The Philosophy of Rick and Morty

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGa3R9VvDVs[/youtube]

Rick and Morty - S1E10 - Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind (part 1 of a 2 part analysis)

The Smith family are gathered around the breakfast table. They’re eating eggs, hash browns, and sausages. Beth mentions to her dad that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of him entering back into their lives, and that she’s going to make him flying saucer shaped pancakes. “Oh, the-there’s no need to do that Beth, regular pancakes are fine,” Rick says right before another version of him, plus another Morty, come through a portal right there in the dining room and blast Rick through the head with a lazer gun. The alternate Morty shoots a tranquilizer dart into the first Morty’s shoulder. He passes out on his plate. The rest of the family scream and shout. The alternate Rick and Morty grab the first Morty and drag him back into the portal before disappearing.

Is that it for Rick? He just gets shot through the head at the beginning of the episode (by another Rick)? Well, that’s it for the Rick from this dimension. Obviously, that’s not it for the Rick who just shot him. But which is Rick is the Rick we’ve been following throughout these episodes, the one we all know and love (or hate)? This episode pivots around the implications of this very question. We already know that the very context in which the entire Rick and Morty series revolves is not only one in which there are multiple interconnected realities, but one in which there are multiple interconnected Ricks (and Morties). We were first introduced to this aspect of the Rick and Morty world(s) back in episode 6 (Rick Potion #9) when we saw how Rick’s solution to the Cronenberg disaster was to slip into the rolls of an alternate Rick and Morty from another universe. In this episode, we are going to be swarmed by alternate Ricks and Morties.

In the very next scene, for example (right after the intro credits), we find the Smith family, once again seated around the breakfast table, with Rick and Morty both alive and well (as if nothing happened). The writers are totally free to do this because there is nothing inconsistent, when the series falls on the premise of parallel, and sometimes almost identical, realities, about spontaneously, and without warning, cutting to an alternate reality in which we find another Rick and Morty in an almost identical situation to that from which they cut. So there he is–a (still alive) Rick–sitting beside a (not passed out) Morty suddenly catching the gist of Beth’s gesture to make flaying saucer shaped pancakes:

“Oh, I get it: regular pancakes are already shaped like flying saucers.”

Obviously, this Rick lived to see another day (literally), that day being the one year anniversary in which Rick entered back into their lives, the one on which Beth said she’d make him flaying saucer shaped pancakes.

As an aside, it brings up a question in my mind: do we have a right to say that this day–Rick’s one year anniversary of entering back into the Smith family’s lives–is really the next day after that during which, in a parallel universe, an alternate version of himself died? I mean, if it’s December 9th 2016 in one universe, for example, do we have to say it’s December 9th 2016 in another parallel universe? What if the parallel universe in question was defined such that it was always a day behind the one to which it is parallel? Would there even be a way to determine the matter? Do events that happen across different universe even happen “at the same time”? What would be the difference between hopping to a parallel universe in which it is 1999 and hopping to one in which it is 2016 and, in the same move, time travelling back to 1999? ← These are just some metaphysical questions to ponder over in a thread devoted to a philosophical digestion of the Rick and Morty series. The point being that, in the current scene, we technically don’t know that this is the “next” day.

(And if you look at the breakfast table, you see that everyone except Rick is, once again, eating eggs, hash browns, and sausage–would they really be eating the same breakfast two days in a row? They might be, or maybe they just didn’t have the same breakfast the previous day, or any number of things, but it does bring the question to the fore).

Focusing on something more relevant (but still an aside), I like how, when it comes to Beth, Rick doesn’t mind admitting that he missed the obvious: pancakes are already shaped like flying saucers–a bone head oversight for a genius like Rick–but one he doesn’t mind admitting to his daughter. Related to that, I also like how, when Beth first offered to make him flying saucer shaped pancakes (back in the reality in which Rick died), Rick declined saying “there’s no need to do that,” showing his affectionate side for his daughter.

We’ve seen, in past episodes, how Rick sometimes betrays an affectionate side to his personality, and you may think this is nothing new, but that’s going to be thrown completely up-side-down in this episode–almost as if we were purposefully lead, in the last episode, to conlude that it’s obvious that Rick is only masking his affection for his family with a tough, disinterested exterior, only to be thrown for a loop, in this episode, by overwhelming evidence that he definitely does not feel even a sintilla of affection for anybody, even himself–this current display, for example, possibly being just a manipulative ploy to coax Beth into keeping him around longer (he did say it, after all, in response to Beth reminding him that he’s been housed in her home without keep for a year now).

Rick continues: “I-I should be making you breakfast for putting up with me.” ← He realizes he’s hard to live with.

Then all of a sudden, three alternate Ricks enter the room through a portal. They’re dressed in quasi-militant uniforms, wearing badges and carrying guns–still lab coats underneath but more of a formal uniform:

The center Rick says: “Rick Sanchez, Earth dimension C-137 ← Important identity tag!, you are under arrest for crimes against alternate Ricks by the authority of the transdimensional council of Ricks!”

Jerry: “Hey! What the heck!”

Center Rick: “Neutralize the Jerry.”

Jerry: “Wait! No! I’ll-”

[Left Rick shoots freezing plasma at Jerry. Jerry freezes.]

Summer: “Dad!”

Beth: “Dad! [at Rick C-137]” ← Blaming him? It is the same person, in a manner of speaking.

Rick C-137: “[Stands up] Everybody relax, if I know these A-holes, and I am these A-holes, they just want to haul me to their stupid club house and waste my time with a bunch of questions. Let’s get it over with.”

Center Rick: “Bring his M-burp-orty.”

Morty: “Oh man. [as if this sucked but wasn’t a crisis.]”

Rick C-137: “Leave my M-burp-orty out of this!”

Center Rick: “You lost the right to have a say in these things when you refused to j-burp-join the council of Ricks.”

Beth: “[Stands up] W-w-w-what about Jerry?!”

Rick: “[As they haul him and Morty off through the portal] Will you at least unfreeze my daughter’s idiot?”

[Left Rick fires anti-freezing plasma blast at Jerry.]

Jerry: “-give you anything! I have a rare antique coin collection! Just don’t hurt me!.. [Looks around; realizes the crisis is over] Ok, maybe not antique but it was a limited minting–they have little R2D2’s instead of George Washingtons.”

Beth: “Our son’s been abducted!”

Jerry: “You hate me for buying those coins!”

Let’s remember, for the sake of this episode, that the Rick we’re following–the “protagonist”–is Rick from Earth dimension C-137 (makes you wonder whether there is a “Mars dimension” or “Pluto dimension” or some other planet on which Rick happened to evolve). The first mention of the specific dimension from which the “protagonist” Rick came from was in episode 7–Raising Gazorpazorp–when he introduced himself to the femtopian Gazorpians:

“Listen, I’m Rick Sanchez from Earth dimension C-137…”

So we know at least that the Rick we’re following now is the same Rick as in episode 7 (sucks to be the Rick who died). I’m also curious to know if this is the identity tag he would have used before Episode 6–Rick Potion #9–the one in which he and Morty switched universes. Does Rick now refer to himself as C-137 because he’s taking the place of the real (and now dead) Rick C-137, or was this always his identity tag? The reason I ask this is because the Ricks who intrude into the Smiths’ home actually refer to him as Rick C-137. So either they know he’s an impostor in this reality, or the Rick whose reality this is supposed to be is the real Rick C-137.

On another note, it’s interesting how many parallels there are between the dimensions that don’t, at least not obviously, have any causal connections to each other yet play out anyway. For example, in both, alternate Rick(s) spontaneously appear on Rick C-137’s 1 year (or close to it) anniversary back in the Smith’s lives. Also, when this happens, the Smith family are having eggs, hash browns, and sausages. Also, in both cases, Morty gets abducted. This shouldn’t be a surprise–in alternate realities, we should expect a lot of similarities–but similarities that have completely different causes panning out in the same way?–like Morty being abducted in each reality but for completely different reasons? This almost plays on fatalism instead of causal determinism–i.e. that certain things are bound to happen (or almost happen) because it is fated, not because it is caused–like it doesn’t matter how it’s caused to happen, it will just happen. We’ll see other examples of this in season 2, episode 1–A Rickle in Time–(and also, interestingly, the same theme of alternate Ricks being against each other).

So where did they take Morty C-137 and Rick C-137 (I’m assuming Morties get the same identity tag)? Why, to the Citadel of Ricks, of course:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CubN7zbB9XY[/youtube]

Anybody spot the Cronenberged Rick and Morty?

A couple things to note: 1) we get the hint from this scene why Rick refused to join the council of Ricks. He didn’t like the idea of “banding together like a heard of cattle or a school of fish.” ← This is very unRick-like. 2) We catch a glimpse of what kind of trouble Rick is in: “As you know, Morty, I’ve got a lot of enemies in the universe that consider my genius a threat: galactic terrorists, a few sub-galactic dictators, most of the entire inter-galactic government, w-wherever you find people with their heads up their asses, someone wants a piece of your grandpa.” Who knew that Rick was this popular throughout the galaxy? ← In fact, the “inter-galactic government” will play a more prominent roll in the series when we get to Season 2. He forgot to mention the Zigerions (unless they’re a kind of sub-galactic dictatorship), but I guess since they’re dead, there’d be no point (unless there were other Zigerions that also want Rick’s secret Concentrated Dark Matter formula). And now he has the Council of Rick itself after him.

One thing I find odd about this scene is that most of the Ricks and Morties we find standing around are literally just standing around–staring off into space, a vacant/confused look on their faces. I’m not sure what this is suppose to suggest, but a kind of “take home message” this episode seems to get at is that when Rick’s get together, they become dull (and Morties are already dull). This might be what Roiland and Harmon were trying to get across with this:

Now, in the next scene we see something else peculiar: we get 3 different “salesmen” versions of Rick trying to sell Rick C-137 on something. None of them are wearing the typical white lab coat–no, they’re dressed in suits: 1) The Morty Dazzler: This Rick’s trying to sell “Morty Dazzlers”–a flashy necklace Rick’s are suppose to put on their Morties to make them into a “hot fassion statement”. 2) The Show-Me-The-Morty Rick: This Rick is trying to sell a Morty doll who, when you press a button on his tummy, says “Show me the Morty!” 3) The Morty Insurer: This Rick’s selling Morty insurance. ← Notice that they all involve Morty. Also notice that none of these Rick’s have a Morty. And if you really notice, the first two Ricks look pretty sad when Rick C-137 rejects them, the last Rick looking kinda mad. ← At least for the first two, this is again very unRick-like. It almost seems as though the idea is that by joining the Council of Ricks, each Rick loses a part of his “Rickhood”.

As Rick says: “I say the point of being a Rick is being a Rick.”

Morty C-137 is, of course, taking it all in, finding the show-me-the-morty doll absolutely fucking thrilling.

After a bit of bickering back and forth between Rick C-137 and the other Ricks, they haul him and Morty C-137 into what looks like a court room:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7rXOgL4oFQ[/youtube]

The scene continues with the council opting to get evidence: they confiscate his portal gun and scan it for all the places Rick C-137 has been–turns out he’s been to all the places and timelines in which the murders occurred. C-137 still denies it, claiming that he’s being setup. The council sentences him “to the machine of unspeakable doom, which swaps your conscious and unconscious minds, rendering your fantasies pointless while everything you’ve known becomes impossible to grasp… also every 10 seconds it stabs your balls.” “I’ve heard enough,” says Rick C-137 before elbowing the sentinel Rick behind him in the gut, allowing him to grab his gun while flipping him over to knock out the Rick behind Morty C-137. Then he frees Morty C-137 by shooting his handcuffs. He grabs him and makes a dash, being sure to grab his portal gun before escaping.

Being chased down the many corridors of the Citadel of Ricks, Rick C-137 tries to decoy the other Ricks by firing his portal gun behind him. It opens portals on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling surrounding the other Ricks. Burning flames shoot out of one portal singing a Rick. A swarm of insects come out of another and attack a second Rick. A third Rick gets pulled into another portal by giant tentacles. And a fourth and fifth slip on some oily goo that comes out of what looks like exotic melons after falling from a portal on the ceiling.

Then Rick C-137 and his Morty jump from a balcony. As they fall, Rick fires his portal gun at a platform below. A portal opens on the spot where they would have landed; instead, they fall through the portal and escape the Citadel of Ricks.

They land on a giant ass. Sliding off the ass onto the ground, they look around: it seems to be a world full of giant asses–they’re all just sticking out of the ground. There’s rolls of toilet paper on racks and plungers strewn about, and the place reeks of flatulence, the sounds of such emanating from asses all over the place. The other Ricks somehow figure out which world they went to and follow them here. Seeing them drop from a portal in the sky, Rick C-137 and his Morty run. Rick C-137 fires his portal gun into a giant ass sticking up-right out of the ground. They run right into the ass/portal, two other Ricks and a Morty following close behind.

They enter a world where people and pizza are swapped: the scene opens with a couple slices of pizza sitting in their living room ordering people on the phone: “Yeah, I’d like to order one large person with extra people please.” says the one pizza slice. “White people,” says the other slice, “No, no, no, black people, and a Hispanic on half.” That’s when the portal opens and Rick C-137 and his Morty run through. Right away, Rick opens another portal on the other side of the room. He runs through it, the other two Ricks and the Morty still trailing close behind.

They come out into a world of greased up grannies. There’s a banner overhead that reads: “Welcome to Greasy Grandma world. Population: a whole lot, sonny!” They run through the grannies who seem to be petrified (just standing there like statues). They open another portal and jump through. The Ricks and the Morty still close behind.

This time they enter a world where pizza and furniture have swapped places, and people and phones have swapped places. It’s the same living room setting as before except with a giant phone sitting on a giant slice of pizza folded into the shape of a chair. He’s on the “phone” which is really a miniature person ordering “one large sofa chair with extra chair.” His friend phone says, “High chair–no, no, no, recliner, and wheel chair on half.” Then Rick C-137 and his Morty come through, open another portal on the other side of the room, and slip through, still being followed.

They come into a world with a herd of weird animals that look like a mix of sheep, camels, and the creepy looking “Fire Gang” from Labyrinth. They’re all standing around saying something like “wopidupido!” Rick opens a whole series of portals and, with Morty, jumps through one of them. Then the other Ricks with their Morties (more than just the two who were following them) come through. “We lost them,” one of the Ricks says.

Rick and Morty C-137 finally enter the last world before resting. It’s a world in which pizza (or food in general) and phones have swapped places and furniture and people have swapped places. We see a couple of chairs sitting on a couple of people. The people are perfectly still, like statues, as though they weren’t conscious (and probably aren’t). The one chair holds a slice of pizza to his ear and says: “Yeah, I’d like to order one large phone with extra phones please.” His friend chair says: “Cell phone… no, no, no, rotary, and pay phone on half.” Then Rick and Morty C-137 come in. This time they just walk out the front door.

As they walk down the street of “furniture town” (my term), all the chairs stare in disbelief at Rick and Morty–in the same way you would stare if you saw a recliner or a sofa walking down the street having a conversation with another piece of upholstery. After questioning Rick about the facts surrounding the Rickicides, Morty gets the answer: “…someone out there is killing Ricks, and the council ain’t gonna stop thinking it’s me until we clear our names… by finding the real Rick killer.” ← So that determines the rest of the plot. After a plea to “go home and stock pile weapons,” Rick responds to Morty: “Not really my style, Morty. Besides, your home is most likely swarming with Ricks by now.”

The next scene cracks me up. I just have to post a clip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkmfVAdf1vo[/youtube]

Three points I want to make about this scene: first, Beth is more than happy to server lemonade to her own son’s kidnappers. Just earlier, she was yelling at Jerry for putting his coin collection ahead of the fact that their son was just abducted (which, I must say, isn’t entirely his fault since, being frozen when it happened, he was completely oblivious to this fact). And now, here she is, surrounded by the kidnappers themselves, eager to please them with good hospitality. So we see that Jerry isn’t the only shitty parent in this family. Beth’s daddy issues go so deep that she isn’t even able to fight for the recovery of her own son if it means standing up to her father–and even then, alternate versions of her father. In her eyes, daddy can do no wrong. We’ll get to the bottom of Beth’s daddy issues in later episodes.

Second, a remark on one of the Rick’s comments to Beth is worth questioning: “I have a Beth just like you in my-burp-reality, except you know what? She’s not as brilliant or-burp-attractive.” ← At first, one goes “aaawww, that’s sweet. Rick loves his daughter,” but it becomes awkward when you think about the fact that this Beth is not his daughter. What would that mean? Does Rick calling her “attractive” count as “hitting” on her? Is that something a Rick would do? Is Rick that twisted, that he would make a move on his own daughter on the flimsy excuse that, technically, she isn’t really his daughter? And even philosophically, one can question this: would it be acceptable if one made a move on an alternate version of one’s daughter (or any near relative) if by “alternate version” was meant: someone not really genetically connect to one’s self? I don’t think that one would want to viscerally, but if it were a moral question, would this count as an exception?

Third, this entire scene hints at one of the main reasons why Ricks getting together is an all around bad thing for Ricks: they seem to be distracted from their main objective by the irresistible temptation to pull pranks on Jerry. A single Rick by himself would not only find this much more difficult to pull off, but there’d be no one to get a laugh out of (except himself, but that’s never as fun), leaving him to put the idea out of mind and concentrate on the more important objective at hand. But put a whole team of Ricks together, and they seem to encourage the worst in each other. It might be compared to putting a group of drug addicts together, and seeing what happens to each one’s resolve to stay drug free (this just occurs to me: Rick is supposed to be an alcoholic, but there isn’t a single scene in this episode of a Rick drinking booz–not even Rick C-137–the closest thing coming to mind is that there were a couple Ricks sitting at Rick’s in the Citadel of Ricks but technically we don’t actually see any Ricks drinking booz. ← Don’t know if this means anything). In brief: put a bunch of Ricks together, and over time they degenerate.

Rick C-137, back in Furniture Town, predicts this (he does know himself, after all), assuring Morty that they have a bit of time before they’ll be onto them. They’re in a restaurant, sitting on people, as a chair brings them their meal: “Phones-a-la-clams and phone-ghetti with phone balls.” Rick has his portal gun open as he turns a screw with a screw driver.

Morty: “You know Rick, when I first saw all those Ricks and Morties, I thought: Gee, that kind of devalues our bond. But then I realized it just means that our relationship must be pretty special to span over all those different timelines.”

Rick: “Yeah, it’s gotta be that way. You’re a camouflage.”

Morty: “Camouflage? W-w-what are you talking about, Rick?”

Rick: “Ricks have a very distinctive and traceable brain wave due to our genius. The best way to hide from an enemy’s radar is to stand near someone with complementary brain waves that make our’s invisible. See, [pulls out pen] w-w-w-when a Rick is with a Morty, [starts drawing waves on paper] the genius waves get cancelled out by the, uh… [clears throat] Morty waves.”

Talk about taking the wind out of your sale. If there was any doubt that Rick is completely without any compassion or inclinations towards selflessness, this pretty much kills it. Unless Rick is totally making this up (as another mask), it means there is no reason to believe that Rick enjoys spending time with his grandson for sentimental reasons; Morty is, and all this time has been, used as a cloaking device. So if in the last episode, we thought we caught a glimpse of a softer side to Rick, a side that actually cares for his family, this completely undoes it. Some on the internet speculate that Rick is making this up, that it is another mask to hide the fact that he, in fact, likes Morty, but later scenes in this episode don’t support this very well.

In fact, this hints at one of the main reasons Rick entered into the Smiths’ lives after all these years. The actual reason is never mentioned in either Season 1 or Season 2, but it seems obvious from this scene that Rick was getting into so much trouble with the inter-galactic (or just galactic) government, that he needed a cloaking device. He needed Morty. This is most likely why the episode begins by mentioning Rick’s 1 year anniversary back in the Smiths’ lives. It’s a refresher. It’s meant to raise the idea in our minds that Rick did indeed come back into the Smiths’ lives and we still don’t know why. That way, we are more likely to make the connection.

But just not to spoil the mood for the soft hearted, there is still hope for Rick’s human side: just because Rick is using Morty as a cloaking device doesn’t mean he can’t also care for his grandson and enjoy spending time with him for the usual reasons; even if this wasn’t the case at the beginning, Morty (and the rest of the family) might still have grown on him.

And it seems noteworthy to point out that Morty certainly expresses a fondness for his grandpa in the way he talks about their relation being “pretty special to span over all those timelines.” Again, Rick is the man you love to hate and hate to love. We don’t need to enumerate the occasions when Morty expressed resentment towards Rick for all the shit he puts him through, how he detests Rick for the way he treats him, but after all that, there seems to be a fondness on Morty’s part, not only for Rick as a grandfather, but for the fun they have together (usually in retrospect, but still). It’s almost as if Morty’s grievances over Rick are merely on the surface, but underneath are planted the seeds of attachment and affection, a sort of gratefulness for all the thrills and excitement that a life as Rick’s sidekick have given him.

After hacking at his portal gun a bit longer, Rick figures out that his portal gun was indeed hacked remotely by the real killer, and furthermore is able to trace the signal to the source. That’s when two Rick guards and a Morty come in announcing that they’re looking for a couple “dangerous criminals”. They mark their own foreheads with a red X so as to distinguish themselves from the C-137s. The one Rick points to the C-137s’ table, saying “Hey, check it out.” From behind, it looks like Rick C-137 and Morty C-137 crouching on the ground like seats. The alternate Ricks turn them around only to find it’s not them. They look out the window to see a shirtless Morty C-137 and Rick C-137 in a muscle shirt hopping in a police ship (presumably theirs). They escape.

Next scene: Rick and Morty (C-137), in the stolen police ship, are hovering over a bluish green swampy looking landscape, moving forward through fog at a leisure pace. It’s on a distant, exotic planet. Innocently enough, Rick remarks:

“Hey, it’s a good thing that space outlet had lab coats and your favorite kinda shirt in stock, huh Morty?” ← Almost hinting at the conspiracy theory of the “simulated clothes” I described in Episode #4M. Night Shaym-Aliens!

After a snide comment from Morty, Rick continues:

“Man, this place is way off the grid; this guy does not want to be found.”

Morty: “Well, if he’s a Rick, doesn’t he just have to stand by a Morty? I mean, isn’t that what Morties are? Human cloaking devices?”

Rick: “Morty, you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is.” ← Like nothing happened.

Then they come into a clearing in the fog, and before them, about a mile ahead on the landscape, stands a mammoth black egg-shaped edifice. It looks like a cross between a sky scraper and a massive leather stud with spikes sticking out of it:

Morty: “Oh my God, Rick, look! There’s a bunch of people strapped all over that building!”

Rick: “Not people, Morty… Morties.”

Indeed the faint sounds of yelling and screaming can be heard as they approach the massive structure–and, I must say, with a bunch of Morties strapped to it, it almost reminds me of the Matrix (same directors as Cloud Atlas). These are the screams and yellings of the Morties being put into agonizing pain:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvO3s4w-Vdo[/youtube]

This is worse than the Holocaust; at least in the Holocaust, the Jews weren’t deliberately put into torture contraptions every hour of every day–they were free to roam around the concentration camps doing their own business–and while this sounds horrid to say, I’ll bet if those Morties had the choice, they’d opt for the concentration camps in a second. The Rick who’s orchestrating all this is evil!

Rick C-137 says: “…one Morty’s enough to hide from the bureaucrats, but you get-you get a whole matrix [reference to The Matrix?] of Morty’s and put them in agonizing pain, that creates a pattern that can hide even from other Ricks, motha’ fucka’. [As they land:] I fiddled with a co-burp-ncept like this once. [Morty looks at him like: are you out of your mind?] On paper, Morty, on paper! I wouldn’t do this! It’s barbaric overkill. I mean, you could accomplish the same results with like 5 Morties and a jumper cable… [Morty gives him another look]… which I also wouldn’t do! I’m just saying, it’s bad craftsmanship.”

^ Even if we are to trust Rick’s word on this–that he wouldn’t really do it–the fact that he even toyed with the idea shows that he’s not that far off from doing it–I mean, he seems well beyond the sensitivity to even hold back in saying it to Morty–what little empathy is really left in him to hold back from actually doing it if only to hide from the bureaucrats and all the other Ricks? Doesn’t seem like much.

Back at the Smiths’ home, Beth invites the Ricks for coffee. They halt their game of poker (or whatever it is) and move to the next room. Their Morties take over the game, like lionesses coming in for the feast after the males have finished. Again, when Ricks get together, they become distracted (in this case by poker) from the more important objective.

Then Doofus Rick comes in:

He initiates a conversation with Jerry. Jerry explains to him that he’s busy working and that he’s between advertising jobs. Doofus Rick says “Advertising! Wow! [sits on the sofa next to Jerry] So, people need help figuring out what to buy and y-y-you help them?” ← This odd-ball Rick actually seems genuinely interested in Jerry. And like Morty who, as Rick C-137 pointed out, was easy to impress, this Rick seems enthralled by Jerry’s line of work. ← This is very un-Rick-like, especially for a member of the Council of Ricks.

In response to Doofus Rick’s question, Jerry responds: “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Doofus Rick: “Well, I mean, you do it, and you seem like a guy who really has it all together.” ← A Rick that’s actually impressed by Jerry… WOW!!! Especially since Jerry doesn’t have it all together, particular being between advertising jobs.

Jerry is taken aback by this. He looks around, he looks behind the couch–expecting this to be another prank.

Jerry: “Dude, are you-what?–You’re being a dick, right?”

Doofus Rick: “Oh gosh, I-I hope not. I mean, I-I-I wouldn’t want to offend you in anyway.” ← This is unprecedented: a Rick that worries about being offensive.

Doofus Rick, or Rick J-19 zeta-7, is really an interesting case as far as Ricks go. While coming off as a total doofus–even at the level of physical appearance, what with the Beatles hair cut, the buck teeth, and the wonky eyes–we mustn’t mistake him for an idiot. He’s definitely as smart as any other Rick (which we’ll see later in the episode) but he’s just super nice and sensitive–to a fault. He’s even doofus-level nice for an ordinary person, almost child-like.

He’s an outsider even to the Council. One wonders why he’s even a member. As a nice-guy doofus, it’s probably a fair guess that he doesn’t have the backbone to defend and stand up for himself against those who are after him–like the (inter-)galactic government–so he takes refuge among the Council of Ricks for his own protection. After all, if it’s just their intelligence that the (inter-)galactic government finds most threatening about Ricks (which Rick C-137 stated earlier), Doofus Rick has that in the bag as much as any other Rick.

Not surprisingly, the Council had to assign a Morty to him (an Eric Stoltz version with the same facial deformities he had in Mask) because, in his words, “I never had any kids of my own [big surprise], but if I did, boy, I’d love them if they were as smart and as successful as you are, Jerry.” ← Wrong on both counts, of course–Jerry is neither smart nor successful, but that’s Doofus Rick for you: never short on the compliments.

Despite being shielded by the Council from menacing governments, he’s certainly not shielded from the Council itself–at least not from insults and verbal attacks:

Alternate Rick 1: “Hey, get a load of this: Jerry’s hanging out with Doofus Rick.”

Alternate Rick 2: “Hoh-hoh! This is perfect.”

Doofus Rick: “I’m not Doofus Rick! I’m Rick J-19 zeta-7!”

Alternate Rick 1: “Oh, is that the timeline where everybody eats poop? Jerry, you know this guy eats poop, right?”

Doofus Rick: “Hey! I don’t eat poop! You guys are always so mean to me! [drops his face into his palms]” The alternate Ricks laugh.

In his defense, even if Doofus Rick does eat poop, alternate Rick 1 mentioned that he’s from a timeline where everyone eats poop. Supposing this wasn’t just another jab, it means that at least Doofus Rick is normal in his own timeline.

Doofus Rick: “[tearing up] I guess it’s only fair to tell you now, Jerry. I’m the worst Rick of them all.”

Jerry: “According to who? Other versions of you? If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that before you get anywhere in life, you’ve gotta stop listening to yourself.”

Doofus Rick: “Wow, you really are wise, Jerry. I-I guess that’s why you work in advertising.”

Jerry: “The fact that you think so, makes you the best Rick of them all.”

^ These few lines sort of play on the whole internal/external validation dichotomy. It throws it for a loop and brings out a bit of irony. Jerry’s life lesson–that you gotta stop listening to yourself–almost suggests that this is the main reason he can’t internally self-validate–but it’s said under very odd circumstances–namely, that the “self” Jerry is advising Doofus Rick not to listen to are “other versions” of himself–essentially, sources of external validation, that which Jerry advises not to listen to. Then, as another twist of irony, Jerry offers some external validation by telling him that his opinion of Jerry being wise makes him the best Rick of them all–doubly ironic since this exemplifies Jerry’s dependence on external validation himself: he’s basically saying he approves of Doofus Rick’s opinion of him as wise because that is external validation for him.

They make a lovely couple, don’t they? Both serving as sources of external validation for each other.

Back to the leather stud fortress, Rick and Morty are making their way down the many dark and grungy hallways of this presumed secret hideout. Morty is infuriated. He’s lashing out, quite loudly, at Rick for being used as a human shield: “You don’t care about me at all! I’m no different than that jacket you’ve got on!” Rick, however, has other things on his mind: trying to get the drop on the killer Rick and also to keep a low profile ← something Morty’s making exceedingly difficult right now. Which is why he says: “…you’re as dumb as I am smart, which is why when I say-burp-‘shut up’ it’s really good advice.” Tears well up in Morty’s eyes as a stiff lip sits upon his face, he’s that infuriated

Rick, ever the pragmatist, has a point of course. Morty is being very unwise to be shouting at Rick as they make their way down the halls of this labyrinth, a labyrinth in which the enemy they’re seeking is most likely lurking. But can you blame him? How easy would you find it to just shut the fuck up and listen to a man who just openly admitted to toying with the idea of torturing you with jumper cables just to use you as a human shield. As much as Morty is being somewhat stupid in this moment, Rick has his share of the blame: if he wasn’t such an asshole to Morty, Morty would have no reason right now to be shouting and screaming.

But it’s too late: they’re discovered. Four purple giant lobster-looking creatures with enormous claws emerge from various doorways and openings. They’re surrounded. Rick suddenly pulls some wicked Ninja-like Chuck Norris moves on them: he elbows, karate kicks, and round-house kicks the creatures, severing one of their claws and using it as a weapons against another (who knew he knew Kung Fu). Then more come out. Rick sighs in despair.

They’re saved by the killer Rick suddenly making an entrance. He’s there with his Morty. They’re the same Rick and Morty who killed the other Rick at the opening of this episode. The Ricks argue about who invented the slow clap. The next scene features the C-137s being escorted down the hall by a couple of those lobster creatures, being held by their claws, the evil Rick and Morty in the lead. Evil Rick commands his Morty to take Morty C-137 away. They split up, the Morty going down one prong in the hallway fork, the Ricks and the lobsters going down the other.

“Ricks, huh?” says Morty C-137, “Hey man, you seem to know how this place works. Is there any way we can shut down that grid and rescue all those Morties outside?” “It would be pointless,” Evil Morty says, “Morties have no chance of defeating a Rick.” He opens a door: “In here.” Morty C-137 looks inside the chamber. It’s filled with Morties crouching in the fetal position on the floor. They’re all sitting in a sort of crescent shape as a group. They’re shaking and moaning, trembling over what they’ve been through for who knows how long and what they predict they’ll continue to go through for who knows how long. Evil Morty closes the door behind C-137.

Meanwhile, Rick C-137 is strapped to a bed sorta thingy. He and Evil Rick are in something like a control center, televisions plaster across the wall, each one focused on a Morty from behind being tortured outside. It’s sort of like the scene from Goldfinger where James Bond is strapped to a bed sorta thingy as a gold searing laser beam slowly creeps closer to his crotch. After Rick C-137 cracks a few inappropriate jokes, Evil Rick shushes him: “Quiet, you’re missing my symphony.” He presses a button on the control panel and suddenly all the wails and cries of the Morties outside can be heard through the speakers. He waves his arms around like he’s conducting an orchestra.

^ There’s no question here that Evil Rick not only doesn’t care about the Morties outside, but takes a sadistic pleasure in torturing them, like listening to his favorite symphony. ← Unlike Rick C-137, who’s intentions–good or evil–are questionable, those of Evil Rick are clear as day: he’s evil through-and-through. He continues:

“You see Rick, you’re not as clever as you think you are. I wanted you to find me. [Opens a holographic display with a line of Rick profiles, like mug shots, sprawled horizontally like a deck of cards.] We’re not so-burp-different, you and I. [Rick C-137: Yeah, d’uh!] See this right here, Rick? I crunched the numbers. I created a spectrum of all the Ricks. [Flips through the Rick profiles like swiping on an iPhone.] I listed them out from most evil to least evil. Here’s where I am. [Stops on the profile of himself.] And here’s where you are, Rick. [flips two to the right.] This guy right here… [flips back to the Rick between them.]… super weird.”

Evil Rick is essentially saying he’s found a way to measure evil–not a huge surprise given that Rick C-137, in the last episode, answered his own question “Does evil exist, and if so, can one detect and measure it?” with a resounding “yes”–and, well, if one Rick found a way, most others Ricks probably did too. What’s interesting about this case, however, is that, whereas in the last episode Rick C-137 was measuring the evil of Mr. Needful, in this episode Rick himself is being measured. We even have a benchmark: Evil Rick. Rick C-137, in other words, is two “Rick-evil-units” away from Evil Rick, and we get a prime example, with the Morty Matrix, of exactly how evil that is. Mind you, we’re not told whether Rick C-137 is towards the evil end of the spectrum compared to Evil Rick or away, but I think it’s fair to say that if Rick C-137 would only toy with the idea of torturing Morties for the sake of camouflage, and Evil Rick would actually do it, Rick C-137 is towards the less evil end. We’re also not told whether the spectrum is linear, quadratic, or any other graphical shape. These “units”, in other words, aren’t necessarily all uniform. The degree of evil at which each Rick on the spectrum stands may take giant leaps as you flip from one Rick to the next. For instance, it’s possible that the “super weird” Rick between them is just slightly less evil than Evil Rick, but then it takes a giant leap away from evil when you go from “super weird” Rick to Rick C-137.

It’s also quite telling that Evil Rick says: “I wanted you to find me.” ← It means that the point of framing Rick C-137 wasn’t just to distract the Council of Ricks with a decoy, but also to lead Rick C-137 to him. Somehow he knew that not only would Rick C-137 be able to evade the Council, but also that he would be able to trace his portal gun’s hacker to the source. Now, I know he’s a Rick, and is therefore capable of predicting what other Ricks would do, but sometimes these tired old plot elements become rickdiculous.

And finally, an aside: several on the internet have pointed out the fact that this spectrum of Ricks is finite–even Evil Rick says “I created a spectrum of all the Ricks.”–which is kind of odd to say the least given that there are an infinite number of alternate realities in the Rick and Morty universe; given an infinite number of realities, the logic follows that there should exist an infinite number of Ricks, one for each conceivable type of Rick. Even in Episode 6–Rick Potion #9–Rick says: “There’s an infinite number of realities, Morty, and in a few dozen of those I got lucky and turned everything back to normal.” ← Why only a few dozen? Even if the realities he’s talking about are quite specifically ones in which the world got Cronenberged and he somehow found a way to fix it, there’s still an infinite number of ways in which that could have panned out. This idea is also echoed by the lead Rick in the Council of Ricks: “Of all the Ricks in the central finite curve, you’re the malcontent.” (Is the “central finite curve” the same as the Spectrum Evil Rick currently has on display?) One possibility, also voiced on the internet, is that though there may be an infinite number of realities, and by implication an infinite number of Ricks, only a finite number of those are accessible to Rick C-137 and his portal gun (possibly to all Ricks that C-137 has access to). Who knows if any other Ricks (assuming they exist) have access to their own local finite network of Ricks.

Rick and Morty - S1E10 - Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind (part 2 of a 2 part analysis)

“I get it,” Rick C-137 says, “so you want me to team up with you to take down the Council of Ricks, right? Is that where you’re going with this? 'Cause that’s where I’d be going.”

Evil Rick denies this, saying he’s doing pretty good on his own. He informs Rick C-137 that his only plans for him are to download the contents of his brain and then kill him. ← A real James Bond moment.

We’re not actually told what Evil Rick wants with the contents of Rick C-137’s brain, nor whether this is what he did with any other Ricks before he killed them. We know he didn’t do it with the Rick we saw him kill in the opening scene. In that scene, he simply stepped through the portal, shot that Rick, kidnapped Morty, and left as quickly as he came. It’s possible that all the contents of that Rick’s brain overlapped with other Ricks, other Ricks of which Evil Rick already downloaded the contents of their brains, so there wasn’t any need for it in that case. If that’s true, a plausible theory might be that Evil Rick is trying not only to be the only Rick in existence, but to achieve ultimate Rick genius by amassing everything that every Rick knows. Of course, an alternative theory is that all Evil Rick is doing is kidnapping Morties for his Morty Matrix. He kills the Ricks so that they don’t come after their Morties. The only reasons he’s downloading the contents of C-137’s brain is because, well, might as well since he now has the opportunity. The only problem with this theory is it doesn’t explain why he wants to hide from other Ricks. What’s he going to do now that he’s isolated himself in an impenetrable fortress that’s “off the grid” as Rick C-137 says? But all these theories may be for not when we get to the unexpected twist we’ll see at the end (no spoilers!).

Back to the two doofuses:

Doofus Rick: “Okay, if we add a little more titanium nitrate and just a tad of chlorophyte tartrate… [pours the mixture into a pan]… ovenless brownies!”

Jerry: “[Takes a piece and eats it] Mmm… mm… It’s incredible what a gifted mind can accomplish when priorities are in order.”

First of all, I don’t know if chlorophyte tartrate is a real thing (or if that’s spelled correctly), but that aside, this is proof that Doofus Rick is no dummy (if such proof was lacking before). He certainly has a “gifted mind” as do all other Ricks (as far as we know). Jerry’s comment, however, is (as always) a bit ironic: that this Rick’s priorities are in order–I guess that means being nice, but really it more likely means being nice to him–and that making ovenless brownies–even scrumptiously delicious ones–is incredible. I mean, sure, whipping up a chemical mixture that turns into brownies is quite incredible, but why wasn’t Jerry saying this about Rick’s AI robot in the last episode. It seems Rick, all of a sudden, accomplishes incredible things just by treating Jerry with respect.

They hug each other and laugh good hardy laughs, fortifying the bonds of friendship.

Jerry invites Doofus Rick back into the house (they’re in the garage) saying “Come here, I… I want to show you something.” He brings him up to his room to show him his coin collection–the ones with R2D2s on it–trusting his judgement because he’s a “genius scientist”. Doofus Rick, with a skeptical look on his face, examines the coins.

“You know, Jerry,” he begins with sappy music playing in the background, “I’m not gonna tell you these will increase in value or even hold their current value. The truth is, you bought them 'cause you like 'em. They have value to you. That’s what matters.”

Jerry tears up and says: “How long are you staying?”

Doofus Rick: “Until we find your Rick.”

Jerry: “[Embraces Doofus Rick] I found mine. I found mine.”

