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.