Rick and Morty - S1E6 - Rick Potion #9
In my opinion, episode 6 of the Rick and Morty series represents a pivotal turning point. This is the point at which we come to understand that the entire series is going to be about not just a bunch of adventures that Rick and Morty embark upon–not just a series of isolated dilemmas that the heroic duo find themselves ensnared in (though that will continue nonetheless)–but a more enduring adventure into the souls of the primary characters involved, an exploration of what makes each character (especially Rick) the person that he or she is, and how they change and evolve. ← It becomes undeniable in this episode that this is really what Rick and Morty is all about, and each adventure, crazy and chaotic as they are, full of demonic alien spirits, is just a bit of superficial icing on the cake. Personalities, and how they evolve, is an adventure that goes much deeper than immediate scares and trills, and takes more than a season to fully unfold.
In this episode in particular, we get a good look at Rick’s character on its deepest strata, and we find that he is not nearly–not even close–as awesome as he likes to think he is. Yes, he is extraordinarily intelligent, and yes, he can get himself and Morty out of any bind he gets them into, but this is matched by an undoing sloppiness and irresponsibility that might as well make him the stupidest person on the planet.
This theme is brought to light by the same old theme that keeps recurring in the series: the Frankenstein theme–and here especially–Rick creates an absolutely grotesque monster and “solves” it in the most irrepsonsible way. And interestingly, it all begins in the same way that all other instances of the Frankenstein theme in the series begin: in Lawnmower Dog, the Frankenstein monster (i.e. an ultra-intelligent and rebellious Snuffles) begins with Jerry asking Rick to invent an intelligence boosting device so that he doesn’t have to train Snuffles to not pee on the carpet. In Meeseeks and Destroy, the Frankenstein monster (i.e. the umpteen Meeseeks who go insane and attempt to kill Jerry while terrorizing restaurant customers) begins with the Smith’s (save Morty) asking Rick to solve their measly problems with something like a magic wand. In this episode, it begins with Morty (ironically given his steadfast refusal to use a magic wand in the last episode) asking Rick to whip up something to fulfill one of his deepest desires. All things they could accomplish themselves if they put in a bit of effort.
Morty is in love with Jessica, a beautiful girl he knows from school–at least as much in love as a 14 year old teenage boy can be–and the high school “Annual Flu Season Dance” is fast approaching. Morty wants to make the night “special” between himself and Jessica (who hardly notices him)–something romantic that will lead to (maybe) a relationship–so he asks Rick for something like a “love potion”.
This idea of Morty’s is inspired by a “counter-lesson” that Rick teaches him about girls and love. I say “counter” because it is counter to the lesson that Jerry, in a sort of “birds & bees” talk, attempts to convey to his son. To cut to the chase, Rick tells Morty:
“Listen, Morty, I hate to break it too you, but what people call ‘love’ is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it, your parents are gonna do it; break the cycle, Morty. Rise Above. Focus on science.”
As an aside, we catch a brief glimpse from this short speech of Rick’s of why Rick is so hardnosed and closed off; Focusing on science seems to be, based on this, not just a interest of passion but an escape from a love once pure but since gone bad.
Well, the message certainly hits home with Morty–he does divert his thoughts away from his love for Jessica and onto science–the result being: how to use science to make Jessica fall in love with him! If love, as Rick says, is just chemicals in the brain, then it should be possible to make Jessica fall in love with him by way of a “potion”.
Morty walks in on Rick in the garage while he’s finishing up his “ionic defibrillator” and asks Morty to hand him a screw driver. Morty puts forward the proposal. Rick rejects it on account of what a waste of time it would be for him, and repeats the request for the screw driver. Morty, as in the last episode, starts to get all pissy, whining about how he’s always abiding by Rick’s requests, always doing everything he says; and why can’t Rick help him out for once? Rick, seeming obviously annoyed by Morty’s grievances, goes to the shelf and pulls out a vile of some yellow liquid:
“Listen, this is called oxytocin. I extracted it from a vole. Do you know what a vole is, Morty? Do you know what a vole is? It’s a-It’s a rodent that mates for life, Morty. This is a chemical released in the mammal’s brain. You know, it makes it fall in love.”
He follows that up by pouring the chemical into a machine that looks like a slow cooker and asks Morty for a sample of his DNA. Morty begins by unzipping his fly before Rick informs him that he only needs a hair. Rick puts the hair into the machine and pushes a button which churns the liquid into a kinda orange substance. So the potion itself makes whoever it’s applied to fall in love, and whoever’s DNA is in that potion is whom the person falls in love with. Morty is thrilled.
Before leaving the garage, Morty asks:
“Hey, there’s no dangers or anything or side effects, right?”
“W-w-what am I, a hack? Go nuts, Morty. It’s fool proof.”
After Morty leaves though:
“Huh, unless she has the flu.” but shrugs it off. ← Obvious foreshadowing, and Rick’s shrugging it off a sign of his reckless irresponsibility (he kinda is a hack).
Cut to a scene with Jerry and Beth having a discussion in the bedroom. Jerry is obviously in a bit of angst over the prior discussion he and Morty had with Rick. Before teaching Morty about the ways of love (with his “chemical” explanation), Rick points out to Jerry how obvious it is that his marriage is hanging from a thread and that Beth is looking for the door. This coupled with Rick’s theory that love fades as quickly as the chemicals has Jerry in a bind. Sitting on the bed while Beth is tapping away at a computer, he asks “Beth, do you still love me?”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLrEuUybw7I[/youtube]
^ Here we see a side of Beth that, more than in any other scene in the series, shows how she is truly her father’s daughter: completely insensitive but bang on in hitting a person with the hard truth. And she’s right: she does love Jerry (sort of, kind of) but only because she makes herself love him. It doesn’t come naturally; she has to work at it. And her final comment is very telling: stop asking and maybe I’ll love you more; in other words, this very angst he feels betrays a certain insecurity which turns her off–she has to work at making him feel loved but this at the expense of her love for him. It’s like love is a limited resource: the more you give, the less you have. (And in this instance, she is already on low, thus the unhindered insensitivity.)