^ Doofus Rick here shows another very Rick-like characteristic besides intelligence: straight forward honesty. But unlike Rick C-137, he’s able to spin it in a very positive, encouraging, and compassionate way–showing that no Rick has to be rude in order to be honest–some truths are just a matter of how you spin them.

He’s also offering Jerry more external validation–ironically, external validation on how to internally validate–in other words, he’s telling Jerry what Jerry ought to be telling himself–and though it’s good advice, hearing it from someone else most likely only reinforces Jerry’s dependence on external validation. I mean, tearing up and hugging Doofus Rick, saying “I found mine. I found mine.” is a way of saying: I need you to keep validating me.

Pounding on the prison cell door, Morty C-137 is shouting out “HELP!!!” to no avail. One of the Morties approaches him to inform him of this: “There is no escape, my son. We will find our peace in the next world.” He, along with a handful of other Morties standing around him, are dressed in robes and their faces decorated in red makeup, as if part of a religious cult:

The lead Morty hands C-137 a small book. C-137 responds:

“So what? Y-y-you’re just gonna give up?”

“We’re giving in,” says the lead Morty, “to the power of the One True Morty. [Flips down his hood; he’s bald underneath.] One day he will return. [Looks to the sky and clasps his hands in prayer.]”

He and his followers say in unison: “Praise the One True Morty.”

Morty C-137 looks down at the book he was handed. It’s titled: “The Good Morty.” He opens it. It’s a comic strip. The first box features two Morties: one with glasses sitting at a computer saying to the other Morty behind him: “Morty, take a look at this website!” In the next box, the Morty standing behind him says “Hmm, I don’t think we should be on a site like this.”

Whatever the intricacies and profundities of this Morty cult’s religious beliefs, it’s reminiscent of Christianity, and I wonder if it’s a jab on the part of the writers. It seems to suggest that religion, and Christianity in particular, is the result of “giving up” on life, just laying down passively to all the harsh brutalities of life in the hopes that, in the next life, all will be made up for and peace finally found. Even the statement: “One day he will return,” is reminiscent of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The book handed to Morty C-137 is, in particular, reminiscent of the Bible, and it’s title “The Good Morty” suggestive of the roll the Bible plays in Christianity: an example of how to be good so as to earn peace in the next life. It’s questionable whether “The Good Morty” is supposed to be the “One True Morty,” but this doesn’t develop much beyond this scene.

Interestingly, the faith this small cult following has in the peace they will find in the next life seems to bring them some degree of peace now. They don’t seem nearly as stressed out as the other Morties. As much as they seem deluded by a desperate need to cling to some kind of false hope, as much as this may be seen as “giving up” in the eyes of Morty C-137, it appears to be working for them, more so than for the other Morties.

And: what does it mean when they say of the One True Morty: “One day he will return”? Does it mean he’s been here before? It kind of hints at a previous rebellion, at a previous attempt to overthrow Evil Rick which failed, especially given what happens next:

Morty C-137 tosses the book aside expressing in disgust: “Eugh.” He proceeds to stand on a box and announces to everyone:

“All right, Morties, listen up! My name is Morty Smith from Earth dimension C-137! I know you’re scared, because I’m scared! But that’s no reason to accept our fate! We’re Morties! We’re not defined by our relationships to Rick! Our destine is our own!”

“This sounds like something the One True Morty might say,” says one Morty, “I’m sick of being a human shield! I-I-I wanna be a gardener.”

“I want to write really, crazy, intense… action novels!” says an alien-antenna Morty.

“I’m more than just a hammer!” says Hammer Head Morty.

“He’s the one true Morty!” says one of the cult Morties.

I guess this answers our earlier question: is the One True Morty the same as The Good Morty? And the answer is no. Morty C-137 dismisses The Good Morty with an “Eugh”–much like a Rick would do–in favor of provoking an uprising. Yet what we saw in the comic strip is exactly what a Morty would do. A Morty would insist that they not visits websites they aren’t supposed to. Yet this is the same Morty dismissing this comic strip in order to provoke a rebellion. Has Rick rubbed off on him? Is it just that he hasn’t been worn down yet by the futility of trying to escape?

Morty C-137’s words catch fire. They not only revive hope in the hearts of all the Morties but provoke a full scale revolt. When the lobster guard comes in to tell them to keep it down, they storm him.

Back in the control center, Evil Rick is downloading the contents of Rick C-137’s brains. They’re watching it on a screen. It’s kind of reminiscent of the scene in 1980’s Flash Gordon when Dr. Zarkov’s memory is wiped. We see scenes from Rick C-137’s past flash before Rick C-137’s eyes (literally)–scenes of adventures he’s been on, of women he’s slept with (which turn into man eating aliens), of Morty–some from scenes of past episodes, some from when Morty was a baby.

Some on the internet have noticed this scene with Morty as a toddler in diapers being picked up by Rick–the odd thing being, they say, that Morty C-137, currently, is only a young teenager (it’s not actually specified, but we can speculate that he’s probably a young 14/15 or so). In any case, he’s certainly not a 20 year old, the age he would have to be, according to these people on the internet, if Rick could possibly have held him as a toddler. According to these people, Rick has been absent from the Smith family for 20 years. ← However, after a bit of research on this theory, I have found no official mention about how long Rick has actually been away from the Smith family, and in fact, the Rick and Morty wiki site (yes, they have one: rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Rick_and_Morty_Wiki) says that Rick’s only been gone for 14 years… effectively squashing that theory. Now, I don’t know how trustworthy rickandmorty.wikia.com is but, but it can’t be any more trustworthy than wikipedia… in fact, it’s one of the most formal internet sources out there for Rick and Morty trivia. Nonetheless, for an episode that seems to be hinting at the fact that this is Rick’s 1 year anniversary back into the Smith’s lives, it would be pretty convenient to slip in a hint at a conspiracy theory. (Or maybe this young toddler Morty just isn’t C-137.)

Evil Rick: “You’ve lived quite a life, Rick. It’s a real shame you’re not going to be around to see it through.”

Then the scenes of Morty come onto the screen. Rick C-137’s eyes well up in tears as sappy music plays.

Evil Rick: “You’re crying? Over a Morty?”

Rick C-137: “No, I’m just allergic to dip shits!” ← Perfect example of a mask (albeit a rather obvious one).

This scene strikes me as the moment we get closest to Rick’s true feelings. Welling up with tears in this moment would not only be extremely hard for a Rick to fake, but counterproductive, particularly in Rick C-137’s current situation where he probably shouldn’t be showing signs of weakness in front of the evil genius about to kill him. But yet, there it is. We weeps at the memories of Morty and all the times they’ve spent together. And his come back to Evil Rick: “No, I’m just allergic to dip shit,” is simply another–very quickly and quite cleverly whipped up–mask. As clever a come back as it might have been, however, it’s really a shitty mask. In fact, it’s not really masking anything at all… but it is a clever come back.

I suppose then, that this answers the question of whether Morty is just being used as a human shield, or there’s more to it (but there definitely is “it”). Obviously, Morty is more to Rick than a human shield. He’s his grandson. But this is lost on Evil Rick:

Evil Rick: “Eugh, pathetic. We both know that if there’s any truth in the universe, it’s that Rick’s don’t care about Morties [leans over C-137 with both arms clutching the sides of the beds].”

Not only is the value of family bonds lost on Evil Rick, but he’s almost unwittingly contradicting himself here. He calls C-137 “pathetic” for caring for a Morty, and in the same breath says that’s impossible, that Ricks don’t care for Morties. How is it a truth in the universe, as he puts it, if right before him is empirical evidence that it’s not? It’s almost like he’s trying to convince himself rather than convince C-137. After all, Rick’s behavior and the things he says can always, in principle, be construed as a mask. And maybe that’s what Evil Rick is trying to convey–that these tears are a mask… but a counter-productive mask? And a mask for what? ← These questions seem to slip right by Evil Rick.

Then the mob of Morties storm the control room, taking Evil Rick by surprise.

“Do your worst, you little bastards! Kill me! Do it!” Evil Rick says as the Morty mob overpowers him and take him down in a huddle.

Morty C-137 unshackles Rick C-137. “You’re lucky I’m not a Rick,” he says. “Point taken,” Rick says, “but this is-burp-no time for arcs,” as he gets up and dashes for the control panel. He presses a button that frees all the Morties outside (interesting that it ends up being Rick who saves them, not Morty). The Morties fall to their… freedom (I mean, it’s pretty high up for some of them; are we to believe they all survived the fall? And wouldn’t some of them catch some skin and flesh on the now opened shackles that line the wall?).

Rick C-137 calls home. An alternate sentinel Rick answers: “Yeah, hello?” “Hey,” Rick C-137 says, “what do me and OJ not have in common?” “Huh? Who-who is this?” sentinel Rick says. “I found the real killer, biiitch!!! Get over here!” says C-137.

We cut to Jerry and Doofus Rick putting together a lego castle–sort of a symbol of child-like innocence, something not even Morty could bring himself to be enthusiastic over when it came to constructing a model of the solar system–when two other Ricks come in the room and say “Yo Ding-Dong, we’re done here. Time to go.”

Doofus Rick tells Jerry this means good-bye. Jerry tries to persuade him otherwise:

“W-w-does it have to? [chuckles] You-you look just like Rick–we could maybe, you know, get rid of him? [Adamantly:] I’m not saying kill him, necessarily. I’m also not saying necessarily not kill him, but…”

Doofus Rick cuts him off with his finger to his lips: “Jerry, we both know it wouldn’t work. It’s time to go back to our lives.” They embrace. Doofus Rick: “I love you, Jerry. I love ya.” And he leaves. Jerry leans against the wall, eyes closed, and gives the wall a punch. A few pieces of the lego castle crumble. ← As much of a fool as Doofus Rick is, he’s got all the wisdom and insight as any other Rick.

After the Morties are done beating Evil Rick and his lobster minions to bloody pulps (Hammer Head Morty having an especially good time), several sentinel Ricks come through a few portals along with a few of the leaders for the Council of Ricks we saw in Rick C-137’s trial.

“What’s gonna happen to all these Morties?” Morty C-137 asks. “They’ll go back to their families,” says Triceratops Rick (as I call him), “attend school regularly, play video games, date girls… poor little Rickless bastards.” ← Typical Rick-like ego at it’s finest. Makes you wonder if this is the main reason, most likely out of many, why Rick is so insensitive. When he told Morty that Morties are useful to Ricks as human shield, he, in his own mind, might of thought of that as a privilege (but I don’t think so).

Back at the Council of Ricks, Triceratops Rick declares an official apology on behalf of the council to Rick C-137 for its false accusations. He offers Rick C-137 a free Morty-replacement voucher to which Rick C-137, actually a bit sensitive to Morty C-137’s issues of late, cuts them off saying “Not a good time” but takes the voucher anyway.

Walking through the “town square” (or the foyer or whatever) of the Council of Ricks, Morty says to Rick with a smug look on his face:

“Is it time for arcs yet Rick? I did a pretty good job back there for a human cloaking device. Saved your ass.”

Rick: “All right, Morty, don’t break an arm jerking yourself off.”

Morty: “Man, I can’t believe you, Rick. That right there–that-that was a great opportunity to show a little humanity, you know–to connect with me a little.”

Rick: “Hey Morty [stops and turns around], you want connection, go be part of some stupid club like all those dumb Ricks. You know, maybe I don’t connect because I’m the Rickest Rick there is,” ← Is that what defines a Rick? Not connecting? In that case, the very existence of the Council is quintessentially un-Rick-like. “And you know, it would g-burp-o without saying that the Rickest Rick would have the Mortiest Morty.”

Morty: “It would go without saying huh?”

Rick: “Yeah, it would. Did you hear me say it?”

Morty: “Nah… [To himself] The Mortiest Morty…”

Putting aside this clever device of Rick’s (i.e. to evade Morty’s criticisms of egoism by feeding him a dose of egoism himself), this concept of the “Mortiest Morty” is uncannily similar to the concept of “The One True Morty”. What would make for the “One True Morty”? Presumably the same thing that would make for the “Rickest Rick”. This idea that Rick conveys to Morty–that whatever the particular characteristics of an arbitrary Rick, those will be matched by counterpart characteristics of that Rick’s Morty–would suggest that whatever insights this episode affords us about Rick’s character ought to be matched by Morty’s character. So what does it mean that Rick C-137 is the Rickest Rick there is? That he’s the most evil Rick there is? No because Evil Rick was definitely more evil that Rick C-137. That he doesn’t connect? No, that just puts Rick C-137 on the outside of segment of the “central finite curve” that the Council of Ricks find themselves on. (All Ricks more evil than him would fall on the other side). I personally think it means Rick C-137 is the exact average of all the Ricks–at the peek of the bell curve–he is the exact poster boy for what makes a Rick a Rick. He is exactly midway between the most doofus Rick (which would be Rick J-19 zeta-7) and the most evil Rick (which would not be Evil Rick since we saw on the spectrum that there more evil Ricks than him)–all members of the Council of Ricks being like Doofus Rick because they “connect” while all other Rick’s being like Evil Rick because they don’t have the capacity to “connect”. Perhaps, then, when Rick says he doesn’t connect and that makes him the Rickest Rick there is, he means he has the capacity to connect but doesn’t give in to it (or masks it).

So what does that say about the Mortiest Morty? It says that he is the one Morty who is exactly right there at the center of the curve, the one Morty who is most like a Morty–that is, he really is the one true Morty. (If Evil Morty is the exemplar of the Morty on the Evil extreme of the curve, then maybe that puts “The Good Morty” on the other extreme, matching up with Doofus Rick (does that make Eric Stoltz Morty the exemplar of The Good Morty?)).

This makes sense out of why the Mortiest Morty could not be the Good Morty–in order for the Mortiest Morty to save the Rickest Rick’s ass, he had to be exactly midway between the Good Morty, whom the Morty Cult were trying to emulate by giving up, and Evil Morty, who wouldn’t save Rick, any Rick, at all–but this only becomes clear in the next scene. As for the present scene, Rick continues:

“Just don’t get too big for your loafers, buster brown. A cocky Morty can lead to some big problems. Can be a real bad thing for everybody.”

Morty: “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

Rick opens a portal.

Rick: “Uh, I-I’ll explain when you’re older.”

By the sounds of this, it seems like Rick’s had some experiences with cocky Morties, or at least has done some research. What exactly does happen when a Morty gets too big for his loafers? One theory on the internet is that Morty just becomes Rick when he’s older. That is to say, Rick C-137 is the “old man” version of Morty C-137. He’s naive and innocent now, which doesn’t exactly fuel his self-esteem, but as he grows older, gaining more life experiences and enhancing his intelligence, he may become cocky, which would describe exactly Rick’s personality–and it should be obvious by now how much trouble that causes. This theory adds a special twist to the ubiquitous Rick-Morty relationship–it says that not only do Ricks and Morties consistently team up in order to cancel each other’s brain waves, and not only do they team up because of any faint spark of a family bond, but because Morty just is Rick when he was younger. This theory’s interesting because it not only adds an additional incentive for Ricks to partner up with Morties, but might even supersede the motive of wanting the protective benefits of a human shield. I mean, we all know Rick isn’t big on human connection and family bonding, but to connect/bond with himself adds a whole other dynamic to his psychology that fits so conveniently in an episode devoted to an exploration of Rick’s relation to himself. It says that Morty, in the Furniture Town restaurant, was right when he said their relationship must be “pretty special” but he didn’t know the half of it. It says that the real reason we see Ricks and Morties always paired up with each other is because it is in the nature of Ricks to want to connect at least with themselves–that is, at least for those Ricks found in the Citadel of Ricks. As for the Ricks on the other side of the central finite curve, well, I suppose they’re so devoid of human connection that they don’t even care to connect with themselves. But more on this after the next scene:

“Pride cometh before the fall.” says one sentinel Rick kneeling over Evil Rick’s dead body while other Ricks examine the scene like a bunch of forensic scientists, “I guess he got what he deserved.”

“What is that?” asks another sentinel as the first sentinel turns Evil Rick’s head exposing a gash through which is seen robotic wiring and circuitry.

First sentinel Rick opens Evil Rick’s cranium to reveal nothing but robotic wiring and circuitry. ← Evil Rick has been a robot all this time.

“My God,” says sentinel Rick number two, “I’ve seen this technology before. This Rick was being controlled remotely, [pulls a device from Evil Rick’s head] puppeteered by somebody else. This is the receiver.”

Sentinel Rick #2: “Yeah, but where’s the transmitter?”

Cut to the scene of Morties being boarded on a few space ships to be transported back to their home realities. Close up on Evil Morty with his eye patch. He turns around and pauses amongst all the other Morties making their way to the ship. He takes off his patch, revealing a couple wires hinging from the seam of his eye. He drops the patch, revealing some kind of circuitry on the inside. He stomps on the patch, crushing the circuitry–obvious because this is the transmitter, effectively snuffing out the trace. He stuffs the wires hanging from his eye back into his skull and continues on inconspicuously with all the other Morties.

And that’s how the episode ends–a real cliff hanger.

It sends one’s mind looking for all the implication, and they’re not hard to find: for one thing, it means that everything Evil Rick was doing, it was really Evil Morty doing it. This means that Evil Rick really wasn’t evil after all–he was just a puppet–and that it was Evil Morty who was the real evil genius behind everything. It was Evil Morty who was killing Ricks and kidnapping Morties. It was Evil Morty who crucified them on the Morty Matrix. It was Evil Morty who wanted the contents of Rick C-137’s brain. Why? Well, it seems pretty obvious that Evil Morty absolutely hated Ricks (as many Morties do). Killing Ricks therefore needn’t be explained much beyond that. Torturing Morties? Well, since Evil Morty was manipulating his Rick (as sort of a decoy), it still makes sense that he would need a shield to hide him. Since Evil Morty is just as evil as Evil Rick (or would be if this were all Evil Rick’s doing), he doesn’t care for Morties either (much like Rick doesn’t seem to care about other Ricks). And speaking of hiding from other Ricks, we see how convoluted all this “shielding” really is: Evil Morty has at least three layers of shielding–1) Rick C-137 whom he tries to frame, 2) the actual shield of Morties, and 3) Evil Rick whom he also frames (maybe this plot of framing Ricks is a means of demonizing Ricks in front of other Ricks). ← Number 3) is the last line of defense as he is able to get away in the end undetected. The Council of Ricks discovers the receiver and infers the existence of a transmitter out there, but since Evil Morty crushes it, that more or less makes him untraceable. But the Ricks are aware and will no doubt be looking for him. Like I said, however, it is a cliff hanger, and this is the last we’ll hear about Evil Morty and the Council of Ricks throughout the series (maybe Season 3 will shed some light on this).

(There are scenes in the opening credits that aren’t taken from any of the episodes from Season 1 or Season 2–most of them are, but a few aren’t. There is the one below, for example, in which Jerry, who appears to be helping Morty with his homework, pats him on the back only to loosen the front plate of his (apparently) robotic head. It drops to the table revealing wires, circuitry, and other robotic technology. Meanwhile, Rick is seen behind them trying to usher the real Morty out of the room without either Jerry or robot Morty discovering them. Could this be a scene from Season 3? Could this robot Morty be Evil Morty, imposing on the Smith family as Morty C-137?)

And what does Evil Morty want with the contents of Rick C-137’s brain? Either theory mentioned above might still apply: either 1) Evil Morty is trying to give Evil Rick ultimate Rick genius by amassing all the knowledge and thoughts of all the Ricks and uploading it to Evil Rick’s brain, or 2) Evil Morty is just interest in Rick C-137’s brain–either because he might as well now that he’s got him, or there’s something special about Rick C-137. Either way, it doesn’t matter that it’s uploaded into Evil Rick’s brain as he’s being controlled by Evil Morty anyway. But what would be so special about Rick C-137 that Evil Morty would want the contents of his brain? More on that below.

So we’re hit, at the end, with this twist–but it’s a twofold twist: 1) not only is Evil Morty the real mastermind behind the Rick killings, but 2) Evil Rick and Evil Morty were robots. This itself has some interesting implications: the first question that came to my mind when I saw this was: why, then, is a Morty Matrix shield needed? If Rick brains send off such a detectable signal, one would think that must have something to do with the fact that this is a biological effect. Would a robot brain really send off exactly the same signals? My only thought on this is that Rick C-137, when he and Morty C-137 were sitting in that restaurant in Furniture Town, described them as “genius waves”–so maybe they’re just waves given off by intelligence period–regardless of the hardware on which it runs. In other words, maybe the “genius waves” are simply patterns of thought and information processing–the same patterns that might be seen in artificial intelligence versions of Rick. If that’s the case, then fine, but this isn’t explicitly explained, and the fact that Evil Rick turns out to be a robot ought to raise the question of whether his brain would emit the same pattern of genius waves, and if not, what was the purpose of the Morty Matrix.

Another thought that just occurs to me: maybe Evil Rick’s brain doesn’t give off genius waves, and the Morty Matrix is just another ploy. That is, it isn’t serving the function of hiding Evil Rick (and by proxy, Evil Morty) but hiding the fact that Evil Rick is a robot. That is to say, even if someone did discover Evil Rick inside his fortress, he still wouldn’t necessarily figure out that Evil Rick is a robot, and the Morty Matrix outside might just be a ploy to convince him otherwise. (Kinda makes Evil Morty seem even more evil than Evil Rick–at least the motive of trying to hide from the Council of Ricks seems more “important” than trying to trick would-be discoverers into believing that Evil Rick is a robot on the off chance that even happens–like Rick C-137 said: it’s barbaric overkill.) What spurred this thought on in my mind was the question: well, does Evil Rick’s brain give off genius waves? I mean, I suppose we are to presume so given the Morty Matrix, but there is no scene in which either Rick C-137 or the alternate Ricks from the council say: Ah, there it is! The Rick brain waves we’ve been trying to detect! As soon as we got passed the Morty Matrix, they started beeping like a hot beacon!

I also think the fact that Evil Rick and Evil Morty turn out to be robots is symbolic: it says that in order to be that evil, you’d have to be a robot. No flesh and blood human being could be that heartless, even Rick. Ricks, flesh and blood ones, might suppress their human feeling, mask it as it were, but once in a while, you can see glimpses of caring in the tears welling up in their eyes.

And finally, a thought on what’s so special about Rick C-137 that Evil Morty would want the contents of his brain: simply put, he’s the Rickest Rick there is. If this Rick more or less defines Ricks, then anyone interested in knowing about Ricks would want to download the contents of this Rick’s brain. After all, Evil Rick did say he wanted Rick C-137 to find him. He doesn’t exactly say why, but he does follow that up, after a short exchange between him and Rick C-137, with “I’m simply going to download the contents of your brain, and then kill you.” In the interim between saying he wanted Rick C-137 to find him and that he was going to download the contents of his brain then kill him, Evil Rick points out how close they are on the Rick spectrum, Super Weird Rick being the only one between them. And since he defined this spectrum as a measure of Rick evilness, it suggests that Rick C-137 is about as evil as a Rick can get before becoming a cold, emotionless robot (that is, in the symbolic sense given above). As for Super Weird Rick–well, he’s super weird, maybe a cyborg or something like that. So what does Evil Rick (or Evil Morty) want from the contents of Rick C-137’s brain? Maybe just to understand what it’s like to have feelings, why sometimes Ricks on the other side of the spectrum (Doofus Rick being the extreme example) let slip feelings and signs that they care. And why, after all, is that essential to a Rick being a Rick.

That the Rickest Rick there is is the Rick who is most evil without lacking feeling that comes with being human nicely captures why Rick doesn’t even seem to care for himself. One would think that if one were put into a council composed of alternate versions of one’s self, one would get along splendidly–one would, you know, like all those other versions of one’s self. But it’s obvious in this episode that Rick regards other versions of himself no differently than any other person–and we know how he regards other persons. If the extent of disrespect and insensitivity Rick shows to others is a reflection of his inner evil, then it shows just how evil he is that it goes even as far as himself, that he doesn’t even give a shit about himself. But unlike Evil Rick, who’s out to kill other Ricks, he seems to be OK with live and let live. This may come from still being human. ← This also fits nicely into the theory outlined above: the one that says Morty is a younger version of Rick. If this theory is true, then maybe Rick is a little desperate to reach out to himself, but he can’t do it to himself as he is now, and so he must try to connect with a younger, more innocent, less threatening version of himself–essentially a version of himself that still has certain redeeming moral qualities. If this is true, then not only is he masking a deeply rooted longing to connect with himself, but it may be the primary motive he had for returning to the Smiths’ lives, eclipsing that of needing a Morty shield. But of course, that’s something Rick would want to mask even more than his feelings for Morty.

Speaking of masks, this episode leans heavily on the theme of masks–both literally and symbolically. The excuse Rick C-137 gives Morty about why Ricks and Morties are always paired up together–that Morty brain waves cancel Rick brain waves–is one mask (not that it’s a lie but it hides the other reason why Ricks hang out with Morties–namely, that Ricks do care for their Morties on some level). Rick C-137’s come back to Evil Rick–“No, I’m just allergic to dip shits!”–is another (ineffective as it might be). But there are symbolic masks as well: the Morty Matrix can be seen as one gargantuan mask. So can the fleshy exterior of Evil Rick’s body. Evil Rick himself is a mask hiding Evil Morty, and so on.

Obviously, the remnants of human feeling in Rick C-137 is seen by Evil Rick as a flaw. And notice that Evil Rick not only doesn’t share this flaw, but a number of other flaws that come with being human: he doesn’t drink, he never burps, and he doesn’t even stutter–all things that are part and parcel of being a biological human being. So maybe being imperfect is an essential ingredient to being a perfect Rick: being a drunk, having gas issues, stuttering, and yes, not always being able to mask your feelings.

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PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS:

  • Relating to one’s self: If you came face to face with an exact replica of yourself, or you had to live with an exact replica of yourself, would you trust yourself? Does the fact that this replica is a separate physical person make a difference to anything? I mean, most of us take it as a no brainer that we would want to treat ourselves right, to pleasure ourselves, to trust ourselves, to like ourselves, and if this was there was to it, the answer to the foregoing questions would likewise be a no brain: yes, we’d say, we’d trust ourselves. But the fact remains that this replica is a separate person, a separate person would could conceivably live his or her own life, be jaded by totally different experience, want scarce resources all for him- or herself (for example, the last piece of cake). If Rick knows that he’s an utterly selfish person who doesn’t care for anyone but himself (and maybe not even himself), he would know that about an exact replica of himself. And then if they came face to face, what would go on through his mind? Would this knowledge of his selfish ways signal to him that this replica is also going to be selfish? And therefore, should he be on his guard? Why do we really like ourselves? Why do we really trust ourselves?

  • Defining a person: Related to the above, there is the question how to define a person. If I were surrounded by a whole legion of gibs, does it make sense to say that there are some gibs who are more gib-like than other gibs? Is there one gib who is the gibest gib there is? Or would each gib be the gibest gib there is in terms of that gib–in other words, does each person define herself as the unique individual she is, regardless or how similar or different from those around her?

  • Evil: Is it possible for a person to be pure evil? That is, without a single drop of compassion or human feeling, like a robot? Or is it human nature to always have some ember of compassion and feeling even if deeply repressed and faint? Was it necessary, in other words, that Evil Rick be a robot? Is it the sheer fact of Rick C-137’s humanity that makes it difficult at times for him to mask his feelings? Like everyone feels angry sometimes, everyone feel embarrassed, everyone feels joyful–for one to say that he doesn’t get angry, never feels embarrassed, has no joy in his life, one ought to ask him: did you get a lobotomy? In the same way, is compassion and humanitarian feeling for other human beings is integral part of the human organism such that it can’t be excised as simply as the masks we sometimes wear make it seem?

Rick and Morty - S1E11 - Ricksy Business

Those of you who aren’t too young should remember the 1983 movie Risky Business. It’s a movie about a young teenager named Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise) who’s parents leave on vacation trusting their son to stay out of trouble and be responsible with the house. Joel’s friend, Miles Dalby (Curtis Armstrong), convinces him to do all kinds of irresponsible things, starting with calling up a hooker (Rebecca De Mornay) and ending with throwing a party. The house and his dad’s Porsche end up becoming a disaster, but they end up cleaning up the mess and paying for the damage just before his parents get home.

^ This might as well be a summary of Episode 11–Ricksy Business. While Jerry and Beth go on vacation, both Summer and Rick throw a party (not together but independently, forcing their respective friends to intermingle), and they not only trash the place, but transport the entire house into another dimension (where the party continues seamlessly), but they manage, with a bit of Ricksy technological innovation (including freezing time in order to give them a chance to clean the place up before Jerry and Beth walk through the front door), to put everything back in order convincingly enough such that Jerry and Beth have no clue that anything happened.

Again, it’s another episode that doesn’t feature an adventure per se but they do have a whole lotta fun (well, Rick does anyway).

It opens with Beth making the stupidest decision a person could ever make: leaving Rick in charge. He is left in charge of both the children and the house.

“Listen,” Rick says, “You have my word as a care giver, everything’s gonna be fiiine.” ← Rick giving care? That should tip her off right away.

He’s really just trying to blow them off since, in his words, “Morty and I-burp-have some synthetic laser eels oxidizing in the garage.” Beth’s ultimatum is that any damage to the house or the children and no more adventures with Morty.

Where are Beth and Jerry going? Well, in Beth’s sarcastic words:

“We will have as much fun as possible on our Titanic themed getaway.”

Jerry: “Let’s lose the tude, please. It’s supposed to be romantic.”

As lame as a Titanic themed getaway sounds, in this episode, and in my opinion, Beth is the bitch here. Jerry is trying. Jerry is trying to spark some romance in their crumbling marriage, and even though the Titanic theme is more his passion than hers, he is trying to share it. ← This will be the secondary story line in this episode while the party will be the main story line, and no overlap.

After a stern warning from Jerry not to move a single thing out of place, they leave. But a little too late. The synthetic laser eels finish, um, “oxidizing”, burn a hole in the garage door, and fly out. The garage door falls off the hinges onto the driveway, the three of them barely escaping injury in virtue of conveniently standing right where the hole comes down.

“Well, we’ve passed the point of no return,” says Summer, “I’m having a party.”

Back inside, Morty interrupts Summer’s phone conversation in which she makes party plans with a friend: “Summer, you can’t throw a party! Remember what mom said?!”

Summer: “Yeah, if anything gets messed up, you and grandpa Rick get punished. I’m only a human being, Morty.”

Morty: “Rick, tell Summer she can’t have a party.”

Rick: “Uh, Summer, you can’t have a party.”

Summer: “Eugh.”

Rick: “Because-burp-I’m having a party, biiitch!”

Both Summer and Morty react in shock–Morty out of dismay, Summer out of mockery. ← Morty really is in a bit of a panic over this. He really doesn’t want to disappoint his parents, particularly his mom who warned that if anything happens, no more adventures with Rick. He suggests a quiet evening of games and family bonding.

Summer: “Screw that, this is my chance to gain some footing with the cool kids.”

Rick: “That’s why you party? Boy, you really are 17.”

Summer: “Why do you party?”

And Rick responds with my favorite line in the whole series: “To get-burp-Rickety, Rickety wreeecked sooon!!!

Summer: “Just keep your sci-fi friends away from my awesome ones.”

Rick: “Yeah, and you keep your awesome friends away from my canapes [leans over a tray of canapes].”

This is gonna be one weird ass party–a bunch of teenagers mingling with aliens, robots, and beings from other dimensions.

Jerry and Beth are on board “Titanic 2”–a mediocre looking ship docked in the harbor. A backdrop of a sunset is strategically placed in the water on the starboard side of the ship. The Smiths along with a small handful of other guests are getting the tour. The tour guide explains to them that the entire experience is supposed to be a reenactment of the Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio movie, particularly the scene in which they “sink into the icy depths.” He assures them (Jerry in particular) that the ship is “un-unsinkable”.

Everyone, except Beth, are dressed in late 19th / early 20th century attire. Beth is dressed in her usual red shirt and blue jeans. Normal attire on any other occasion, but in this context, she’s the one who stands out.

Jerry points to the bow of the ship: “Look, it’s the line for the bow.”

Beth is not impressed: “Jerry, I’d love to just kick back with a margarita and read. Do you mind if I skip the whole king of the world bit?”

Jerry: “Well, it’s not the king of the world bit, that’s Jack and Fabrizio [grabs Beth’s hat and puts it on her head]. This is where rose says ‘I’m flying Jack!’ But, whatever. I can be the only one to do it alone.”

There are two scenes in Titanic where Jack stands at the bow of the ship: near the beginning with his friend Fabrizio (Danny Nucci), and around the middle when he stands behind Rose with their arms out. Beth is remembering the first scene. That’s when Jack yells out: “I’m the king of the world!” Jerry, along with everyone else, have in mind the second scene. I think it’s interesting that Beth would assume the first scene, the one nobody remembers, when the second scene, a classic in Western culture, doesn’t even occurring to her. Why would it when she thinks of Jerry as a conceited, self-absorbed egoist, not a romantic fool who wants to share a moment together with his wife?

Beth looks around: “Well, what about her?” She hands Jerry off to a middle aged Latino woman sweeping the deck, obviously part of the staff, dressed in an old turn-of-the-century french maid outfit. In response to a warning that she might get in trouble, Beth promises they won’t tell and then leaves.

Jerry tries to break the ice in this awkward situation by asking her if she’s a Titanic fanatic. She responds yes but that since it opened she’s never been able to participate in any of the showcases. Jerry simply goes with the flow with this one: “Happy to help… Rose.” She giggles. Between him and Beth, Jerry’s always been the more social one, and even though he’s not getting what he wanted (a romantic experience with his wife), his people skills easily allow him to make the best of the situation. Beth on the other hand, takes after her father, and with an attitude of being above the rest, doesn’t mind being a bit antisocial.

Back to the party: in many ways, I find the party is a lot like interdimensional cable. For one thing, it’s a break from all Rick and Morty’s crazy adventures. Rick even says: “Morty, listen, we’ve had a lot of really cool adventures over the last year, but it’s time to relax.” For another, it’s an escape, but unlike in Rixty Minutes, where Rick introduced the family to interdimensional cable, it features every conceivable kind of escape, including physical escape when Morty accidentally triggers one of Rick’s reality hopping devices and transports the entire house with everyone in it to a completely alien world. Third, we get a sample of all the wacked out, zany shit that life in the multiverse has to offer–with interdimensional cable, we saw all that zany shit on TV, and here we see it in the variety of crazy, weird characters and personalities attending the party. Even Summer’s friends have their fair share of variety.

In fact, I’m going to do what I did in interdimensional cable: I’m going to go through each character, one by one, in a list:

Tammy

Tammy is one of Summer’s friends. A bit of a sexual deviant and somewhat desperate to impress the boys (not unlike Summer’s desperation to impress the cool kids), Tammy will make a few appearance in Season 2, playing quite a significant roll in the season finally: The Wedding Squanchers.

Brad

We know Brad from a few past episodes. He’s Jessica’s football playing jock boyfriend. Quick to anger and highly insecure, Brad is usually seen antagonizing others and generally causing trouble.

Nancy

Nancy is a somewhat nerdy, but likable, young girl. She knows Summer from flute practice. Though really wanting to be friends with Summer, Nancy is brushed off by Summer after being ask by the cool girls: “Don’t tell me you’re friends with her.” Summer responds: “Are you kidding me? I don’t even know what she’s doing here.”

Jessica

And of course, we all know Jessica, Morty’s crush.

It’s questionable which of the above characters Summer invited and which Rick invited. Unless Summer invited the whole school (and only a small smattering of them showed), are we to presume Summer is friends with Brad and Jessica? She might be. Or maybe Rick invited Jessica as a favor to Morty (which we will have reason to suspect later), but that would be… weird. Brad tags along because, well, wherever Jessica goes, he’s gotta go too. And Nancy? Yes, obviously she and Summer are friends, or were friends, so maybe Summer invited her but the minute the comment was put to her: “Don’t tell me you’re friends with her,” she realized she’d better deny it.

Now we get to Rick’s friends:

Bird Person

Bird Person is a very serious and wise man (or some kind of animal). Half bird, half person, he’s an old time friend of Rick’s. Like Tammy, he will appear a couple times in Season 2 (in fact, with Tammy). Bird Person is quite a significant character in both the series and in Rick’s life.

I’m guessing the makers of Rick and Morty couldn’t get the rights to “Birdman,” which would have made more sense, because of the 2014 movie Birdman, so settled on Bird Person instead. Oh well, it works.

Floopy Doop, Shmoopy Doop, and Gelatinous Mass

Not really significant characters, but a good introduction to the chaotic mayhem that Rick unleashed into the Smith household. They are part of a brief montage that we go through with Morty as he dashes from room to room in a semi-panic over the mess and the damage being done to the house. He finds the floopy doop eating the entrails of the dead shmoopy doop (or is it the other way around?) as the “gelatinous mass” as he’s dubbed at one site on the internet says: “That’s why you never invite a floopy doop and a shmoopy doop to the saaame party.”

Then Morty hears some thumping upstairs. He goes up to find…

Barfing Alien

Not sure what to call this guy–barfing alien will do. He’s discovered by Morty under the sheets making rocking motions. At first it looks like a couple getting it on. Then it turns out to be this weird oddly shaped alien who’s “not feeling too well. I just needed to lie down for a bit.” And then barfs some highly acidic goop on Jerry and Beth’s mattress burning a hole in it.

Gear Head

Gear Head is from a reality of gear people, quasi-robot sort of beings who’s whole world revolves around gears–they are made of gears, their civilization is built on gears, their culture is obsessed with gears. Here, we are only introduced to Gear Head himself, but in Episode 2 of Season 2–Mortynight Run–we’ll get a thorough look at Gear Head’s world and another appearance of Gear Head himself.

Scropon

Not a hugely significant character, Scropon seems like an old time friend of Rick’s. We learn that his whole planet was destroyed when Morty comes down (after narrowly escaping Gear Head’s long drawn out speech about the Gear Wars) and says “the whole house is being destroyed!” Rick responds while Scropon walks away all dejected: “Oh Morty, this guy’s entire planet was destroyed. Have a little perspective.”

Squanchy

Not sure whether Squanchy is supposed to be a cat or what, but he’s another significant character who we’ll see again in Season 2. I’m not gonna wait 'til we get back to the plot to go through the dialog. I’m just going to lay it out here:

Squanchy: “Hey Rick, squanchy party bro.”

Rick: “[Hopping over the table] Ah, Squanchy!”

Squanchy: “Is there a good place for me to SQUANCH around here?”

Rick: “Squanchy, you can squanch wherever you want, man! Mi casa es su casa, dawg!”

Squanchy: “All riiight! I like your squanch!”

Morty: “Uh, Rick, what exactly is squanching?”

Slow Mobius

A guy who can slow down or speed up time. He makes Jessica walk into the room in slow motion, fooling us into thinking it’s just a slowmo scene.

Abradolph Lincler

Rick sums it up best: “Lincler’s a crazed maniac. Just a misguided effort of mine to create a morally neutral super leader by combining the DNA of Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln. Turns out-burp-it just adds up to a lame weird loser.” ← Remind anyone of koala, mixed with rattle snake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur?

Other than that, you might also catch a brief glimpse of Triceratops Rick from the Council of Ricks and one of the stair people from the stair pub in Meeseeks and Destroy. There’s also a Plutonian, effectively squashing my theory that Jerry and Morty entered into a simulation aboard that spaceship in Something Ricked This Way Comes, though it doesn’t squash the theory that Rick’s entire life is a simulation.

