There are very few things stronger than the bond between a grandfather and his grandchild; but usually that relationship isn’t based around the pair traveling through multiple dimensions, killing aliens, and the elder generally not giving squanch. Over the course of two seasons and now a third so much life-changing information has been bestowed upon the world for those really hoping to become better (or maybe worst) people. Wubba lubba dub dub, it’s time to learn some “Rick & Morty” life lessons!
Embrace Who You Are
Who would’ve thought the fate of an entire universe could rest in the hands of a man who is found washing his underwear in a filthy motel room’s kitchen sink? But that’s exactly how the season’s fifth episode starts off as Jerry’s former father-in-law drags him out of bed without even giving him a chance to get dressed for the adventure of a lifetime. Rick Sanchez’s willingness to bring Jerry Smith into space while blowing smoke about Jerry’s talents as a negotiator. It doesn’t take long for Rick to reveal the truth that this is a pity mission set up by Morty to give his father some purpose during a time the youngest Smith believed his dad was suicidal. With the figurative curtain pulled back on the reason for Rick joining Jerry on this day, the walls come down between the two rivals as both admit to their faults in the destruction of Jerry and Beth’s marriage including Rick’s penchant for being an overbearing sociopath who didn’t care for the teenaged boy who knocked up his daughter and essentially ruined her chances of becoming more than a depressed horse surgeon stuck in a middle class, loveless relationship while enjoying the pleasures of a theme park where its biggest attraction is an immortality field that allows for consequence-free vacations.
But during their unintended bonding experience, Jerry gets the offer of a lifetime by the park’s owner – another man wronged by Rick: take Sanchez on a roller coaster ride that features a peak placed above the immortality field where Rick can be assassinated. Jerry initially ignores the offer, but when Rick’s superiority complex ties into his penchant for lying to cover his own indiscretions in regards to ruining his daughter’s marriage Jerry opts to put Rick on the Whirly Dirly roller coaster – only to have a last-minute change of heart when Rick uncharacteristically apologizes for making Jerry’s home life a toxic one. When the attack starts coming together, both men regress back to their original personality settings: Rick being the smartest man in the universe not trusting anyone while ensuring his own safety (even if it means keeping Jerry alive to keep Morty on Rick’s good side), and Jerry’s constant whining being something of a luring mechanism for individuals stronger than him who feel so sorry for Jerry that they sympathize with him to the point of giving into his wills in an effort to make him feel more like a man instead of a sniveling man-child. By the episode’s end – a climatic moment of self-realization featuring a synaptic-dampened Rick being pulled into a wormhole alongside his intended murderer & Jerry resulting in Rick slaying his would-be executioner, Jerry trying to man up and fight for survival (failing as expected), and, before the first two moments, Jerry becoming verbally and nearly physically abusive babysitter for a mentally impaired Rick when he was temporarily neutralized by their flight’s security guard for having too many cybernetic augmentations – Rick & Jerry’s dominant personalities revert back to normal as Rick reasserts himself as the family’s patriarch while Jerry pathetically slithers off to his prostitute-laden, mold-filled motel home without a single ounce of respect from an alpha male like Rick.
But Jerry & Rick aren’t the only ones to rediscover the truths of who they are as Morty witnesses his sister’s teenage angst spin out of control when she’s dumped by her boyfriend for apparently not having large breasts like another girl in school who appears to have a lot more intellectual and emotional depth than Summer Smith has ever displayed. Searching for comfort in her mother’s words, all Summer discovers is a similarly broken woman who, instead of trying to fix her problems in regards to her relationships with the most important men in her life (father Rick and ex-husband Jerry), is found pasting together horse hooves she apparently stole from work in the shape of a dog. Beth’s recent lacking material instincts in an effort to pacify her own aching heart causes a sequence of events where Summer morphs into a gigantic, “Attack on Titan”-like creature in an effort to enhance her chest while Morty lambastes his mother for being the same type of selfish, irresponsible paternal figure who ruins their children like Rick. Beth eventually comes to her senses as a mother, saving Summer from fully destroying Camp Flabanabba and her ex-boyfriend (doing so while too as a skinless beast towering over trees hundreds of years old).
Morty, proving to be the truest voice of reason throughout this episode and the last, actually shows something not really seen before in him: a penchant to be instinctively Rick. Morty’s momentary outburst of anger & violence have been reminiscent of child Gohan in “Dragon Ball Z” or even The Incredible Hulk. This time around, Morty nonchalantly sits with Summer’s ex-boyfriend Ethan while explaining his disgust over Ethan making his sister cry & destroying her body image. With the morphing machine in his possession, Morty turns Ethan into a hideous, Elephant Man scooting around the town with no potential return to normalcy.
Though it’s hard some times to look in the mirror and accept the person staring back at you, it’s easier to embrace who you are than try to be something you’re not even if that person is a wimp, a murderer, a self-conceited airhead, or even a caring sibling who will set things right even if it means making someone else’s life a living hell.
Mini Lessons: Gene needs to mind his own business (been too nosey for his own good for almost forty years now); the plans of mice, men & Mortys…; no work talk.