This, for me, reinforces Rick’s point: love is a chemical reaction. In Beth’s case, it must be biologically stimulated. Jerry has to act in a certain way (confident) and say the right things (or at least not say the wrong things: like “do you still love me?”). There are obviously many forms of love–universal compassion for fellow human beings, for example, or love for one’s children, or an inspired commitment to the morality of treating others right. The most selfless form of love, people say, is that which devotes itself to the needs and feelings of others even when at the expense of one’s self, which I would classify as a commitment to morality (and specifically when inspired, not when guilted or just out of an impulse to conform to social standards). But Beth here seems to be driven mostly by her own biology–she only feels in love with Jerry when he displays that which turns her on–confidence, security, manliness, etc.–chemical indeed. But like Morty, she is not entirely as vein and base as her father–she still at least tries (which, in accordance with prior themes we have seen, doesn’t entirely work, and in this scene in particular, kind of backfires); she puts in the work to at least try to love Jerry a bit more than her biology allows, and thereby kind of “sort of” loves him. ← But hearing this doesn’t feel very reassuring to Jerry, thus making him feel less loved.
Beth gets a text message: a horse is injured and she’s needed (along with Davin, another surgeon) at the hospital. She leaves. In Jerry’s mind, with a look of consternation, he keeps repeating: “Davin. Davin. Davin…” (the clip above seems to crop the repetition of “Davin” out, but trust me, he keeps repeating it in the original).
Meanwhile, at the school dance, Morty dabs his hand with Rick’s love potion and motions over to Jessica. He fakes a gentle collision by which he manages to rub some of it on her arm. The effects are immediate. She turns around and instantly falls in love with him. She falls in love with him hard. She grabs him in her arms: “I love you, Morty. I love you so much it burns.” Jessica’s “boyfriend” (it’s not made clear that Brad is her boyfriend) sees this and intervenes: “Is this punk bothering you, Jessica?” to which she responds: “Leave him alone, jerk! I’m in love with him! He’s more man than you’ll ever be!” And then she sneezes on him. Her snot particles, along with the flu virus, make their way into Brad’s body, and the virus makes its way into his brain. Brad consequently falls in love with Morty too (it’s explained later by Rick that the serum piggy backs on the virus). He embraces Morty grabbing his ass: “There’s somethin’ special ‘bout you, Morty, somethin’ special.”
His and Jessica’s noticeably inappropriate behavior results in principle Vagina (yes, that’s his name) escorting Brad out of the gym (he doesn’t want Brad injuring his football arm). Kicking and screaming about how much he loves Morty, Brad sneezes snot particles into the punch. He sneezes again launching snot particles into the ventilation system (obviously foreshadowing that the whole school’s about to be infected).
Meanwhile at the Smith’s house, after announcing that he’s stepping out to “get some ice cream” (and maybe support his wife at the hospital with his confidence), Jerry exits the scene leaving Summer and Rick alone in the living room. Rick asks “How come you’re not at the stupid dance everyone loves so much?” to which she responds “Screw that. I don’t want to get sick. It’s flu season.”–“It is?”–“Yeah.”–“Oh-oh.”
Back at the school dance, the love serum is hitting Jessica hard: she drops to the dance floor on all fours sticking her ass in the air growling to Morty: “Rip my close off and mate with me for life!” Morty says “Um, can we maybe go somewhere more private?” Then almost immediately, the virus hits the whole school, the love serum piggy backing on top of it. And remember, this love serum is seeded with Morty’s DNA. Ergo, everyone falls in love with Morty.
This is quite overwhelming for Morty. The whole gym encroaches on him with beady love struck eyes, without any thought of how inappropriate this is or how it makes Morty feel. Morty is extremely, and understandably, uncomfortable. As soon as they break out into physically fighting over him, Morty makes a dash for the door where (surprise, surprise) Rick is there to save the day:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWsiEufOi8[/youtube]
While explaining to Morty that the serum is piggy backing on the virus (at an alarmingly fast rate), he blames Morty for not telling him that Jessica had the flu: “You know, th-th-th-that might have been valuable information for me, Morty!” This is so incredibly ironic as the dangers of having the flu was information that Rick knew about, that Morty asked for, and that Rick shrugged off the minute it occurred to him that it was an example of the kind of information that Morty asked for–underscoring not only Rick’s irresponsible nature and his lack of accountability, but his hypocrisy as well.
To be fair to Rick, however, as soon as he does find out (through Summer) that there’s a flu going around, he goes out of his way to make a trip out to the school and rescue Morty, even admitting he made a mistake (as unbelievable as that is according to him). As much as he rejects responsibility for his mistakes, he does try to fix them.
In this case, Rick whips out an antidote he concocted (after he and Morty get into their ship and rise above a zombie-like hord of love struck teenagers):
“We’re gonna be fine, Morty, relax. I whipped up an antidote. It’s based on praying mantis DNA. You know, praying mantises are the exact opposite of voles, Morty. I mean, they-they mate once and then they, you know, decapitate the partner; I mean, it’s a, it’s a whole ritual, it’s really gruesome and totally opposite, there’s no love of-at all. I-I-I basically mixed this with a more contagious virus; it should neutralize the whole thing, Morty. It’ll all be over very shortly.”