Despite Summer’s fears, it seems her friends and Rick’s are getting along swimmingly. I’m honestly surprised that cool girl called Summer out on inviting Nancy when you have people like Scropon hanging around.

Anyway, the party begins with Tammy talking about how into bukake she is (even though she probably wouldn’t do it) when the doorbell rings. It’s Brad and a couple of his football thugs. Tammy asks her friend to mess up her hair so she looks drunk. It works: Brad walks by and says “Check it out, Tammy’s already drunk. Cool.” Summer proceeds to close the door when Bird Person stops her. “The beacon was activated,” he says, “Who is in danger?” Summer replies: “Eugh, Grandpa!”

Rick comes down to greet Bird Person with a warm welcome. He reassures him there is no emergence and asks when the last time he got laid was. “It has been a challenging mating season for Bird Person,” he replies. Rick invites him in to “get his beak wet.”

Morty’s running around the house in a panic, picking up empty cups off the floor and throwing them into a garbage bag. “Y-y-you know there’s a garbage, right?” he says to no one in particular. That’s when we go through the few scenes with the doops, the gelatinous mass, and the barfing alien. Then he comes down interrupting a dull conversation between a bored looking Rick and a sort of hippie looking Gear Head (about how “the thing people don’t realize about the Gear Wars is that it really wasn’t about the gears at all.”) Rick is only too pleased to be interrupted. “Morty!” he says, “Have you met Gear Head? [Morty: Hey, how’s it-] Morty here, he would-he would love to hear all about the Gear Wars.”

Gear Head: “How familiar are you with the Gear Wars exactly? [Morty: Uuuh, I-not at all?] Oh boy, I envy you. Ok, it was about 754 years ago…”

After escaping Gear Head, Morty manages to find Rick again. That’s when he introduces him to Scropon. Rick tells him about how Scropon’s planet was destroyed and to have a little perspective. Then Squanchy shows up. After Squanchy goes off to squanch, that’s when Rick gives Morty his little pep talk about how they’ve been through a lot of adventures but now it’s time to relax.

Morty: “Yeah, if I relax now, there might not even be any more adventures.”

Rick: “Jesus, Morty, you’re bumming me out. Can’t we just pretend like everything’s fine for a few hours? Enjoy ourselves? And then worry about all this later?”

Morty: “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, Rick. You know, you like not caring about stuff…”

These few scenes with Morty running around trying to keep the place clean, trying to make sure everything’s in order, stressing out over the house, reveals the real worry wort he can be. I mean, we’ve always known that about Morty. We’ve always known that he can get really stressed out when things don’t go according to plan, but this scene really brings that aspect out in him. And of course, Rick’s Devil may care attitude serves as a nice contrast–the counterpart to Morty, the man who maybe should worry a bit more. It’s ironic though that the one thing he’s most stressed about is that there might not be any more adventures–the very adventures that always get him all stressed out to begin with. Again, it seems that his highly stressful, almost traumatic experiences, with Rick end up being a reinforcement in hindsight. He doesn’t want to stop having adventures with the man who causes him so much stress to begin with. ← Bird Person will make that patently clear to him near the end.

Morty hasn’t quite learned the lesson yet, the lesson of hanging out with Rick: namely, that as much as the situations he gets Morty into are stressful, he will always get him out. Morty really shouldn’t worry about his parents coming home to a trashed house because, by now he should realize, Rick will somehow find a way to fix everything. And he does, in an extraordinarily simple way.

Even if we think Rick ought to worry a bit more, his care free attitude here reveals a side to him we don’t often see. He’s actually happy. He’s even friendly. From Bird Person, to Scropon, to Squanchy–he’s thrilled to see them, like old time friends. It almost seems sometimes that he wants to reach out and give them a big ol’ hug. ← This isn’t the same rude, cynical, grouchy Rick that we’re used to. We saw something similar come out in Meeseeks and Destroy at the stair pub after Rick had a few drinks. He started to have a good time. But it doesn’t always require alcohol. He was like this with Morty in Rixty Minutes when they just veged out in front of the tube, particularly during the commercial for “Fake Doors”. It seems anytime Rick has a chance to relax, to escape from the pressures of all the crises he gets himself and Morty into, a friendlier side of him comes out. He doesn’t have to be so serious, he doesn’t have to vent his frustration at the stupidity exuded by the people around him, stupidity that often stifles his efforts to get himself and the rest of them out of the situations they’re in.

As Morty was saying: “You know, you like not caring about stuff. W-w-what’s in this for me?” ← That’s when Jessica enters the room… in slow motion… because of Slow Mobius. Rick tells him to knock it off. Mobius say: “Sorry, dude. I’m just tryin’a… show off my pooowers, brooo.” Jessica passes through the room. Rick pushed Morty to go follow her: “Tonight, the only adventure you’re on is your cusping manhood.” ← The hint I alluded to earlier that it was Rick who invited Jessica.

Aboard the Titanic, Jerry and “Rose” are having a wonderful time. They’re seen running around the ship, holding hands, and pulling stunts like stealing people’s cigarettes out of their mouths. They’re like a couple of innocent children, not unlike Jack and Rose in the actual movie.

Jerry notices something below: they’re stacking planks not unlike those onto which Jack and Rose hung before Jack drowned at the end of the movie. Lucy (the Latino woman) explains: “Every couple gets to recreate Jack’s drowning at the end of the movie. It’s so romantic.” Jerry responds: “I can’t wait to do that with Beth.” “I don’t know, Jerry,” Rose continues, “with all due respect, it seems like your wife may not be that interested.”

It seems Jerry’s found someone perfect for having this romantic excursion with even though he still wants to have it with someone completely uninterested. The latter is desperate to get away, the former desperate for more (and we’ll find out just how desperate later on).

Jerry notices the iceberg emerging from the water ahead. Down at the helm, the navigator informs the captain: “Uh, sir, there’s not a problem.” “What do you mean, there’s not a problem?” the Captain replies. “The guidance system isn’t putting us on a direct collision course,” says the navigator, “This ship is about to completely miss the giant iceberg.” “Well, do something!” shouts the captain. The navigator attempts to steer into it, but it’s too late. Titanic 2 is fine. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain says into the intercom, “don’t brace yourselves.” The passengers watch in stupefaction as the ship passes right by the iceberg. “No!” Jerry bellows out, “What happened?!” Rose answers “The rail system must have failed.”

So in a kind of parody, the passengers get to experience a disaster just like those on the real Titanic, except that since they were expecting the Titanic to crash and sink–indeed, since they wanted it to–the disaster had to take the form not crashing and not sinking. The same arrogant over-confidence that had the owners of the original Titanic convinced that their ship couldn’t sink had the owners of this Titanic convinced that this ship couldn’t not sink–the un-unsinkable Titanic turned out to be very unsinkable after all.

Tammy’s coming on really strong to Bird Person (for God knows what reason… we’ll find out in Season 2, Episode 10–The Wedding Squanchers). Bird Person warns her: “Tammy, I should let you know, I just got out of a highly intense soul bond with my previous spirit mate.” He’s like that, Bird Person–utmostly concern with moral principles, and very respectful of women. Tammy replies: “I’m not looking to get into a soul bond, I’m just looking for a [whispers in his ear].” “I believe Bird Person can arrange that.” he says.

That’s when Nancy comes up to Summer: “Hey Summer, haven’t seen you at flute practice in a while.” and Summer brushes her off. Rick sees this: “Oh, not cool Summer, this is a party, everyone should be welcome.” ← Even the biggest asshole in the room is nicer to Nancy than Summer is. Then again, we are seeing how a nicer, more friendly, side to Rick comes out when he’s just chilling and having a few drinks. So Summer, it would seem, becomes more of a snob at parties while Rick lightens up and stops being his usual jerk self.

Then Abradolf Lincler bursts, and I mean literally burst, into the room. That’s when Rick gives his brief explanation on who Abradolf Lincler is. Lincler is another Frankenstein monster, a horrible abomination that Rick created and then abandoned, taking absolutely no responsibility for it. Lincler announces his purpose here: “Rick, you brought me into this world a suffering abomination, tortured by the duality of its being, but I shall finally know peace when I watch the life drain from your wretched body!” He gets into a little scuffle with Brad in virtue of bumping into him. Brad blows the incident up into megalithic proportions, playing on themes of guilt and race, very fitting for a man half Lincoln and half Hitler. Rick eggs on a fight: “Kick his ass Brad! Kick his ass! Kick his ass! Kick his ass!” taunting the rest of the group to join in. Brad does just that–punches him in the face a few times, spilling blood everywhere.

This entire display of macho manliness sickens Jessica. She storms out of the room. Morty goes after her. He finds her sitting on the front steps to the house. He sits next to her, apologizing for Rick. “Eugh! Brad is such a jerk,” she says, “He’s always trying to prove what a man he is. I just want to find somebody nice and sweet.” Morty offers to show her something–Rick’s workshop (i.e. the garage).

“Wow, look at all this stuff,” says Jessica. Morty shows her a device. It’s a hologram generator. He turns it on and it projects a hologram of an array of planets with rings and moons orbiting them, glowing with bright colors. “It’s beautiful,” says Jessica as she walks around in it.

Morty: “You know, Jessica, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

Jessica: “What’s that, Morty?”

Morty: “I think that you’re the most–”

Jessica: “No, that. Those weird sounds coming from the closet over there.”

Morty turns off the hologram. He motions towards the broom closet which is indeed making sounds and shaking. Morty opens it. It’s Squanchy, um, squanching. He’s got a rope tied around his neck and he’s tugging on it with one hand, the other hand is, well, squanching. “Hey!” he shouts, “I’m squanching in here!” In disgust, Morty backs away, uttering how disgusting it is, and backs up into a large device about the height of a grown man, like a giant scepter or flash light, and knocks it over. It activates. It starts charging up. Suddenly, emanating from the device, a giant blue energy bubble forms around the house. Next thing you know, the entire house gets teleported to another planet, possibly another dimension.

Back in the house, Rick opens the balcony door and looks outside. He says “Huh, big star in the sky, [inhales] oxygen rich atmosphere, giant testicle monsters… we’ll be fine, let’s party!!!”

Trusting Rick’s words, some dude with his shirt off (one of Summer’s friends) screams a hearty scream and runs outside only to be snatched up by one of the testicle monsters and eaten (although we’ll see at the end that it isn’t exactly “eating” that the monsters are doing). In response to this, Rick hits the music on the speaker which blasts out: “Just shake that aaasss, bitch, and le’me see watch’u got,” to which Rick shakes his ass along with everyone else.

It seems here Rick is using partying to cover up an awkward situation (you might even say responsibility for the sudden demise of the kid, if indeed he was trusting Rick’s words that they’ll be fine). In fact, I’d say the whole party is a cover up. He’s using it as an escape, just like he said to Morty: “But it’s time to relax,” and “Can’t we just pretend like everything’s fine for a few hour, enjoy ourselves, and then worry about all this later?” He really doesn’t want anything to interfere with that, even being instantly transported to a strange, unknown dimension with giant testicle monsters, even an innocent kid being eaten by one of them. He’ll do this once more during this episode in response to a much more sinister event.

Overlooking the alien landscape, Rick, Morty, and Summer are on the patio with the party continuing on behind closed doors. Rick is scanning for Kalaxian Crystals with one of his devices while Morty is freaking out: “Relax, Morty, relax, it’s gonna be fine, all we have to do is go out and find us some Kalaxian crystals… [his device starts beeping] …oooh shit, motha’ fucka’!!! Kalaxian crystals, Morty, just a few miles south of here.” In a rush to get those crystals, Morty tugs on Ricks arm as he starts leaving. Rick refuses to go on the excuse that he has to hang back and look after the party (again, wanting the escape of the party rather than the stress of another adventure). Summer agrees, and adds that she should stay too.

Then Lincler and Nancy show up. Lincler’s holding a cold can of beer to his head and asks for aspirin. Both Rick and Summer take this as an opportunity to get rid of a couple people they don’t want around. Rick sends Lincler off with Morty and Summer ushers Nancy off with them on the excuse that she’s “so good at playing the flute”. Then they head back inside. This move is kinda mean on Summer’s part, but Rick is endangering Morty, not just on account of sending him off into some strange, possibly hostile, world, but with a “crazed maniac” in Ricks own words.

Meanwhile, on the still-afloat Titanic, the captain is passing around coupons for a complimentary plate of “James Cameronion rings” en lieu of the malfunction (or function, depending on how you look at it). Beth tells Jerry she’s going back to her room to finish her book and that he should “find that Lucy woman.” As soon as she leaves, Lucy shows up and offers to show Jerry something. She brings him down to the cargo area, the one where Jack and Rose make love in the car.

She strips down naked and says “Draw me, Jerry.”

Jerry, not surprisingly taken aback, fumbling over words, finally manages to, as politely as possible, decline. She pulls out a gun (not sure from where). “You’re gonna draw me,” she says, “then you’re gonna fuck me in that car over there.”

We cut back to Morty, Lincler, and Nancy trekking through the strange wilderness of this bizarre, unexplored world. Lincler says to himself: “It’s weird, 'cause I definitely think that all men are created equal, but at the same time…” Morty interrupts him: “OK! Um, the crystals should be really close.” Nancy spots them. Again, they’re pink. “Wait, something’s not right,” says Lincler.

Then out of nowhere, a giant two-headed purple lion-like beast jumps out and knocks Lincler over. He shouts at Morty and Nancy to get the crystals while he handles the beast: “Prepare to be emancipated from your own inferior genes,” he says. He tackles the beast while Morty and Nancy collect the crystals.

“Summer’s gonna like me again,” says Nancy. ← A bit of the same desperation to be liked seen in Nancy as that in Summer. Nancy hasn’t had to be cruel to anyone in order to get that, however, not that we’ve seen anyway.

They collect the crystals and Lincler finishes with the beast. He throws its dead body over a rock and comes out from behind it. Bleeding and injured, he drops and leans against the rock. He says to Morty that he has something important to tell him.

Back at the party, everyone’s gathered around Gear Head who’s playing them a song on something like a lyre: “♪ ♫ And the gears, they turned for a thousand years until the dark day that they stopped. ♬ ♩”

Morty and Nancy come in with the crystals. Morty announces the important message that Lincler conveyed to him: “I couldn’t have done it without Lincler. He said that he’s really sorry and that he loves you like a father. He only wanted you to accept him and he hopes that his final act would redeem him in your eyes. He sacrificed himself to save all of us, Rick. He died.” Tears well up in Morty’s and Nancy’s eyes.

“Well, at least he didn’t die in vein,” Rick says, “He got these crystals.” Then Rick crushes the crystals up on the table and forms them into lines, like cocaine, and snorts: “And these babies just saved this lame ass party! WUBALUBADUBDUB!!!” He stands up, his eye dilate and glossed over with blue. “Play something,” he says in an almost desperate tone, “som-somebody play something.” A giant ghetto-blaster robot pushes the play button on his belly and starts playing… The Rick Dance:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyXktW0RI3o[/youtube]

This is the second instance of Rick trying to cover up his pain with partying. To hear the news that Lincler, who was like a son to him, who loved him like a father and only wanted him to be proud of him, who died so he could get high, would cause anyone else great pain and grief, but Rick, being in the habit of covering up his pain with any kind of escape he can manage, chooses to do the Rick dance instead. This is the reason for that desperate tone in his voice when he asked the crowd to play something. Even Nancy, who barely knew Lincler, broke out into tears when Morty relayed the story of his death.

“What… the hell… was that!!!” questions an understandably appalled Morty. Rick explains that he can get them home any time he wants to, but does Morty have any more of those crystals because “crystal Kalaxian is a really strong but fleeting high.” Morty chucks the bag of crystals out the open patio door to be eaten by one of the monsters. “Oh, Morty, you idiot!” says Rick. Morty calls off the party. Rick reluctantly agrees, calling him a party pooper buzz kill, then leads everyone in a round of “booing”.

Back on the Titanic, Jerry, in a sweat, is doing the best he can to render a portrait of Lucy as she lays on the couch naked. Still at gun point, she motions Jerry towards the car where she explains what they are going to do. She explains that Jerry is going to “love inside” her so that there is no mess for her to clean up. But just before things get really hairy, a book comes flying out of nowhere and hits Lucy in the back of the head knocking her out cold. It’s Beth. “Bet you’re glad I think candles are dumb now,” she says. ← Which really makes no sense; if she means she thinks romance is dumb, then how would Jerry be in this situation at all if she did like romance? He’d be with her, not Lucy. And it’s almost a case of blaming the victim here. The only reason Jerry’s in this situation is because Beth paired him with Lucy. But she does express a bit of remorse in the next scene:

They’re at the car packing things into the trunk.

Beth: “I can’t help but feel a little guilty. I didn’t pegged Lucy for a rapist.”

Jerry: “What does a rapist look like exactly Beth? Is it a Slavic man wearing a denim jacket with a patchy beard and the scent of cheap champagne wafting over his blister-pocked lips? [fist clenched under lower lip, looking like he’s about to cry]”

Beth: “Wwwhat?”

Jerry gets shifty-eyes as if to say “Oops, did I say that out loud?” This is interesting: this is the first time we catch a glimpse of what Jerry might have suffered in his past–it hints that he was raped as a child. It goes a long way to explain his insecurities. It’s also interesting that Beth has no idea about this. It shows he’s so ashamed of it he can’t even tell his own wife.

He then takes one of the Titanic doors that all the guests get (from the stack of doors he noticed when he and Lucy were gallivanting around the ship) and puts it in the front seat. There’s no room left for him. He reaches across the door for Beth, as if clinging to the door like a raft, not unlike Jack and Rose at the end of Titanic. “I’m not going to fit. Beth, listen to me, you’re going to get out of here. You’re going to go on–” Beth cuts him off and tells him to leave the door. He agrees.

I don’t know if this was intended, but I interpret this as a desperate plea from Jerry, as if he’s saying “I’m drowning in this marriage, Beth.” ← The whole point of this excursion was to rekindle a little romance, an attempt on Jerry’s part to save their marriage, and this, to me, seems like a last desperate attempt to call out to Beth for help via the re-enactment of a romantic scene from Titanic. But Beth, having both feet planted firmly on the ground, is having none of it.

Beth and Jerry start driving. The camera pans to see Lucy hanging underneath the car, just like Robert De Niro’s character at the end of Cape Fear. In fact, that’s what Lucy keeps shouting out as they drive down the highway: “I’m going to do like from Cape Fear!” before losing her grip and getting run over. In a pool of her own blood, she pulls herself a little ways across the parking lot and then (supposedly) dies.

Rick gets the house back into the hole it left before it teleported to the other dimension. It’s a complete disaster: not only are there multiple points of damage, but there’s a huge crease around it where the teleportation bubble existed.

“Hey squanchers!” announces Squanchy, “The party’s squanching on at my place!” They all proceed out the front door. Summer follows them. Squanchy stops her:

“Uh, no, you’re not squanchy enough for a squanchy party.”

Summer: “What?”

Squanchy: “Nancy told us what a bitch you are.”

Summer: “Guys, seriously. Nancy?”

Nancy: “Summer, you’re a bad person. All you care about is having popular people like you. That’s not what Abradolf Lincler stood for. Well… it was hard to pin down what he stood for but it’s certainly not what he died for.”

So Summer gets the shaft. Her attempts to get in with the popular kids by rejecting Nancy backfired. Nancy simply told them (or Squanchy at least) what Summer did and that got them (or Squanchy at least) to think she wasn’t squanchy (cool) enough. It’s not clear that Nancy flat out told them Summer was a bitch–it certainly seemed, when they were out collecting the Kalaxian crystals, that she still looked up to Summer, expressing her hope that Summer would like her again–but she might have simply relayed what Summer did (rejected her) and they interpreted that to mean Summer was a bitch and explained it to Nancy from that point of view. Either way, at some point, Nancy became convinced that Summer just wasn’t a good friend and that it wasn’t worth going out of her way to win back her friendship.

In general, it seems the mixing of Summer’s friends with Rick’s wasn’t a catastrophic disaster after all. In fact, it seemed to be a smash. You could even see a nerdy kid from Summer’s school leaving arm-in-arm with one of Rick’s alien lady-friends. Summer’s fears were not only greatly exaggerated, but misguided: by taking Rick’s advice–that of welcoming everyone (Lincler notwithstanding)–Summer would have stood a way better chance of making friends with not only the cool kids but everyone. Alas, such are the insecurities and mentality of the teenaged mind.

But Summer seems to learn her lesson: “Next time I party,” she says, “I’m just going to focus on getting totally wrecked. [turns to Rick, passed out on the couch]. You’re so wise.”

Morty meanwhile is trying to clean the place up. Bird Person, who evidently stayed behind, offers to help:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHLzEXEqMe8[/youtube]

Convenient that Rick shouted out “WUBALUBADUBDUB!!!” right after snorting the Kalaxian crystals. It’s not entirely clear that Rick knows what the phrase means–he could have just heard it during an excursion with Bird Person or while visiting his world and decided it sounded catchy and appropriated it for his own use–but if he does know what it means, it’s a clever way of crying out for help without anyone actually realizing he’s doing it. Another interpretation is that Rick understands what the phrase means unconsciously–maybe he learned the phrase from Bird Person or when visiting his world but subsequently forgot–then later, the phrase simply came to mind–from his unconscious–in a moment when he was trying to cover up his pain by doing something like partying (or watching interdimensional cable, or drinking booz, etc.) and tricked himself into thinking he coined it as an expression of having a good time. We will learn in Season 2, Episode 7 (Big Trouble in Little Sanchez) that Rick’s unconscious can be extraordinarily ingenious.

It’s funny how Bird Person’s first words when Summer met him at the door were: “The beacon was activated. Who is in danger?” It wouldn’t be unlike Rick to invite Bird Person to his party by activating a distress beacon, but this could also be taken metaphorically. If partying is one of Rick’s ways of covering up his pain, then by inviting Bird Person to his party, it wouldn’t be unthinkable that Bird Person would interpret this as like distress beacon, a sign that Rick is in danger. He does follow that up, once he sees that Rick is OK (on the surface), with: “I am pleased there is no emergency,” so even if Bird Person means this metaphorically, he isn’t making it obvious. On the other hand, it could be a metaphor only at the level of the writers’ intentions, or perhaps it’s just me. Any way you cut it, however, such a metaphorical reading is not completely groundless.

Bird Person’s speech also focuses Morty’s attention on the duality of his feelings about Rick–he makes Morty think, for the first time in the series, about how he seems to want, and at the same time not want, to continue going on adventures with Rick. But nevertheless, he makes a choice: “You know what, you’re right! I shouldn’t even care. This is probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I’m sick of having adventures with Rick!” Bird Person seems to think he made the wrong choice, however, as he thinks Morty is just telling himself whatever helps him sleep at night. And he’s probably right. Actions speak louder than words: all this time Morty’s been freaking out over his parents catching them in the act of destroying the house (or the aftermath thereof), suggesting that he’d prefer to keep going on adventures with Rick.

It’s ironic then that as soon as Summer announces that their parents are right around the corner and after Bird Person leaves, Morty desperately tries to wake Rick up to do something about the mess–actions speak louder than words. Rick wakes up and sluggishly asks for the thing with buttons and lights and that beeps–his brain obviously not working so smoothly after a night of heavy drinking (which is odd considering he’s constantly stuffing his face with booz all the time anyway–more on this below). Summer, through a stroke of luck, finds it. She hands it to Rick, and Rick presses a button on it, sending out energy waves of some kind in all directions.

Rick directs them outside to see what just happened: they open the door to see their parents walking up the walkway to the door–frozen. Rick steps out and leans against the edge of the doorway:

Rick: “Yeah, e-e-everything’s frozen in time. Yeah, and Slow Mobius thinks he’s all that.”

Morty: “For how long?”

Rick: “I don’t know. How long do you guys want? A week? A month?”

Summer: “Can we start cleaning the house and see how we feel?”

A montage follows of Rick and his grandkids having fun. It starts out with Morty vacuuming the living room rug while Rick sweeps and Summer dusts, then cut to a scene of all three painting the now repaired wall (the one Lincler busted through to make an entrance), Rick accidentally splattering paint on Summer right before, in the vein of a little fun, she splatters him back with Morty joining in. They chase each other around the house with paint (with oodles of time, nothing really matters anymore). The scene cuts to them sitting around the dining room table carving out pumpkins–suggesting they made it to Halloween–and next, putting those pumpkins on their parents’ heads. Then they run around town pulling down everyone’s pants (3 out of 4 of them wearing no underwear). And finally we see them walking out of Better Buy with a large screen TV. The montage ends with all three sitting on their front lawn watching–guess what–Titanic on that TV.

This montage sort of introduces another form of escape–freezing time–and it portrays it as sort of a wholesome form of escape–not a self-destructive or mind numbing one–especially when shared with family. At the same time, however, one has to wonder why, if Rick is always going for these forms of escape, does he not just use his time freezing device all the time? There are repercussions to freezing time, however, as we will see in Episode 1 of Season 2 (where it will pick up exactly where this episode ends). Not to mention the fact that Rick would continue to age as the world remained frozen, which is probably something he would want to limit; and also that there are things in life that can only be enjoy through the natural passage of time–spending time with family, for example–which Rick would have to give up were he to freeze time indefinitely. That being said, we don’t know how long Rick’s had this technology for. It could be quite recent. It’s the only time in the series he uses it, however, so it’s still a fair question to ask why he doesn’t use it as an escape more often (not that we necessarily know he doesn’t).

Also, with a limitless amount of time, Morty seems to be able to relax. Whereas before, he reacted with panic to any minor damage to the house, he now plays along when Rick and Summer’s paint war game cause even more damage. He now knows why Rick was never worried. Rick had absolute control over how much time they had to fix everything before Morty’s parents came home.

As an aside, I’ve always wondered, in these movies where time is frozen except for a few characters who get to walk around in the frozen environment, how the physics of such a scenario would work out. Obviously, if they’re still walking about, indeed if they’re breathing, they must be able to push air molecules around. If they can pull down people’s pants, then they obviously can still manipulate objects in the environment in the same manner as in ordinary cases. What exactly makes things “frozen in time” then? There’s even a man, which we will see at the beginning of Episode 1 of Season 2, who’s frozen in the air (he’s falling off his roof). But gravity hasn’t disappeared as Rick, Morty, and Summer seem well anchored to the ground. Gravity is a force of nature, just like the force of their hands pulling down pants, so why it doesn’t continue to work on the man falling from the roof seems unexplained. Also, if they can still manipulate matter, what would happen if they started a car? Would it run as usual? But that would mean the engine would be set in motion, it would be triggered to move forward in time as though it were set free from being frozen. And what about the heat in the air? If all the air molecules beyond the local vicinity of the point where Rick set off those time freezing waves are frozen, then they must be ice cold (heat is the vibration or movement of molecules). But since the air in their local vicinity (around the point where Rick set off the time freezing waves) are moving and thus maintaining a comfortable temperature, the warmth in the area should have immediately radiated away, resulting in their literally freezing. And what about light? Does light continue to shine? That is, to travel at 300,000 km/s? If everything’s frozen, then presumable so too is light. Thus, they shouldn’t be able to see anything. In order to see, light must travel from objects to their eyes. But if light is frozen, it cannot do that and so everything should be pitch black. (Yes, this is an over-analysis, but still…). In brief, I’m not convinced these time-freezing scenarios (where a few characters are exempt from freezing) aren’t subject to a few physics paradoxes.

The credits roll on Titanic.

Rick: “Worst movie ever.”

Summer: “Dumb.”

Morty: “Boy, what a waste of time.”

They all laugh at the pun.

Morty: “Hey Rick, you know this whole time, I haven’t once heard you say that wubalubadubdub thing that you usually say.”

Rick: “Don’t need to, I have a-burp-burp-new catch phrase.”

Morty: “Oh yeah? W-w-what’s that, Rick?”

Rick: “I love my grandkids. [puts his arm around them].”

They hug him back going “aaawww”.

Rick: “[lets go of them] Psych! Just kidding. My new catch phrase is [stands up]: I don’t give a fuuuck!”

He hits a ghetto-blaster sitting at the side of the house. It plays that same song: “Just shake that aaasss, bitch, and le’me see watch’u got!” Rick shakes his ass and sings along. Summer joins in. So does Morty.

You wouldn’t expect Rick to express his love for his grandkids without a “psych”, would you? He can’t be that obvious (even though, by now in the series, he is).

The fact that Rick responded to Morty’s comment with “don’t need to” might suggest that he knows full well what “wubalubadubdub” means, but then again, I wonder if he simply overheard Bird Person’s speech to Morty while he was half passed out on the couch. But in any case, it indicates that the fun he had with his grandkids causing mischief all over a frozen town was fulfilling for him. It really does seem like family connection is what he’s lacking in his life.

So to wrap things up–not only for this post but for this analysis of Season 1–I figure why not let Rick do it himself:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEWLa7TQUak[/youtube]

Notice that the neighbors house has a huge chunk taken out of it.

And if anyone’s wondering how long they leave time frozen for: 6 months. Episode 1 of Season 2 mentions this in the beginning.

=== === ===

AFTER THOUGHTS

Both storylines–the primary one and the secondary one–are spoofs on popular movies–Risky Business and Titanic–and then there’s a brief hat tip to Cape Fear. I wonder if this is on purpose.

And about Rick’s mind being a bit dull when he wakes up with a hangover–he drinks all the time anyway, so why isn’t he hung over at any other point? Why isn’t his mind dull more often? There’s a theory on the internet that says Rick isn’t really drinking alcohol from that flask of his. The only episodes in the series when he actually became drunk were this one and the pilot when he took Morty for a flight in his makeshift spaceship, and at both times, he wasn’t drinking from his flask. In the pilot, he was drinking from a wine bottle, and in this one, he always had a red plastic cup in his hand. He was drinking a bottle of wine when he was eating dinner alone after burning down Curse Purge Plus in Something Ricked This Way Comes, and he did have a few drinks at the stair pub in Meeseeks and Destroy, but I wouldn’t say he got totally smashed in these scenes. The theory says that what he’s drinking from his flask is actually a drink diluted with those seeds he got Morty to shove up his ass in the pilot. We saw how those seeds made Morty temporarily smart, and the theory has it that Rick’s genius is actually an effect of his constant self-medication with these seeds. He’s not really that smart in other words. This is the real reason, the theory says, why he wanted those seeds in the first place. This also explains why he’s so dull at the end of this episode–not only is this one of the rare occasions when he’s hung over, but he’s running low on his smart juice.

In fact, this fits nicely with the other theory mentioned in the last episode–the one that says Rick is really an old-man version of Morty. It could be that Morty, at a later point in his life, becomes fed up with being so dumb, and remembers back when Rick had him shove those seeds up his ass and became smarter, and decided to find a way to get those seeds–thus becoming the Rick we know today. It may not even have been that hard for Morty to find them. It would be likely that Rick had some stashed away somewhere, and all it took was for Morty to find them and consume them in order to become smart enough to figure out how to get more–like hopping across dimensions to the worlds from which they originated.

This would even fit with the Back to the Future theme–the movie that inspired the Rick and Morty series: Back to the Future involved Marty going back in time, screwing up events such that he would no longer be born, and having to remedy the situation to make sure he doesn’t disappear from existence. In Rick and Morty, it might be that Rick travels back in time to ensure that Morty, the younger version of himself, becomes the Rick he is. ← Not exactly the same plot, but close enough–both involving a man going back in time to ensure that he becomes the person he is. And if this is true, there is no more convenient place to put it than in the Pilot.

Looking back to Episode 1 for my research into some of this, it’s uncanny how many parallels to the current episode I found. The first thing I stumbled across was another slip of Jerry’s tongue hinting at a rape experience:

Jerry: “Well now you can build baskets, and watch Paul Newman movies on VHS, and mentally scar the Boy Scouts every Christmas.”

Beth: “What does that mean?”

Jerry: “It’s personal.”

Also, most of Rick’s friends at the party were there at the security gates where Morty almost got anally probed for those seeds:

Why would a bunch of strangers in a line up for security all of a sudden show up at Rick’s party. Did Rick just spontaneously make friends with them while Morty was in the washroom? It’s more likely that this is all staged, that Rick is setting this all up as a plot to manipulate Morty–something like my theory that Rick wants to brainwash Morty, or the theory that Rick is an old-man version of Morty–as in, Rick understands that if Morty is to one day become him, then he has to somehow introduce him to the effects of these seeds. Rick’s alien friends are involved somehow, helping Rick to set all this up… but that’s just a theory.

(On the other hand, they are an alien species–are we really supposed to be able to tell the difference between one individual of an alien species from another? That would be like seeing a monkey and then later seeing another monkey of the same species and concluding it’s the same monkey just because we can’t really tell them apart–but then again, is it just coincidence that all these aliens happen to be in the exact same scene together?)

There’s also one weird looking dude at the party who I swore must have been one of Rick’s alien friends, but it turns out he’s actually a student at Morty and Summer’s school:

Finally, I wonder if Jerry being forced at gun point to spark some romance with Lucy was a symbol, blown 10 times out of proportion, of what Jerry was doing to Beth: attempting to rekindle some romance by forcing her to do something she didn’t really want to do. How can romance be kindled that way? I hardly think it’s fair to say Jerry’s forcing Beth to partaking in this little romance getaway, but he’s expecting something unrealistic: to inspire feelings of romance in a woman who just isn’t willing.

And if this is symbolic of just that, then is it underscored by an even deeper symbolism: that of trying to live out a fantasy? By trying to re-enact a fictional tale, is Jerry trying to cover up what is patently obvious to everyone else? Rick did say, after all, in Episode 6–Rick Potion #9–“I think a blind man can see that Beth is looking for the door.” In other words, even if Beth has to act out the part of a young Rose madly in love, that at least temporarily fills some of the emptiness in Jerry’s heart.

=== === ===

PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS

To be honest, I couldn’t think of a lot of philosophical implications that this episode affords us–well, there’s plenty, but none that we haven’t covered in previous episodes. In fact, this is another thing it has in common with Rixty Minutes (although not as much). I suppose there’s Summer’s approach to making friends. Why don’t we start with that:

  • Choosing sides vs. befriending all: What is the best strategy for forming alliances and making friends–in the short run and the long–is it by picking a group at the expense of another, or trying to accept all?

  • Partying: a form of escape or a way of celebrating.

  • Can living out a fantasy rekindle romance in a relationship? If one of the partners is not into it, does that work against the rekindling of romance?

^ Lame, I know, but like I said–a bit philosophically dry, this one.

But wait, I just thought of one more:

Adventures: love 'em or hate 'em? What does Morty’s love/hate relation to the adventures he goes on with Rick tell us? Haven’t we all been in situations like this before, situations where the experience itself was grueling but only because we had no idea what to expect? Because we didn’t know if things were going to be okay or get worse? Because we had no control over the outcome? And all that uncertainty, that lack of control, made the situation so stressful and traumatic. But in hindsight, when we look back at the experience and remember that we came out of it alive, okay, with no scars, we see only the thrills, the excitement, the wild and crazy ride that it was. And this gives off sort of an illusion that it was actually fun? And we want more of it? And is it really an illusion? I mean, sure we didn’t actually have fun, but maybe the stress and worry were the real illusions–that is, if in fact nothing terrible happened after all. And if we could go back and live it again, we surely would, this time knowing that there’d be nothing to stress over. Can experiences like these, despite the stress of not knowing how things are going to turn out, reinforce our willingness to jump right back into them if only because looking back on them acts as the real reinforcement?

WOW! ^ Look at that! Made it all in one post!

I almost forgot (well, I did forget): the post-credit scene.

There’s not much to it, just a hint that we might not have seen the last of Lincler. He awakens at the same rock where he died (or we thought he died) and utters the word “revenge”. He then gets snatched by one of the giant testical monsters and gets shoved into one of its orafices (a hole on the lower side of its body). More testical monsters gather round. One of them pulls out the kid who got snatched up by them earlier in the episode. The first one pulls out Lincler. They swap them. They repeat with other testical monsters, swapping the two characters in and out of each other’s orafices, like a giant alien orgy. They get positioned faced to face with each other. Lincler says: “I don’t understand. Are you enjoying this? Do you like this?” The kid says: “Yeah, you know it, daaawwwg.” And they continue indefinitely.

Not that there’s anything significant to this, just that the kid didn’t really die (and appears to be enjoying himself) and that Lincler may come back in future episodes for more revenge.

And one last thought: if this theory about Rick being an old-man version of Morty is right, it means that Beth is both his daughter and his mother.

Ok, I took enough of a break.

I actually considered abandoning this thread. I started losing steam somewhere around Close Encounters, but I’ve had a good break, and my Rick and Morty passion has been rekindled. I’m going the whole nine yards.

This time around, I swear I’m going to put an effort into keeping each episode analysis short (within reason). That’s the way it started out with the Pilot. I went with the assumption that the reader already watched the episode, and all I had to do was go through it one time jotting down notes, and then expand on my notes in the actual post. It was at Meeseeks and Destroy when I started taking a different approach: the approach of building each post as I watched the episode. That’s when I started recording all the minutia, every little detail that I deemed remotely relevant. I also switched attitudes about my assumption that the reader would have seen the episode already and started writing as though it was important to layout the entire storyline background. I’m going to return to my original approach: watching the episode and taking notes… then cherry picking from my notes and expanding on them where it seems most fitting. I don’t want to return to the brevity of my analysis on the Pilot or the first few episodes of Season 1, but I definitely don’t want to go over the 60,000 character limit on posts this board has in effect–I’m going to aim for something in the middle, something on the order of Meeseeks and Destroy or Rick Potion #9. We’ll see how that goes.

Anywaaay… Welcome to Season 2!!!

Rick and Morty - S2E1 - A Rickle in Time

Episode 1 of Season 2 starts off with a bang. Right away we are pulling right back into the Rick and Morty universe with an intensity double that which we went through in the first season. At least that’s how it felt to me. A Rickle in Time is pretty intense. It requires almost twice the concentration and ability to follow as any of the episodes from Season 1. It almost feels like the writers were trying to kick it up a notch–not unlike how Meeseeks and Destroy and Rick Potion #9 did the same–like saying: okay, we’re in the next season, we gotta do something extra, something more–we can’t just give you more of the same.

This episode plays on concepts from quantum physics. It’s unclear whether the writers only intended this episode to be a spoof of quantum mechanics or they were slyly putting forward a theory of quantum physics. If they were, it would mean the writers believe in some form of quantum consciousness theory. But we’ll flesh that out later.

As for the secondary plotline, it’s Beth’s turn to bring out the ego; Jerry, meanwhile, puts his aside. ← I don’t know if this counts as another case of “manning up” but it is one of the rare moments when Jerry rises above his own ego, like he has absolutely no insecurities.

This is also an episode where both Morty and Summer get to take part in the main storyline as Rick’s side kicks–in fact, we’re going to see Morty and Summer teaming up together in the main storyline (with Rick) a lot more in Season 2.

But enough with intros… the episode begins exactly where Season 1 left off: Jerry and Beth are still frozen in time, exactly in the same positions, walking up to the house with angry scowls on their faces. Morty is vacuuming Jerry’s shirtless upper body. It’s been six months. The house is all repaired and cleaned up (except for the inescapable crack surrounding it). They’re getting ready to unfreeze time.

