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.
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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.
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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:
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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?
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Partying: a form of escape or a way of celebrating.
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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!