Rick also explains that no one with similar DNA (i.e. Morty’s family) is affected by the serum, which is why he isn’t the least bit interested in having sex with Morty, and why no one in his family succumbs to what happens next.
During his speech, Rick pours the antidote into a tube on the ship, then after the speech, pulls a lever releasing the antidote (now in gaseous form) onto the crowd. What happens next can only be described by the gruesome transformation scene from David Cronenberg’s awful 1986 The Fly:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYAguOfDjmo[/youtube]
…except with praying mantises instead of flies:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKyuucth2eA[/youtube]
Cut to Jerry driving like a mad man to catch his wife in the act of cheating on him with Davin. He slams on the breaks at the site of a major traffic jam, a traffic jam caused by what looks like, off in the distance, mayhem and chaos–that is, flames and car accidents, sirens sounding off in the distance. Presumably, we are seeing the first consequences of a world that, in Rick’s phrase which he coins later, has been “Cronenberged”. Jerry gets out of the car not noticing the herd of pray mantis / human hybrids fast approaching behind him. One of them says “Morty!” Jerry dives across the hood of his car. Another says “You’re not Morty! Bring us Morty!” ← So far from canceling out the love spell that Rick’s first serum caused, his second serum resulted not only in these genetic abominations but a whole population of creatures who want to have sex with Morty and then eat him.
Jerry runs and finds a dead police officer slouched half way out of his police car, his riffle on the ground. Jerry picks up the riffle and starts shooting at the praying mantis freaks, blowing their heads to bloody bits. Finishing off the first round of mantises, he says “Nobody’s killing me until after I catch my wife with another man.” ← As cheesy as this sounds, this is the beginning of a transformation on Jerry’s own part. Just as in the last episode, Jerry sort of, kind of “manned up”, in this episode, he goes through the full transformation and becomes the most manly we’ll ever see him–kind of matching the sort of, kind of turning point in the series that the last episode was compared to how emphatically a turning point this episode is.
Cut to Summer watching the news at home: mantis/human news casters are reporting that Morty’s whereabouts are still unknown. “What… the hell,” says Summer. She switches the channel to find that even in the Middle East, people have transformed to mantis freaks screaming out Morty’s name amidst crazed Arabic ramblings (apparently, this flu travels fast). More mantis freaks crash down the front door. “Where is Morty!!!” Summer bashes one over the head with a lamp and rushes out of the house, dodging mantis freaks as she dashes down the street.
Cut back to Rick and Morty: they’ve landed out in the desert where no one knows where they are. Rick has a makeshift laboratory setup from a pull-out desk extending from his ship as he works out yet another serum. Turning off a television after seeing that the flu, with the mantis serum, has reached as far as China, Morty is freaking out:
Morty: “Oh my God Rick, the whole world is infected.”
Rick: “Yeah it’s pretty wild how fast that spread. I’ve really outdone myself.”
Morty: “Outdone yourself?! Wha-wha-wha-Are you kidding me, Rick?! This is not OK! Not only do they all wanna have sex with me, but you know, now they want to eat me afterwards!”
Rick: “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. Mantises are the opposite of Voles? Obviously, DNA’s a little more complicated than that…”
I find this line interesting. It puts a bit of a monkey wrench into the interpretation of Rick’s personality that we’re going with: that he’s simply an irresponsible man who doesn’t take accountability for his own actions. Here he seems to be fessing up… after the fact, of course. It’s a sort of accountability, which I guess is something coming from Rick. On the other hand, this fessing up after the fact might just be what scientists do all the time when they find that their initial theory was wrong–recognize the flaws and the leaps of logic that were there all along. I should know. I’m a computer scientist myself. I come up with a design for an algorithm, I implement it, and it fails to work–this is followed by a bit of reflection: what went wrong? And it doesn’t take long to realize: ah, yes, of course my design didn’t work! I was missing vital component X! It just seems so obvious after the fact, and it’s funny how the brain waits 'til after it fumbles over its own gaping holes to recognize how obvious they were.
Morty is freaking out here. Rick is calm and collected, really quite unbothered by the whole situation. It could therefore be that his fessing up is just a matter of not caring. It’s a nice contrast though: while Morty’s panicking does little to ameliorate the situation, Rick’s nonchalant attitude keeps him focused on finding a solution.
But perhaps the most likely explanation for Rick’s fessing up is a subtle manner on the writers’ part of making fun of Rick’s sloppiness: Rick continues…
Rick: “…you know what though Morty? This right here’s gonna do the trick, baby. [holds up yet another serum] It’s koala, mixed with rattle snake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur… should add up to normal humanity.”
Morty: “I don’t-that doesn’t make any sense, Rick! How does that add up to normal humanity?!”
Rick: “What, Morty, you want me to show you my math? I’m sorry–ar-ar-are you the scientist or are you the kid that wanted to get laid.”
So Rick fesses up to being sloppy after the fact followed immediately by something even more poorly thought out and sloppy. Even Morty realizes how much of a hack Rick’s being in this scene. Rick’s nonchallant attitude may keep him focused on finding a solution, but it also keeps him from putting any serious effort into being careful. His response to Morty above betrays a dangerously cocky attitude that results in wild over-confidence, over-confidence that is only corrected by seeing his mistakes after the fact.