“The whole point about freezing time was to stop giving a fuck,” says Rick. He explains to the kids that since time’s been frozen for so long, “the world’s time is gonna be fine, but our time is gonna need a little time to, you know, ‘stabilize’.”

Morty: “Our time is gonna be unstable? What does that even mean?”

Rick: “It means relax and stop being a pussy, Morty. I thought you’d have learned that by now.”

^ So echoing a few of the themes from the last episode–not just that freezing time allows them to stop giving a fuck but the idea that the solution to their oh-so-immanent problem (Jerry and Beth were right in the driveway) was so simple and Rick knew how to put it into action all along. The lesson he’s expecting Morty to learn is that there ain’t no problem he can’t fix–a little cocky, but in most cases true.

Right before unfreezing time, he warns the kids: “…don’t touch your parents or we could shatter into countless theoretical shards.” (not sure what “theoretical” means here).

Jerry and Beth storm through the door, Jerry shouting. It only takes a second for them to realize something’s suddenly changed. Jerry swears the house looked trashed. Going in for a hug, Beth is greeted by Rick crossing his arms and the kids backing away (it would “literally destroy them” as Rick puts it). Rick drops a wad of cash on the ground and kicks it over to them, suggesting they go out for ice cream. ← This–the whole notion of them shattering into countless theoretical shards–is, I think, just a device to spin off the secondary plotline–it gives Rick the excuse to send them off for ice cream, tantalizing them with $500.

(In the interim between Season 1 and Season 2, I came across an observation on the internet that Rick and Morty feature ice cream a hell of a lot.)

Jerry motions towards the stairs to get something before they leave. That’s when Beth notices his shirt is on backwards (Morty’s goof). Jerry responds: “Yeah… I like it this way, I’m not stupid.” ← Saved by the ego. Not only that, but this, to me, seems like a clever little bit of commentary about how we sometimes fear the worst when people discover that something’s off, something that is the result of some secret ploy or shenanigans we carry out. But often, we can rely on people’s unconscious confabulations (and in Jerry’s case, ego), the result of which is a much more plausible or down to Earth interpretation of what’s going on. I mean, why on Earth would Jerry interpret his shirt being on backwards as: OMG, Rick and the kids must have frozen time, removed my shirt in order to vacuum me, and then carelessly put it on backwards. Even without his ego, Jerry is far more likely to confabulate something that would make a hell of a lot more sense at least to him.

After Beth and Jerry leave is when the main dilemma of the primary plotline begins. It starts with Morty and Summer bickering over who dropped the ball on the task of putting a mattress under Mr. Benson, who was in mid-fall off his roof when they froze time. Each blames the other, which turns into a bit of shoving. The uncertainty that this causes in their heads results in time fracturing–their reality literally splits in two with copies of each of them harboring each one:

This is what Rick meant by “our time is gonna need a little time to, you know, ‘stabilize’.”

He asks: “Were either of you guys uncertain about anything just now?” Morty 1: “Am I talking right now?” Morty 2: “I think so.” Morty 1: “Wait, who said that?”

^ It’s a bit hard to follow along when the dialog splits into parallel lines like this. This won’t be the first time it happens. This is what I meant when I said this episode requires a bit of a boost in concentration and ability to follow along (one of the reasons). One thing we get out of this is that they are aware, to some extent, about what’s happening in the parallel timeline. Morty sort of hears what his counterpart says in the other timeline. ← Although, this is less than clear as well–did Morty hear his counterpart, feel him, intuit him, think his thoughts, or what? Not sure.

Anybody who knows a thing or two about quantum physics will recognize where this is going. Rick asks if either of them were “uncertain”. Uncertainty, apparently, causes a split–or what’s known to quantum physicists as “superposition” or the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum physics. “Uncertainty” in quantum parlance obviously doesn’t mean just being uncertain about something–it actually refers to the inherent state of things being undetermined. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that if you precisely measure one of a conjugate group of variables (like a particle’s position) you can’t simultaneous measure or know with equal precision any of the other variables from that conjugate group (like a particle’s momentum). IOW, if you know a particle’s position, you can’t know its momentum, and visa-versa. ← There is embedded in physics this inherent uncertainty. And they will tell you, these quantum physicists, that this uncertain really is inherent, not just epistemological or psychological, that the uncertainty of a particle’s position, for example, literally means that the particle has no precise singular position.

This has lead to a lot of popular interpretations of quantum mechanics (I’m not even gonna call them theories), one of which is the “many worlds” interpretation–not unlike the many worlds in the Rick and Morty universe (or multiverse)–although that’s a somewhat different concept (and in this episode, by the way, the splitting of timelines isn’t quite the same as the multitudes of realities that Rick and Morty venture off into in most other episodes, but that will be explained in a bit ← Just something to keep in mind). The Many Worlds interpretation of QM would have it that the superposition of particles (it’s having no precise location, or momentum, or energy, or spin, or whatever) is really the particle existing in multiple universes at the same time. For example, in one universe, the particle is over here, but in another universe, it’s over there. When we measure the particle’s position, we find out which universe we are in–the one in which the particle turned out to be at location X–but even after that measurement, the particle’s position becomes uncertain, which is to say that the universe is in a perpetual processes of splitting into ever more copies of itself, each housing particles in different positions, momentums, energy, spin, etc.

What’s going on in this episode is that the writer’s are playing off this theme at the level of human beings and spinning the concept of “uncertainty” to mean psychological uncertainty–when Rick, Morty, or Summer become uncertain about anything, that results in their timelines splitting (just like the “uncertainty” of a particle’s state resulting in the splitting of that particle’s universe). If we take this one step further–say by bringing in one or another theory of quantum consciousness–then we might be able to interpret “uncertain” to literally be psychological uncertainty. Quantum consciousness theories say that states of particle superposition are literally the result of consciousness being in a state of uncertainty or indecision, and when that consciousness finally settles on something, the particle’s state of superposition “collapses” (another quantum term) to a more precise state. It says, IOW, that particles are conscious, and sometimes get confused, resulting in their world “splitting”–just like what’s happening to Rick, Morty, and Summer.

Obviously, this is an effect of time being frozen for so long, as if to say: the longer time is frozen, the greater the scale on which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has its universe splitting effects.

Anyway, they make their way into the garage, Morty and Summer a bit desynchronized from their counterparts at this point, where Rick pulls out a contraption, turns it on, and sees two green dots on the screen:

“Oh crap,” Rick says, “are you kidding me? Two dots? There never needs to be more than one dot!” ← Obviously a measure of how many timelines they’ve split off into.

Rick then explains (or tries to explain) what’s going on:

Rick: “Our time is fractured. You two somehow created a feedback loop of uncertainty that split our reality into two equally possible impossibilities. We’re exactly like a man capable of sustaining a platonic friendship with an attractive female co-worker. We’re entirely hypothetical.”

Morty: “But I thought there were infinite timelines.”

Rick: “We’re not an any timeline dummy.”

I’ve tried to analyze Rick’s words “a feedback loop of uncertainty that split our reality into two equally possible impossibilities,” and came to the conclusion that they’re inherently unclear. For instance, I’m not sure what the “feedback loop of uncertainty” is. I don’t imagine it’s time looping back on itself because it seems the structure of time in their current when-abouts has simply forked, not looped on itself. The term “equally possible impossibilities” makes a bit more sense (though I think it should be the other way around: equally impossible possibilities): coupled with the notion that they’re “completely hypothetical”, it implies that they’ve entered a state that is incompatible with reality–they can’t be real–but rather than simply not exist, they seem to exist in two mutually exclusive “pending” states–that is, states whose existence are “undetermined” or “uncertain”. It’s almost as if the mutual exclusivity of each state resulted in each one harboring only half the reality of what would otherwise be a fully real state–so they’re somewhere between fully real and utterly unreal. Not quite sure this is the same as being “entirely hypothetical” ← That phrase seems to imply a different type or quality of existence rather than a degree of existence–as if the universe needs to take a moment to contemplate hypothetically on the two possibilities before deciding which is to be real and which isn’t. In any case, this is all a play, as I said before, on QM concepts–more science fiction than science fact (in case there was any doubt).

That aside, I want to point out that throughout this scene and the few to follow, Morty and Summer are a bit scattered–that is, desynchronized from each other–while Rick seems totally synchronized.

Also, I’m having a field day looking for Easter eggs in this episode. It’s like those “spot the differences” games on kids menus at family restaurants–you know, like this: education.com/worksheet/arti … fferences/. I haven’t found any, but if anyone spots something, please let me know.

Rick opens the garage door to show what he means by “we’re not on any timeline”. The world has completely disappeared. All they see in the black void of space are a few clumps of dirt and trees floating around, and cats… lots and lots of cats.

“I assume they’re Schrodinger’s cats,” says Rick, “er, actually, I assume they both are and aren’t… just like us.” ← Schrodinger was another pioneer in quantum physics and proposed his famous thought experiment of the cat that was both dead and alive at the same time–again, an example of “superposition”, the idea of a thing being in more than one state at the same time.

This is the state of limbo that they, and the house with most of the property (coincidentally, along the crack surrounding the house created by Morty’s inadvertent teleportation in the last episode), are suspended in–a state of being nowhere but still somewhere. They’ve been removed from actual reality for the time being. So Rick’s words “we’re not on any timeline” mean: none of the timelines belonging to the actual multiverse. But still, they must be on some timeline–time is going by, after all–just ones removed from the actually existing multiverse.

Speaking of the actually existing multiverse, Beth and Jerry are returning from Stone Cold’s Creamery, apparently having spent $480. They are driving with ice creams in their hands. Jerry hits a deer. They get out. Beth checks the deer. It’s still alive.

Beth: “[in a dejected tone] If we were near a hospital, I could treat it, but I… I think we have to just…”

Jerry: “Hey, it’s ok, this is just something that happens. And even if we were in a hospital, what could we do? You’re a horse surgeon, not a deer surgeon.”

Beth: [turns to Jerry with arms crossed] “Sooo…”

Jerry: “Well, don’t different animals–”

Beth: “Require different skill levels to keep alive?”

Jerry: “Oh God.”

Beth: “[grabs the ice creams] Get the deer and the car, Jerry.”

Jerry: “[with head hung low] Yes, Beth.”

This is how the secondary storyline begins. Jerry inadvertently sets off Beth’s insecurities. Beth is now on a mission to prove that she can fix a deer just as well as she can fix a horse. It’s no longer about the deer, it’s about her own ego. This exchange also sets the tone for Jerry’s attitude throughout the secondary storyline. Jerry starts out trying to be supportive, but when he slips up with his comment about it being a deer, not a horse, Beth takes it completely the wrong way. This will be the manner in which they play off each other throughout the rest of this episode–not a hell of a lot different than in most other episodes, but in this one, it’s about how it unfolds in the end that’s unique.

Back to the main storyline, Rick is about to (try to) fix things. He begins by saying “This is why you don’t freeze time, you guys,” which answers our question from the previous post: Why doesn’t Rick use freezing time as another form of escape? He continues: “It’s incredibly irresponsible,” to which Morty responds: “And you did it so we could clean the house after a party?” Brushing this off, Rick frantically tries to tinker with his time-fucking device (let’s just call it that). It’s the same device he used to freeze time in the last episode. In both “possibilities” (as he calls them), he puts (yet again) a pink crystal into it.

In this scene, it’s funny watching how Rick remains totally in sync with himself across both possibilities while Morty and Summer are totally out of sync. In one possibility, Morty is to the left of Rick while Summer is to the right. In the other possibility, it’s the opposite. The only desynchronicity between the Rick’s is his eyes. He’s caught eyeing Morty more often (because he tends to address him more often) and so his eyes shift towards Morty, resulting in the Rick’s eyes shifting in opposite directions… but that’s about it. It’s obvious that Rick knows what he’s doing.

“All right,” Rick finally says after sealing up his time-fucking device, “since this time crystal exists in both possibilities, and since it’s impossible that I didn’t nail this, I’m probably about the press this button in both possibilities at exactly the same time.” And he does so. The possibilities merge towards each other, but the minute they finally overlap, Summer and Morty start shouting out in pain. The possibilities tremor and don’t quite settle into each other. Then they revert back to their original separation.

Obviously, Rick doesn’t realize that they’re on opposite sides. Morty can’t merge into Summer, and Summer can’t merge into Morty (the attempt of which apparently hurts). But he soon figures out that they’re the culprits. He gives them shit for being so uncertain:

“What the hell do you either of you two have to be so uncertain about? Your brand of zit cream? Which chair to sit in while I do everything? Come on, spit it out!”

Morty begins by digging into Rick for all the unfair things he does to him. Then Summer takes her turn. The dialog overlaps between the two possibilities so it’s incredibly hard to decipher what exactly each character is saying. But for those who reeeaaally care, here’s the script.

From the dialog, Rick figures out that the two have switched places. Not sure how. Also not sure how he figured out before (when he went on that rant about what they had to be so uncertain about) that they were the culprits (obviously not so much that they had switched positions, but that there was something “desynchronized” about them). Probably because, in his mind, he himself could easily be ruled out because of how cock-sure he is about everything (though there’s obviously a difference between being cock-sure and being right), and everything else in their immediate surroundings being inanimate matter (well, except for the cats). So what else is there but Morty and Summer to be uncertain? But something about Morty’s and Summer’s grievances towards him tipped him off that they’re on opposite sides of him. So he fixes it by swapping them around… that is, in one possibility. In the other possibility, he just sits them down. How each Rick knows what action to take (whether to swap them or just to sit them down) is a mystery to me. I’m guessing their dialog must have tipped him off (somehow) about whether the possibility he was in was the “deviant” or whether it wasn’t. After all, the split happened once Summer, in one possibility, shoved Morty. Perhaps this was the deviation. Perhaps, if time wasn’t so “unstable”, only one of those possibilities (i.e. shoving or not shoving) would have happened (like a dominant vs. recessive gene). That is to say, perhaps not both possibilities are equally likely, and so the less likely possibility (Summer shoves Morty) is the “deviant”. Somehow, based on their dialog that Rick pulls out of them, he figures out which possibility they’re in. If they’re in the deviant possibility, then in Rick’s mind, the right thing to do is to return them to the non-deviant possibility (i.e. swap them), otherwise just sit them down and let the other Rick merge them.

“Now listen,” Rick says, “I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as grandpa’s concerned, you’re both pieces of shit. Yeah, I can prove it mathematically. L-l-le’me grab my whiteboard. This has been a long time coming anyway.”

He grabs his white board and pulls it into the middle of the garage. This is a bit of comic relief, I’m sure, especially given they have very little time to fix things. But I think there is a motif behind it: after swapping Morty and Summer, Rick figures the rest will be a walk in the park, so he takes a bit of time to just dick around (a bit less than 4 hours). ← We’ve seen this before–his wildly over-confident attitude–but when we come back to the main storyline after following up on the secondary storyline, we’ll see that his whiteboard demonstration is going to instill a tiny little something into Morty that will desynchronize the situation again (and maybe even in himself as well) such that we can say: he should have done it when he had the chance.

Beth and Jerry pull up to the animal hospital and lug the deer through the door. Beth announces to no one but patients: “Emergency! Wounded deer coming in!” Then she barges in on a surgeon and her nurse operating on a snake. “I’m a certified horse surgeon,” she says, “and this deer needs medical attention.”

Right away, we see that Beth is not in her right mind. She comes in announcing “wounded deer” to no one (there’s no medical staff in the scene, just a few patients waiting), and upon barging into the operating room, she tells the doctor that she’s a certified horse surgeon and this deer needs medical attention. ← That’s like me walking into a mechanic shop and saying: I’m a certified computer scientist and this car needs mechanical attention.

Beth and the doctor have a few words, the doctor saying: “…as a horse surgeon, I’m sure that you know that deer have much smaller, much more intricate organs…” Beth: “As a fact, I’m sure you know that a deer is much closer to a horse than you are to a doctor. So let’s save the measuring for when our dicks our out! It’s time to save a life!” (Do deer and horse actually share a common ancestor?)

The doctor pulls the snake away from the table, saying “Jeez,” as Beth slaps the deer onto it. Apparently, a deer’s life is more important than a snake’s.

I’m also wondering if these are supposed to be hints at sexist undertones. When the doctor says “That’s my nurse,” I get the impression we’re supposed to be surprised by this–as in, it’s the female who’s the doctor and the male’s the nurse? Either that or it’s totally me and my sexist expectations, but assuming it’s not, I think we’re supposed to presume that Beth was talking to the doctor when she said: “nurse, please move that snake,” and when she made that snide comment about deer being closer to horses than she is to a doctor, she’s trying to save face after her sexist goof up (maybe even projecting her own insecurities about whether being female has held her back in being a qualified horse surgeon). Either that or the writers had to make the doctor female and her nurse male in order to avoid a lawsuit from angry feminists–though if that were the case, I don’t know how they would have gotten away with Raising Gazorpazorp.

Anyway, Beth notices that the deer’s been shot, which means it would have died anyway if Jerry hadn’t hit it ← In case Beth was thinking she’s the hero who cleans up Jerry’s mess. On the contrary, if Jerry hadn’t hit it, the deer would have surely died from the gun shot wound.

Then the hunter comes in. He orders them not to operate. He informs them that he shot the deer. He saw Beth and Jerry hit it and he followed them to the hospital. He tells them the deer is his property. While Beth looks around the operating room for supplies, demanding anesthetic and deer saline, the doctor says to the hunter that she took a vow: not to allow any harm to come to an animal. The hunter calls his lawyer.

^ Please have a look at Rick’s whiteboard drawing? Can anyone make out what it means? I mean, Rick basically explains the punch line–that he’s smart and they’re dumb–and you can see it symbolized in the way their brains are depicted like steaming piles of shit while Rick’s brain is big, plump, and full. But I’m looking at some of the details. For example:

Summer ≃ Morty
iff ∃a MAPPING f[size=50]1[/size]s → M
WHERE ∀x ∈ S ∃! y ∈ MS + (x,y) ∈ f

^ What does that formula mean. Near the center of the whiteboard, Rick seems to have drawn stick figures of Morty and Summer. Morty’s blue and Summer’s pink, and beneath them are the symbols for male and female except switched around to be under the opposite sex. They’re still the appropriate color–blue for male, pink for female–and most likely has something to do with Morty and Summer having switched spots. I just don’t know what sex has to do with it. Would the merge have worked if they were same sex siblings? Anyway, I also looked for difference between the top image and the bottom image, but I’ve scanned it over multiple times and I really don’t think there’s a difference.

“So in conclusion,” Rick concludes, “you’re both equally mercurial, overly sensitive, clingy, hysterical, bird-brain homunculi, and I honestly can’t tell the two of you apart half the time because I don’t go by height or age, I go by amount of pain in my ass, which makes you both identical. All right, everything resolved? Everybody nice and certain about their position in my world?”

They both answer with dejected looks: “Yes.” ← They really look like they’ve been put in their place. Rick certainly resolved things by bringing a whole lotta certainty into their lives–certainty that they’re both little shit heads. It may not be pretty, but it least it did the trick. Or did it? Right when Rick thinks he’s got everything resolved, he tries to get the show back on the road:

“Sit still,” Rick instructs them, “A-burp-rms down. I’m gonna do this again; this time, be like grandpa.”

Morty 2: “You mean drunk?”

Rick 2: “What’s that? You got something to say?”

Rick 1: [at the same time] “And awaaay we go [pushes the button].”

Morty 2: “No.”

Rick 2: “And awaaay we go [pushes the button].”

^ Morty #2 puts the whole thing out of sync again. The two Ricks are now repeatedly pushing the button at different times from each other, both saying “Huh, that’s weird.” Rick may have made Morty and Summer pretty certain about being stupid little pieces of shit, but that comes along with resentment. Morty, consequently, felt a bit of uncertainty over whether to vent that resentment or not, the one Morty deciding to hold back, the other to say “You mean drunk?” If Rick had taken the opportunity to merge them before the whiteboard demonstration, Morty wouldn’t have felt this way. But Rick’s cocky attitude–thinking that because he fixed things, he had enough time to lecture his grandkids about why they’re so dumb–did them in again. Morty #2’s comment not only counts as a desynchronization between the two possibilities, but it desynchronizes the Rick’s as well. Rick, unable to let a jab like Morty’s slide, had to talk back, temporarily blinded by his ego to realize this may desynchronize him from his counterpart. And now they’re fucked again. This time, however, it’s Rick who’s desynchronized.

I just love the next scene. I think it’s worth posting a video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGESJUsYF0g[/youtube]

Now a word on paranoia. This scene sums up pretty much everything I’d like to say in the Society, Government, and Economics forum (if I ever posted there). Even there, we have people feeding their own paranoia, making it real. This is one of the dangers of paranoia, that it has the tendency to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in exactly the way Rick’s paranoia about his counterpart trying to kill him resulted in his counterpart really trying to kill him (and visa-versa). I tried to explain this to James one time (whether he bought it or not, or understood it, I cannot say):

But back to Rick & Morty, everybody understand what happened there, right? Rick took the crystal, which transcends time lines, and attached it to a loop-kinda-thingy. The loop-kinda-thingy in turn was attached to a gun. It’s basically setup so that the bullet, when fired from the gun, goes through the loop, and the crystal in turn turns the loop into a time-line hopping portal. In effect, when the bullet is fired from the gun, it goes through the loop, which is a portal, and gets transported to the other time line. Rick fires the gun at his own head so that when the bullet goes through the portal, it will penetrate the other Rick’s brain. Pretty clever… and at the same time stupid. This, of course, causes Rick to be incredibly uncertain which ends up splitting both time lines, once again, into two, for a total of four.

(Ironically, it was Rick who sabotages himself–by coming back at Morty–but not intentionally.)

(Also notice, in the scene above, that Morty and Summer become desynchronized again).

I like how Rick felt like he was defending his grandchildren: “Is this what you want, you sick fuck! You wanna see children die!” ← It’s one of those moments where the good in him comes through.

“You son of a bitch,” Beth says, “You don’t stop living until I say so!!!” ← Yeah, no ego there. I think this happens a lot–ego beating its chest in the name of altruism, or at least selflessness. It’s one of the few outlets the ego gets in order to stroke itself–being the hero: we get to, at once, stand in the spotlight and do it for a (allegedly) selfless cause.

The hunter’s lawyer enters the operating room, informing everyone about “Brad’s Law”. Brad’s Law states (according to Rick and Morty): “Any deer shot by a hunter is that hunter’s property regardless of how far it runs or who intercepts it before it dies.” He goes on to say that he can’t stop Beth from performing the surgery but technically she’s performing it on venison (deer meat). The hunter responds to this: “Actually, I’ve decided not to eat it. All this fear and conflict… I’m sure it’s ruined the meat. I’m just gonna use the head for my rec-room wall.”

^ I can’t help but get the impression that this line is meant to boost the public perception of conservatives. It almost seems to say of this 2nd Amendment loving riffle carrier: I really do only use guns for food. And moreover, I’m a very spiritual person deep inside–I believe the food I hunt is sacred–“fear and conflict” end up ruining the meat. Oh, it’s such a travesty! I’m depressed! ← Maybe? Maybe not?

Anyway… Beth is going nuts at this point: she’s yanking the intestines out of the poor creature, splattering blood on everyone, shouting: “I will reach into Heaven and pull your screaming deer soul back!” to which the doctor, once again, says “Jesus”.

The gun fire has ceased at this point, but the Rick’s are still extremely paranoid of each other. They are creeping around the room trying to “watch out” for each other. They are completely desynchronized. Interestingly, the Morty’s and Summer’s are all synchronized again. Rick, once again, gets the bright idea to shoot himself. This time Morty comes up behind him (in all possibilities) and knocks him on the head with a fire extinguisher before he can do it.

Rick’s out cold. Now Morty and Summer have control of the situation.

Morty: “…if all of me knocked out all the Rick’s, and you peed in all of your pants, doesn’t that mean that we’re all synchronized?”

Summer: “Right.”

Morty: “Ok, so from now on, whatever we do, we have to be certain. [picks up the gun and removes the crystal, places it on the counter]”

Summer: “Right.”

Morty: “I think I’m certain we’re F’ed in the A.”

^ At least he’s certain about something.

Some time passes…

Cut to a scene in which Rick is in a cage. The Morty’s and the Summer’s are, again, desynchronized. They’re not all on the same sides as each other. One Morty is sitting down cross-legged. One Summer is also sitting. Rick comes to. He asks what they did. Morty explains what happened–that he was acting crazy and caused another time fracture. Summer adds that he tried to kill himself. Rick explains that now that time is fractured into four pieces “our problem is two times bigger and we’ve got half as much time to solve it.” He asks to be let out and Summer demands proof that he’s not a threat to himself. So Rick does this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1SS3uiYvTM[/youtube]

(^ Again, one of my favorite scenes.)

Then Rick just breaks out of the crate without any effort. Apparently the bars and roof weren’t actually hinged together. Not sure if Morty and Summer knew they weren’t hinged together, then again I don’t know how they wouldn’t know–they put it together with Rick inside–but then why didn’t they seal it shut? Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe they didn’t have the materials and just hoped Rick wouldn’t know or try. It’s just misleading that Morty says: “If you could get out that whole time, why didn’t you?” ← Maybe it should have been: “If you knew you could get out that whole time, why didn’t you?” ← That way, at least, it would be clear that Morty and Summer were playing on Rick’s knowledge, not his actual physical entrapment.

In any case, Rick responds that he wanted to be certain before doing it–and I guess Summer set him up to be so certain–that is, by prompting him to calling himself and making up for his attempted homicide (suicide?) earlier. They start bickering.

Then Testicle Head shows up (that’s not his actual name, but Rick later describes him as having a giant testicle for a head):

Testicle Head is a being from the “4th dimension” as he puts it–a being who whips through time and across dimensions like driving around the neighborhood. To him, Rick hopping across dimensions with a portal gun is like child’s play. He notices that they’d fucked up their timeline:

“Oh, see, you broke time, and you thought you could just stick it back together with this? How you think you gonna move time while you’re standing in it, you dumb ass 3 dimensional monkey ass dummies?”

He gives them all electronic collars. They’re devices that latch closed around their necks, a green light blinking on them to indicate they’re on. In three out of four of the timelines, they put the colors on. Testicle Heads says in all timelines: “Eh! Eh! Eh! The three of you, put your collars on!” Three out of four of them say: “We have them on.” In the fourth timeline, Rick says: “We’re not wearing collars.” Testicle Head repeats himself. The fourth Rick, Morty, and Summer concede.

You can tell Testicle Head knows what he’s doing. Not only does he keep himself synchronized in all timelines, saying “put the damn collars on” even in the timelines where they do have their collars on, but the three version of himself in the latter timelines somehow know that there’s this one oddball timeline in which they don’t have their collars on. He calls himself an omniscient 4 dimensional being so perhaps he knows exactly what’s going on in all timelines, and furthermore, being 4 dimensional, he might just be a single individual that coexists in all timelines (implying that he can’t be desynchronized from other versions of himself).

Anyway, they put the collars on and immediately disappear from the four timelines. They reappear back in the garage of the ordinary reality. Testicle Head fixed everything.

He tells them: “Now keep those collars on so you don’t break your weak ass time again.”

Rick: “How long exactly do we have to wear these things? They’re really embarrassing.”

Testicle Head: “Well, since you’re going to time prison, I’d say you can keep them on forever.”

Testicle Head pulls out a weird worm-like thing and points it at them like a gun. He explains that the only way Rick could have gotten his hands on those time crystals is if he stole them.

Beth is sweating beads as she continues arduously to save the deer’s life. The doctor, her nurse, the hunter, and the lawyer are all standing around watching. Jerry comes into the room with a couple men. He says:

“Honey, it’s gonna be okay. These men are from the Cervine Institute of Elk, Moose, Deer, and Stag. They can take this deer to a helicopter and fly it to the country’s top deer surgeon on a wildlife reserve across the state border, [turns to the lawyer] where your jurisdiction ends.”

^ Jerry really pulled it off this time. While Beth, in a hysterical frenzy, is blinded to the fact that her insufficient qualifications and her emotional state of mind are probably causing more harm to the deer than good, Jerry is thinking more rationally. He’s actually thought it through: what would be the best course of action to take in order to save this deer’s life, he asks himself. This is also one of the rare moments when he’s not just doing what he’s “supposed” to do, not what Beth expects him to do. He’s doing what’s right. In fact, we will see later in this episode that there’s more here than meets the eye, that Jerry is up to something, something that highlights these points even more, even to the extent that we might say he exhibits a bit of Rick-like genius.

Outside the clinic, the deer is loaded into the vehicle. At the last minute, the lawyer brings up one final snag:

“There is just one more thing: according to the state’s veterinarian statutes, this animal can’t be transferred until the current attending physician verbally confirms their inability to provide adequate care.”

“You heard the man, horse doctor,” says the hunter, “You have to say you couldn’t hack it.”

This really puts Beth into a moral bind: do what’s right for the animal or defend her ego. The cognitive dissonance she’s probably feeling in this moment must be overwhelming.

Jerry, trying cleverly to reinforce a pride-preserving perspective, says in a timid tone: “We did it.” ← Even when faced with this moral dilemma, Jerry is trying to hint at the idea that even if Beth admits to not being able to hack it, that is hacking it–that is to say, that by saying she couldn’t hack it, she allows the deer to be transferred to a place where it will get the proper care that it needs. Jerry’s suggesting that Beth can still think of it as “all her”–that in this moment, she can make the decision to allow the deer to be saved or to allow it to die. As challenging as this task if for Jerry–trying to persuade Beth of this point of view–he is quite relentless in trying to handle the situation in the most mature, rational, and diplomatic way possible.

In response to Morty questioning why he’s doing this, Testicle Head explains: “You think I want to be an omniscient, immortal being transcending time and space my whole life? I’ve got ambitions, man. Bringing you in is my ticket up.”

Grabbing a monkey wrench from the counter behind his back, Rick attempts to fool Testicle Head into turning around. He doesn’t fall for the bit, so Rick tries something else:

“All right, hear me out on this; you’re immortal, right? Which means your life is infinite. Okay, well then that means there’s a 100% chance that you’ll eventually do everything including turning around to look behind you.” ← It’s interesting how Rick’s thinking works: because it’s inevitable, why try resisting?.. even though resisting would actually work. In any case, this is good enough for Testicle Head. He says “I cannot argue that,” and turns around. Rick knocks him on the head with the monkey wrench. It doesn’t knock him out but he loses his grip on his worm gun. Rick catches it. It starts squirming. “God! Gross and weird!” Rick yells before letting it go. The creature squirms towards the road and gets run over by a car. “You killed my gun!” screams Testicle Head. “Summer, Morty,” says Rick, “take off your collars!” They do it. Rick takes off his. “What the hell are you doing?” asks Testicle Head. “Good question,” answers Rick, “I suppose the answer is… I’m… not… certain.”

Their time begins to split again… and then again… and then again. In all possibilities, Rick starts kicking the shit out of Testicle Head. “Stop it!” Testicle Head insists. “Maybe I will… maybe I won’t… I’m really uncertain about everything… even kicking your ass!” (although he doesn’t seem to be hesitating).

It’s funny watching Testicle Head get his ass kicked. If you look at any one timeline, every punch that Rick delivers is matched by Testicle Head seemingly being knock around by invisible forces. It seems even in getting the shit kicked out of him, he remains synchronized across all possibilities. He doesn’t fight back, claiming that his arms are only “vestigial”. Summer and Morty cheer Rick on, Morty also claiming to be really uncertain about things. From all the blows from all the Rick’s in each timeline coming at Testicle Head from all directions, he finally gets his giant testicle head squashed into a flattened mass of flesh like making pizza crust out of a ball of dough (no blood and gore, just flattened). He lies against the counter defeated.

Their world is crumbling before their eyes. The house is shaking, pieces of ceiling are falling, the walls and floor are cracking. Rick explains that they have very little time left and that he needs to fix their collars quick.

“Now hand me that Phillips screwdriver,” he says, “Actually, make it a flat-head.” At least he says this in half the timelines. In the other half, he says it in the reverse order. This little extra bit of uncertainty causes their timelines to split again for a total of 64.

Jerry: “Look, I know I was kind of a nuisance today, I know it’s my fault we hit the deer, and I know you wanted to be the one to save it.”

Beth: “Whatever [staring out the passenger side window], how petty would I have to be to care less about an animal’s life than my own ego?” ← She’s finally admitting it, though still with an unappreciative tone in her voice.

Jerry: “You’d have to be pretty petty… but you’d still be the woman I married.”

The car starts shaking. They’re going off road.

Beth: “Where are we going?”

Jerry: “One… last… stop.”

They pull out into a clearing in the woods right behind the Cervine Institute vehicle, the one carrying the deer. The men are pulling the deer out on a stretcher. Beth and Jerry get out.

Beth: “Where’s the helicopter?”

Jerry: “There is no helicopter. [One man peels off the “Cervine Institute” sign from the back of the vehicle, revealing the “Stone Cold’s Creamery” sign instead.] And there is no Cervine Institute.”

Beth: “But the top deer surgeon–”

Jerry: “I’m looking at her.”

^ This is the surprise. Not only did Jerry’s cool and collected thinking back at the clinic get them out of hot water, but it allowed them to get into a situation in which Beth could fulfill her desire to both save the deer and redeem her ego without upsetting everyone and getting into legal complications. He’s even rising above his own ego here–he could have just told the Stone Cold gentlemen to toss the deer in a lake while the two of them went home, and he could have gloating about the fact that Beth was wrong–but he orchestrated all of this for Beth’s sake, to allow her the chance at finding satisfaction both at fueling her own ego and at saving the deer’s life. In fact, in Jerry’s eyes, this isn’t even a moral dilemma: he really believes she can do it, that her technical background in horses is no barrier to her ability to perform surgery on a deer. He seems to believe it more than Beth does herself, for part of the stress she was under back at the clinic was her own insecurity in her abilities–her determination back there was a bit overkill simply because she felt she had to try that hard to prove herself–but here, out in the woods, with only her husband to watch her (and a couple of Stone Cold’s Creamery employees who can’t be that significant in Beth’s life), it relieve a lot of the stress, thereby giving her time to focus more on the deer than her ego, and ultimate allowing her to do a better job.

Like I said, it’s almost a stroke of Rick-like genius–a concoction that satisfies everything: Beth’s ego, the moral dilemma of saving the deer’s life, the ideal conditions under which to do so, and even scoring a few brownie points for himself. It even redeems Jerry’s outrageous tip of almost $480 to Stone Cold’s Creamery–without such a hefty tip, would the two Stone Cold employees have bothered to help Jerry out? It’s certainly one of the rare moments when Jerry comes through.

A montage follows of Beth performing surgery on the deer while a kind of soft spiritual song with Native American singing plays. Beth finally stitches the deer up just before it wakes up. It hops off the operating table like nothing happened (usually not recommended to ordinary human patients). It gleefully leaps off into the woods. It pauses to look back at them as a Native American steps out from behind a bush and pets the deer. He nods in gratitude to Beth for saving the deer and then goes off with the deer into the woods. All this while they eat ice creams. ← A bit hyperreal but it’s supposed to be a real emotional and meaningful moment.

Beth: “Jerry, this was the most romantic weekend I’ve ever had.”

Compare this to the last episode when Jerry went all out to create a bit of romance between himself and Beth on the Titanic. Why didn’t that work? Because he was too focused on his idea of romance. This time, Jerry is 100% focused on Beth… and she sees this. ← This is what moves Beth, this is what stirs her heart and softens her up (like ice cream).

Rick’s got all the collars fixed. He instructs them to put them on. They do. Summer disappears (back to ordinary reality). The other two remain despite having their collars on. Why? Because in one of the 64 possibilities, Morty’s collar won’t latch closed. His Rick doesn’t have his collar on either because he won’t do so unless he knows for sure Morty can put his on. All the other Ricks dig into their Morty’s, blaming them for not knowing how to put their collars on. “Bring it here,” says the Rick in the timeline in which Morty’s collar won’t close. Morty steps towards him and falls through a hole in the ground, a hole that leads out into the nothingness of this half-real/half-unreal state of ontological limbo. “MORTY!!!” Rick yells.

While all the other Ricks and Morty’s are bickering at each other, trying to pass the blame (ironically because it’s not either one’s fault, but that of some other Rick or Morty in another timelines), the Rick of interest says “God dammit!” and jumps through the hole after Morty. He glides through the emptiness passed chunks of yard, pieces of house, and cats, cats, and more cats. His hair and lab coat flap in the wind, indicating there’s at least some oxygen (and maybe air pressure) in this infinite void of nothing, allowing them to survive at least for a while. He catches up to Morty and grabs him.

“Morty, where’s your collar? I’ll fix it!” he says. “I dropped it!” Morty yells. Without even thinking, Rick puts his collar on Morty. Morty instantly disappears. ← That goes for all the Morty’s. We focus in on one timeline in which Morty suddenly disappears. The Rick of that timeline yells “What have you done to me, Morty!” possibly implying that he thinks Morty, in at least one timeline, killed Rick, explaining why Rick hasn’t yet disappeared with Morty. Back in the timeline in which Rick sacrificed his collar for Morty, he says: “I’m okay with this. Be good Morty. Be better than me.”

^ This is one of those moments when Rick’s inner goodness, his humanity, really shines through. It’s a moment where push comes to shove, where Rick has no choice but to either sacrifice himself or sacrifice Morty, and he has no time to think it over. He has to act instinctively, and the outcome is that he sacrifices himself for Morty. The good that resides within Rick is buried way deep down, but when it’s called for, it bursts through to the surface with undeniable force.

The words Rick speaks after saving Morty are also very telling. “I’m okay with this,” seems to hearken back to Rick’s nihilism, his utter indifference to whatever happens in this world, even to himself. That he could be okay with streaming through a dark void of nothingness forever, or perhaps disappearing in virtue of the unsustainability of a half-real/half-unreal state of existence, or whatever may happen to him, testifies not only to the radical indifference he holds towards his own destiny, but to how he values the destinies of others close to him more than his own, as his words “Be good Morty. Be better than me,” reveal. He deems his own life a worthwhile price to pay for Morty’s, that Morty represents the potential for goodness whereas it is too late for himself. Such moments are far and few between, but when they happen, they prove that Rick is clearly capable of rising above his own self-interest, that he is capable of recognizing things that matter beyond his own ego. ← This instance here is just a sample of what Rick is capable of, and in the Season 2 finally, we will see another example that blows this one clear out of the water.

But things aren’t so bleak for Rick after all. He suddenly spots Morty’s collar. “The other collar!” he yells, “I’m not okay with this! I am NOT okay with this!” ← It’s funny how one can accept such a grim fate when things seem hopeless, but then when hope shows its face, the acceptable suddenly becomes totally unacceptable. And why wouldn’t it? If you had the opportunity to make a dire situation better, why would you passively accept the situation as it is while letting that opportunity slip through your fingers? Rick swims towards the collar exclaiming what could almost be construed as prayers to Jesus: “Oh, sweet Jesus, please let me live! Oh my God, I gotta fix this thing! [grabs it]. Please God in Heaven! Please God, oh Lord, hear my prayers!”

