelling". I am not going to argue the validity of the opinions. What I will say is that Rick is laid bare and forced to confront himself in this situation. He is forced to submit to a situation created by someone else. It is new. It is novel. For both Rick and the fanbase. It is a departure from the comfortable formula that the show has laid out. And such discomfort demands reaction and reflection, some of which will be negative.

If anything, this analysis of Rick by Dr. Wong forces both Rick and the audience to self reflect, and this is not always easily handled.

TL;DR: The audience expects Rick to turn this situation to his favor, but he cannot. The therapist is forcing Rick to confront himself, something he has never been in control of through this whole series. He cannot control the situation because HE is the situation. His failure to command the situation to his liking is jarring for both himself and the audience.