Cut to the animal clinic, Beth and Davin (a young, handsome man with flowing blond hair) retire to the office after a job well done on the horse. Davin turns the lights low, plays some soft semi-romantic music, and turns on an automatic candle with a remote control. In response to Beth’s question “What are you doing?” Davin replies “I’m playing African Dream Pop. What do you do after a long night?” Beth, demonstrating her faithfulness to her marriage, says she’d better get going and opens the door to leave. Davin shuts the door before Beth can leave. He moves in close as Beth backs off:
Davin: “Just once, I’d like to know… [sneeze! ← Obviously catching the flu… eyes dilate, face becomes twisted and maniacal-looking] …what it was like to give your son a bath. [Beth: ‘What?!’] What does Morty’s skin smell like? [grips her shoulders] How soft-grunt-how soft are his privates?”
She shouts at him: “Let go of me, Davin!”, pushes him out of the way and runs behind the desk. Davin, on the other side of the desk, transforms, in the same Cronenberg style, into a mantis freak right in front of Beth*. He demands: “Take me to Morty!”
Then, like a swash-buckling hero swooping in to save the day, Jerry kicks down the door. Mantis-Davin turns around: “You’re not Morty.”
Jerry: “No, I’m Mr. Crowbar. And this is my friend, who is also a crowbar.”
Mantis-Davin: “That’s stupid.”
Jerry proceeds to beat Mantis-Davin with the crowbar into a dead bloody mess on the ground, then says: “Yeah? Well, look where being smart got ya.”
Beth comes out from behind the desk and embraces his arm: “Jerry! Thank God!”
Jerry, with a raspy Clint Eastwood voice: “God? [looks off into the distance] God’s turning people into insect monsters, Beth. [Looks back at Beth] I’m the one beating them to death. Thank me.”
She does: “Thank you, Jerry. [hugs him] Thank you.”
Now, I think it’s worth taking a screen shot of Jerry here:
Look at his shirt: dirty, ripped up, sleeves torn off, exposing a bit of arm and shoulder muscle–that coupled with the crowbar in hand and the look on his face, staring off into the distance while the woman he loves embraces him in her moment of vulnerability, all adds up to a complete 180 from the Jerry we’re used to. He has finally, for real, manned up–like some kind of Rambo or Clint Eastwood–all in the course of a short trip to the hospital.
And what is Beth’s reaction? Well, it’s too early to tell at this point–her embrace, though certainly from the heart, is too wrapped up in feelings of vulnerability and fear at this point, but it doesn’t take much to recognize that this is the Jerry she could really fall head over heals in love with, and that will definitely show through the rest of this episode. And so what if it’s instigated, at this point, by feelings of vulnerability and fear, by Jerry’s manly “swooping in” to save her–this reinforces the theme touched on earlier: that love is chemical. This is just the stimulus Beth’s brain needed in order to feel the intoxicating ecstasy of love.
Cut back (again) to Rick and Morty flying over the city taking in the horror of what they (or just Rick) turned the people into. Rick is no rush. He kinda finds the whole thing amusing and wants to take at least a few minutes to soak it all in. “Just do it already,” says an annoyed Morty. Rick asserts that there’s no rush and when’s the next time he’s gonna see something like this. But Morty’s not having any of it, and he pulls the lever. The gas descends, engulfing the mantis creatures, and when it clears, everyone looks normal again. Rick gloats:
“Well, what do we have here, Morty? Looks like I was right and you were wrong, huh? I-I-I be-bet you feel pretty stupid right about now, huh? I-I-I bet you feel like the world’s smallest man that you were doubting me about this whole thing, Morty.”
^ Things go right, and Rick takes credit. Things go wrong, and he blames Morty (or whoever’s the closest person around).
But Morty’s not listening. Instead he’s staring out the window at the people down below. He’s noticing something’s wrong:
Morty: “Oh, Rick, something’s not right.”
Rick: “[Takes a sip from his mickey] Yeah, you, you’re not right, ever.”
Morty: “No! No! Look you idiot!”
Morty pulls Rick over to his side of the ship and forces him to look down below: the people are writhing on the ground in what looks like agonizing pain. What happens next can only be described by that gruesome end scene from Chris Walas’s even more aweful 1989 The Fly II:
…except with koala, mixed with rattle snake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur instead of… well, just some unspeakable abomination of the human genome:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1O4xyoT0yg[/youtube]
It’s too bad Cronenberg didn’t actually direct The Fly II–it makes Rick’s dubbing of the whole situation as having been “Cronenberged” a little less fitting.
In any case, Rick has seriously fucked up–he’s fucked up big time–he’s essentially destroyed humanity. Yet he still digs into Morty for this–not so much blaming him but still taking it out on him:
“Bet you’re loving this, Morty. This must be the best day of your life. You get to be the maaayor of I told you town. [takes another sip from his mickey] You’re welcome.” ← Not only taking it out on Morty, but still managing to take some credit (with the “you’re welcome”) for giving Morty the opportunity to gloat for being right–as if Morty could ever be happy about this outcome.
Meanwhile, Jerry and Beth are cruising down the street in some kind of makeshift armored vehicle–like something out of Mad Max:
^ It has a chain-linked fence with a few metal panels on the side strapped there by chains, iron bars over top the windshield for protection, all sorts of bladed weapons (swords, knives, machetes) sticking out the grill, a set of extremely powerful head lights propped at the top… Jerry’s at the wheel, Beth clutching him, looking frazzled and terrified. They’re stopped before a horde of Cronenbergs. Jerry says “Hold on.” Beth clutches tighter. He steps on the gas and butchers the horde as he plows through them. He’s actually got a sadistic look on his face, like this is a rush for him, Beth just looking shocked, as he not only bludgeons the Cronenbergs, but actually aims for one when he clearly has plenty of room to pass through.