^ I still haven’t quite figured out the full implications of what the writers had in mind with the religious connotations of these words, but I’m sure it must have something to do with the metaphysical implications of a quantum world of half-real/half-unreal possibilities–like God throwing dice and deciding on a whim which possibilities stay and which disappear into oblivion. On a more personal/psychological level, Rick here is demonstrating what he resorts to in moments of desperation. Rick–a staunch atheist most of the time (he says in the Pilot: “There is no God, Summer. You gotta rip that bandage off now, you’ll thank me later.”)–all of a sudden, in a moment of desperation, believes. And this may be statement on the part of the writers about human psychology in general, that in moments of desperation, we pull out all the stops–even things we wouldn’t even dream of trying in less critical situations. Take the other Rick’s, for example. We see in the next scene (after the current Rick puts his collar on and disappears) that another Rick (which presumably represents what all the Ricks are doing) is on his knees, eyes closed, and hands clasped in prayer, saying: “Please God, if there’s a Hell, please be merciful to me.” ← If the current Rick (the one trying to fix the collar) is only half serious about his prayers to God, the other half meaning it as just a figure of speech, this Rick is totally serious. It shows that so long as Rick has some modicum of hope of getting out of a desperate situation at his own hands, the desperate need to fall back on something that he would otherwise scoff at as a silly superstition meant only for the blind and naive will be minimal, whereas if he has absolutely no hope at all, like the Rick on his knees who knows that he’s at the mercy of another Rick getting his collar to work, he’ll have nothing left to do but to completely fall back on that silly superstition with full conviction.

It’s a nice complement to his last words to Morty before finding the collar: “Be better than me.” ← That coupled with his prayers for God’s mercy as he burns in Hell indicate his painful awareness of his own sinfulness, that he doesn’t just cover up his imperfections with his typical self-induced ego boosts, or that if he does, they don’t completely work. He knows he’s a scum bag who deserves to burn in Hell. And if there is any doubt of that, such doubt is wiped away the minute Rick gets the collar fixed:

He puts it on, the light turns green, and just before disappearing, he sticks it to God: “YES!!! Fuck you, God! Not today, bitch!”

Talk about gratitude. On the one hand, it seems like a total lack of appreciation for providence, like biting the hand that feeds. But on the other hand, it might indicate that though Rick prayed desperately to be saved by God, he didn’t think there would be a chance in Hell (or Heaven) that God would actually follow through. His words “Fuck you, God! Not today, bitch!” almost seem to indicate that, all the while, Rick thought God was trying to thwart his efforts at saving his own ass, that God was the reason Rick was in such a dire situation. It’s very much like Rick, after all, to reap in the full credit for his own actions when he gets himself out of a sticky bind. He fixed his own collar, he got himself out of what would otherwise be a bleak and dismal fate, but he only sees it this way after having gotten himself out of the sticky situation he found himself in. And therefore his success represents, for him, a kind of triumph over God’s attempt to snuff him out. He may have been praying to God for help before this happened, but an ironic combination of his own ego (he can do this on his own) and his own self-doubt (he’s not worthy of God’s help) culminate in his sticking it to God when he succeeds.

As I said, however, I think there’s more to this scene than the above (assuming I’ve got it right in the first place), for this bit of commentary about God and Rick’s defiance of Him must have something to do, I’m certain, with the greater theme surrounding this episode–namely, that of quantum uncertainly and states of ontological limbo, and what that has to do with divine creation and omnipotence. ← Can’t quite put my finger on it for the moment, so I’m just going to leave it.

In any case, Rick gets the collar on and disappears. The Rick on his knees also disappears in mid-prayer.

DAMMIT!!! I almost made under a 60000 characters! And I really tried, I really did! Maybe I should just resign to the fact that the Rick and Morty universe is becoming more complex with every episode. On the bright side, the current post is most likely gonna be between 1000 and 2000 characters only.

Anyway, where were we… oh ya…

Back in ordinary reality, the three are reunited. Rick says: “Yes, I did it! There is no God! In your face! [pointing God-ward]” ← Ironic that he would continue to stick it to God even after saying “there is no God.” It’s also interesting that after getting out of the sticky situation he was in, a sticky situation in which he fell back on semi-belief in God, he immediately resumes his staunch atheism.

They all cheer hearty cheers. Rick does the cabbage patch dance. Summer joins in.

Summer: “Hey, wait a second. How come you guys took longer to get here?”

Morty: “I don’t know. I think, like, one sixty-fourth of my collars didn’t work. It’s hard to keep straight now that I have 63 other memories everything.” ← Reminds me of the Ashton Cutcher movie The Butterfly Effect (terrible movie).

Rick: “Yeah.”

Morty: “But I feel like one of the 64 Rick’s, like, sacrificed himself for me. Maybe. I think.”

Rick: “Shut up, Morty. The last time you felt something we all almost died. [pulls out his flask] You little piece of shit.”

^ Rick isn’t exactly denying that one 64th of himself sacrificed himself for Morty, but he sure seems eager to get off the subject. It’s interesting to think about what affect integrating 64 different memories would have on one’s psyche, specifically one’s certainty about what did and did not happen. It might be incredibly easy for Rick to deny that he sacrificed himself for Morty given that he’d only be one 64th certain that he actually did that. Morty himself seems about that certain that it actually occurred. Good thing they’re all wearing the collars.

Then Jerry and Beth come into the garage. Morty and Summer hug their parents with an extreme intensity as though they hadn’t seen them for months (and quite literally, they haven’t hugged them for months). Jerry pushes them away: “Uh, hold the phone, where did you guys get those necklaces from? Uh, Lady Gaga, table for three, am I right?” Beth laughs hysterically. Jerry continues: “Are you guys Power Rangers… but only on one small part of your necks? Hey, did those things need batteries? Were they included?” Jerry goes on and on with the corny jokes while Beth totally laps it up. It’s funny how feeling loved can make the stupidest jokes seem absolutely hilarious. Morty says to Rick: “Doesn’t feel so good, does it?” Rick: “No, it doesn’t. It hurts.” ← Not sure whether Morty is commenting on how it feels to be his parents’ son or how it feels to be Rick’s grandson. I mean, both Jerry and Beth are shitty parents and I’m sure they wouldn’t hesitate to humiliate their children for a bit of self-induced entertainment, but Rick is also verbally abusive (not always for entertainment but still). Rick’s response is interesting as well–typically we’d expect Rick to brush this off or deny it or just to tell Morty to STFU–but he admits straight up that it hurts–admitting not only that he knows what Morty goes through but admitting sensitive feelings and vulnerability. ← But I’m probably over-analyzing this scene as it’s obviously primarily meant as a humorous ending to the opening episode to Season 2.

The post-credit scene is a bit humorous as well but I wasn’t able to extract any philosophical merit from it. It essentially consists of Testicle Head (apparently with his head repaired) and his buddy (Testicle Head #2) travelling through time in their time bubble to the early twentieth century where they meet up with Einstein, and then beat the shit out of him for “messing with time.” Then they leave.

Einstein gets up and utters to himself: “I vill mess wiz time, I vill mess wiz time.” as he writes E=MC^2 on the chalk board.

^ Ha! Ha! Funny! Funny! Funny! But not much in the way of philosophy.

===============================

PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS

  • Quantum Physics: This is a hotly debated subject, rich in philosophical implications, and surprisingly for a series deeply entrenched in the theme of science, it hasn’t yet come up. This is the first episode in which it has. It pivots around the idea of superposition, the idea that there can be more than one (mutually exclusive) reality at the same time. The philosophical question that comes out of this is: what the fuck is this state. To date, no scientist has satisfactorilly been able to answer this question. Well, they have, but they aren’t speaking as scientists in this case, but more as philosopher giving their “interpretations” of the results of quantum mechanical experiments. One such interpretation is the “Many Worlds” interpretation, which is more or less captured by the schism of realities that Rick, Morty, and Summer find themselves in during this episode. However, Roiland and Harmon seem to put their own special twist on this theory by depicting the state they enter into as a sort of “limbo” state between full reality and utter non-existence–so it’s not a multitude of realities, but a multitude of “half” realities, and this seems to hinge on “uncertainty”. It seems, in other words, that reality cannot be determined until the entities involved in determining that reality are certain about what will and what won’t be. This ties into another interpretation of quantum mechanics: that it is consciousness which determines reality, that until consciousness knows what it wants reality to be, reality just isn’t. Thus, we seem to be given a sort of “hybrid” theory of quantum mechanics by Roiland and Harmon–a hybrid of the “Many Worlds” interpretation and the “Consciousness Determines Reality” interpretation–which can be summed up as: quantum uncertainty results in many “half” worlds–worlds that co-exist but with only proportional amounts of the original “realness” they shared before splitting apart. Maybe this is true, maybe not. Either way, it’s rife with philosophical potential. My own theory of quantum mechanics is very close to this except that instead of talking about “many worlds”, I would describe the state of quantum superposition as a seamless continuum of “worlds” with no clear boundary, no clear distinction betweem them (thus the seamlessness), and the clarity of what those worlds are, what they consist of (what they mean to beings within them, beholding them), has as much reality as the continuum is precise. In other words, the more definite a world can be about defining itself, the more “real” it can be (at the cost of all other possibilities), and the less definite a world can be about defining itself, the less “real” each possible construal of that definition is (at the cost of a single possibility claiming ontological supremacy). Whatever the case, however, I don’t think cats floating in space actual play a part.

  • Women and their egos: Men are typically depicted as the ones with the egos. But his episode of Rick and Morty seems to suggest that women can have their moments too. I don’t think anybody would doubt this. Women are human too–they too can be ensnared by the desire to prove their might, their abilities, their greatness–whether that be intellectually, morally, or anything else–for the sake of the alluring pleasure of a small ego boost. What’s more of an intriguing question is how susceptible women are to this allure compared to men. Are men really more prone to subjecting themselves to ego boosts than women? Or do women simply find their ego boosts in more socially acceptable ways–for example, saving a poor deer’s life. ← I mean, who would object to that? In other words, maybe women are smarter–smarter at figuring out how to put themselves in the limelight of morally sanctioned situations–but nonetheless just as subject to ego stroking as men. Or is it the other way around: maybe women really are that much more concerned about the things that really matter, morally speaking, things that go beyond the ego, and this episode simply highlights one of the pitfalls that sometimes happens in this case: they may be so concerned over the moral import of things beyond their ego, that they can sometimes be blinded to the fact that their egos sometimes sneak in, and they become convinced that they’re still focused on the moral objective when in reality, somewhere along the way, it has become all about ego. After all, to not be focused on the ego is to allow one’s self to be subject to the tricks of the ego, or at least the unconscious, to not “know thyself”. Maybe. The question, for me, boils down to this: we’re both human, and human beings are a product of evolution, built to survive, built to protect the self–which is egoism par excellence–whether you’re a man or a woman–so when it comes to ego, we are both in the same boat together–but there is nevertheless obvious biological differences–while we are both built to serve and protect ourselves, women seem more focused on the needs of others, especially children, and so they may be be more naturally geared towards altruism than men. But either way, it shouldn’t be a question at all that both men and women need to focus on themselves, to a certain extent at least, just in order to survive, and this episode of Rick and Morty nicely highlights the fact that women are susceptible to egoism too–maybe not to the same degree as men, maybe more, but egoism certainly isn’t absent from their psyche.

Well, in the spirit of keeping things short, that’s all I’m gonna give ya. (sorry, I know you were aching for more :laughing: ).

Oh, it turns out there were a few Easter eggs:

Again, some extra thoughts:

  1. I was thinking of the implications that putting a mattress under Mr. Bensen has–namely, that the three of them, when alone together in a time-frozen world, end up choosing to do the right thing. Mind you, they didn’t actually do it, but just the fact that the discussion was had means that, when together, they settle on the morally right thing. I mean, knowing Rick, it wouldn’t be unlike him to get the bright idea that as soon as they unfreeze time, they’re going to stand on Mr. Bensen’s front lawn and laugh at him as he breaks his back. At the very least, no one would hold them accountable if they neglected to do anything. ← But they didn’t neglect. How much of this was due to the influence of Morty and Summer, and how much was just Rick himself, is unclear.

  2. There is a bit of contrast in this episode between the lesson Rick expects Morty to have learned by now–namely, that Morty should just relax and let Rick handle everything–and the fact that half way through the episode, Rick almost gets them all killed in the shoot-out he has with himself, so much so that Morty has to knock him out in order to get the situation under control. It’s a damn good thing that Morty did this, otherwise Rick would have shot himself in all possibilities, leaving Morty and Summer to fix the situation themselves (well, until Testicle Head shows up). So apparently, there’s a lesson for Rick to learn here as well: he’s not always in control, and it’s a good thing sometimes that Morty worries.

  3. I also neglected to tie this scene in particular–the shoot-out–into Close Encounters with the Rick Kind–both involving a multitude of Ricks who have trouble trusting each other and almost killing each other. In this episode, we get a glimpse of how misplaced his distrust in himself really is. Why was he so ready to believe that his counter-part in the other possibility was trying to eliminate them instead of merge them? I think Rick sees himself as a worse person than he really is, and as we saw in this scene, that might just make him a worse person. ← One might even say he has self-esteem issues.

More thoughts:

  1. Testicle Head is God: think about it. He’s a 4 dimensional omniscient, immortal being who can transcend time and space. ← That pretty much meets the criteria. Maybe not the criteria for the God (i.e. the Christian God), but a God in any case (Testicle Head #2, his buddy he meets up with to kick the shit out of Einstein after the credits, is another God). He even threatens to take Rick, Morty, and Summer to time prison forever… remind anyone of Hell? But Rick manages to escape hell by killing God (reminiscent of Nietzsche). No wonder there was no one there to answer his prayers when he was trying to fix the collar in the vast emptiness of ontological limbo. I think this is the missing piece of the puzzle I couldn’t quite put my finger on when I was trying to figure out the implications of Rick’s utterances to God during that scene. God is Testicle Head–the one who decides the outcome of all states of quantum superposition, who would have decided Rick’s fate at the end if it wasn’t for Rick’s clever thinking and ingenuity.

  2. On that note, if these alternate possibilities that Rick, Morty, and Summer find themselves in are supposed to be akin to quantum superposition, doesn’t that mean at least one of them will survive? As quantum theory would have it, all such states that are co-present in superposition will disappear upon collapses except for one (or a small subset), but this wasn’t mentioned in the episode–we are lead to believe that all possibilities will eventually vanish into oblivion.

  3. Where did Beth get the surgical tools from out in the woods?

  4. After Rick split the possibilities up into four, what would happen to the bullets fired from the gun when they go through the portal? Which possibility would they be transported to?

  5. I had an “aaawww” moment when Rick said “Is this what you want, you sick fuck! You wanna see children die!” ← But then it occurred to me: he’s saying this to himself. Does he know something about himself deep down–that he wants to see children die, or at least that he knows he puts their lives in danger (I mean, they escape near death situations in almost every episode)–and this is a way of projecting it onto an alternate version of himself?

Just reading “deep philosophy with good thinkers” is fun for me - I am finding this thread both entertaining and stimulating.

Hear, hear.

Wow, I find this very beautiful. I will be thinking of this for a long time to come.

:slight_smile:

I would imagine instead something like an automorphism with some missing information.

This gives me some ideas.

@gib - I have not watched Rick and Morty yet - from reading your posts I think I might have to.

:smiley:

Wow! Another human being is reading this! =D>

Yeah man, it’s a great series. Hilarious as hell and really digs into some deep philosophy; very intense and definitely not PC.

Usually I’m not that fond of the cartoons on Adult Swim–most of them are kinda juvenile and don’t rise above the level of potty humor–but I was impressed with Rick and Morty because it was written for an intelligent audience. It sometimes does fall back on potty humor–like having characters named “Mr. Poopy Butthole”–but not always–and once you get to episode #6 of season #1, you get an idea of how deep the writers want to take you, not just intellectually but emotionally.

You can watch both seasons here. Season #3 is supposed to be coming out this summer.

My analysis of episode 2 season 2 is coming soon, but I just wanted to post this Rick and Morty promo 'cause I think it’s hilarious:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNhH00OIPP0[/youtube]

Oh, and episode 1 of season 3 just came out on youtube. It came out on April 1st which lead many fans to expect it to be an April Fools prank but it wasn’t. It was legit. And it was sheer genius. I was blown away. I have much to say on it and I might even do a (very brief) analysis on it after s2e2.

Rick and Morty - S2E2 - Mortynight Run

Episode 2 of Season 2 is by far my favorite episode–it’s the one most jam-packed with action–unfortunately, this takes away from the philosophical moments–I mean, how much philosophy can one glean from space ships crashing into each other and friends double-crossing friends at gun point–but amazingly, Roiland and Harmon were able to compensate a series of mini-philosophies with just a few large philosophies–and they are quite large, quite deep.

If there is one philosophical genre that this episode strikes at, it is our old friend: conservatism vs. liberalism. If there are two philosophical genres that this episode strikes at, they are our friends: conservatism/liberalism and moral philosophy. In this episode, Morty’s own morality gets put to the ultimate test–and it fails–Morty, in the end, is compelled to do the exact opposite which, throughout the entire episode, his conscience drives him to do. Throughout the episode, Morty strives to accomplish X (I won’t say what X is, not yet) and ends up doing anti-X. ← And the punchline is that he does anti-X because he has a brief moment of understand why anti-X is the morally right thing to do. ← It throws the whole liberalist mentality for a loop, it shoves its face right into its own hypocrisy, eliciting the ultimate in cognitive dissonance.

It begins with Morty learning how to drive: Rick takes him on a space trip through the cosmos–only Morty is driving. Rick says:

“You’re gonna be free to go on all kinds of errands for me. [Morty: cool]”

Jerry, clearly right behind them from the camera’s point of view, startles Rick by speaking up: “Oh, you still use South in space?”

Just before Jerry startles Rick, Rick gets a phone call and says in a shady tone: “Yeah… Yeah I have it… Where do you wanna meet?.. ok, cool. [hangs up] All right, Morty, lessons over. I’ve got some business to attend to a few minutes south of here.” (Clearly, Rick meant behind them).

Rick is startled because he had no idea Jerry was even there. Jerry explains: “We agreed a boy’s father should be present when he’s learning to drive.”

From what I can surmise, Morty must have told his father that Rick was going to teach him how to fly the ship, so Morty and his father got in the ship first, then Rick came in later, hopping in the front passenger seat without noticing Jerry.

Rick says that they don’t have time to drop Jerry off back at home. Jerry says: “Cool! Looks like I’m coming along for an adventure.”

Rick tells Morty to head to 3924917, which turns out to be a Jerry daycare. Actually, it’s a giant rock in space with an establishment built on it (hidden with a cloaking device). Among the many venues of the establishment is the Jerryboree, a daycare for Jerry’s from alternate dimensions who somehow ended up tagging along with Rick and Morty on one of their adventures. In response to Morty asking him if he created the Jerryboree, Rick says:

“Are you kidding? I wish I had this idea, well I did have this idea, but I wish I was the version of me who owned it. That guy’s rich.”

Apparently, this happens a lot… enough for a certain version of Rick to invent a Jerry daycare such as to permit other Ricks and Morties to drop off their inadvertently acquired Jerry’s while on an adventure. “Jerry’s don’t tend to last five minutes off of Earth,” Rick says.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhiLzMwvls8[/youtube]

Rick fills out a form before dropping Jerry off:

Notice that under “Reason for Drop-Off” there’s this:

Threatened to tell Beth what? What secret is Rick hiding from his daughter that he would drop Jerry off here (forever? ← That is one of the options on the form) under threat that he might let it slip to Beth? Whatever it is, it’s not revealed in this episode.

Rick and Morty walk out of the Jerryboree with a ticket. Rick hands it to Morty: “Hey Morty, hang onto this. That number’s your dad. If you lose it, we’re not gonna be able to get him back.”

They resume their primary business. Rick directs Morty to land in a shady parkade, a bit of a rough landing, damaging the ships parked next to him. It’s not really mentioned where they are, but it seems like a kind of inner city landscape at night. Krombopulus Michael, a Gromflomite and acquaintance of Rick’s (the one he was talking to over the phone earlier), knocks on the passenger side door.

“Hey, Rick! Ha! Ha! Here you go, 3,000 flurbos. Do you have the weapon?”

Krombopulos Michael is an assassin who buys guns from Rick. In the current ordeal, he buys an anti-matter gun because his target can’t be killed with ordinary matter. He introduces himself to Morty handing him a card:

“Listen, if you need anybody murdered, please give me a call. I’m very discrete. I have no code of ethics. I will kill anyone, anywhere: children, animals, old people, dodn’t matter–I just love killin’.”

I find this scene a little ironic given that Rick tries to argue, in response to Morty pointing out how shady this “business” of Rick’s seems, that he does his business in public, and is therefore not shady, while at the same time trying to be discrete enough with Krombopulos Michael, who wasn’t expected to come right to the passenger side window, such that Morty is as little aware of Rick’s “business” as possible. Rick says: “C-can we please… this is my grandson, Morty!” So Rick, who is not afraid to sell guns to assassins in public, doesn’t want to do it in front of his grandson.

Upon Krombopulos’s leave, Morty questions Rick: “You sell guns to killers for money?” Rick responds: “These are flurbos. Do you understand what two humans can accomplish with 3,000 of these? [Morty: Uh, what?] An entire afternoon at Blips and Chiiitz!!!

Blips and Chitz is an arcade center, like they have in the movie theater lobbies, with snacks, games, booz, and all kinds of entertainment:

This was the whole plan all along. This entire outing with Morty was intended to be an afternoon of entertainment, just Rick and his grandson having fun, not just a crash course in learning to fly a spaceship in order to run errands for Rick. It’s quite a departure from the usual hazards and dangers, and the abuse, that Rick typically pulls Morty through. It shows that when they don’t inadvertently find themselves trapped in risky ordeals and sticky predicaments, Rick really is interested in spending some quality time with his grandson, in just going out with Morty to have a good time. The catch here is, of course, that he used questionable methods to get the flurbos required to pay for it. Rick never intended for Morty to witness the exchange, but now that he has, Morty is questioning the ethics behind this entire affair. This throws a bit of a wrench into the situation, one that doesn’t quite allow Morty to fully relax and enjoy the time spent with his grandfather.

Morty: “You sold a gun to a murderer so you could play video games?”

Rick: “Yeah, sure, I mean if you spend all day shuffling words around, you can make anything sound bad, Morty. Here, check this out:”

They stop at a game called “Roy” and Rick places a helmet attached to the machine by a thick cable onto Morty’s head. He puts a token into the machine. Morty’s eyes suddenly roll up into his head:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH_QCIhSHLs[/youtube]

^ As chock full of meaning as this scene obviously is, it seems a bit out of place, unless I’m missing the connection with the major themes of this episode. Putting that aside for the moment, however, we can ask what was the meaning of this scene? Was Rick trying to teach Morty something, was he just trying to trip him out, maybe distract him from the topic of selling a gun to a killer, just throw a random sample of entertainment at him? What?

Obviously, if this scene means anything, it must be captured by those few simple words spoken by Roy’s teacher: “Now is the time in your life when anything is possible.” These words are spoken to Roy when he’s just a child, and we typically do think of childhood as the time in our lives when anything is possible, when we have yet to sink our roots in deep enough to determine the course of our lives. Yet it makes me wonder: is any time in our lives the time when anything is possible? Why does it have to be early on, in the beginning? Yet it seems that as Roy’s life goes by, less and less seems possible to him, at least it appears that way from his facial expressions and such, as if life has taken control of him rather than the other way around. Roy ends up taking a job in a carpet store–What a life! What a choice!–more like life happened to Roy rather than the other way around. But who could blame him, really–it is Morty, after all, who is going through this experience–and thrust upon him by Rick no less, with no warning–he’s a 14 year old boy who really has no concept of what it is to take life by the horns and to be the master of one’s own destiny–and being put into a simulation in which an entire lifetime goes by in less than a minute, one has to wonder how easy it really is for Morty to make of life (as Roy) what he really wants.

The punchline seems to be: this is a video game that tests your ability to master your own destiny, to determine your own life. How well can you do it? (Makes you wonder how many times Rick has exercised his life skills at this game.)

If this is the case, it’s interesting to note how Roy’s ability to conquer life and make it his own was at its peek during his adolescence. It was at that time when he made the football team and scored the touchdown. The trophy we see on his desk at the carpet store later in his life tells us that Roy never accomplished anything greater since then, that his life seems to have dwindled rather than blossomed since then. It even seems he clings to his football achievements more than he clings to the achievement of beating cancer, as if the latter is the lesser achievement. What is it about our youth that gives us that vitality, that spark, that spirit to own our lives, the inspiration to go for what we want? What is it about growing older that takes it away? Is it that the cold machinery of society chips away at our will, the social pressures to conform to standards that don’t quite fit our unique gifts, our personal callings, that eventually cause us to cave? Is it just the brute facts of reality that we sooner or later come to grips with? Is it just age itself, the biology of our bodies losing energy, our minds losing hope, becoming accustom to mundane routines? Is youth really a limited window? A finite period when we have our only chance to set the course of our lives to what we want it to be? And once lost, we become stuck in a rut that we must live with until we die, like it or not?

Despite how abruptly Morty is taken by surprise, he actually doesn’t do too bad given Rick’s words: “55 years, not bad Morty.” ← Maybe Morty does have some hidden talent, some above-average ability to take life by the horns. One can only surmise that the game somehow decides when the player has had enough, when there is nothing more to Roy’s life worth fleshing out, and therefore injects some random accident by which Roy dies. I mean, certainly, an arbitrary accident like falling off a ladder, which can happen to anybody, can’t be a reflection of the player’s skill at life. So Morty made it to 55, beat cancer, went back to the carpet store, and the game decided: that’s it.

As an aside, I find it very interesting how the Roy game starts out. Roy wakes from a nightmare:

“I had a nightmare. I was with an old man. He put a helmet on me.”

^ He calls it a “nightmare”. ← That’s what life with Rick is like–a nightmare. Roy gives Morty a taste of what his life would be like without Rick, if it was just “normal”. But for the most part, it’s dull, unfulfilling. He beats cancer and goes back to the carpet store. He dies by falling off a ladder and breaking his back. ← Which life is really better?

The game obviously bootstraps itself onto whatever the user was experiencing just prior to the game starting. It uses Morty’s experience of being at Blips and Chitz with Rick and having the helmet put on his head as a starting point–blending it into Roy’s life seamlessly by rendering it as a dream. What better way to slip one into an alternate life than by render one’s original life as just a dream. And the way it ends is exactly the same: Morty comes to after experiencing Roy’s death and re-orients himself to his real life, remembering that he’s Morty and that he’s at Blips and Chitz. His prior experience of being Roy was just a simulation. Both transitions–from each life to the other–are experienced as a sort of “re-awakening”, a “coming to”. ← That is to say, Morty/Roy experiences himself as “waking up” to the “real” reality, while the previous reality is either just a dream or just a video game–both take turns being swapped for the “actual” reality.

Nothing comes closer to a perfect analogy to drugs than this. In my experience, this is exactly what it’s like being high on drugs (at least the kinds that alter reality on you). Becoming high, one is all of a sudden inundated with insights, visions, and other kinds of experiences that tell the mind: this is the true reality, and what you thought was real was just a dream (or blindness, or ignorance, or a mistake, or whatever)–but then once the high fades and one comes back to ordinary reality, one reflects on one’s drug-induced experiences and recognizes them as delusions, dreams, mistakes–one realizes that this is the true reality, always was, all along. With repeated use, one goes back and forth between alternate realities, at one time recognizing this as the true reality, and then upon returning, remembering that now this is the true reality. Eventually, one becomes seasoned, one learns the skill of choosing when to passively take one’s experiences as the one true reality and when not to. This seems to be how Rick takes in the experience once he’s plugged into the machine.

He plugs himself into the game and at the same time continues a conversation with Morty–like a drug user being flooded with delusions and hallucinations carrying on a conversations with a sober person fully admitting that he knows his experiences are delusions and hallucinations. ← That’s skill right there.

Before this happens, however, Morty, upon shaking off the Roy experience, suddenly remembers what he was talking to Rick about: “Hey, you sold a gun to a guy that kills people!”

Rick: “Look at this: you beat cancer and then you went back to work at the carpet store? Boo!”

Morty: “Don’t dodge the issue Rick! Selling a gun to a hitman is the same as pulling the trigger!”

Rick: “It’s also the same as doing nothing. If Krombopulos Michael wants someone dead, there’s not a lot anyone can do to stop him. That’s why he does it for a living. Now excuse me, it’s time to thrash your Roy score.”

Rick puts the helmet on, sits in the chair, and closes his eyes.

Morty: “You know, you could stop this killing from happening, Rick.Y-you know, you did a bad thing selling that gun, but you could undo it if you wanted.”

Rick: “Uh-huh, yeah, [eyes still closed] that’s the difference between you and me, Morty. I never go back to the carpet store.”

Now, it might just be me, but there seems to be a disconnect here between what Rick is talking about and what Morty went through as Roy. Presumably, what Rick is talking about when he says “I never go back to the carpet store,” is that he never goes back on his decisions, or that he doesn’t dwell on regret. I didn’t get the impression from Morty, as Roy, however, that his going back to the carpet store after beating cancer was motivated by regret or second guessing any decision he made in life. I thought the message was that Morty, as Roy, simply did what he thought he was supposed to do–you beat cancer, you get better, you resume your life (whatever it was)–so either I’m missing something, or Rick’s comment is out of place.

Stepping back and looking at this scene in the context of the entire episode, it seems a bit out of place to me. The sequence of experiences that Morty goes through as Roy were certainly chock full of meaning, but how does that meaning fit into the themes, messages, and philosophical quandaries of the overall episode? To be sure, both are chock full of meaning–the Roy sequence and the overall episode–but do they mesh seamlessly together? I don’t see how they do (not that they’re supposed to, but still).

Rick proceeds not only to thrash Morty’s Roy score, but manages to take Roy “off the grid” by doing away with his social security number. A whole crowd of alien video game junkies surround him. One says: “Holy shit! This guy’s taking Roy off the grid! This guy doesn’t have a social security number for Roy!”

Getting the hint that Rick is not listening, Morty looks at the card Krombopulos Michael gave him. A red light flashes on a digital map, like a GPS unit pinning the location of Krombopulos Michael. Morty takes off to find him on his own.

Back at the Jerryboree, Jerry’s had enough. He walks out to the reception area and says to the nurse: “Hi, I’m sorry, I think there was a misunderstanding. I’m an adult and would like to go home, please.” The nurse directs him to crawl through a tube on the opposite wall. This strikes Jerry as odd, but he complies anyway. He crawls into the tube and, once deep enough into it, starts slipping down a decline. He gets dumped out into a pool of balls with a bunch of other Jerry’s playing Marco Polo. Behind them is a giant statue of Summer with a slide coming out of her mouth ending in another pool. Other Jerries are in that one.

Why would the nurse have directed Jerry to the tube, which obviously leads back into the Jerry daycare? Obviously, to not let him leave. Which is ironic because she doesn’t have to use force. She simply has to rely on Jerry’s instinct of asking others what he’s supposed to do in order to feel he knows what to do. The fact that crawling through a tube in order to get out seems strange to Jerry–especially since he saw the front doors through which he got in–doesn’t dissuade him from complying with the instructions. Rick obviously trained the staff at the Jerryboree well. This scene will be contrasted with another scene later in the episode when Jerry attempts the bold move of walking out the front doors on his own accord–that is, without asking permission, without asking how–but we will see how that ultimately ends in Jerry returning to the Jerryboree anyway, reinforcing the point that force is not needed… but more on that later.

Jerry C-137 (presumably) asks another Jerry: “Don’t you feel a little patronized?” Then a giant statue of Beth shows up. It’s more like a mascot or a giant marionette doll. Her voice can be heard echoing while her mouth doesn’t move, like emanating from speakers somewhere.

Beth: “Jerryyy!”

Jerry C-137: “Oh come on, this is ridiculous.”

Beth: “I looove you Jerry!”

Jerry C-137: “Aaawww, Beth.”

Beth: “Who wants to come watch Midnight Ruuun with director’s commentary on? [the Jerry’s are all riled up] First one there gets to adjust the picture settings! [leaves the room]”

Jerry C-137: “[unable to withhold his excitement] The factory tint setting is always too high!”

All the Jerries jump out of their pools or whatever it is they’re doing and run after Beth, the last Jerry in line saying “The factory tint setting is always too high.”

Besides the not-so-subtle hint to the episode’s title, this scene always comes to mind whenever I think about Jerry’s love for Beth. Hearing those words “I love you Jerry,” certainly melts his heart, turns his indignation over being patronized into a longing for romance with the woman he loves. For the most part, Jerry is a selfish man, but we’ve seen in previous episodes (A Rickle in Time, for example) that Jerry is capable of rising above his own ego and focusing solely on Beth and what she wants. A man wouldn’t do that unless he is head over heals in love with a woman, and in this scene we see how easily that love is stirred by just a few simple words.

At a high security establishment of some kind–military, government, intelligence, I’m not sure–we find Krombopulos Michael on top of a building overlooking the barb-wired wall serving as the perimeter of the establishment. He seems to be praying to the moon or some such–oriented skyward in any case–and then opens a locket with a picture of what is presumably his wife or some love of his life (whether dead or alive, we don’t know). He folds it into a handkerchief or towelette, kisses it, and stuffs it into his suit. He gets up and says: “Oh boy, here I go killin’ again.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFA1UQ2UOVQ[/youtube]

^ In the last few seconds of the scene above, we see Krombopulos penetrate his way into a locked down chamber where he finds what looks to be a cloud, or a gaseous entity of some kind, attached to cables that lead to machines built into the walls. The cloud appears to have a few gem-like crystals of various colors suspended within itself. Michael pulls out his anti-matter gun (the one Rick sold him) ready to shoot the cloud when Morty comes crashing into the room through the wall in Rick’s space ship (another one of the many twists of irony throughout the series–Rick teaches him how to drive which gives Morty the ability to defy him). Krombopulos is effectively dead.

(It is only a TV show, but it seems wildly unrealistic to me that such a highly secure establishment would be completely unprotected against air strikes.)

Morty gets out and picks up Krombopulos’s gun. Another gromflomite enters the room. He points a gun at Morty. The gromflomite suddenly gets split in half by a portal opening that appear exactly where he’s position. Both sides of his body fall to the ground. Rick comes out through the portal. He gives Morty shit for crashing their ship into a galactic federation outpost. The cloud interrupts them:

“He saved my life.”

Morty asks his name.

“My kind has no use for names. I communicate through what you call… Jessica’s feet. No, telepathy.”

It’s interesting that his form of telepathy seems to involve reading words. He senses the word telepathy in Morty’s mind and tries to match that with other English words he already knows, in this case not quite reading it clearly enough and it comes through as “Jessica’s feet”. It doesn’t seem likely that he has to do this with every single word he wishes to utter. “Telepathy” was probably a new one to him. But Roiland and Harmon will make a parody of this near the end.

Rick: “Oh, good job Morty. Y-y-you killed my best customer but you saved a mind reading fart.”

Fart: “I like this name… Fart.”

Upon Fart’s request, and against Rick’s admonitions, Morty frees Fart by pulling a lever on the wall. The alarms go off. Rick informs Morty that, Fart being gaseous, he can’t teleport Fart through a portal. So Morty ushers Fart into the ship. Rick pleads with Morty: “Morty, come on, w-I wanna go back to Blips and Chitz. I don’t want to deal with this.” “Rick,” Morty says, “you’ve been clear on the fact that you don’t want to help, so just go away.” “Screw this, I’m out,” Rick says as he opens a portal and walks through it, effectively abandoning Morty to the gromflomites.

Morty tries to start the ship. It won’t start. A team of gromflomites enter the room. “Get out of the vehicle made of garbage or we will open fire.” Morty keeps trying “Open fire!” The next thing that happen is sheer genius:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_WwZBbqhwQ[/youtube]

One has to wonder if this was Rick’s plan all along. Did Rick intend on coming back for Morty before he even left? And if so, did he have this very plan in mind? If not, it’s obvious that Rick knew he would have plenty of time to hatch out a plan. Travelling to a different dimension also means having as much time as you want (we saw this in the Pilot when Rick went to another dimension to get the broken-leg serum–he told Morty he spent tons of time there partying with young women, causing his portal gun to lose charge). So even if Rick had no intention of coming back for Morty at first, having all the time in the world means that he could have eventually had a change of heart.

As for the flooding, one can imagine a few scenarios. I imagine that Rick fired his portal gun to the bottom of an ocean. Not sure if he had to be there under water to make it happen or if he could fire his gun from a boat or something. Who knows where the portal that drained the water lead, but I’m sure Rick had a plan for how to escape the flood (and the gromflomites).

If we ignore Rick’s genius in this scene, we are still taken aback by the old familiar warm fuzzy feeling in our hearts we get when Rick’s good side peeks through the crack. Even though he left in a huff, as if we just didn’t give a damn about what happens to his grandson, we see that Rick can’t just leave Morty behind. Something inside him eventually gives way and compels him to return to Morty and rescue him.

So once again, Rick saves the day. They take off, killing a few more gromflomites in the process, and make their way to Gear World.

Gear Head is fixing Rick’s ship, giving him grief for not taking better care of his gears. Morty is watching Gazorpazorpfield on a TV.

Rick starts a discussion with Morty, trying persuade him to finish the job that Krombopulos started. Morty replies that they’re taking Fart back to his home.

“I came here accidentally,” Fart explains, “through a wormhole located in what you call: get out of my head, Fart, I know you’re in here, la, la, la–No, in what you call the Promethean Nebula.”

Finally, Rick agrees to take Fart home.

Fart: “Thank you, Morty. You are not like other carbon based life forms. You put the value of all life above your own.”

Morty: “It’s how things should be. It’s how they could be.”

Fart: “I could not agree more,” as he hovers over Morty engulfing him. Then he engages Morty an a weird psychedelic mind-meld, like a telepathic trip he takes Morty on while singing “Goodbye Moonmen”, a song very similar in style to David Bowie’s work:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I1aEB-xITE[/youtube]

It’s rather cryptic what this scene is supposed to entail other than a brief psychedelic trip Fart takes Morty on, but many on the internet have speculated on the meaning of the lyrics:

Goodbye Moonmen lyrics

To be in a position to interpret the lyrics properly, one must know how this episode unfolds in the end. Therefore, spoiler alert!!! In a nut shell, the song is essentially an adieu to all carbon based life forms. Fart and his gassy kind wish to eliminate all carbon based life, the “moonmen” he says goodbye to in the song. He believes carbon based life is fundamentally self-interested, violent, and destructive. They are in need of cleansing. This is why he tells Morty, “You are not like other carbon based life forms. You put the value of all life above your own.” It’s when Morty concurs with this that Fart decides to share his vision with him. It’s only because Morty doesn’t quite understand the meaning of the song that he fails to see the irony of his own words: “It’s how things should be.” But he will in the end.

I also find it uncanny that this is Morty’s second trip in the episode, the first being the life of Roy. In the former, it’s Fart who, by telepathy, gives Morty this trip, a life form higher than that of carbon, and scornful of the ways of carbon life forms. In the latter, it’s Rick who, by technology, gives Morty this trip, a person who also couldn’t give a damn about carbon life forms, but is a shining example of one of the carbon life forms that Fart and his kind scorn. Also, Rick does it as a form of distraction (so it seems) in order to avoid a moral disagreement with Morty, whereas Fart does it as a form of consolidation after reaching a moral consensus with Morty. Rick tries to disconnect from Morty, Fart tries to connect. This might shed a bit of light on the place of the Roy trip in the greater context of the overall episode, but I still can’t put my finger on it.

