If Rick was never in the hole, and the “Rick” that Morty saw while he was in the was a figment of his imagination, why do we see “Rick” eating tacos before he goes to the theater?

Morty is present in every other scene that we see “Rick” in, and I thought that was really clever storytelling, but that taco scene doesn’t make sense. We know that Morty isn’t there because “Rick” has to leave where he is (outdoors) to help Morty, who was in a theater

Does anyone have an explanation for this?

Edit: The point I’m trying to make is that this episode seems to go to great lengths to remind us that everything that’s happening is revolving around Morty (unlike Morty’s mindblowers, where they just told us that Rick edits them to give the writers more creative freedom)

There are several moments that lengthy conversations take place and then they zoom out to show us that Morty was there the whole time

Even when “Rick” gets drunk with Diane, they pan out towards the end of that scene to show us that Morty was in the car