Then he stops the vehicle and steps out (for some reason) with a machete in hand, followed by Beth, now seemingly no longer scared but a kick-ass alpha bitch, with a riffle in hand (presumably the same one Jerry got earlier). Jerry slashes while Beth blows off heads. Jerry even chops a Cronenberg in half with something like a Karate kick… all the while, some hardcore heavy metal playing the background. After the blood bath ends, Jerry looks at Beth and says:
“I wish that shot gun was my penis.”
Beth: “If it were, you could call me Earnest Hemingway.”
Jerry: “[Pulls Beth in] I don’t get it, and I don’t need to.” ← Neither do I, frankly. Then they embrace in a passionate kiss. Beth obviously liking it (Jerry likes it too, but that goes without saying).
Then Summer enters the scene. She cries: “Mom! Dad!” They call back: “Summer!” and run to her. She asks:
“Do you think grandpa Rick had something to do with this?”
Jerry: “It’s not fair to assume that, Summer.”
Beth: “Oh, not fair? Give me a break. He is a selfish, irresponsible ass, and he left my mother. [Comes in closer, caressing Jerry’s shoulder and chest.] A real man stands by his woman.” Again, they embrace and kiss passionately… kinda making out… right in front of Summer (obviously feeling awkward).
^ This is an interest scenario. Jerry, who is usually the first to point out the dirt on his father-in-law, now defends him on the off chance he had nothing to do with this. And Beth, who usually defends her father even when it’s painfully obvious he’s in the wrong, now admits passionately that he is a selfish, irresponsible ass. And that he left her mother. ← This part’s important because, though we haven’t quite seen it yet, it’s the crux of Beth’s issues. Jerry’s definitely got a whole swack of insecurity issues (well, at least at all other times), but Beth’s got her fair share as well. She’s got daddy issues. He left her and the family when she was just a girl. But this is the first time in the series she’s openly blamed him for doing so. It’s almost as if she’s now able to do so because Jerry has become the man she’s always wanted–as if, finally, Jerry, in this new manly persona of his, is an adequate substitute (at least) for her father, ridding her of the need to defend her father so that she can keep at least one man in her life who can be relied on for protection and shelter.
^ It probably sounds sexist, but there is a wide-spread theory that what turns a woman on is a show of manliness because it demonstrates an ability to protect, provide, and shelter–yes, love, at the end of the day, is chemical through-and-through.
Once again, we cut back to Rick and Morty. Morning is dawning and they’re sitting atop a building, just watching Cronenberg world, safe from all the Cronenberg madness. I like this scene because I think it epitomizes everything we’ve said so far about Rick’s personality (though revealing nothing new)–the shrugging of responsibility, the lack of concern, the blaming of anyone but himself, and even the subtle admittance that he “really Cronenberged the world up” without actually owning up to his responsibility–and finally the resolution of coming up with yet another alleged solution:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6j06wyVdO8[/youtube]
I like this scene for another reason: we see something of Morty which we saw in the last episode–that he’s not afraid to stand up to Rick, and this time we see it mixed with a strong sense of responsibility and morality–Morty actually accepts part of the blame–he did after all play a part in starting the whole chain reaction–none of it would have happened if he just forgot about the magic love potion and handed Rick the screw driver he asked for. ← Wow! That’s taking accountability!
Morty really is an amazing character. He’s young and gullible, not very experienced with the ways of the world, it’s true, but this demonstration–that of being a man and owning some moral accountability–if it carries through to adulthood, will really make him into an amazing human being.
Yet, at the same time, he doesn’t let Rick walk all over him. He insists that Rick take his part of the blame. Though Rick doesn’t quite do this, he does move on to look for the next hack.
We cut one last time to a suburban neighborhood–the sun is shining, the bird’s are singing, the leaves on the trees are green, there’s a paper boy on his bike delivering news papers and a man mowing his lawn as he waves to the biker… everything seems back to normal. The paper, with a picture of Cronenbergs on it, reads: “GENETIC EPIDEMIC AVERTED”. We are lead to believe that Rick’s last fix actually solved the problem.
Rick and Morty land their ship in the drive way as the garage door opens. They step out as Morty says, “You really pulled a rabbit out of your hat this time.” They step into the garage and Rick stands in front of his “ionic defibrillizer” saying to Morty: “Now Morty, what do you say, buddy? Will you hand me a screw driver so I can finish my ionic defibrillizer?” Morty says “Sure thing, Rick.” and hands him a screw driver. Rick applies the screw driver to the device:
“I got one screw turn… and two screw turns… and–”
BOOM!!!
The defibrilator blows up. Blood splattered everywhere. Rick and Morty’s bodies, after being thrown violently against the shelf, limbs busted, skin charred, and one of Rick’s eye balls popped out of its socket, are unquestionably dead.
However, a portal opens right after this and Rick and Morty step through–another Rick and Morty. Rick (the living one) says: “All right, Morty, here we are.”
^ This is Rick’s solution: abandon Cronenberg world and hijack another that isn’t fucked up. He essentially found a reality in which they both died right after (somehow) solving the Cronenberg problem–conveniently allowing them to simply slip into their dead counter-parts’ places. Everything in this world is exactly the same as it was in the last world (before the Cronenberg incident) so, theoretically, or on the surface, life should carry on as normal–so long as no one figures out that the native Rick and Morty are actually dead and the one’s that took their places are impostors. ← That’s Rick’s solution.