Back at the Jerryboree, the Jerries are hunched over a bunch of computers. It’s like a little circle of computers, and they’re sending jokes to each other via email… like duck, duck, birdie (golf reference). Jerry C-137 is having a blast. “I almost wish I could stay longer than one day,” he says. Pink shirt Jerry sitting next to him responds: “You just might.”

Pink shirt Jerry takes C-137 down to the basement, a dark and grungy place, not playful and child-friendly like the upstairs. The place looks grimy, filthy, and run down. The Jerries hanging out in this dive also look a lot less child-like and goodie-goodie. A couple of them are wearing muscle shirts, one’s wearing a biker jacket, there’s a skin head Jerry, a Jerry with a goatee smoking a cigarette, one drinking a beverage which is probably alcoholic, and so on.

Pink shirt Jerry explains: “These are the Jerries whose Ricks and Morties never came back. They live here now.”

Recall that on the form, there was the option to leave Jerry here forever.

Back at Gear Head’s shop, Rick is watching Ball Fondlers when suddenly a breaking news report interrupts the show: word has spread that Rick and Morty are wanted fugitives and that they are in the Gear System. Rick questions Fart: why was he being held prisoner by the Gromflomites?

“I am able to alter the composition of atoms, like this,” says Fart as he conjures up a bit of an electric storm within himself resulting in a chunk of cold falling to the ground beneath him, “That was oxygen. I added 71 protons to it.”

“Terrific,” says Rick picking up the gold, “the fart that pooped gold. No wonder every cop in the system is looking for us. Any species that gets a hold of this thing is gonna use it to take over the galaxy. Do you know how inconvenient that’s gonna be to my work?”

Then suddenly, sirens outside. Rick looks through the window. Cops hovering in the air around the building. “Somebody dropped the dime on us… Gear Head,” says Rick turning to Gear Head who’s holding a gun.

Gear Head: “Sorry Rick, the reward on your head is too high. And like you always say, you gotta look out for number one.”

Rick: “Number one is me, asshole! You’re supposed to be my friend!” ← Makes you wonder whether Rick is just playing word games with Gear Head or honestly believes that’s what the expression “looking out for number one” means.

Gear Head: “Friend?! Do you even know my real name? It’s Revolio Clockberg Junior. I belong to an entire species of gear people. Calling me Gear Head is like calling a Chinese person Asia Face.”

Rick throws a handful of twigs (which he gets from a nearby box of twigs) into Gear Heads face, getting them caught in the gears where his mouth would be. This distracts Gear Head, while Rick kicks him in the crotch. This opens a little door where his balls would be, revealing inside a set of testicle sized gears. Rick pulls them out, rips out the gears around his face, leaving empty sockets, and shoves the gears from his crotch into the sockets on his face–basically the equivalent of ripping someone’s balls out and shoving them in his mouth.

Gear Head falls to his knees in pain.

“Two things I wanna make clear to everybody in this room,” says Rick, “Never betray me, and it’s time to go.” Rick and Morty jump in their ship, and fly through the window.

The next scene is essentially a high speed airborne chase through downtown Gearville (or whatever the city’s called). Three gear cops are flying close behind them. Rick fires a laser gun at them through an open window. He flies between the turning gears of some sort of giant windmill, narrowly escaping. The cops aren’t so lucky. Then more cops. Rick releases a gun at the rear of his ship. It fires glowing green plasma balls (or something), killing one of the cops.

“Hey Morty, remember when you said selling a gun was as bad as pulling the trigger? How do you feel about all these people that are getting killed today because of your choices?” ← Indeed, casualties are being taken. This is just another one of the twists of irony Roiland and Harmon like to throw into the series. Morty tries to do what in his mind is the “right thing” only to make things 10 times worse. ← A typical criticism that the far right often levels against the far left.

“I did the right thing, Rick!” Morty replies. They drag on an argument about who’s fault it is they’re in the situation they’re in, Rick pushing on Morty the point that everything is Morty’s fault because he just wanted to play Roy at Blips and Chitz.

Jerry’s playing poker with three other Jerries down in the grungy basement. He’s playing with goatee Jerry, wife beater shirt Jerry, and shirtless skin head Jerry. He’s trying to pitch the idea that they shouldn’t have to take this:

“You know what? Screw it! I’ve got a better gamble for you guys. I say, we escape.”

Goatee Jerry: “If you wanna leave, you can just go out the front door.”

Wife Beater Shirt Jerry: “You think we’re kept here against our will? That would be illegal.”

Jerry C-137: “But if you can leave, then why are you still here?”

Skin Head Jerry: “Same reason as you [looks at Wife Beater Shirt Jerry], we’re Jerries.”

Jerry C-137, intend on proving he’s a different kind of Jerry, gets up, goes upstairs, and walks out the front door, no one stopping him.

Rick and Morty’s high speed chase continues. More guns pop out on Rick’s ship. Rick shoots down more cops. He then gets Morty to take the wheel. They hop seats and Morty, not yet in full control, rocks the ship a bit, causing Rick to topple over.

“Geez, dammit, Morty, who taught you to fly this thing?! Ha! Ha! Ha! I’m kidding. I know that’s on me.” ← Funny how he takes the blame here but not anywhere else? Maybe because in this case, nothing terrible happened. But in the case of people blowing up and Gear Town getting destroyed, Rick wants no part of the blame for that.

Then a giant ship comes down in front of them, essentially blocking the avenue down which they’re traveling. Fart flies out the window after asking Morty to crack it for him. He flies into one of the cop ships:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aCSa3Td6c[/youtube]

^ Did Fart intend for all that to happen? All he did was telepathically inject a vision of the cop catching his girlfriend and his best friend in bed with each other. Was he also controlling his mind when he decided to crash his ship into another ship? I don’t think so. Otherwise, why even bother giving him the vision? So somehow Fart calculated with flawless precision the chain of physical events–from ships crashing into other ships, to towers toppling over, to loose gears ricocheting off things and getting jammed inside the large ship causing it to explode–that would occur simply by making the cop feel suicidal. Or was he just expecting something to happen–anything–so long as it was destructive, to a greater or less extent, to the cops. Maybe he intended to drive each cop to suicide one by one, but through an incredibly lucky turn of events, he just had to do it to one.

Also notice that the song plays again in the background. Once again, it symbolizes Fart’s menacing intend to destroy all carbon based life forms (are Gear People carbon based?).

And yes, probably around 1000 Gear People were killed–just so that Morty could save a telepathic fart (the same who killed the bulk of them).

After cracking a few fart joke (almost as if he likes Fart now), Rick shouts out as Morty flies off: “Let’s get to the Promethean Nebula, so my grandson can finish saving a life!!!”

^ The irony.

^ But it’s interesting to note that after this scene, Rick seems all gung ho about this misadventure of theirs–it not only seems like he’s on board with Fart being on board, but he’s also proud of his grandson and his values (the obvious irony of the whole situation notwithstanding).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HinJkwqVLWc[/youtube]

^ Jerry’s attempted escape here reminds me of a very bad acid trip–like walking the streets of downtown on a Friday night on 8 tabs of LSD–and then he looks so dejected, so defeated, as he walks back into the Jerryboree. Now we understand what Skin Head Jerry meant when he said: “Same reason as you… we’re Jerries.” ← Obviously, these Jerries have tried it before. And they know what they’re up against, outside the Jerryboree. They know that, as Jerries, they can’t hack it. So they stay here. Now Jerry C-137 knows it too.

It also indicates that the abandoned Jerries know themselves, which is why they’re so scruffy and “bad ass”. Typically, a Jerry has home to look forward to, a family and a society who are waiting for his return. ← These Jerries have every reason to keep up the veneer of the trim and proper Jerry, the good Jerry who follows the rules and respects the social norms. But once a Jerry realizes he’s been abandoned, there’s no one left to impress but himself. So he finally relaxes and just acts like himself.

C-137 walks back into the nursery. The “abandoned” Jerries are all gather around a television trying to connect the cables. They manage to convince C-137 (and themselves) that the reason they stay at the Jerryboree is because “it’s a hassle out there” and “who needs that”.

Then Paul Fleischman shows up and introduces himself to C-137. There is a Paul Fleischman in real life. He’s a children’s book writer. He typically sports a beard, but without it, he’d probably look just like the character in this episode, so my guess is that this is the Paul Fleischman. It is convenient that he writes children’s books since the Jerries here are being depicted as children.

He explains that in some timelines, Beth remarries:

“Don’t worry, I treat Beth very well, and I do not overstep my bounds with Morty. Every kid needs a dad but there’s no replacing you.” ← The irony being that there’s tons of Jerries right in this room who could easily replace him, and particularly at the end where two Ricks swap their Jerries. It’s also interesting that this Paul Fleischman became a surrogate father for Morty, indicating that though the Jerry he replaced was abandoned, at least his Morty survived and returned home (or never left). Either something happened to his Rick after dropping his Jerry off or he intended on leaving Jerry there. Either way, one has to wonder what Morty thinks of his father gone missing (or maybe he knows he was abandoned at the Jerryboree).

Fleischman invites Jerry C-137 to help them figure out how to attach the auxiliary audio cable to the TV. They are confused because there’s two colors. So are all the other Jerries in the room, each one huddle together with a group of two or three other Jerries gathered around a different TV.

Rick, Morty, and Fart land on a life inhabited planet. Fart says: “The wormhole is 70 of what you call meters what you call north of what you call here.” ← The parody I mentioned of how Fart uses the English language. If he described telepathy to Rick and Morty with the words “…what you call telepathy,” then why not use those words for every word in the English language. It makes sense if he uses these words when reading the minds of the people he talks to for a word he hasn’t used before, but here Roiland and Harmon are obviously mocking their own script.

Rick: “Morty, take your Fart to his hole and say your goodbyes. I’m gonna find some fuel and take a biiig fat Morty. That’s my new word for shit because of today’s events.” ← A little less supportive of Morty at this point.

They find the wormhole hidden within a grove of trees. It’s hovering about a meter off the ground looking like a giant vagina glowing blue, purple, and white. (I don’t think this is typically what wormholes look like and I don’t think they usually “hang around” specific spots just a few feet off the ground of some terrestrial terrain, but whatya gonna do, it’s a stupid cartoon.)

Morty: “I’m gonna miss you… um… Fart. I-I-I’m really sorry your name became Fart.”

Fart: “I will be back soon, Morty.”

Morty: “Really? [joyfully]”

Fart: “After I return to the others with this location, we will be back for your cleansing.”

Morty: “Um… cllleansing?”

Fart: “Carbon based life is a threat to all higher life. To us, you are what you would call a disease. Wherever we discover you, we cure it. You said yourself that life must be protected even through sacrifice. You haven’t changed your mind about that, I can sense your thoughts… [Morty starts welling up with tears]… Morty.”

^ Funny that he can sense Morty’s convictions but not how Morty feels right now in response to these words.

Morty: “Um… before you go, could you sing a… c-could you sing for me again?”

Fart: “Yes, Morty.”

Fart engulfs Morty just like last time. He brings him on the same trip through the psychedelic cosmos. This time, however, he abruptly halts half way through the song from a gun shot wound. It’s Morty. He still has the anti-matter gun. He shoots Fart in one of the glowing gems strewn throughout his gaseous body. It disintegrates, eating away at the gas surrounding it.

Fart: “Morty… Why? Why?”

Morty shoots him square in the other gems. With all of them gone and the cloud around them disintegrated, Fart is no more.

This is the conservative message in this episode. Only at the end do we get it. It is a message of careless liberal thinking, of taking action and trying to change the world on principles that have been given absolutely no forethought, actions and attempts to change the world driven solely by unquestioned assumptions. Morty knows that Krombopulos Michael is going to kill someone, and killing is bad. He finds Krombopulos’s target imprisoned in a galactic federation facility, and assumes he’s an innocent victim. He listens to Fart’s pleas to be released and to be taken home. He assumes nothing but good could come from that. The folly of Morty’s reasoning is seen not only in the sheer volume of people who died in the pursuit of saving Fart’s life, but in his total misjudgement of Fart himself. Fart turned out to be one of carbon based life’s greatest threats, a genocidal predator to Morty and his kind. It now all makes sense why the gromflomites were holding him prisoner and why Krombopulos wanted to kill him. Krombopulos was actually on Morty’s side, on all carbon based life’s side. It’s also obvious why the gromflomites were holding him prisoner–like Rick said: “Any species that gets a hold of this thing is gonna use it to take over the galaxy.” The gromflomites were holding Fart prisoner, rather than kill him, only because they wanted to learn the secret of converting matter–how to make Fart into a regular Rumpelstiltskin. But all this flies right by Morty, at least until the end, for Morty, judging the situation at face value, believes that he knows what the right thing to do is, and doesn’t give a second thought to the reasons why the situation is as it is in the first place, nor to any of the repercussions that might unfold as a consequence of his actions. This is exactly the central criticism that conservatists level against liberals.

It seems obvious from the pain on Morty’s face as he kills what, until now, was one of his closest friends, that he realizes how wrong he was, and how foolish it was to utter those words: “It’s how things should be. It’s how they could be.” In defending the maxim of putting all life ahead of one’s own, Morty is simply imagining doing good for others, not literally sacrificing his life for others, let alone all carbon based life for a different kind of life. He doesn’t fully comprehend the gravity of his words. He just knows that in moral matters, that’s the right thing to say. It sounds good to the ear. It feels good to say. It’s easy to take for granted as the right thing to do, as easy as a knee jerk reaction. But it only takes a second to think of possible counter-scenarios: should all life be put ahead of one’s own? Are there not any circumstances under which this might not be the case? And more importantly, as much as it might sound like the right thing to do, would you be able to do it when push comes to shove? These questions only occur to Morty the moment after Fart explains his intentions to return with his kind to “cleanse” their corner of the cosmos of all carbon based life therein, only when he understands how much he ought to feel threatened? ← That’s more along the lines of conservatist thinking.

Morty comes back to Rick at the ship. Rick is loading green glowing rocks into the trunk of his ship (presumably for his “work”). They take off.

In space, Rick says: “Morty, I know I picked on your core beliefs and decision making a lot today, but I am glad you insisted on getting that fart home. You know, at least all the death and destruction wasn’t for nothing, you know.”

^ It’s hard to tell whether Rick is being serious or sarcastic. He speaks to Morty in a tone that at least Morty could naively believe in. On the one hand, it could easily be construed as a mockery to say that all the death and destruction wasn’t for nothing considering that there was a lot of death and destruction for the sake of one measly life form. On the other hand, it is true that at least something good came of this whole affair (at least in Rick’s eyes); it would have been worse if after all the death and destruction they caused during the day, they couldn’t even get Fart home. ← But of course, this is the whole irony of the plot. Little does Rick know that Morty, at the end of the day, killed Fart. If there is anyone who should be struggling with cognitive dissonance here, it’s Morty.

Morty kinda just sits there with a dejected look on his face, a guilty expression that betrays the difficulty with which he is trying to process this harsh lesson. But Rick takes it as a sign of simple longing, that Morty is sad to see Fart go (which he is, but for reasons far more complex than Rick realizes):

“You miss you’re fart friend, huh? [ ← almost as though he has compassion for Morty, some empathy for how Morty feels] Well, I got a little surprise for you, buddy. While you were gone, I found a wormhole with millions of beings just like him on the other side, and they’re all coming to visit.”

Morty: “What?! Rick, no! You can’t!”

Rick: “Too late, Morty, the hole’s opening.”

Morty: “No, no, Rick, you don’t understand!”

Then Rick let’s one rip.

Rick: “There’s [laughing], there’s a lot more where that came from too.”

^ It’s not patently clear, but it seems like in these moments when Rick expresses some hints of compassion or sympathy for Morty’s cause, he is being sarcastic… but such that he doesn’t intend for Morty to actually pick up on the sarcasm, and maybe in a weird way make Morty feel good without having to admit to himself that he’s compassionate and sympathetic towards his grandson.

They finally reunite with Jerry at the Jerryboree. The lobby is filled with Ricks, Morties, and Jerries–like parents picking up their kids at school.

“Glad you’re safe, Jerry,” Rick says, “Whatya say we go home?” ← Rick actually telling Jerry that he’s glad he’s safe? Rick just might have a soft spot even for Jerry somewhere in that rotten heart of his.

The Rick we’ve been following through this episode says to another Rick: “Hey-hey bro, how many people was your Morty responsible for killing today?” The other Rick says, “None, we chilled at Blips and Chitz all day! [turns to his Morty holding out hand for hi-5] Ain’t that right, homie?” “Darn right, bro! Roy rules!” And they walk off with their Jerry. “Must be nice,” says the original Rick. ← Obvious, the Morty we’ve been following this episode was the deviant. Most Morties, we are to presume, just chilled and went with the flow. The result was that he and his grandpa just had a good time–they bonded, they spent some quality time together, no one got hurt–which is exactly what Rick wanted all along. ← And this fact, that this is all Rick wanted, shows that deep down inside, it’s not Rick’s desire or intention to drag Morty on these near death adventures or these traumatizing ordeals, but to simply have a good time with his grandson. The Morty we’ve been following is the one who fouled things up, not Rick. Because of his knee jerk reaction to a moral dilemma (which we are to presume was relatively unique across the Morties), he not only caused more death and destruction than could ever be justified, but ruined Rick’s plan of just having a pleasant outing with his grandson.

I’m certain that the “glitch” that fouled up Rick’s plan to have a good time at Blips and Chitz was Krombopulos Michael showing up at the passenger side door. Rick didn’t intend for Morty to witness the sale. And it was only because Morty did witness it that he was all up in arms about the moral implications of selling a gun to an assassin. What made this Krombopulos Michael approach Rick at the passenger side door and not other Krombopulos Michaels is not clear.

The nurse (or care giver, or Jerry specialist, or whatever she is) brings their Jerry to them. Before they leave, however, another Rick comes up to them: “Hey wait, uh, do you have 5126?” Rick, the one we’ve been following, asks his Morty to pull out his ticket. Morty pulls out a Blips and Chitz ticket. The Ricks shrug it off and just whimsically decide to swap Jerries. “Uh… wait… what?” the Jerries say.

^ So from here on in, we’re not ever going to be sure that the Jerry we’re following is the same Jerry we’ve always been following… not that it matters… it’s much like episode 6 of season 1: Morty very quickly gets habituated to the new reality Rick dragged him into. I’m sure each Jerry will do fine.

But what’s a bit more interesting about this scene is that the Rick who asked if the other Rick had 5126 is the same Rick we saw at the beginning of the episode when they were dropping their Jerry off. There’s a very quick instance in which we see their ticket:

If the Rick asking for ticket #5126 is the same as the Rick who was given ticket #5126, then we have not been following Rick C-137 (or Morty C-137 for that matter) throughout the episode… that is, unless both pairs of Ricks and Morties went through the same misadventures (but we’re not given that). We know that the Rick and Morty who got ticket #5126 were C-137s because Rick filled that out on the form at the beginning:

So who knows what dimension the Rick and Morty we’ve been following in this episode are from.

But why? Why would Roiland and Harmon throw this twist at us. Well, maybe simple because they can. Maybe they want to send out a message to avid and discerning viewers that: you can’t always assume you’re following the same Rick and Morty, the C-137s. Maybe that’s all we ought to glean from this. Who knows.

It also means it’s uncertain which Jerry we’ve been following in this episode. Was he really Jerry C-137 or the Jerry belonging to the Rick and Morty who went through a crazy adventure trying to get Fart home. We may never know.

The post-credit scene consists of an advertisement for Blips and Chitz:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOaZPndqT5E[/youtube]

YES!!! Delivered in one post! After thoughts and philosophical questions coming next.

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS:

^ What’s with those tubes coming out Krombopulos’s backside and into his head–like they’re literally plugged in to the back of his brain–why?

What’s a Blip? What’s a Chit? ← Are these like tokens or snacks or the name of a video game? Or is it the names of the owners–like two alien business men? I doubt it. If that were the case, there’d be apostrophes: Blip’s and Chit’z.

Did anyone catch the Meeseeks at Blips and Chitz?

As much as Morty might have been naive in his moral convictions, shouldn’t we at least praise him for manning up and doing something about it even without Rick’s help?

The anatomy of Fart: My initial thought was that Fart is made of anti-matter, which would be symbolic of why he wants to destroy all carbon-based life. Matter and anti-matter don’t get along. They cancel each other out. This principle carries through to life itself–all carbon-based (i.e. matter) life and all anti-matter based life are driven to annihilate each other. But then on second thought, I realized this doesn’t make sense. When Krombopulos says that he needs an anti-matter gun to destroy Fart, he must be thinking of the protective cloud around Fart rather that the exact substance Fart is made of. Why? Because it just doesn’t make sense that anti-matter cancels out anti-matter–if anything, they would affect each other in the same way ordinary matter would affect ordinary matter (I mean, sure, a matter bullet can kill a matter organism, just as an anti-matter bullet can kill an anti-matter organism, but this is not the same physical law of matter and anti-matter cancelling each other out–which I’m saying is what’s being symbolized here). So instead I have another theory: the reason Krombopulos needs an anti-matter gun is because Fart would just transform any ordinary matter that passes through his protective cloud into something innocuous. And if anti-matter passes through the cloud, not only will Fart be incapable of transforming it, but it will cancel out the matter of which his glowing gems–the real body of Fart–are made.

And on that note, is the protective cloud around Fart a symbol of the difference between Rick and Fart? Fart is obviously very open and forthcoming; Rick is closed off and hides his true thoughts and feelings from others. Rick puts up a thick, impenetrable shield–the ultimate in hard, solid matter–oblique to the world; Fart puts up a thin, very penetrable shield–the ultimate in soft, gaseous matter–completely transparent to the world. Rick’s strategy of self-defense is to keep people out; Fart’s strategy of self-defense is to welcome people in and transform them in the process–like he transformed oxygen to gold. Fart indoctrinates his victims with airy fairy flights of fancy; Rick hits his victims with the hard material truth.

And it’s ironic that Fart earned his name after one of the worst parts of biological life that we humans imagine. Farts are not only something we humans regard as disgusting but insignificant events in the grand scheme of things. ← Certainly not a “higher form of life.” Yet ironically, Fart likes this name and embraces it–ironic because if he deems all carbon-based life as beneath him–a disease in his words–then what must be think of this name if he knew what even us carbon-based life forms think of this, one of our own, biological functions? Yet, what does it matter? Even if Fart knew what a “fart” actually was, would he think of it as disgusting? Why would he? To him, it would come across as just another arbitrary biological phenomenon–it certainly wouldn’t be “stinky”–what would he know of putrid smells, let alone smells period? Rather than feel embarrassed by suddenly learning what his name means, he might just as well ask us: why are you ashamed of it?

When Rick says that Fart can’t go through portals because he’s gaseous, this is more that a quick gimmick on the part of the writers to give an excuse for why they have to escape in their ship–it actually makes some sense: when Rick fires his portal gun, the plasma blast doesn’t actually become a portal until it hits something solid–that is, it passes through all the air before it opens up. ← Obviously, gas and the portal-opening plasma don’t interact–like neutrinos and matter. It’s questionable if this is true of liquids as well, but I would think so give that Rick (we presume) flooded the room at the establishment at which Fart was being held prisoner by firing his portal gun to the bottom of some body of water. If the portal-opening plasma turns into a portal upon hitting liquid, Rick could not do this (the alternative to this is that he fired his gun on dry land and then dump a huge body of water into it). But then one has to ask: how would the water pass through the portal at all–that is, once it hit the bottom of the body of water and flooded the gromflomite establishment? One also has to ask: what happens to all the liquid in Rick and Morty’s bodies when they pass through a portal. What would happen to their blood, for example? Wouldn’t it just spill out on the other side of the portal while the rest of their bodies passed into another dimension, completely dry and more or less dead? And what about all the gas in their bodies, for that matter? If Rick is telling the truth that gas cannot pass through his portals, then we know something’s not consistent here: if they walk through the portal with lungs full of air, would they be forced to leave that air behind as they passed through the portal? I mean, it wouldn’t kill them. They’d just have to inhale again upon emerging out the other side. But then again, the air in their lungs is not the only gaseous molecules in their bodies. I’m sure there must be some molecules in their bodies, other than the air in their lungs, that, if suddenly depleted, would at the very least disrupt their biological functioning… but I think I’m asking too much of Roiland and Harmon. ← This is only science fiction after all.

Finally, it’s interesting that not only did Morty go through two “trips” in this episode (three if you count the repeat trip Fart took him on at the end), but that Jerry sort of went on a trip during his escape as well–not that it was literally a mind altered state, but it might as well have been. So Morty goes on a “Roy” trip at first, which is just bewildering and core shaking, then he goes on an ecstatic trip with Fart, and Jerry meanwhile goes on a terrifying trip from which he evades. So a mixed trip, a good trip, and a bad trip.

Still not sure how the overall meaning of the Roy trip ties into the greater themes and meanings of the episode in general. Even if we go with the theory that Roy represents what Morty’s life would be should Rick have never entered into it, it still isn’t obvious what that has to do with themes of conversatism vs. liberalism, or carbon based life vs. higher life, or knee jerk reaction morality vs. informed and carefully contemplated morality, etc. Does the trip Fart took Morty on shed any light on this question? For me, not really. I mean, I guess you could say that both trips involved what life could be like–the Roy trip involving what life could be like without Rick, the Fart trip involving what life could be like as a higher being. Another element that might shed some light on the connection between the meaning of the Roy scene and the overall themes and meanings of the episodes is Blips and Chitz itself. ← I’m wondering if Blips and Chitz is symbolic of anything–the random chaos of life, perhaps, or maybe that life is just a game, not real, perhaps that life could be fun if we just didn’t worry, like Morty, about moral atrocities and such. Since the Roy scene is nested in the whole Blips and Chitz scene, and since the Blips and Chitz scene is nest in the overall episode, perhaps its the symbolism of Blips and Chitz that I’m missing and that, if deciphered, would make the connection between the Roy scene and the overall episode more clear.

Finally, I wonder if the psychedelic trip that Fart took Morty on was supposed to be a symbol of how psychedelic drugs are often thought to bring one to a “higher state of consciousness”–that is, a state that would presumably be shared by Fart and his kind, by beings who possess that state of mind as a normal way of life.

MORE THOUGHTS:

The Jerryboree and the Citadel of Ricks–A Comparison: both places where each character gathers with other versions of themselves. Yet we see opposite effects coming out of each. Where most Ricks hate each other, most Jerries end up liking each other. The only Jerries who maybe don’t are the abandoned one’s, but even they don’t really show signs of hating each other, just not caring about life. And like the Rickest Rick, the abandoned Jerries are most “themselves”. Without anyone else to impress, there is nothing left for them to do but to be themselves. One can almost say that these are the Jerries who have “grown up”–all Jerries who believe they still have a home to go back to remain children, waiting to resume their pampered lives.

How many abandoned Jerries were abandoned due to Morty losing the ticket.

This episode is about a loss of innocence for Morty–partying at Blips and Chitz, going on psychedelic trips, and going against his own morals at the end. The look on Morty’s face when Rick is (sarcastically) consoling Morty about losing his friend is that of a guilty conscience. I think this guilt is going to stay with him for the rest of the series. He’s becoming more Rick-like every day.

^ And think about how Morty killed Fart. He snapped himself out of a trip right in the middle of it. He lured Fart in with the invitation to sing to him one more time, and used that to his advantage, carefully watching for the opportune moment in the trip to snap himself out of it and pull the trigger. I wonder how much playing the game Roy paid off here, how much experience at dealing with trips it gave him. ← Another way he’s becoming more like Rick.

I find it interesting how Rick was able to shut Fart up when he first tried to read his mind for the name of the Promethean Nebula: “get out of my head, Fart, I know you’re in here, la, la, la”. It’s as if Rick has learned that when Fart begins a sentence with “what you call…” it’s time to block out the telepathy.

This will be a very brief (brief as I can make it) take on episode 1 of season 3–The Rickshank Rickdemption.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRBCOniNuvA[/youtube]

I have to say, it was sheer genius–way more than I was expecting–and the way Rick got out of prison–well, I could never have imagined that in my wildest dreams. I always thought that somehow someone would have to rescue him… but I should have known–Rick always gets himself out.

So here’s the customary disclaimer: spoiler alert!!!

Here’s how he gets out. The gromflomites make the fatal mistake of trying to get intel out of him by plugging him into the Series 9000 Brainalizer–a machine that allows people to temporarily transplant their “soul” into another person’s brain. One of the gromflomites is visiting Rick in a simulation of Shoney’s inside his cerebellum (which, by the way, isn’t at all the thinking part of the brain, has to do with hand/eye coordination and learned behaviors). He’s trying to get Rick’s secret formula for interdimensional travel. After going for a trip down memory lane (in Rick’s brain), Rick ends up divulging the secret formula. The gromflomite signals his companions outside the brainalizer and they enter Rick’s formula into their computers. That’s when Rick informs the gromflomite that it wasn’t his formula after all, but a virus giving Rick full control of the system.

Rick transfers over to the gromflomites brain, then begins to hop from one brain to another until he finds a suitable Rick body (not in prison) to settle in. The series goes: Rick C-137 → Gromflomite → Rick D-99 → Commander and Chief Rick → Quantum Rick (more on Quantum Rick later; suffice it to say, there is discontinuity between Commander and Chief Rick and Quantum Rick). He ends up at the Citadel of Ricks where he finds his way into the teleportation room (a control center responsible for teleporting the entire Citadel to some other place in space, perhaps across dimensions). He teleports the Citadel directly to the location of the prison he just escaped from, effectively blowing it up (well, partially). After killing two birds with one stone (i.e. destroying the two space stations he hates the most), he makes his way to level 9 of the prison.

Earlier, while possessing the Gromflomite’s body, Rick is asked by the commanding officer Gromflomite why Rick would turn himself in, to which he responds: “Well, I’m just a dumb as bug, but it’s possible Rick knew he’d be interogated at this facility where we not only keep our most wanted but our most sensitive data. Anyone here with level 9 access could-burp-I don’t know, collapse the government.” After rescuing Summer and Morty from a trial run by the Council of Ricks, Rick (the last one he migrates to) leads them into a (now bashed open) level 9, and says: “And that is how you get level 9 access without a password.”

Then, making his way into a level 9 control center, he gets on the computer and topples the entire galactic government by converting the value of their currency to zero. Brilliant! And it works. The galactic federation leaves Earth like abandoning a spiralling stock on a crashing market.

All in one foul swoop!

Now, one point I want to dwell on is whether Rick (as the gromflomite) was actually telling the truth when he said: “Well, I’m just a dumb as bug, but it’s possible Rick knew he’d be interogated at this facility where we not only keep our most wanted but our most sensitive data. Anyone here with level 9 access could-burp-I don’t know, collapse the government.” ← It’s not that I doubt that Rick had this in mind, but it’s a question in my mind whether Rick had this in mind from the beginning. We can recall from the season 2 finally that the incident which prompted Rick to give himself in to the gromflomite government was Morty’s speech that he (and at least his sister and mother) love Rick unconditionally (i.e. despite the fact that he brings nothing to their lives but destruction and trauma). In other words, it seemed pretty clear that Rick’s motive at the end of season 2 was to do what he painfully came to grips with as the morally right thing to do, not to topple the government. So which is it? To allow his family to “have a normal life” in his words, or to topple the galactic government? But then again, maybe Rick is, yet again, killing two birds with one stone. My theory is that even if Rick knew he could do this all along, he never bothered because of his (well established) nihilistic outlook. We know that he is a self-loathing nihilist and doesn’t care about what happens to himself or others. So who cares, from his perspective, whether the gromflomite government survives or is toppled. But I think Morty’s words at the end of season 2 gave him a reason to put the plan into effect–not just for himself personally, but for his family. Yes, this theory takes a bit of the altruist wind out of Rick’s sale, but killing two birds with one stone is not only typical of Rick but can still redeem his virtue if at least one of those birds is done in the name of his family–that is, a reason to care. In other words, Rick’s wish for his family to “live a normal life” was not only sincere, but temporary. As altruistic as this may seem, he had bigger plans. He planned, during the interim, for his family to lead a normal life, but ultimately to free them of the gromflomite government all together, in which case it’s a win/win (that is, for Rick and his family, obviously not for the gromflomites). All he needed was a reason to care, and Morty gave that to him.

But all the action and the genius of this episode weren’t the only things that impressed me. I was also impressed at how well Roiland and Harmon recapitulated some of the most complex themes and lines of development throughout the series so far. They wrapped them up in a few simple speeches that Morty gives to Summer. They even revisit Cronenberg world in an attempt on Morty’s part to show Summer some of the aweful things that Rick does.

Frantically determined to rescue Rick, Summer gets the bright idea to dig up his grave. This is prompted by Morty who delivers a little speech:

“He [Rick] bails on everybody! He bailed on mom when she was a kid! H-he bailed on Tiny Planet! [tying this into the season 2 finally] And in case I never made this clear to you, Summer, he bailed on you! He left you to rot in a world that he ruined! Because he doesn’t care! Because nobody’s special to him, Summer! Not even himself! So if you really want your grandpa back, grab a shovel. The one who won’t let you down is burried in your back yard!”

^ A good way to sum up Rick, not to mention a reminder of the fact that Morty is an imposter in a reality in which he and Rick (the one’s who actually belong here) are dead.

Burried with Rick is his portal gun–quite ingenius on Summer’s part, I must say. Morty tries to persuade Summer to put it back. She says: “Fine, stay here! I’ll rescue grandpa myself.” Morty: “And how you gonna do that?” Summer: “I don’t know yet. I’ll make it up as I go. That’s what grandpa Rick does. That’s what heroes do.” ← A peek at Rick’s personality from a different angle.

In an attempt to convince Summer that Rick is not worth worshiping as a hero, he uses the portal gun to bring her to Cronenberg world where they find Morty’s original family, now turned barbaric and, in Summer’s words, feral.

A group of Ricks from the Citadel of Ricks pop in for a visit, detecting the portal gun activity. They freeze all but Morty and Summer C-137 (still not sure if this Summer is C-137, or even if this Morty’s C-137)–in any case, the Morty and Summer we’re following. Morty stops them by announcing that he’s C-137. Summer then goes on a speil about how their Rick’s been captured by the federation, and out of concern that Citadel secrets might fall into the federations hands, the Ricks decide to dispatch seal team Ricks into the federation to assassinate Rick C-137 (that’s how C-137 managed to migrate his mind into Rick D-99).

Morty and Summer are, of course, taken prisoner and put before a trial–the Council of Ricks–where Morty gives Summer this speech:

“I wanted you to have a normal life. That’s something you can’t have when Rick shows up. Everything real turns fake. Everything right is wrong. All you know is that you know nothing and he knows everything. And, well… well, he’s not a villan, Summer, but he shouldn’t be your hero. He’s more like a demon or a super fucked up god.”

^ That’s Rick in a nut shell.

And on the way to the trial, Summer is taken aback by the very existence of, in her words, “a city of grandpas”. Morty explains to her what the Citadel of Ricks is:

“It’s the Citadel of Ricks. All the different Ricks from all the different realities got together to hide here from the government. [Summer: But if every Rick hates the government, why would they hate grandpa?] Because Ricks hate themselves the most, and our Rick is the most… himself.”

These few quotes of Morty’s do a bang up job of summarizing two whole seasons of Rick.

Then there’s the end scene–a.k.a. the szechuan sauce scene / the 97 years scene–which is patently similar to the scene at the end of the Pilot. What is the meaning of this scene? What does the szechuan sauce symbolize?

I have a few ideas of what the szechuan sauce symbolizes, but for the sake of brevity, I’d rather talk about my theory of the imposter Rick. Why does Rick come across as so menacing to Morty in this scene–effectively telling him he doesn’t give a shit about him, that the only reason he brought him and Summer back was because Beth wouldn’t accept him as the de facto patriarch of the family (and Morty’s universe), as he puts it, now that Jerry’s out of the picture (well, at least he seems to respect Beth). My theory is that this isn’t Rick C-137, not even mentally. When Rick went mind hopping from one body to another, there is a break in the continuity of scenes between Chief and Commander Rick and Quantum Rick (the Rick on the Council with the afro). After Chief and Commander Rick goes to take a shit, the scene cuts outside the Citadel/prison hybrid where a great space war is going on. The next time we see a Rick masquarading as C-137, it’s Quantum Rick. He un-ruffles his hair to get the spiky doo that we’re all familiar with. This could be Rick C-137 occupying the body of Quantum Rick, or it could really be Quantum Rick masquarading as C-137 in an attempt to acquire Morty and Summer for himself (or it could be any arbitrary Rick masquarading as Quantum Rick, then masquarading as C-137).

Point is, we’re not given a scene in which C-137 uses the Brainalizer to transfer his mind from Chief and Commander Rick to any other Rick, so we don’t actually know if this one is really C-137. But this is the one who ends up bringing Summer and Morty back to the Smith’s household and posing as C-137. He even says in the stand-off with Riq IV: “That’s not even my original Summer.” ← Now, the stand-off scene is actually quite complex. Rick could be telling the truth here or just bluffing. When Morty points the gun at Rick, Rick says to him: “I wasn’t gonna let her die, you fucking moron!” ← This too is ambiguous. Is he telling the truth or trying to rile Morty up by making him feel stupid, thereby giving him an excuse to really dig into him, which of course compells Morty to shoot him, which is what he wanted all along.

The punchline of the theory is that the reason Rick seems so “dark” (in Morty’s words) during the szechuan sauce scene is because this Rick has just now reunited with Beth (at least a different version of Beth) and has not yet had the chance to bond with Morty and Summer. The real Rick C-137 has spent two seasons going on adventures with Morty, bonding with him, feeling like this is his real grandson. But this Rick, at this moment, doesn’t give a shit about Morty. His whole modus operandi, the szechuan sauce he’s after, that all Ricks are after, is to get his daughter back.

I’ll bet episode 2 begins with the real Rick C-137 (albeit in some other Rick’s body) showing up through a portal and shooting the imposter Rick.

On this note, it should be addressed that from here on in, not only will we have to deal with doubts that the Rick we’re follow in any given episode is really C-137, but even if it is, it will never be Rick C-137’s body. Rick C-137’s original body got a hole blasted in its head by Rick D-99–presumably never to be resurrected again.

Now speaking of the szechuan sauce, how much truth was revealed in the fabricated origin story that Rick fed to the gromflomite invading his brain? It’s true that what we’re given in the script is that the origin story was fabricated by Rick (and by this, all that’s meant is: Rick felt comfortable–that is, in control–when delivering it to the gromflomite–for it seems clear that “emotionally speaking…Shoney’s is [Rick’s] home,” meaning that so long as he’s in his comfort zone, in control of the situation, which he would easily be in contriving some bullshit origin story to a dumb ass bug, or pretty much anybody, he can fabricate anything he wants–hence: “We never left the Shoney’s!”)–but even fabrications often involve elements of truth. For example, the fact that in the fabricated origin story, Rick has a daughter named Beth is, obviously, true. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to encounter some bullshit story that some con artist makes up in which he didn’t borrow elements of truth; the point is, Rick can make up whatever he wants so long as he still feels comfortable, still feels in control. ← That’s the key.

