It’s a Rick and Jerry episode! Let’s see a murder plot!

SUMMARY

Rick (Justin Roiland) breaks into Jerry’s (Chris Parnell) apartment and abducts him to go on an adventure. Rick explains that Morty (Roiland) told him to take Jerry on an adventure in order to keep Jerry from killing himself. They arrive at a resort in space which is contained in an immortality field, so even if Jerry wanted to kill himself, he couldn’t die. Jerry is soon abducted by Risotto Groupon (Clancy Brown), a native to the planet who was enslaved after Rick sold weapons to their enemies. Risotto tells Jerry that he can help him kill Rick on a roller coaster called the Whirly Dirly. Jerry declines, but after Rick admits that he worked to end Jerry’s marriage, Jerry decides to help with the plan.

Meanwhile, Beth (Sarah Chalke) is trying to cope with her divorce stress by building structures out of horse hooves. Summer (Spencer Grammer) approaches and asks her mom if she’s hot, but Beth responds that her looks shouldn’t matter. It’s revealed that her boyfriend Ethan (Daniel Benson) broke up with her for Tricia Lange (Cassie Steele), a girl with big breasts. Summer tries to use Rick’s Morphizer-XE to make her boobs bigger, but accidentally makes herself a giant blob. Beth tries to use the Morphizer to turn her back, despite knowing nothing about how it works, which Morty scolds her for. Eventually, she makes Summer bigger and turns her inside out.

Rick and Jerry get on the Whirly Dirly, but Jerry changes his mind and saves Rick, destroying the immortality field in the process and stranding them in a jungle. Rick lets Jerry get eaten by a snake, telling Jerry that Jerry is a predator because he’s so pitiful that others feel a need to do things for him. Rick flat-out tells Jerry that Beth had options before getting knocked up by Jerry and that he ruined her potential life. Rick then uses Jerry as bait to get them back to the resort and a spaceport. At customs, Rick’s implants trigger security, so Rick is given a synaptic dampener, making him a harmless idiot. Jerry, now the more intelligent one for once, mocks Rick, but Risotto reveals he’s onboard. He plans to kill Rick, but let’s Jerry go, deeming him too pathetic to kill, even when Jerry tries to attack him. Jerry does finally manage to make Risotto shoot a panel on the ship right before the ship jumps through a wormhole, resulting in Risotto, Jerry, and Rick taking a journey through spacetime, curing Rick’s synapses and allowing him to kill Risotto.

Beth tries to call for “technical support” on the Morphizer, but gets nowhere, with Morty and Beth fighting until Morty points out that her obsession with being like Rick will do nothing for her relationship with Rick, but will ruin her other relationships. They then notice that Summer disappeared. Realizing that she’s going to see Ethan, Beth and Morty follow, and Summer is stopped by Beth, who makes herself giant and inverted. Morty then morphs Ethan as vengeance for breaking his sister’s heart. They return in time to meet Rick and Jerry, who Rick abandons outside of the house.

END SUMMARY

This episode is great character work. So much of the characters’ relationships and inner thoughts are revealed through this episode, mostly because it has a lot of intense and frank dialogue, though the comedy is still top-notch. It’s mostly that the exploration is now focused on the dynamics of everyone now that Jerry and Beth are divorced, but everything has somewhat normalized compared to “Rickmancing the Stone” or “Pickle Rick.“

Rick and Jerry’s plotline actually surprised me, because Rick is actually more open with Jerry than most of the other characters, owing in large part to the fact that Rick never considers him a threat. This will end up biting Rick in the ass big time later in the season, but in this episode it’s almost proven to be fair since even after Rick tells Jerry that he intentionally sabotaged his marriage, Jerry can’t bring himself to help kill Rick.

The concept of Jerry as a predator is something that I hadn’t considered prior to this episode. Jerry is so pathetic that people inherently feel responsible for him, which he uses to prey upon their kindness. This isn’t an insane concept, either. Studies from Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education have shown that people tend to naturally try to care for people who are completely harmless and pathetic, because we don’t see them as any potential threat. In other television, there’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Samaritan Snare” which introduces the Pakleds, a species who prey upon other, more advanced, species by seeming so pathetic that other races want to help them. In Doctor Who, there are the Tivolians, a race that loves to be conquered and appears pathetic in order to facilitate more invasions, because the conquerors tend to be merciful that way. The only difference with Jerry is that Jerry doesn’t know that he’s doing it, apparently, something that only makes him more pathetic.

We also see a rare moment of Rick actually showing some concern about family members when Rick states that Jerry ruined Beth’s life, indicating that Rick really thought Beth had potential that all went away. However, this does conflict with the fact that, prior to that, Rick had often apparently been gone from Beth due to his divorce. Still, it’s a revelation that Rick did at least think that Beth was worth investing in before she got pregnant.

In the B-Plot, Morty finally confronts Beth over her worship of Rick when he points out that Beth’s attempts to adopt Rick’s cold, logical attitude has just driven Summer away because, rather than actually try to hear Summer’s concerns, Beth just told her that what she wanted was stupid. However, unlike Rick, Beth actually realizes that Morty is right, and she ends up choosing to resolve everything by emotionally connecting with Summer.

Overall, this is a great episode, but in a different way than episodes like “Meeseeks and Destroy” or “Pickle Rick,” because it’s mostly about character development over plot.

Overall, I give this episode an

A-

on the Rick and Morty scale.

Wubba-Lubba-Dub-Dub, I need a drink. See you in two weeks.

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