Rick essentially abandoned his mess–the ultimate Victor Frankenstein move–he abandoned his family, his daughter, Morty’s mother–and poor Morty has no choice but to be dragged along. This is now Morty’s new life–a new life Rick serves him on a silver platter.
Before this sinks in, however, Morty has to get over the initial shock of seeing their bloody, broken, dead counter-part selves–with limbs twisted in every wrong direction–lying on the ground in a horrifying mess:
“Oh my God, Rick! Is that us?! We’re dead!”
Morty freaks out. Rick tells him to calm down. He won’t, he can’t. Rick slaps him across the face:
“Shut up and listen to me! It’s fine! Everything is fine! There’s an infinite number of realities, Morty, and in a few dozen of those I got lucky and turned everything back to normal. I just had to find one of those realities in which we also happened to both die around this time. Now we can just slip into the place of our dead selves in this reality and everything will be fine. We’re not skipping a beat Morty. Now help me with these bodies.”
After Morty brings up the issue of the reality they left behind, Rick says:
“What about the reality where Hitler cured cancer, Morty? The answer is: don’t think about it.”
Though this answer is typical of anyone who wants to solve problems by ignoring them, the question is very telling of what drives Rick’s thinking: if there really are an infinite number of realities, then for every reality in which a problem is solved, that very solution, in another reality, will be the cause of an even greater problem. What if, in this reality, Hitler would have actually cured cancer if the allies had not killed him? Did defeating Hitler really solve more problems than it created? Rick’s point here seems to echo the theme of chaos and craziness we saw in the last episode–more specifically, the theme about how for every attempt at solving a problem, at making the world a better place, you stand a significant chance of inadvertently making the world a worse place. Given this outlook of Rick’s, it would really seem that it doesn’t matter one iota what you do. Anything you do–whether it seems morally right or morally wrong, whether it seems like a solid solution or a poorly thought-out hack–can result in absolutely any outcome you can imagine. Is it possible that, though this “solution” of Rick’s seems like a cop out on the surface, it’s really the best one given the options they had available–that anything else, like a “real” attempt to solve the actual problem they faced, would have resulted, like it had two times already, in making the world worse off than it was before? If so, if we really have that little control over the outcomes our actions bring about, why think about it at all?
This very incident they are now enmeshed in–coming face to face with their dead selves–is an prime, and very ironic, example. Rick says, as he holds his dead self in his arms:
“I-I-I don’t suppose you’ve considered this detail, but obviously if I hadn’t screwed up as much as I did, we’d be these guys right now, so again, you’re welcome.”
^ Unbelievable! Even now, Rick is taking credit and making Morty feel like he owes a debt to him. But by a certain logic, he’s right. If Rick had actually fixed Cronenberg world, they would have done what these guys did. Come back to their cozy home, went back to whatever it was they were doing (finishing up an ionic defruitalizer), Morty obediently handing Rick a screw driver, and BOOM–killed themselves!
Yet, by the very same token, this could all be accredited to Morty: when Rick first asked him for the screw driver at the beginning of the episode, Morty refused on account of the fact that Rick wouldn’t grant him his request of making him a love potion so that Jessica would fall in love with him. ← They are only alive now, taking the place of their dead counter-parts, because of Morty. ← Something that, just earlier, Morty accepted blame for.
^ This scene is really brilliant in the way it blends so many paradoxical ironies, at how it brings the whole arbitrariness of causes and blaming and who gets credit for what brazenly to the fore. It’s really hard, after you understand this, to simply brush off Rick’s point about Hitler curing cancer.
Well, what other choice does Morty have? As usually, he follows suite and does what Rick says: he helps to bury his own dead body so that he can take its place without anyone, even his own (pseudo-)family, finding out he’s an impostor in a reality he doesn’t belong to.
^ And this will be his reality from here on in. Even we, as we move through the episodes, one after the other, will forget about it. As far as making this “solution” appear seamless on the surface, it works. It really will seem, eventually–even to us as spectators–like this is Morty’s ordinary “home” reality–not skipping a beat. You’ll see.
But this adaptation, this “getting used to it” and “forgetting about it”, has not yet sunk in for Morty. He is really overwhelmed in shock over what Rick has just pulled him into–a traumatizing shock that, ironically, he will get very used to very soon–and yet the trauma of this initial shock doesn’t even register on Rick’s radar as the following scene makes clear:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNa4NKFE6wE[/youtube]
Now, there are many corny and cheap adult comedies on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, but I think after watching this episode of Rick and Morty–this scene in particular–one can’t deny that the creators are going for something a little deeper, something a little more meaningful than wise-ass fart jokes and juvenile sleaze humor. ← For me, this was the episode which made this clear. This episode not only appeals to a higher intelligence in its audience but an interest in really thinking about moral questions and what matters to us as human beings. Perhaps, then, the reason I say this episode marks a turning point in the series (and the last, a foreshadowing of this turning point) is merely psychological on my part–but I dare anyone to say differently after watching each episode from the pilot to this one without knowing what to expect. This is why I think Rick and Morty really is worthy of a philosophical dissection, if not just a plot and character analysis (both, obviously, feeding into each other)–worthy in a way that no other adult cartoon is (Simpson coming in at a close second ).
(And if you think about it, this episode is literally a turning point in Morty’s life).
As usual with most of the Rick and Morty episodes, there is a post-credit scene. In this one, we have one worth looking into: whatever happened to Jerry and Beth (and Summer)? Well, in Morty’s new reality, nothing really happened to them–life goes on as usual. But in the reality they left behind, here’s what happened:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNQF1AwWMjM[/youtube]
Let’s just focus on Jerry, shall we? Look at how frickin’ beefed up he is. Jerry, here, has reached the pinnacle of manliness–he’s really done better than in the last episode–he’s basically the equivalent of Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger in, well, any of his movies (except Twins)–he’s even got a bullet belt across his chest and a head band around his forehead.