(It’s interesting, by the way, that what appears to be “comfortable” to Rick is not just sitting at Shoney’s with a cup of coffee, but spending that time with his family, even Jerry ← This is ultimately where he’d prefer to be).

What I think is true of the (quasi) fabricated origin story is that, somehow, in some way, Rick’s original Beth died (or at the very least, he somehow lost her). This is what I think the szechuan sauce represents: Beth. ← Beth is Rick’s “one armed man”. Rick’s original Beth is lost forever. The best he can do is appropriate some other Rick’s Beth–like he did in Rick Potion #9–and even though, like Morty getting used to the reality he and Rick hijacked at the end of episode 6 of season 1, Rick can slip into the pretend roll of being Beth’s real father, deep down it doesn’t really satisfy–like enjoying only the memory of some delicious szechuan sauce; Rick is always going to be haunt by the (supposed) loss of his daughter. ← The origin story that Rick feeds the gromflomite may have been fabricated, but I predict at least this much is true.

(After all, it was the gromflomite who drew Rick’s attention to his memory of Beth: “Is that your memory of her out there? Between where you were on 9-11 and your favorite sports blooper?” ← Obviously, he did uncover something in Rick’s memory, something tragic, of what happened to Beth.)

Now this theory does deserve some attention drawn to its logical ramifications: strickly speaking, this theory says that the imposter Rick has, as his modus operandi, his szechaun sauce, to get his daughter back and that he’s willing to accept a substitute Beth in her place. Is this true of Rick C-137? Is it true of all Rick’s? Well, the first logical ramification of this theory is that it can’t be true of all Ricks. Beth is alive and well in at least two realities–the Cronenberg reality and the “substitute” reality that Rick dragged Morty into in Rick Potion #9 (nothing comes to mind when I think about season 1 and season 2 that would mandate that Beth is alive in any other reality). In the “substitute” reality, we know that the Rick of that reality died. What we don’t know is whether that Rick was Beth’s real father (i.e. whether the Rick who died is genetically connected to that Beth) or he too hijacked that reality, on an earlier occasion, in order to acquire a substitute Beth. But in either case, some Rick must have donated his sperm to some woman (presumably some version of Dianne) in order to produce that Beth. Maybe it was the Rick who died in the explosion, maybe not. Point being that at least some Ricks had Beth’s who did not die.

Now there is also the logical possibility that some Ricks died leaving their Beth’s behind. Obviously, the Rick who C-137 replaced in Rick Potion #9 is a case in point. After all, if all Ricks whose Beth died, and therefore are compell to find a replacement Beth in some other reality, actually succeed, that means there are some Beths who survived and whose Ricks are out of the picture (either dead or exiled or some such). That means that while some Ricks lost their Beth, some Beths lost their Ricks. This also implies the logical possibility that some Ricks and their Beths never lost each other at all! Doesn’t mean that other Ricks didn’t kill them (or exile them, or drive them out in some way), but it does mean, as in the case of Rick C-137 taking over the reality of the alternate Rick in Rick Potion #9, that Ricks don’t have to kill or drive out other Ricks in order to pose as the original Ricks of the reality they hijack. They can just seek out a reality in which the Rick of that reality died or disappeared or some such by way of other causes.

Given the facts of the story, according to the script so far, we are to presume that Rick C-137 was absent from the Smith family for some odd 15 to 20 years. ← This too is an element that has implications for the logical ramification of this theory (the imposter Rick theory), namely that if all (or some) Ricks are just trying to find substitute Beths, why would Rick C-137 enter into this Beth’s life after 20 years (or 15, depending)?

One possibility as that Rick C-137 actually did acquire a Beth at the young age at which she died, but then lost her again at her current age (30, 40, or whatever age she happens to be), and so just repeated his previous “fix”. After all, Rick did say at the end of Rick Potion #9: “It’s not like we can do this every week anyways, we get, like, 3 or 4 of these tops!” ← Suggesting that he’s done this before. Another logical possibilities is that Rick C-137 at least waits for the Rick of a particular reality he’s targeting to die on his own accord (i.e. naturally, from some freak accident, gets murdered, whatever) and it happened that in the reality he was targeting, its Rick died when Beth was at the age of 30 or 40 or whatever, and for the 15 to 20 years before that, he was “predisposed” (i.e. abandoned the family for selfish reasons, got captured by the gromflomites, was trying to protect his family from all his enemies by staying as far away from them as possible, etc.). ← The only question that arises for this logical possibility is: why would Rick wait so long if there would most likely be so many other realities in which that reality’s Rick dies (or moves out of the picture) much earlier? The answer is: because Rick C-137 wants a Beth who comes closest to his original Beth… and if that requires waiting 30 or 40 years, maybe to C-137 it’s worth it.

In any case, can’t wait to see what season 3 has in store. I’m not even done my analysis on season 2, and I doubt I’ll complete it even after season 3 has been fully aired on Adult Swim several months from now (at least at the current pace). This will unquestionably taint my analysis of what’s left of season two (at least from the point at which season 3 begins to be aired) and it will be interesting to see whether I’m compelled to go back on some of my past analysis to add certain “updated” insights and to see what comes of all this. As you probably know by now, I have no reservations about spoiling! (Though I’m cautious enough to respect my “spoiler alerts” duties that are unambiguously due). So I’ll not only continue to deliver my thoughts on any given episode but let you all know, straight up, when I’m borrowing insights from season 3 and to let you know in detail where those insights come from (again, with all due spoiler alerts). I don’t think, however, that I’ll ever pursue this (frankly unhealthy) obsession beyond season 2, so once I’m done my analysis on season 2, that’s it for me. Not that anyone cares, but if you want a breakdown of season 3 in terms of philosophical messages and character analysis, well… do it yourself.

A couple questions:

  1. What reality does the Citadel of Ricks reside in? At the end of season 2, when they were on Tiny Planet, Rick and the Smiths were, presumably, in their home reality (C-137 ← Assuming Rick took on the identity of C-137 at the end of Rick Potion #9.) Then Rick surrendered himself to the galactic federation and was taken to the giant space prison. The opening of The Rickshank Rickdemption has him in the brainalizer 9000 at the prison–so still in reality C-137–then seal team Ricks break in, Rick C-137 zaps himself into D-99’s brain, then makes his way across the galaxy to the Citadel of Ricks. There is no indication in the script that he passed through a portal on the way here, so we must conclude that the Citadel of Ricks is in reality C-137 at the time of Rick’s Brainalizer interrogation. This also means we have no right to assume the teleportation feature of the Citadel can actually hop dimensions (but I think it’s fair to say it can, being based on Rick technology and all), so for all we know, the Citadel always resided in reality C-137. If it can hop dimensions, then what was it currently doing in reality C-137? Either way, are we to presume this is just amazing coincidence? Are are to presume that there are multiple Citadels, perhaps one for every Rick who’s a member? But then which Citadel does the Council of Ricks occupy at any given moment. If there are more than one Citadel, it means Rick C-137 hasn’t seen the end of the other Ricks.

(Just as an aside, I wonder if the Citadel of Ricks was what the alternate Rick in his “fabricated memory” was talking about: “Dude, you have yourself, your infinite selves. It’s a non-stop party where the only guests are the only person we like.” Rick C-137’s rejection of it is why they ended up calling him “The Rogue”).

  1. I’m second guessing Rick’s motives about turning himself into the galactic federation. Now I’m thinking he toppled the government and the Citadel of Ricks for his family. In other words, Rick’s choice to perform a selfless move at the end of season 2 was genuine, except that it wasn’t what it looked like. It seemed like a move to turn himself in so that his family could be safe, but it was really a move to topple the government and the Citadel of Ricks so that his family, and the rest of the galaxy, could be safe. ← That nicely ties together the seeming contradiction between the end of season two and the beginning of season 3. There’s still the question of why Rick only did it after Morty’s speech. Maybe it’s because all this time, Rick held onto some doubts about joining the Citadel. He was torn, in other words, between finding connection with his other selves or with his family. So rather than risk his life trying to topple the government from inside a prison, having to somehow escape the Brainalizer, he could just find refuge at the Citadel completely risk free. But Morty’s speech about loving Rick unconditionally, and that unconditional love expects nothing back in return, convinced Rick that his chances of finding connection with his family far out weighed his chances of finding connection at the Citadel. ← So that made the decision for him–topple both the government for the sake of his family, and the Citadel.

Rick and Morty - S2E3 - Auto Erotic Assimilation

Sorry folks, I tried. I tried putting this all together in one post, but alas… this part 1 of a 2 part analysis.

This episode touches on a brand new sphere of philosophy, and Rick’s life–that of love and lust. It also explores the opposite extreme in how the secondary plot line plays out, the plot line featuring Jerry and Beth really digging into each other, really at each other’s throats–you would never think love and lust subsists between these two in this episode. And when it comes to Jerry in particular, he really hits the nail on the head–he delivers a blow of harsh truth to Beth that really hits home–he calls her on her daddy issues, going so far as to say: “Your relationship with your father is psychotic!” ← I wouldn’t exactly call this “manning up” though–more like reaching a breaking point and just saying what he really thinks.

But even in the main plot line–the one featuring Rick rekindling a lost love, a passionate, romantic affair with a girl–there is a sort of third plot line–one featuring Morty and Summer getting wrap up in some precarious affairs that touch on issues of race and prejudice, and here especially, in comparison to most other episodes, we see the folly of the liberal mindset, embodied in Summer and her liberal ideals. Morty, on the other hand, though of course still being somewhat on the liberal side of things, shows how he’s been “cultured”, or “nurtured” so to speak, by Rick’s leveling influence–he kind of stands back and watches, knowingly, Summer’s idealistic naivety.

The episode begins with Rick, Morty, and Summer flying through the ring of a planet, like dust, singing “Love!.. Connection!.. Experience!” ← Yes, even Rick can let loose when their lives aren’t in jeopardy.

Then the distress beacon goes off. It’s the S.S. Independence. Rick seems unusually happy about it. Morty questions this. Rick responds:

“The first rule of space travel, kids, is always check out distress beacons. 9 of out 10 times is a ship full of dead aliens and a bunch of free shiiit… [turns directions abruptly]… 1 out of 10 times it’s a deadly trap, but I’m willing to roll those dice!”

They arrive at the abandoned space ship–the S.S. Independence–and start exploring its dingy, cobweb covered halls (I guess spiders live on other planets). Rick spray paints the symbol of the Korblocks on the wall:

Rick: “This will makes the cops write it up as a looting by the Korblocks. [Summer: That’s horrible.] I hear ya, man. Cops are racist.”

Then the crew of the S.S. Independence show up. They look quit similar to humans except for their blue skin and three stubby antennae at the top of their head, looking like three small light bulbs.

They explain their situation of distress: “Can you help us? Our planet was taken over by some kind of… entity. It absorbed the minds of our people.” Another one says: “We didn’t notice it until it was too late. The people it takes over, they, they look like your friends, your family, your leaders, but they’re not… ‘themselves’ anymore. They’re part of… ‘it’.”

Rick: “And… how do you know it didn’t get on the ship with you? Those two ding dongs seem pretty calm about the whole thing.”

The two ding dongs point to Rick and let out a deafening screech not unlike that of the victims in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They grab the other members of the crew and start puking neon green/yellow goop into their mouths. Rick pulls out a gun and says, “Hold it.” The now completely assimilated crew turns to Rick with a smug look on their faces and says: “Hello Rick, long time no see.”

“Unity?!” Rick says.

Summer: “Grandpa?” Morty: “Rick?”

Rick: “Oh boy, uh, these are my grand kids, Summer and Morty. Summer, Morty, this is, uh, Unity. We sort of used to, uh… date.”

The next scene pans through another world, the world of the blue light bulb heads, showing scenes of a kind of utopian society. It looks clean, advanced, peaceful, a paradise on Earth (or whatever planet they’re on). Music in the background plays not unlike that in the opening scene of Back to the Future III when Marty brings a passed out Emit Brown to his home. We see blue light bulb head fathers pushing their children on swings in a park. We see people watering their lawns in a peaceful neighborhood. We see citizens having lunch in the sun, sitting around tables in the open air, just outside cafes.

They land the SS Independence–now a joke of a name–and Unity (re)introduces herself to Rick–except this time in the body of a mega-hot bombshell of a super voluptuous woman–can’t be much older than 30–and note that Unity is not just the one woman, although she is, of course, possessing this woman. Unity gets to choose who she gets to engage with Rick as. And she knows Rick. She knows that Rick just wouldn’t have it any other way unless he gets to engage with Unity as a hot brunette with voluptuous curves and huge boobies. At the same time, also note that she engages with Rick as an intellectual, dressed like an aggressive business woman or politician. The glasses say it all: sexy but smart. It’s the only way Rick is going to be interested.

She does, however, diversify herself, speaking to Rick through other beings close by. This bombshell of a gorgeous brunette is accompanied by what looks like secret service agents–men in black, so to speak–and they too engage with Rick: “Then I found this world, [switching to another agent:] where I was better able to focus on my passion for unification.” ← So obviously, Unity didn’t start as a blue light bulb head (and there’s no indication in the episode of what Unity did start out as).

Summer: “You mean stealing people’s bodies?”

Rick: “[slapping his forehead] Summer… rude.” ← Wow, Rick standing up for someone other than himself, not to mention Summer having no qualms about being rude, not unlike Rick himself–although it becomes obvious as the episode unfold that Summer is saying this out of moral principles, unlike Rick who would say such a thing out of callous disregard.

Rick sends Morty and Summer off with Unity, while he and Unity do some catching up–that is, a few blue light bulb heads escort Morty and Summer off the scene. But not without some resistance on Morty’s part: “Wait, Rick, aren’t these people gonna barf into our mouths and absorb us?!” Unity: “You’re guests here on my planet. You’re free to be yourselves.” ← Oh wow, what a privilege–but it does speak of Unity’s respect for Rick.

Beth: “Jerry, what’re, what’re you doing in here?” She catches him snooping for something in the garage.

Jerry: “Trying to find our weed wacker, 'cause our weeds are wack, yo.”

^ This sets the stage for the “lover’s quarrel” that Jerry and Beth are going to get into throughout the rest of the secondary plot line. And it’s interesting how it starts out: Beth notices Jerry looking for something in the garage–the most mundane, innocuous thing a man can do in his own house–and yet, she reacts with alarm, as though he is trespassing on forbidden grounds. Jerry confirms the innocence of what he’s doing by explaining, quite honestly, that he’s looking for the weed wacker–the kind of thing you would expect a man to do when he is focused on tending to his property. The idea that this constitutes “trespassing” or something worth being suspicious over, as Beth seems to be, is a little bit off to say the least.

And as an aside, I’m not sure what game Roiland and Harmon were playing by making Jerry speak in what Beth calls “that hip-hop dialect”–and he does lay it on pretty thick in this early scene–not sure what it’s supposed to imply–maybe that Jerry has to switch to this “hip-hop” mindset in order to call it as it is, to hit Beth with the harsh truth:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIwTi9nbNgk[/youtube]

Now, in Beth’s defense, Jerry is acting as the “man of the house”–even though, next to Rick, he rightfully should be–but next to Beth, perhaps he shouldn’t be–if in this day and age, both man and woman are supposed to share their assets, including the house, including the garage, then Beth’s say in this affair counts as equally relevant to Jerry’s. Nonetheless, if there was only one person in this lover’s tiff who was right and the other wrong, it would have to be Jerry. It is patently clear, at this point in the series, that Beth is obviously speaking from daddy issues whereas Jerry is peaking more from common sense. Jerry has much to learn about empathizing with his wife’s point of view, but even if he were to do so, he’s still be right.

But all that is interrupted by a strange alien-like gurgling screech. Jerry pushes away a rug to uncover a hatch (not one of Rick’s most brilliant moves, I have to say–it’s like hiding incriminating evidence under the bed).

Jerry: “Your father put a hatch in my garage!”

Beth: “You don’t know it was him!”

Rick stops by a news paper stand–the headline reads: “world peace achieved”–so simple for a borg like collective, hinting that maybe unifying, against their will, what were once individuals, is on the whole a good thing.

We see the news paper guy accept a few coins from a customer in exchange for a news paper, showing that even though Unity has joined an entire planet in one collective consciousness, she still has to make sure everything runs according to the ordinary agendas of the day, the economic pattern that was in place even before she took over; one might not think this is necessary, one might think that, once unified, what need would there be to exchange cash for goods and services, for a monitory or even a barter system at all. But it makes one think: how would the world run if not through an economic system, a system of give and take, of exchanges of this good or service for that good or service? Couldn’t a whole civilization make the world run just out of the sheer appreciation that work has to be done–if not only for others, then at least for the returns that come to one’s self? Couldn’t Unity provide some good or some service to herself (as another person) simply out of appreciation for the fact that, that person as Unity herself, wants–needs–that good or service just in order to survive, just in order to keep the world–again, as Unity herself–going? To preserve an economic system in this case would be like paying one’s self some amount of cash in order to provide to one’s self that which one’s self wants in the first place. Why?

But perhaps this is the point Rick was making–as sort of self-mockery on the part of Roiland and Harmon–when he said: “Little weird to publish a paper about it for yourself, but hey.” ← Maybe narcissism is something Rick and Unity have in common.

From there, Unity explains to Rick, through a series of different blue light bulb heads, what her ambitions are: she has aspirations to join the galactic federation; she claims that “after I become a ‘type 1’ civilization, this world will be invited into the galactic federation.” From there, she claims, she will have access to countless worlds, world she can unify, thereby becoming, in her words, a god. ← Here we see one of the features which contrasts Rick and Unity: Unity aspires to become a god, Rick thinks he’s already a god (and skipping ahead to episode 1 of season 3, we see this may not be far off from the truth). This theme will tie in to the end scene.

Rick asks where they can get a drink. Unity informs him that she phased out recreational substances. She reasons: “There’s no need for escape from the self when your world is one.” ← This is one thing the Citadel of Ricks lacks: even though we see in episode 1 of season 3 that the Ricks seek out the same thing with themselves as Unity seeks out by assimilating herself with other beings (i.e. “Dude, you have yourself, your infinite selves, it’s a non-stop party where the only guests are the only person we like. You think it’s cool being the smartest man on Earth, but once we give you this technology, you become the smartest thing in every conceivable universe, the infinite Rick, a god.”) Obviously, this is not enough to compel Rick to kick his substance abuse problem, and according to Unity, it’s because the Ricks can’t psychically connect with each other to become a collective. ← I’m not entirely convinced this logic makes sense, however, unless what Unity means is that the main point of doing alcohol and drugs is to escape from other people who are not part of one’s self, or perhaps in order to join others who are not one’s self, as in the way alcohol can help a person bond with others, lowering his self-masking inhibitions (but I wouldn’t exactly call the drive to bond with others a drive to escape the self). But what Unity has established is a whole planet of beings who are psychically connected right down to the core of their being–there’s no hiding here–the catch being that it’s not genuine bonding with truly “other” people–for what Unity has done, after all, is replace others with herself.

Rick makes a dumb comment about how Unity used to be more wild. Unity responds that as she’s gathered more beings into her collective, she’s changed*, she’s grown. Rick tries to convince her that he’s grown too because he’s reconnected with his family. “Why is that, I wonder,” says Unity. “Maybe it’s part of getting old,” Rick says, “Maybe I just miss being with [grabs her hand] a collective.” Then he kisses her. He keeps on kissing her. Other blue light bulb heads surrounding them and chant: “Yes, Rick, yes… yes.”

(* It’s interesting that she ends this speech with “Sorry to disappoint you, I’ve grown” when just a few minutes earlier, she says to Morty and Summer: “I’ve never been any good at disappointing Rick.” As the episode unfolds, we see that what she means by the latter is that she knows how to sink to Rick’s level. Growing, in other words, is what’s disappointing to Rick, particularly in this scene where the conversation revolves around growing beyond drugs and alcohol.)

I find the hopping from one body to another throughout this scene very interesting. It really adds a sense of jarring contrast between the romantic reconnection that Rick and Unity are going through and who exactly Unity is, who Rick understands himself to be reconnecting to. This entire conversation starts with Unity as the hot babe she introduced herself as when they landed, and after the scene with Beth and Jerry discovering the hatch in the garage floor, we find Rick talking about achieving world peace with Unity as a newspaper salesman (literally a man), then the customer who buys a newspaper, then a young black woman (who is blue), then an old lady, then a mailman, then a greasy looking homeless man, and finally a sexy looking police officer. ← This is the one he kisses. What would happen if Unity ended with the homeless man? Would Rick have made the suave move that lead to the kiss? Makes you wonder who’s in control.

In any case, this scene raises the larger question: who is Unity really? On a first impression, we get to know her as the hot bombshell we saw near the beginning (when Rick, Morty, and Summer dismounted from the ship), and the writers intend for us to continue with this impress as this woman fills in as the “default” representative of Unity, but really she could just as easily be represented as the old woman who explained how all drugs and alcohol were phased out. It’s questionable whether we even have the right to assume Unity is female. I mean, Rick and Unity did have a love affair some time in the past but in Unity’s words: “Rick, when we met, I was a young hive mind at the time, with the population of a small town.” It’s not even clear from this whether Unity had assimilated blue light bulb heads or some other species (probably some other species given that it took so long for Rick to recognize her at the beginning). Either way, Unity was (most likely) a mix of men and women when they first met. What was Unity’s original sex? Male or female? Does Rick know? Does the fact that she’s sexually attracted to Rick indicate that she was female? Or does she simply become attracted to Rick in virtue of occupying female bodies from time to time (or if she was originally male, was she gay? Would Rick have been informed of this?). Or perhaps she was originally from an asexual species or some kind of asexual life form. In any case, it’s a mystery, and it’s unclear how much Rick knows about the original Unity.

(For that matter, why would her parents have named her ‘Unity’? Did they expect that she was destined to assimilate whole civilizations? Was she born of a species for whom psychic assimilation was perfectly natural, and in that case, why ‘Unity’? That would be like naming your newborn baby ‘human’.)

Rick’s words: “Maybe I just miss being with a collective,” needs to be interpreted subtly. At first, it sounds like it echoes Rick’s longing to belong to a family again, or just to a community of some kind. But why did Rick say with a collective rather than part of a collective? He wants to be among friends and family, among lovers, among a community, but without being assimilated like a mindless borg. He wants to be accepted but still an individual.

Then Rick breaks from the kissing and says to Unity: “Wait, wait, stop. Ho-hold it. Not like this. We need a hang glider, and a crotchless uncle Sam costume, and I want the entire field of your largest stadium covered end to end with naked redheads, and I want the stands packed with every man who remotely resembles my father.” ← The ultimate pornography. It’s interesting that having his father watch him bang a bunch of redheads is important to Rick. What does this say about him? Could it be a glimpse into his past, of his upbringing? What was his father like? How did he treat him? (If the theory that Rick is really an old man version of Morty, then Rick’s father is Jerry.) I wonder if Rick’s father shamed Rick when he was a kid. Maybe Rick was a nerdy little kid only interested in science, too shy to talk to girls, too awkward for girls to take an interest in him, and maybe his father shamed him for sticking his nose too much into science and not enough into going out and chasing girls. Maybe this is Rick’s way of making himself feel redeemed in his father’s eyes. Maybe daddy issues run in the family.

Meanwhile, a bunch of blue light bulb heads are carving out a mountain in the image of Morty and Summer, much like Mount Rushmore, while Morty and Summer sit back eating hamburgers, watching the whole thing unfold in a matter of seconds.

Morty is (as usual) quite impressed. Seeing that Summer still looks miffed, he says:

“What’s your problem? They’re making you into a Mount Rushmore. They made burgers.”

Summer: [Sits up as a blue light bulb head fans her with a giant leaf] “Morty, open your eyes. There is no ‘they’. These poor people’s bodies are being used. They’re a planet of puppets.”

The man fanning Summer says: “I can hear you.”

Morty: “Well, it seems like everybody here’s cool with it… except for all those redheads. They seem like they’re in a hurry to be somewhere else.”

Then the sex scene happens:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GupdoBXMt3M[/youtube]

Now Rick did say he wanted a crotchless uncle Sam costume, and if you pause the scene right at this shot here, you can see a little something:

One can only imagine how he landed.

I also take the Uncle Sam outfit to be a sign of right-wing conservatism.

Cutting back to Beth and Jerry, they’ve somehow managed to open the hatch. They hear gargling, like from an alien creature writhing in pain. Jerry says he’s going down there:

“Beth, this is my house, which makes this my garage, my secret hatch, my subterranean lair, and my faceless gargler. Now, are you gonna keep hatin’ this player, or are you gonna jack my steez?” Beth responds: “Okay, you’re just making stuff up now.”

^ Still not sure what this urban dialect is supposed to insinuate.

Rick steps out of the stadium in a yellow house coat (same one he wore in S3E1 in his memory of where he was on 9-11) looking rather exhausted. He leans up against a lamp post and chugs his water. Unity comes out as 3 young redheads also in house coats (and high heels) plus 4 men in white button up shirts and ties who are presumably Sanchez Senior look-a-likes? If this really is what they represent, then we at least get an idea of what Rick’s father looked like… except for the one with the goatee–he looks a little off from the others–but Rick did say “every man who remotely resembles my father”–that covers pretty much anyone.

The lead redhead says:

“Oh Rick, that was so bad.”

Rick responds: “What’s this ‘was’ stuff. I just need to rehydrate, then we’re doing that again.”

Now we all know that Rick excels at everything, but usually that’s because of his higher intelligence. Now we see him excelling at sex, able to satisfy a whole stadium of redheads and ready to do it again. Did his intelligence help him here? Did he invent a gadget to give him more stamina, a bigger erection, extra appendages? Maybe intelligence isn’t his only virtue.

Then 6 ships land in their vicinity. “Oh damn,” says Unity. Rick: “Listen, if this is an invasion, I gotta sit this one out, but I’ll-I’ll be back to have sex with the survivors.” Unity: “It’s a neighboring hive mind species, beta-7. Our planets maintain a practical alliance for exchange of vital resources… [whispers] so be nice.”

Beta-7 definitely isn’t a hot sexy bombshell. In fact, his hive seems more assimilated than Unity–at least the bodies that Unity takes over are all different in appearance–all beta-7’s bodies look identical–a race of pale white, sickly, somewhat chubby, cyborg men:

Unity introduces Rick, calling him her “single minded friend”. Beta-7 responds that Unity has spoken of him. Jokingly, Rick says in a pompous tone “All bad I hope,” and slaps the lead Beta-7 on the shoulder, eliciting the same loud, screechy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers reaction. Rick reacts: “Woaw, Jesus Christ!” Unit gives Beta-7 shit. Beta-7 responds in the manner of what Trixie calls a cuck: “When Beta-7 expresses concern, i-it’s only b-because…”

Rick interrupts: “Oh snap! Powdered neutronium?! Amphetetron?! You know what I can make with this stuff?” Unity hesitates, but Rick twists her very rubbery arm, and she gives in–effectively ending years of complete drug abstinence (or however long it was). They walk off together giggling and being flirtatious. Beta-7 walks off looking rather dejected, even a bit miffed. “You know, I think,” says Rick before belching, “Beta-7 over there’s hoping your alliance can be more than practical.” They both laugh it up as Beta-7 leaves.

So Rick almost abandons Unity on the pretense of an impending invasion and says he’ll return to have sex with the survivors, while Beta-7 expresses concern for Unity on the pretense that Rick might be a threat to her, and guess who gets the girl. Not the nice guy, that’s for sure. Furthermore, one might think that Beta-7, a hive mind like Unity, having assimilated a whole planet like Unity, might be the better match for her. Rick is just a single mind. Yet Unity is far more attracted to Rick than to Beta-7. In fact, it’s kind of telling that her reaction to seeing Beta-7’s ship landing is: “Oh damn.”

Beth and Jerry make their way down into the subterranean lair, which turns out to be a high tech control center of some kind. They discover the faceless gurgler chained to the wall:

Jerry is not the least bit impressed and starts digging into Beth.

Cutting back to Summer and Morty, Summer is standing atop a box of some kind, shouting into a mega phone to all the blue light bulb heads walking passed: “Wake up people! You have to fight it! You’re under the spell of an evil monster!” Meanwhile, Morty is kinda just standing by watching Summer do her thing. One blue light bulb head, Steven Phillips, stops in front of Summer (odd that a member of an alien species would have the name Steven). He tells her: “I can hear you.” Unity explains to Summer that the man she is currently engaging Summer with used to be a sex offender before she took over. Unity approaches Summer with a woman’s body: “This woman was a drug addict on the verge of suicide, and now she’s a marine biologist.”

^ This hints at a bit of the liberal vs. conservative controversy, Summer acting as the typical liberal who fights on moral principles but only on the whims of a knee jerk reaction, not really thinking about the alternate possibility in which setting these people free from the hive mind may not be the best course of action after all. Unity nicely explains the other side of the coin, but to no avail. Summer isn’t listening. On the other hand, Summer would have an equally powerful point if she had pointed out that real marine biologists and other well-to-dos are also assimilated, and while Unity most likely didn’t make their lives worse off (at least on the surface), she cannot use the same excuse for everyone on this planet.

Morty: Listen Unity, I don’t think my sister’s trying to say that life would be perfect without you, I think she’s just saying life would be, you know, life.

A different man approaches them: “I have transformed life here into a paradise. Prostitutes are now scientists, the homeless are now phisosophers.” The man tries a few times to pronounce “philosophers” properly, and then ends up puking up that yellowish/green neon goop we saw at the beginning. He passes out on the ground, followed by every other blue light bulb head end-to-end–like a line of dominoes. Obviously something’s up. Unity’s effect is wearing off.

Why?

Because she’s getting drunk with Rick:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkT8Lp6RHqE[/youtube]

This is going inside the massive phallic symbol of a building:

Yes, Unity and Rick are getting drunk and high together, essentially throwing a wild party involving Rick, Unity, and… more Unity. ← This is Rick’s corrupting influence. For years (we are to presume) Unity has done away with all drugs and alcohol, a measure taken to improve life on this planet.

Several things are packed together in this brief scene. Starting with a coked up (or something) Unity saying to Rick: “D’you know what I love about you, Rick? You’re the only single mind I’ve met that really sees the big picture.” ← That’s what she likes about Rick? His vision? His intelligence? Well, I’ll admit, it probably is an attractive feature to most women (or whatever Unity is), but he’s the only one? Well, I guess that depends on what the “big picture” ultimately is. Maybe it’s something that can only be understood after years of reality hopping (of which, as far as we know, Rick is the only one to have discovered the technology and to have used extensively). Or, I suppose, being a collective. ← Would that mean Beta-7 also sees the big picture? I doubt it. Maybe Unity’s statement is just a glorified consensus–as in: “I like you because you agree with me.”

An ego-stroked Rick responds: “You got that right… but baby, listen, y-y-you’re talkin’ about taking over plants, and galaxies, you gotta, you gotta just remember to let go sometimes.”

^ Uncannily similar to the speech he gave to Morty at the house party back in S1E11.

“I can let go,” says a desperate-to-impress Unity hopping off the table, motioning towards the window and watches, with Rick by her side, as a nuclear warhead completely obliterates a nearby town. ← This is Unity not wanting Rick to think of her as “uptight”–as if that were a problem–and even after Rick understands that no one was hurt, I still don’t think that’s exactly what he meant. It seems Unity is trying to be wild and crazy in order not to disappoint Rick–breaking her vow to abstain from all drugs and alcohol being a prime example–and now, when Rick hints that maybe he is a bit disappointed in something (not what she thinks it is), she hikes it up a notch, goes above and beyond wild and crazy, up to bat-shit insane. I think what Rick meant by “let go” is exactly what he does when he “let’s go”–essentially, stops caring, following through with the ultimate nihilism–whereas Unity seems to think of it as “letting go of pursuing her goal,” which involves being serious about improving life on this planet, doing business with the galactic federation, as opposed to more spontaneous, chaotic behavior.

And of course, we get another glimpse of Rick’s softer side–worried about his grand kids–then dismisses it by asking for a refill on his drink; it’s also interesting to see, not only that he cares for his grand kids but for life in general: his reaction, “Woaw! That’s not what I meant!” shows that he has enough moral sensibility to at least recognize what counts as crossing the line.

(On a practical note, how did Unity get the town’s people to safety so fast?.. unless this was planned in advance… or perhaps they were all out on an excursion for some other purpose, and Unity just recognized the opportunity.)

Cutting back to Morty and Summer, they’re running around trying to stay safe. A barf-o-rama is going on around them, neon yellow/green puke is being hurled from the mouths of almost every blue light bulb head in the region. They can’t really control themselves and seem like they’re in a kind of delirious frenzy. Cars run into each other, spaceships crash, and a man controlling a towering crane loses control and drops tons of steel bars onto a port-o-potty just as another blue light bulb head leaves it. It also just barely misses Summer and Morty as they run by. The blue light bulb head who just came out of the port-o-potty happens to be the sex offender whom Unity spoke through earlier informing Summer and Morty of just that fact. He is now free of Unity’s influence and asks to take a picture of Morty and Summer’s feet.

Part 2

Summer says to the crowd after they’ve finished purging: “Do all of you remember who you are?”

“Yeah, uh,” says one blue light bulb head in particular, “My name is Ron Benson [typical name for a blue light bulb head, I’m sure], I’m an electrical engineer, father of two, and as you can see from my flat concentric nipple rings, I’m a member of this planet’s top race!” He rips open his shirt to reveal ringed nipples:

This is followed by: “I’m Darryl Jefferson [a Jefferson no less!], I’m a landscaper, and I’ll be damned if that ripple nipple bitch’s race is superior! [Rips off shirt] The cone nipple people will rule this world!”

Then an all out race war breaks out: ring nipples beating the crap out of cone nipples, and visa-versa. Summer looks around at all the mayhem and shouts: “Why are you fighting?! Can’t you see you’re all the same?”

Morty: “Oh Summer, ha, ha, first race war, huh?”

^ While Summer is panicking at this completely unexpected turn of events, Morty is kind of just laying back and laughing at it all, laughing at Summer even for goofing up and inadvertently starting a race war. And this again brings us back to the recurring theme we’ve seen more than once in the series about liberal naivety. Summer, in trying to incite a revolt on the part of innocent, victimized blue light bulb heads against the evil mind-enslaving Unity, ends up making the situation worse by inciting instead a race war. Maybe Unity was right, maybe assimilating the blue light bulb heads was for the better after all. But the liberal mindset, encapsulated in Summer in this scene, doesn’t think beyond the assumptions that are ingrained in the psyche by social conditioning and elicited by knee jerk reactions.

^ It kind of reminds me of the naivety of Morty’s moral determination in the last episode. Now it’s Summer’s turn.

This time around, Morty is taking it rather calmly, as if Rick is rubbing off on him; he takes in the whole situation through the same nihilistic, nothing-matters visors that Rick is apt to wearing. And his comment to Summer–“First race war, huh?”–hints at a kind of haughtiness that betrays a bit of experience, like he’s watching a novice from the point of view of someone who’s been there, done that–and he has been there, done that–he’s seen many things, gone through many disturbing trials as Rick’s side-kick for the last season and a bit–so it’s no surprise that he would take this nonchalant attitude next to Summer who’s learning some harsh lessons about irony for the first time.

The race war carries on all day and into the night. There are flipped cars, fires ablaze, broken windows, and the blue light bulb heads are still at it. Morty and Summer hide behind a vehicle (a ship?) watching in fear as the violence unfolds.

Morty: “Way to go Summer, you started a race war.”

Summer: “I didn’t start it, they’re the racists. I-I merely empowered them to follow their apparently misguided dreams.” ← Apparently not quite having learned the lesson.

Morty: “Okay, thanks for clarifying. I’ll have a super accurate headstone now.” ← Kind of a Rick comment if you ask me.

Then they’re discovered. A blue light bulb points to them and asks what race they are. Morty lifts up his shirt to show they’re neither. The blue light bulb head says: “Hey, these two freaks have no race!” and starts chasing them, the crowd following. Nothing like a common enemy to bring people together.

As an aside, it seems the animators got a bit lazy in this scene. Watch the crowd in the background:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD2uLdU7XUU[/youtube]

Also, who knew they had Sikhs on other planets?

Summer and Morty are backed into a corner as the angry mob encroach on them. Suddenly, ropes drop. Heavily armed law enforcement officers come down the ropes, protecting Morty and Summer. They get reeled back up to a low flying hover-copter, bringing Morty and Summer with them. They take off.

Officer #1: “Hello, Summer. Hello, Morty.”

Officer #2: “It’s OK, you’re safe now.”

Morty: “U-U-Unity?”

Unity confirms that it’s her. They breathe a sigh of relief. Summer apologizes to Unity for ever questioning her: “Unity, I am so sorry. I didn’t know that freedom meant people doing stuff that sucks. I was thinking more of a choose your own cell phone carrier thing.” ← Maybe she has learned her lesson after all. If Summer really means this–that she believes now that freedom means people doing stuff that sucks–she, like Morty, has grown one step closer to being Rick-like. And I think this is more than a statement about Summer’s character on the part of the writers, more than a development in her growth as a character, but a statement about the nature of political freedom itself. History, especially the history of free nations, has shown that giving people freedom is one thing, watching what they do with that freedom is quite another. If things like racism, violence, civil war, mob mentality, is what comes out of people acting freely in a world that allows them such freedom, then the problems of the world cannot be solely blamed on tyrants and totalitarian governments; it’s within human nature itself. And this raises the question of whether freedom is always a virtue worth fighting for, of whether sometimes a strong central ruling power that preserves law and order, and peace amongst a people, is better than freedom.

Officer #2 continues: “Ah, Summer, you did nothing wrong. I’m having fun with your grandpa. Lost a little control. Probably shouldn’t be piloting a hover-copter, nor should I be running 200,000 pediatric hospitals and 12,000,000 deep fryers, but hey, it’s not like this planet can take its business elsewhere.” Morty suggests stopping somewhere to get Unity a coffee or splash water on her face. Officer #2 continues: “No, no, if I wanted to be sober, I wouldn’t have gotten drunk.” ← Well, at least she owns her decisions.

We get a lot of insight from this scene into the nature of how Unity’s mind control works. If this officer, having not touched a single drop of booze that night, is drunk flying the hover-copter, then it says Unity’s influence over the minds of the assimilated does indeed stem from a central point of control, namely the bombshell blue light bulb head whose brain actually is doused in alcohol. It seems Unity–the voluptuous woman Rick is in love with–is at the top of a hierarchy–as opposed to being diversified equally among each individual blue light bulb head. If the latter were the case, there would be no need to pass on the intoxicating influence from Unity the bombshell to Unity the law enforcement officer. This is not to say carbon copies of Unity for each blue light bulb head would isolate each one off from each other–there can still be a psychic network that connects each of them instantly to any other of them; furthermore, as we don’t quite know for certain what Unity is really, it could still have been hierarchical, only that Unity as the top level node in the hierarchy wouldn’t be one of the blue light bulb heads but maybe an immaterial force or bodiless intelligence ruling over this planet. But since the alcohol chemicals in the brain of Unity the bombshell are having these kinds of catastrophic effects, we can say for certain that Unity the bombshell is indeed at the top of some hierarchy (not necessarily the top of the entire hierarchy, but for sure over enough blue light bulb heads to cover 200,000 pediatric hospitals and 12,000,000 deep fryers). Damn, can this girl multitask!