And look at Beth, all snug and cozy on his lap, resting on the couch, looking very comfy and dreamy.
After asking whether she ever thinks about what happened to Rick and Morty, Beth says: “Sometimes… but I’m ashamed to admit, now that they’re gone… I’m finally happy.”
Why would she be happy that her own father and her own son are gone?
Well, her father, we can understand. I did put forward above the interpretation that, now that she finally has a “real man” who loves and fends for her, she no longer has a need for a father figure in her life to fill that roll… but her son–that I’m still at a loss to understand; perhaps it’s as simple as the fact that she is her father’s daughter. If Rick can be insensitive enough to not give a damn about the shit he puts Morty through–including, in this episode, forcing him to abandon his own family forever–why can’t Beth not give a shit about abandoning her own family–at least her father and son? Or maybe this was just a hole the writer’s of Rick and Morty accepted in order to get the point across that, really, she’s only happy because she finally found a substitute for her father and the need for a protector and provider that she naively hoped Rick would be.
And just a note: keep in mind that this “happy ending”–at least for Beth–only occurs in the world that Rick and Morty abandoned–the world they hijacked featuring a Jerry and Beth whom are still in conflict, still at each other’s throats, and whose marriage still hangs by a delicate thread (although, obviously, in this new reality, if the Cronenberg problem got to the point beyond that of the mantis freaks–i.e. the koala, mixed with rattle snake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur–then Jerry and Beth must have at least shared a moment in which she got to taste a bit of Jerry’s inner manliness).
- Odd that the flu/serum has, at this point, already reached as far as China yet Davin has yet to be infected. I guess the sterility of the operating room bought him some time.
PHILOSOPHICAL SPRINGBOARDS:
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We’ve already touched on the question of the crazy and chaotic character of the universe in the last episode, and what implications that has for our attempts to control reality according to our prescribed designs, and this question rears its head again in this episode; except it takes it a bit further. It asks: things not occurring the way we expect notwithstanding, can we even say we are responsible for whatever does occur–even when we know it was our actions that lead to those unanticipated occurrences? Who really was responsible for Cronenberging the world? The intuitive answer would seem to be Rick: it was his recklessly concocted serum, and his decision to infect the population with it, that resulted in the Cronenberg disaster. But then again, he’s right that if Morty had just told him that there was a flu going around, he would have been able to warn Morty, and none of this would have ever happened. But then again, if Rick had only flagged Morty down the minute it occurred to him that the mere possibility of the flu might result in disaster, he might have prevented what followed. But then again, if Morty just handed him the screw driver instead of pestering him for a love potion, there would be nothing to worry about. But then again, if Morty did hand him the screw driver, they’d be dead. Does it make any sense, therefore, to cherry pick one cause out of a seemingly infinite sea of others as the one that was the “actual” cause? Is it really that arbitrary, at the end of the day, who we blame?
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Is love just chemistry? I think it is metaphorically, but the question here is: is there nothing more to love than chemicals in the brain making us feel certain feelings. And is all it takes to get those chemicals flowing just the right stimulus? In Beth’s case, it seems to be. Although her behavior towards Jerry wasn’t quite as pronounced as Jessica’s towards Morty, you could say it really seemed like a watered down version of the same thing. That was after Jerry’s transformation, obviously, for before his transformation, he just didn’t seem to have what it took to stimulate Beth, and so Beth had to “work” at trying to love him (at least she was smart enough to recognize that). If this is just the way our biology works, what does that say about love itself? Surely, there are other forms of love that aren’t so reliant on our biology: what about universal love for our fellow men and women, the impersonal kind? What about love for a good friend? What about love for our children? ← This one clearly has biological links too, but isn’t so given to waxing and waning due to stimuli coming and going. And what about love for glory and honor, that which inspires us to fight for morality, for the oppressed and the poor? ← Is this really a selfless love, or is it for one’s own greatness? No doubt, there’s brain chemistry involved in all of these (I don’t know how we can escape our biology), but are any of them truly selfless? Do any of them rise above simple stimulus-response mechanics? Does it even make sense to suppose that love–whatever form it takes–raises us above our own biology when that very biology, with its tendencies towards love, was crafted by a very long and meticulous evolutionary process? A process geared towards ensuring our survival as best it can? And isn’t survival about defending one’s self against death? Therefore, how selfless can love really be?
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Last time we had a look at the theme of escaping reality (with a nod towards drug use), questioning whether it really is an escape or not. This time we question whether one can escape one’s responsibilities by the same strategy. How effectively can one hide one’s mistakes by brushing them under a rug? Is slipping into the places of their dead selves in an alternate reality really a “fix” to the problem that Rick (and Morty by proxy) created? Or is it more of a way to, in Rick’s words, “not think about it”–a way to pretend it’s not real because, for all intents and purposes, it isn’t real, not in this reality. How long can one go on ignoring what one is escaping from? Rick probably can indefinitely, but Morty… the fact that he is an impostor in this new reality, the fact the people he is living with are not his real family–these are not things he’ll forget so easily, and though for the most part he will be able to ignore it and fully submerge himself in the fantasy of fitting into a world to which he belongs, these facts are going to haunt him from the back of his mind forever. What kind of escape is ever truly 100% effective?