Furthermore, what does Unity’s devil may care attitude about the whole thing say about her motives in taking over the minds of an entire planet of blue light bulb heads? People are dying because of her careless choices, getting seriously injure, and at the very least being put at great risk. It would seem that to Unity, the life of one blue light bulb head is peanuts. They’re a dime a dozen to her. As they fly away from a burning town in the background, we get the idea that a whole town of people have come to ruin. And while taking full accountability for this outcome, she still reasserts her decision to get drunk and have fun with the kids’ grandpa. Obviously, losing a few blue light bulb heads is like shedding a few cells from one’s body–no big loss. It’s ironic then that this becomes patently obvious right after Summer offers Unity a heartfelt apology for doubting her. Maybe Summer was right after all.

This scene also reinforces the point that even though Unity has assimilated an entire planet, business as usual must go on. Pediatric hospitals must still run, restaurants utilizing deep fryers must still run, law enforcement must still run. Her statement that “it’s not like this planet can take its business elsewhere” implies that business must happen somewhere. It’s still a bit of a mystery why all this would be necessary, but I’m forming an idea of why this is: it’s all for show. She intends to join the galactic federation; this will be quite a challenge if she just introduced herself as Unity–as she does with Rick–for then the federation would probably see her as a threat; better to keep her real identity under raps and present herself merely as a representative of a whole planet of blue light bulb heads going about their daily business, just as any other planet hosting intelligent life with advanced civilizations.

Back at the Smith’s house, Jerry is livid about finding the Korblock in his subterranean lair. He says: “Oh man, I cannot wait. I cannot wait to hear Rick explain his way around this. He is gone!” Beth pleads with him: “Jerry, stop, please, ok? We weren’t even supposed to be down here. If we confront him about this…” “Oh my GOD!!!” replies Jerry, “I love this! I love that this is how far you would go for him. You wanna go upstairs, and cut carrots, and watch a lifetime original about the f$%@ing alien dungeon! Your relationship with your father is psychotic!” ← Not sure what Jerry means by “watch a lifetime original about the f$%@ing alien dungeon”–I suppose he means Beth wants to treat this whole thing like some kind of fantasy, like she was just watching it on TV.

An even bigger point is that even though Jerry is bang on about Beth’s daddy issues and that she’s off in la-la-land about how she wants to deal with this, he’s not quite listening to her. At the utterance “He is gone!” Beth’s expression becomes one of dread:

She switches gears at this point; she stops bickering and starts pleading. That Rick leaves again is one of her deepest fears. But this flies right passed Jerry. He still sees this as a confrontation, and reacts in quite the opposite way of what might otherwise have lead to a quasi-reconciliation.

The fighting continues:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX_xsT_MyRA[/youtube]

Beth tells Jerry to step out of his ego. On this score, she might be right (given what I said above), but she too is missing the point: that Jerry ought to consider that maybe Rick has the Korblock chained up in order to protect the planet is not what Jerry ought to be focusing on here. This is just Beth feeding herself another dose of her own self-denial.

In any case, they have officially passed the point of no return in their bickering. They are on a course of shouting right passed each other and any opportunity to talk seriously or to truly listen is now gone. Also, I don’t recall in any passed episode Jerry calling it as it is as directly and loudly as he does here. This seems to be a breaking point for Jerry.

The next scene opens with another animator goof:

They really dropped the ball in this episode… anyway, Morty and Summer are ushered to Unity, who’s half passed out on a desk.

Summer: “Unity, this place is a mess.”

Unity: “Oh, it’s cool. The part of me that’s the cleaning lady is coming on Friday. [Looks at her watch] GASP! Oh my God, I have a meeting at the galactic federation in an hour. [Rests boobs on desk] Oh, I’ll never make it. I’ll push it to next week.”

^ I would think that one doesn’t just push a meeting with the galactic federation, the purpose of which is to join, to next week, especially on such short notice. If she cancels this meeting, what are the chances that the galactic federation would take her seriously enough to grant her another one? Rick really proved himself a bad influence on Unity here, and Unity an absolute push over for Rick, all too eager to please.

When the kids ask to see Rick, Unity reacts with a bit of haste: “He’s… unavailable… he’s–” “Having sex with you, we get it, gross, get him out here now!” replies Summer. They begin shouting for him. He comes out stumbling drunk, a bottle in his hand, dressed like a drunken Mexican:

^ With a name like Sanchez, maybe Rick is living out his ancestry.

“Grandpa, we need to go home, now!” demands Summer. “Fine! Sheesh!” says Rick before picking up the portal gun and shooting it at the wall. “See ya,” he dismisses them. When the kids insist that Rick come with them, he scoffs them off:

Rick: “You guys, I get it, you’re afraid the big bad hive mind’s gonna steel your grandpa away.”

Summer: “Actually, no! I think Unity’s great and you’re a horrible influence on it! […] You and Unity are like… like leggings and mid-calf boots. You think you’re great together, but you’re just bringing out the worst in each other.” ← Acute observation on Summer’s part.

Rick: “Oh, gee! Boy, Summer, well put. Uh, why don’t we see what Unity thinks. Unity?”

Unity [as man]: “I’m jus’ takin’ a lil’ break from stuff… you know? I need to relax.”

Rick: “Oh hey… what’s this on the news, guys? Le-le-lemme turn it up.”

Rick turns up the volume on a remote. Reporters on a TV speak on behalf of Unity:

Todd: “In the news today, this looks a lot worse than it is. We’re really just having a good time. Karen?”

Karen: “Thanks Todd. Up next: are you a concerned grandchild or just a buzz kill. We’ll tell you how you can know for sure.”

Rick: “I think you too are a little out numbered.”

Summer: “Okay, well, what if you did it for me? What if you came with us as a favor to us? Cause you love us?”

Rick: “What? Dumb! Bye!”

Morty: “But Rick, Summer’s just say–”

Rick: “Summer’s just a hyper-emotional needy little… what’s the word I’m looking for here? Uh, human. It runs in the family. I can tolerate it but I can’t give a crap about it. Take a hike.”

Even Unity looks a little shocked at these words. Summer tells Unity to take care of herself and then leaves through the portal with Morty. Neither Unity nor Rick see things from Summer and Morty’s point of view, but Unity seems a bit in denial about how far she’s digressed under Rick’s corrupting influence. She too partook in the mockery of Rick’s grandkids as, for example, when she called them a “buzz kill” on the news. We know that this is just Rick–he doesn’t need denial to be an asshole or to not care how badly things have fallen apart–but I don’t think Unity fully appreciates the gravity of what she has succumb to–part of this is being drunk, of course, but also how much she longs to impress Rick. Given the look on her face, however, the way Rick spoke about Summer in this scene seems to mark a breaking point for Unity, possibly snapping her out of her denial.

Back at the Smith’s household, Jerry and Beth are in the heat of a screaming match, neither one listening to the other:

Jerry: “You don’t support this family! All you care about is yourself! You’ve got two children being dragged across the cosmos by your dangerously ill father! And you force me to watch it happen because you’d rather lose them and lose me than lose him?! Why?! Because you’re the child, Beth! You, not me! You!”

Beth [at the same time]: “It’s not about supporting the family, it’s about supporting you emotionally, but you’re unsupportable because it’s never enough, Jerry! There will never be enough support to satisfy you! And you don’t even know what it’s like to be afraid of losing anything because you cling and you cling and you cling!”

I wonder if there’s any truth to Beth’s rant. She nailed it by calling Jerry “clingy”, and maybe this incessant clinging to the things he’s afraid of losing is what’s holding him back from “growing up” (or “manning up”)–maybe if he were forced to lose something, something precious to him, he’d grow out of his child-like naivety and become more cynical and dark, like Beth, like Rick (maybe even like the “orphaned” Jerries at the Jerryboree).

Anyway, the Korblock breaks free, slithers like a slug right passed Jerry and Beth, leaving a slimy trail, breaks the glass door on one of Rick’s highly sophisticated closets, grabs what looks like a gun, points it at Jerry and Beth, then sticks it in his own neck and begins to speak. The device pressed into his neck is (apparently) a translator. He speaks in his native tongue and the device translates. He says:

"Um… first of all, hello… um, my name is Blim Blam the Korblock. Second of all, cards on the table, I’m a murderer that eats babies, and I came to this planet to eat babies [Jerry gives Beth the I-told-you-so-look]… however, I am also carrying a highly infectious disease that I suppose you could call space aids, as you put it, and Rick did chain me up so that he could attempt to cure it. [Beth returns the look] At the same time, Rick’s motivation to cure my disease was not to save my life or anyone else’s, but to patent and sell the cure for billions of blemflarks. [Jerry repeats the look] But you know the reason why I ripped the chains out of the wall? And do you know why I’m never coming back to this planet? Because the two of you are the f@#$ing worst! You both hate yourselves and each other, and the idea that it has anything to do with Rick is laughable! I’d laugh, but I’m biologically incapable! That’s how alien I am! And even I’m sitting here listening to the two of you, being like ‘What the f%&k!!!’ So, good luck with your shitty marriage, and tell Rick I’m sorry he has to deal with either of you. Blim Blam out!

I’m not sure what a blemflark will buy you, but Rick’s motive for curing Blim Blam’s space aids seems counter to what we learned of Rick in Something Ricked, namely that he doesn’t seem the least bit interested in making money. Maybe blemflarks aren’t money.

Rick is sitting on a couch with three instances of Unity–a middle aged scruffy looking blue light bulb head with a bear gut and wearing a bra and looks to be sleeping, another middle-aged blue light bulb head (a redhead with big knockers) looking a bit aged and worn out and hanging over the couch from the back, and the gorgeous bombshell we all know and love. She’s sitting, legs curled up on the couch, next to Rick who’s smoking a bong. (If the one blue light bulb head is sleeping, what does that say about the unification of Unity’s consciousness with others on this planet? They all certainly seemed to have to be unified when she was drunk, all sharing in the same intoxication. But then again, maybe Unity chooses to “release” some blue light bulb heads when needed–as in when they need to sleep.) Rick is watching a program on TV which Unity is, in that very moment, putting on for him. She sits on the couch looking at him rather unimpressed.

“Ok, ok,” Rick says, “Now make him cry–but happy cry. Now make them all make fun of the blond one. Now make them all do it on the table. Can’t believe you created a whole show for me. Now cancel it! Okay, now put it back on! Ha! Ha!.. all right, I’m bored.”

Unity: “Rick, is there a way for you to call Summer and Morty? I feel bad that they–”

Rick brushes her off. It’s questionable whether this sentiment for Morty and Summer on the part of Unity betrays a conscience. I think it goes without saying that Unity is more “feeling” than Rick, more caring, but this has to be considered in contrast to the total disregard she seems to have for the people she has taken over. It may be true that, in a sense, she made life on this planet into a paradise, but we have also seen that she thinks of the people whose bodies she’s taken over as expendable and usable like tools. To her, losing a small town of racists is like a drop in the bucket when considered on the scale of a whole planet, and making them into puppets for Rick’s entertainment is harmless when seen from a nihilist’s point of view–the “big picture” so to speak–in that no one is getting hurt. But of course, her feelings of guilt over how they treated Morty and Summer are highly dependent on the fact that she respects them for Rick’s sake, and maybe when standing in Rick’s light, then things matter to her morally speaking.

The look she gives Rick when he smokes up and watches mindless television also speaks volumes. It’s almost as if she’s having a “wake up” moment, realizing this man’s not all he’s cracked up to be, that far from disappointing Rick (who seems to be quite impressed with the TV show), she’s finding that she’s disappointed in him.

Rick goes on about Summer and Morty: “Don’t waste your brain on those weirdos Unity. They’re no different from any of the aimless chumps that you occupy. They just put you at the center of their lives because you’re powerful and then because they put you there, they want you to be less powerful.”

It’s hard to say what to make of this little speech. Do Summer and Morty really put Rick at the center of their lives? Or is it just as it seems? Rick is the one dragging Morty along on all his adventures? If that’s the case, then this is just ego talking. Rick tells himself that the reason they end up on all these crazy, chaotic adventures is because Morty wants to go along with him, but then complains when Rick gets them into a mess. The irony is, we’ve seen some truth to this. The moments are rare, but we do get glimpses of Morty relishing the idea of being Rick’s sidekick (in Close Rickcounters for example). And we know that Summer can sometimes be jealous of Morty and all the attention he gets from Rick. Certainly Beth puts him at the center of her life, but she never complains, and maybe should complain more (which is what the secondary plot line is getting at). But I think the reality is more that Rick simply takes control of their lives, which does make him powerful, but also gives them more of a right to complain and to demand he relinquish some of his power. In the end, I think this little speech is more fiction than truth, more his own self-talk in order to slough off responsibility as he’s in the habit of doing–not like Unity who simply allows herself to feel a bit guilty.

It’s also interesting how he seems to think Unity should completely understand. Summer and Morty are “no different from any of the aimless chumps” that she occupies. In Unity’s case, we definitely get a glaring contrast between Rick’s words and the reality. The reality is that the blue light bulb heads certainly did not put Unity at the center of their lives (regardless of whether or not it was because she was powerful); Unity, or so we’re lead to assume, simply took over, like Rick taking over the family.

Rick goes to the bathroom to freshen up. Looking at himself in the mirror as he washes his hands, he says to himself: “Best weekend ever, Rick. I agree Rick. Let’s see how long we can go.” ← I’m surprised how much energy Rick seems to have. Presumably, he’s been up all night partying, getting drunk and high. Unity definitely seems worn out at this point, but Rick’s like the energizer bunny. He can keep going 'til the cows come home. It’s true that he was probably doing a lot of drugs, and many of those were probably stimulants, but if we are to presume this about Rick, we ought to presume it about Unity as well (we did see her snort something off the table). So why isn’t she full of energy too?

Rick walks out of the bathroom to find Unity has left–and by Unity I mean everyone, the entire planet (or so it seems). He walks out to the empty room to find notes strewn all over the place, notes to him. He reads one:

“Rick, forgive me for doing this in notes. I’m not strong enough to do it in persons. [outside, Rick picks up another note, in the voice of a man] I realize now that I’m attracted to you for the same reason I can’t be with you. You can’t change. [grabs a note taped to a wall] And I have no problem with that, but it clearly means, I have a problem with myself. I’m sure there’s no perfect version of me. [reads a note taped to the newspaper stand from earlier] I’m sure I’ll just unify species after species and never really be complete. [sitting on the steps reading another note, in a woman’s voice] I know how it goes with us. I lose who I am and become part of you. Because in a strange way, you’re better at what I do without even trying. Yours, and nobody else. Unity.”

^ A very gentle way of being let down.

What Unity has come to realize here is that she’s grown beyond Rick. Rick stays the same because, out of all people we’ve come across in the series, he’s best at being himself. People change, the message would seem to be, because they are unsatisfied or feel incomplete with who they are. Unity admits in these letters that she is chasing something that she fears she will never attain. Earlier in the episode, we heard her express her ambitions to be a god. It seems Rick attains god-hood (in his mind at least) just by accepting himself as he is now. However, Unity’s letter does seem like a rosy euphamistic way of saying what could otherwise come across as a harsh blow. She’s essentially saying that she’s grown whereas Rick has not, and now that she realizes this, she must move beyond him. Rick tried to plea a case for his own personal growth by stating that “I’ve reconnected with my family,” but the display he exhibited in front of Unity when he called Summer a “hyper-emotional, needy little […] human,” is what set off doubts in her mind, eventually culminating in that look of disappointment on her face as she put on a television show for him. ← It was at that point when she realized he hasn’t changed at all, and that she’s grown beyond him.

Yet there is a strange allure to Rick’s personality that not only draws Unity in, but Morty and Summer too as evinced by their occasional longing to be his sidekick. And us too, I might say. We know that Rick is an insensitive prick who puts his own family at great risk, and can be extremely insulting at times, yet we find ourselves liking him for some strange reason, wanting to be like him (I go into detail about this phenomenon, which can be seen in other fictional characters in film and literature, here). What’s being suggested here is that Rick’s seeming security in being himself (openly, without shame) is what draws people in, and makes them want to sink to his level, abandoning whatever growth they’ve achieve up to that point. Why? Is it because we too would like to feel secure in being ourselves? Take a break from all this self-improvement we strive for, or wish we could strive for? To feel complete, if only vicariously? Unity, in her letters, expresses that she knows this is true of herself, and that while the enchanting allure that Rick exudes makes her feel free, she realizes this is, on the whole, not good, and constitutes a step back for her. Missing the appointment with the galactic federation wasn’t just letting go, it may have cost her her deepest ambition–to become a god over countless planets. Rick, of course, was trying to get her to realize this was the whole point anyway–“you’re talking about taking over planets and galaxies–you gotta, you gotta just remember to let go sometimes, you know”–but we know from her reaction that she missed the point. No, Unity has come too far, worked too hard, to let that go.

And that Rick does what she does better than she can without even trying, that in his presence, she becomes a part of him rather than the other way around. Does this hint at why she never bothered to assimilate him? That he’s the only person she’s met whom she would rather become a part of rather than make a part of her? And is the message: one can assimilate others best if one just doesn’t try–that is, if one simply exudes confidence in being one’s self–whereas trying, if obvious, puts people off, thereby requiring, in Unity’s case, forced assimilation.

Maybe the greater message here is that while we may remain satisfied in who we are at any given point in our lives–thereby relinquishing the need to care about anything else, or anyone–growth only happens by connecting with others. One reaches beyond one’s self and tries to connect with the experiences, personalities, desires and needs of others. This not only fosters change through learning from others, but adds to one’s self–to one’s experiences, personality, desires and needs–by acquiring a sort of “extension” of one’s self–not just different but more–which is just what growth is.

In effect, if this is indeed the central message of this episode, then I think we can read between the lines and infer that Unity’s notes were more of a blow to Rick than to Unity herself. “I have a problem with myself,” was most likely a gentle way of saying “you’re bad for me.” ← It’s not you, it’s me.

Rick gets back to the Smith’s household where everyone’s watching TV in the living room. Everyone’s got a look of concern on their face except Jerry. Rick enters the room. Beth stands up to confront him:

Beth: “Dad… [cough]… I–um–Jerry and I were looking for our weed wacker and found your subterranean lair, and your alien prisoner, and he got away. And I know I sound like mom but I can’t sacrifice this whole family’s safety just because I’m afraid you’ll leave again… so… [steps closer and puts on a look of sternness] no more alien prisoners and no more subterranean excavation without consulting us.”

It appears Beth was listening and took Jerry’s words seriously, not to mention courageous enough to confront Rick despite her fears. I wonder how much of Beth’s words sunk in with Jerry. Tying this in with the theme of growth, could we say that Beth here demonstrates her ability to grow whereas Jerry does not?

But to Beth’s utter surprise, Rick answers: “Ok.”

Beth: “Ok? eh, uh, er, Ok like you’re gonna quietly teleport somewhere and never come back?”

Rick: “No, it’s your house.”

Summer: “Grandpa Rick, what happened with Unity?”

Rick: “Who? Oh, Unity. Yeah, well… I mean, honestly, we’re talking about an entity that thrives on enslavement, you know. It’s not cool. Fun’s fun, but who needs it. I’ll be in the garage.”

A complete 180, taking Summer’s point of view only now that it suits him.

Then this happens:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoKo3OaApWs[/youtube]

When I watched this for the first time, I thought Rick chickened out in the end, that he dropped his head on purpose 'cause he didn’t really want to kill himself. Then someone else online suggested that Rick was too drunk to keep his head up and inadvertently passed out before the device could nuke him. ← Not sure which is more accurate.

I’m not sure what was with Rick downing that vat of yellow chemicals (did he need that for his device to work on him?), but I see some symbolism in the poor creature he vaporizes: he hurts the ones he loves. I think that’s why the creators had him gently stroking the creature he gave life to, as if soothing the creature before submitting it to a grim fate–he seems to genuinely feel for the creature–just a little maybe–enough to say: I’m not doing this to hurt you. Rick, in this scene, is playing out what he probably knows quite painfully: that he brought harm to Unity, and that he continues to bring harm to his family.

Was Rick really in love? He was certainly depressed about being dumped, but this can happen even with infatuation or lust (as people call it). If he was in love, it means his nihilistic outlook which is usually the basis for refusal to care about anything was never quite complete–not when he knew Unity was out there–for then he had a reason to live. But without her, it seems like he has no reason to live.

This is also an example of a loss much like Beth’s fears. It’s even ironic that he would attempt to commit suicide just after telling Beth he wasn’t going to leave her for standing up to him.

Unity may not have been able to assimilate Rick, but she certainly captured his heart. Which leads one to wonder: was that intentional? I mean, who knows if there was an initial attempt on Unity’s part to assimilate Rick (the attempt would first and foremost require barfing into his mouth, which means a failure would amount to Rick merely overpowering Unity physically, but even if she managed to get passed that step, how would Rick have resisted assimilation? We saw in the last episode that he managed to block Fart out of his mind in that one scene–maybe he’s got a knack for fighting psychic control), but permitting Rick the independence of his mind may not have been free. It may have come at the cost of a surreptitious and cunning ploy on Unity’s part to assimilate his heart. It is often assumed by young women that if she is able to win a man’s heart, she will be able to change him; in extreme cases, to control him, making him into a slave who will do whatever her will desires. Unity’s realization, then, that Rick will never change constitutes her coming to grips with the fact that Rick cannot be assimilated at all, thus she gives up on him.

We all know why Rick fell for Unity–what heterosexual man wouldn’t fall for a hot brunette with huge boobies and a smooth, curvy body–and it’s understandable why any woman would fall for Rick–he has that “take charge” personality, that “asshole” attitude that makes him the polar opposite of the “nice guy”–but that Unity is a woman is a question that hasn’t been settled. The party scene in which the booze in Unity’s brain (the hot bombshell) cause everyone else on the planet to get drunk suggests that the hot bombshell is at the top of a hierarchy, a node in the psychic network from which control is issued out to other blue light bulb heads, making the bombshell more “Unity” than the others in a certain sense. But we’ve also seen that this couldn’t have been the original Unity. The opening scene in which Unity and Rick reunite suggests that Unity didn’t start out as a blue light bulb head. It takes Rick a while to recognize that the escapees on the SS Independence are Unity. If Rick remembers Unity as a blue light bulb head, surely all their talk about an entity that “absorbed the minds of [their] people,” and “the people it takes over, they, they look like your friends, your family, your leaders, but they’re not… ‘themselves’ anymore,” coupled with the fact that Rick obviously sees that they’re blue light bulb heads, would mostly likely tip him off that it’s Unity they’re talking about. But it’s only when the members of the SS Independence get re-assimilated by Unity and when Unity turns to look at Rick in that seductive way, saying “Hello Rick, long time no see,” that he realizes it’s Unity. This obviously means that when they first met, when Unity was a “young hive mind with a population of a small town,” she was a different species, which means that this Unity, the hot bombshell, is unlikely to be at the top of the entire hierarchy (maybe the planet, but not all of Unity). Which returns us to the question: who is Unity really? Male? Female? Something else? And her interest in Rick, is this really love? Sexual passion? Or is the real Unity interested in Rick for the same reason as she’s interested in all her victims–assimilation pure and simple, a stepping stone on the way to god-hood–and the hot bombshell is just the means by which to attract Rick? If her first attempt to assimilate him through the usual means failed (assuming there was a first attempt), then perhaps appealing to his libido was a second attempt.

PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHTS

  • Race and prejudice: While Summer was definitely depicted as the naive liberal type, I think, in the end, there was a bit of an anti-racist sentiment written into the script. The fact that these blue light bulb heads are going to war with each other over the shape of their nipples is a parody. Roiland and Harmon are saying differences in outward appearance are a silly thing to fight over, exactly the message that Summer was trying to convey–a clever move on the writer’s part as it allows them to poke fun at liberal naivety and at the same time distance themselves from convservative prejudice and bigotry.

  • Love and lust: Was Rick really in love? Or was it just lust? What’s the difference? While these questions could be asked of Unity as well, Rick is an easier (simpler) target. The passionate, romantic frenzy that overtakes one in moments of intimate connection with another is what most people call “falling in love”. Others would like to distinguish this from “true love”, saying that the former is only infatuation and the latter is dispassionate. They say that the former is selfish, that you want to possess the person like a prized object, whereas the latter is selfless, treating the other like a human being, putting their needs ahead of your own. I’m not so sure this thing we call “falling in love” isn’t a form of love. In all my experiences with it, I know I would have done anything for the girl, sacrificed a great deal of what’s in my self-interest. True, I lust after that feeling, and I need the girl in my life in order to get it, and for her to feel the same way (<-- that’s important), but these selfless acts I want to perform for her are driven by the emotion. You could say it’s a form of “automatic” love, whereas what they call dispassionate “true” love, maybe Platonic love, is driven by something else–maybe moral principles, maybe impartial compassion, maybe guilt–it’s more “deliberate,” hard work. But when it comes to Rick, there isn’t much in the way of giving or selflessness. “I gotta sit this one out, but I’ll be back to have sex with the survivors,” doesn’t sound like love. Rick may be so cut off from love that all he can feel for Unity is lust. Wanting to be “with” a collective, not “part of,” is Rick’s way of having his cake and eating it too, to be accepted and integrated with others without having to pay the price of a bit of selflessness, without having to love. Rick doesn’t even have to sacrifice promiscuity with Unity, he doesn’t even have to care who Unity really is so long as she engages with him through hot bombshells. In fact, Rick doesn’t even seem to care that Unity has cleaned herself up (at least this planet) as he deliberately drags her down to his level and convinces her to splurge on drugs and alcohol. The fact that being dumped lead him to attempt suicide might be construed as the kind of loss one feels when one loses a prized possession, like a car that gets stolen or a house that burns down. Or it might be construed as losing the comfort and security of being loved, despite that he never had to give it. Or if Rick really did feel something for Unity over and above lust but repressed so far down that not even he could feel it, could it be that he was depressed that he lost the chance to tell Unity that he loved her, or maybe that he lost the chance to give something of himself to Unity, the only act that truly satisfies love?

  • The economy and human connected: This episode of Rick and Morty does parody the idea of a world economy continuing to turn even though Unity has assimilated the entire planet. “Little weird to publish a paper about it for yourself, but hey,” Rick says. And we know that Unity has ambitions to join the federation, which means it’s in her best interest to keep the planet running as if everyone were disconnected and dependent on an economy in order to live. But this raises the question: what would happen if we were all connected? It seems one would be hard pressed to imagine why an economy would be needed at all if we were all psychically connected, the way Unity is, but one can imagine even lesser situations in which an economy–a exchange of goods and services–doesn’t seem necessary. For example, in a family, or a Hutterite community. ← These are examples in which the people are so close together, so connected, that they all pitch in to get things done for the sake of the whole. They don’t need to be motivated by money, by promises of something in return. They don’t ask “what’s in it for me”? Though not joined through a psychic connection, they do seem driven to take care of the greater community because of the feeling of belonging to it, the feeling of love that subsists between its members.

I guess the question this leaves us is: how connected would humans have to be with each other to no longer need an economy for subsistence?

  • Personal growth: How does one grow beyond one’s current state? Growth connotes more than just change, it connotes becoming more, becoming better, than one is currently. In that sense, it wouldn’t seem that growth requires sacrificing much of one’s self, except perhaps for bad habits and character flaws. But then how does one acquire additional gifts, virtues, character strength, etc. without changing? This episode seems to suggest: by connecting with others. Not just connecting with others but allowing others to become a part of you. Then you, figuratively speaking, absorb them into yourself, acquire all their gifts, virtues, and strengths. As a part of you, it become natural to love others. This was Rick’s Achilles heel–he’s closed off to love, and so doesn’t want others to become a part of himself–he wants to remain independent, he wants to remain himself; consequently the connection he seeks results more in others absorbing aspects of him into themselves, none of it going the other way. ← This is Rick’s strategy for becoming a God. Those around him end up growing while he remains the same–Morty for sure as we’ve seen how being Rick’s sidekick has definitely lead to growth through the series, particularly in the way Rick’s personality rubs off on Morty. To a lesser degree, Summer too (especially the way she “makes it up as she goes” in episode 1 of season 3, how she thinks “that’s what heroes do”); Unity certainly went through a learning experience in this episode, thus growing a bit more in the end.

  • Badass vs. nice guy: What kind of guy do girls really like? Does a guy have to be more like Rick or more like Beta-7? I mean, imagine Beta-7 as a single minded heart throb, not the cyborg he’s depicted as in this episode. Something like this:

Imagine this is Beta-7. He’s still a nice guy. He’d still express concern for Unity, almost in a desperate pleading way, willing to do anything but displease her. Would Unity still reject him? I think so. There’s no way Unity would go for a guy like that when she could have Rick. But what about women in general? Is Unity a good representative of women in general, at least with respect to her taste in men? Would the average woman reject the young heart throb in the picture if he were a “nice guy”? They say women like a jerk (Ecmandu says a woman would fuck a guy in a parking lot if that’s where she saw him massacre another man into a bloody pulp). They say this is an evolutionary inheritance, that women, on an instinctual level, know that assholes make better protectors and providers because they display their ability to dominate over others and destroy enemies. Not to mention that she wants her offspring (again, on an instinctual level acquired through evolution) to have the best genes, and the asshole, again, displays this by his ability to dominate and destroy. Some even say this goes so far as to attract women to men who abuse them. Is the average woman so attracted to big strong alpha genes that she would sacrifice her own well-being if only to get some of those genes for her offspring? Mothers would do a lot for their children.

In my personal opinion, which is informed by what women tell me, women like assertive men, take charge men, which is subtly different from assholes. Being an asshole is often correlated with assertiveness and a take charge personality, and so it probably seems a lot of the time like women like assholes, but I think more often than not, the asshole aspect is something women are sometimes willing to tolerate rather than the primary aspect they’re attracted to. Everyone’s different, of course, and I have no doubt women exist who actually like the asshole aspect for its own sake (I think what social groups one hangs out with has a huge effect on this), but I don’t think this is the norm. In my personal opinion (again), I think the ideal man for the typical woman is a take charge kind of guy, but not one who takes his aggressions out on her, not one who abuses her, but one who takes control of the situation (which might involve aggression against others) for her sake, or for the family’s sake. But when he’s alone with her in the bedroom, he’s gentle and compassionate (he can still be take charge in this situation, but not insensitive to her needs and desires).

A girl once told me that I’m too nice, and that I should be more assertive. ← The assertive part makes sense, but I can’t imagine a girl being turned off by a guy who goes out of his way to perform incredible acts of kindness, like taking care of a wounded bird, or feeding the homeless, or calling paramedics if he sees an old woman having a heart attack. That’s not to say I go around doing things like this on a daily basis, just that I don’t think being “nice” is necessarily incompatible with assertiveness. A guy can certainly do all these things assertively. He can decide to do it for principles he believes in, not because he was told to, or thinks he’s supposed to. Not just to impress her. Would women seriously get turned off by this?

It’s interesting that the post-credit scene involves Rick in his spaceship just outside Beta-7’s space station thingy trying to get Unity on the line. He only gets Beta-7 who tells him Unity’s not interested in talking to him and that he’s classified as a hostile entity. On the surface, this makes Beta-7 out to be the fall back guy, the “on deck, in the wings, shoulder to cry on,” in Rick’s words. But if you think of this in the context of the lesson Unity learned at the end of the episode, it makes perfect sense that Unity would turn to Beta-7. Unlike Rick, being a hive mind might mean Beta-7 is capable of growth, maybe even beyond Rick’s level. When Beta-7 reacted with hostility to Rick when they first met, and when he told Unity he was only expressing concern for Unity, Unity may have realized near the end that Beta-7 saw in Rick what she only saw much later–that Rick was a threat to her, at least in the sense that he brings her down. It’s the same thing Summer and Morty saw in Rick, that he’s a bad influence on her. If this is the case, it means that Unity is taking Beta-7 seriously, that she’s really giving him a chance, and that she now thinks Beta-7 knows what’s good for her and what’s bad for her before she does herself–a real protector and provider. Maybe. Possibly. But I still think it couldn’t last. Even if Beta-7 is better for her than Rick, even if she knows that now, they’re not right for each other. She’ll eventually want more.

And of course, it’s always possible that Unity was using both. Seducing Rick with her sexual charms so as to keep him around for the opportunity to assimilate him and Beta-7 too as an on deck, in the wings, shoulder to cry on. The games women play sometimes are all about that–keeping the guy interested enough to stay close, but never enough to seal the deal–there when she needs him, but free enough from him to switch to others when she doesn’t need him.

  • The ethics of mind control and slavery: Is Unity evil? Is what she is doing to whole planets–taking over bodies and obliterating people’s individuality–a monstrous violation of her victim’s rights? On the one hand, she does seem to improve life on blue light bulb head planet, but whose life? The individuals each blue light bulb head used to enjoy being are gone, wiped away, and so it’s not easy to say life’s been improved for them. Only Unity herself can reap the benefits of her work. Then again, is being wiped away, if done painlessly and harmlessly, necessarily a bad thing? Is there something intrinsically valuable about a being’s freedom to be an individual? To have a choice? We see at the beginning that the crew of the SS Independence are, to put it mildly, disconcerted with what Unity is doing to their species. Is that perspective, even if it disappears from their minds once assimilated, still valid in and of itself? And suppose that there is nothing wrong with this ethically speaking–does Unity still have the moral obligation to treat her victims as though each individual mattered? We saw how all the destruction and mayhem that was caused to the small town in which the race war broke out, caused by Unity’s drunken shenanigans, was really no biggy to Unity–presumably because a small town of blue light bulb heads is like pennies to a billionaire. If this fills us with outrage, would we be okay with it if Unity took more care to treat each individual as sacrosanct? That is, if she continued to occupy their bodies despite their prior resistance and lack of consent but took better care of them like they were her precious children? Would this be the same question as: is slavery ok so long as the slave is treated with respect? Slavery might not be the best comparison to make because the slave still has to suffer the indignity and fear of being a slave whereas Unity’s victims (presumably) aren’t even there to feel anything. But this may be a moot point if the question is: is it ever morally permissible to take away a man’s freedom and his individuality?

  • Drugs: escape from the self? Is the point of doing rugs really to escape the self as Unity says? Is it a way of connecting with others, as alcohol can help us with? Is it merely a mode of entertainment, a means to pass the time when the alternative would be boring and dull? I still don’t think it makes much sense to say “there’s no need for escape from the self when your world is one,” as Unity says, but I think it does makes sense to do away with drugs and alcohol if one feels they are standing in the way of self-improvement. And that seems to be the kick Unity is on. She seemed to do away with all drugs and alcohol as a step towards improving life on blue light bulb head planet, maybe even as something positive to put on her resume when applying to the galactic federation. It’s just that unifying the whole planet makes the decision incredibly easy. Rick, on the other hand, is not on a path of self-improvement. Rather, he sticks with his nihilistic outlook on life, an outlook that underscores apathy and “letting go” as he puts it–it doesn’t matter, in other words, whether you do drugs or not, so might as well do what your cravings call for.

But why does Rick crave the drugs? Is he trying to escape himself? It seems silly to me to dismiss the reinforcing effects of drugs, the urge for effortless and immediate pleasure that drugs can provide, so that has to be counted as one reason, maybe the primary reason. But I think most people who look for other reasons, like escaping from the self, are questioning why one would do such things if one knows how destructive it can be. Sure, it brings effortless and immediate pleasure, but surely one would care enough about one’s self to recognize the long-term harm that drugs and alcohol can do, and to do something about it. ← That I think is where most anti-drug proponents are coming from. What would they say about Rick? Is the cravings for effortless and immediate pleasure coupled with the conviction that nothing matters the only thing driving Rick? Or does he mean it when he says he wants connection? And drugs and alcohol are one way to find that connection? So it may not be so much an escape from the self, but an escape from being only the self.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The sexy blue light bulb head girl on the SS Independence:

Rick got to ride with her all the way back to blue light bulb head planet. She’d already revealed to Rick at this point that she was Unity, so what do you think they did all the way home?

The screech that Beta-7 emits (and Rick freaks out over) is the same screech emitted by Unity at the beginning when the two “ding dongs,” as Rick puts it, re-assimilate the crew of the SS Independence. Which goes to show she’s a lot more alien than she lets on to Rick, bringing into question, once again, what her motives are when selecting Rick or Beta-7 as lovers.

About the blue light bulb heads passed out in this scene here:

Why were they aligned perfectly in a circle? Okay, so they were all gathering around Summer and Morty, but perfectly aligned so as to topple over like dominoes? Moreover, they’re almost perfectly aligned with the circle sketched on the ground. And why the domino effect? If this is Unity losing control of a certain branch of blue light bulb heads, why wouldn’t they pass out in a more random fashion? And what does it say that Unity can say “I’m fine,” while the bodies she occupies are passed out?

Being at the center of attention: this may not be Summer and Morty’s motive in filling the role of Rick’s sidekick, but does it describe Unity’s? She definitely puts Rick at the center of her universe, and probably because he’s powerful (intelligence-wise), but then expects Rick to grow, which, as the message of this episode seems to be, amounts to connecting with others, thereby causing one to lose one’s self in others and have less control. Could Rick have inadvertently insulted Unity, at least indirectly? Is this the final straw that compelled Unity to leave, as in it made her realize that’s exactly what she’s doing?

And where did Unity go after Rick came out of the bathroom? I mean, we don’t see how long Rick was in there for, but I would think it takes time to write out a thoughtful letter and post on stuff, then abruptly disappear without leaving a trace. We can surmise that she went to Beta-7 but to evacuate the planet in what would have to be legions of spaceships before Rick even had the chance to spot them in the distant sky?

Anyway, one last thought: the theory of Jerry’s “urban batoi”. Yes, I actually think I know what the writers were doing with this. This isn’t the original Jerry. We’re actually following the Jerry that got swapped at the Jerry day care in the last episode. ← That’s the way he ALWAYS talks. I still wonder if this “urban batoi” allows Jerry to call it like it is, as he so harshly did to Beth. Or maybe this Jerry is just used to it, as in they’ve had plenty of yelling matches like this in his original reality. Maybe.

Oh, and what nipple shape is Unity the bombshell? Ring or Cone?

One more thought: is Rick a rapist?

There’s no doubt that Unity was more than willing to have sex with Rick, but we have to remember, she had to use bodies which weren’t rightfully hers. If Unity is guilty of enslavement, would that make Rick culpable of rape?

I’m reminded of the scene featuring Rick gliding down to the stadium in his hang glider. I said “one can only imagine how he landed.” One way I’ve imagined it, and it’s pretty horrid, is that one redhead in particular had her ass in the air in the middle of the stadium, and Rick landed his cock right into her. Now thinking about that for a second, that would not only hurt, it would split you in two. What if that’s what happened? Would Unity have done that for Rick? Remember, she treats her victims as expendable, and one redhead split in two by Rick’s cock might feel, on a planetary scale, like a gentle bite on the neck in the heat of passion. If that’s how it would feel to Unity, why not let Rick fulfill some of his sickest fantasies?