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Jessica on the love serum: is this a metaphor for drugs? I mean, it is a high school dance after all; and there’s always one in every teenage crowd. Jessica certainly starts acting like she’s high on ecstasy–and MDMA is said to function the same way in the body as the naturally occurring neuro-chemical oxytocin, the chemical Rick said he got from a vole. And Morty, when the whole school lustfully encroaches upon him, tries to escape like he’s having a bad trip.
Mixed signals from Rick: though it seems clear what we’re supposed to get out of Rick in this episode (that he’s careless and irresponsible), it comes mixed with signs that he has no problem taking credit for what he’s done. I’m not sure this counts as taking accountability, but it certainly contrasts with his more usual habit of blaming someone else. In the case of the mantis freaks, he seems to take credit only to gloat about how he’s “really outdone [him]self.” And in the case of the full-on Cronenbergs, he says “Boy Morty, I really Cronenberged the world up, didn’t I?” but he says it in such a nonchalant way that you could almost guess he’s proud of his handiwork. In any case, I think there’s more to this character flaw of his–and if I may drop a spoiler alert, we’ll get a hint of what this is in Season 2, Episode 6 (The Ricks Must be Crazy): he’s better described as an opportunist than irresponsible. He’ll take responsibility only when it suits him–i.e. when he can spin it to his credit.
A couple questions: If Rick could find an alternative reality in which his alternate self found a real solution to the Cronenberg problem, why couldn’t he also figure out what that solution was? I mean, you may not recognize what that device he puts around his head is (the visors he puts on right before it cuts to the alternate world where everything is made perfect again), but he’ll explain it in Episode 8 of Season 1: it’s a device that let’s you see the world through the eyes of an alternate self in another reality. He’s actually looking for an alternate self, one who actually solves the Cronenberg problem. But if he’s looking through his alternate self’s eyes, why can’t he just see what the solution is and apply it to his own world? Furthermore, why doesn’t he just jump to that world and ask his alternate self: “Rick, how did you solve the Cronenberg problem?”
Second question: After telling Morty that “there’s an infinite number of realities…” he says “…and in a few dozen of those, I got lucky…” ← But how does this make sense? How is there only a few dozen? Shouldn’t there be an infinite number of realities in which he got lucky? Maybe much “less” of an infinity (like the number of odd numbers compared to the number of real numbers), but no matter how rare an event or a set of circumstances, if you allow for an infinite number of chances, there will be an infinite number of those events or sets of circumstances. It’s like saying there’s a bag with an infinite number of marbles in it, but only a few dozen are red. If we don’t assume any limit on what color an arbitrary marble is, there can’t just be a few dozen that are red. This point has been brought up before on the internet. I remember finding this observation on google along with a theory that though there may be an infinite number of realities out there, there is only a limit number of them that are accessible (or discoverable) by Rick. This was brought up to account for an odd observation made in Episode 10 of Season 1 (Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind): that the “evil Rick” had cataloged only a finite number of alternate Ricks. Ok, so Rick may have access to (or know about) only a finite number of alternate realities with other Ricks in them (perhaps a finite number of alternate realities period), but the same principle about these realities should apply: if we can think about “accessibility” or “discoverability” as a property of realities, then there should be an infinite number of such realities. Maybe Rick just hasn’t had an eternity to find them.
Does Rick leaving Beth in Cronenberg world symbolize Rick leaving Beth when she was a child? It conveniently coincides with just the time when Jerry mans up and becomes more than an adequate replacement for her dad.
Speaking of Jerry, it occurs to me that what began his transformation was jealousy. His original phrase: “Nobody’s killing me until after I catch my wife with another man,” shows that there was more than one motive for him to blow off mantis heads, more than just self-defense–he was already enraged (and you could tell by the look on his face as he was racing down the road like a mad man). But why does he want to catch his wife with another man? Could it be that he’s just as miserable in the marriage as Beth but he needs an excuse to leave her? Jerry can’t do anything unless it is deemed socially acceptable, and catching her cheating on him would be the green light to divorce if nothing else was. This aspect of Jerry’s personality will be brought to the fore in Season 2, Episode 8: Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate–his inability to do what he wants for himself unless it meets social approval. It’s interesting that this is not how things turned out once he got to the hospital. In fact, the exact opposite occurred. He caught Beth trying to fend herself against Davin while Jerry swooped in to save her, thus reinvigorating their love for each other.
Speaking of transformations, we have a complete reversal of rolls between Rick and Jerry. Well, almost… it’s more like an inversion of inner personalities with outer personalities–with Jerry redeeming himself and Rick condemning himself. Jerry not only gets in touch with an inner “Rambo” he never knew he had (nor did we) but it completely overtakes him. The old “pussy” Jerry is completely gone. Meanwhile, Rick’s exterior demeanor of super genius and always-right and the best-damn-shit-that-ever-walked-the-planet is exposed for the fraud it is and beneath it is a pathetic loser who can’t even figure out that normal human DNA is definitely NOT koala, mixed with rattle snake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur. He’s exposed for the drunken, careless, irresponsible, asshole he really is. There’s absolutely nothing glorious about him under the lustrous ego. If Jerry finally becomes a “real man”, then Rick is exposed for the child he is. They both do a 180–one going from pathetic to great, the other from great to pathetic.
^ Is it possible that the Cronenberg effect, at least the first one where mantises burst out of human shells, was symbolic of this? Symbolic of the inner becoming the outer, or a transformation at the very least?
And finally, I just wanted to point out that not only will Morty never see his real family again, but he’ll never get to fall in love with Jessica (not the original one at least). He won’t get the girl. The whole thing that started this ends up being an impossibility forever.