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The finale of this long awaited season of Rick and Morty is but a week away, and it’s surprising in a way. We’ve had such a great run of episodes, filled with complex theme, sci-fi rigmarole, and intricate continuity. This is not a show you can just jump into, not anymore.
In the latest episode, called “The ABC’s of Beth,” there are two storylines of revelation. In the classic Jerry storyline, Jerry dates a Krootabululan warrior lady with a bunch of sci-fi references built in, but what’s actually relevant and built into the plot is that Jerry has always been a fool. Although it’s funny to see Rick talk about “soul bonds,” the metaphor becomes explicit by the episode’s end.
Summer and Morty’s tired delivery of “Yes…” to “You kids want to hunt?” is like the refrain of kids of divorce everywhere forced and guilted into doing stupid activities with the parent they like less. Kiara is an obvious rebound metaphor, and the “hunt” angle is a layer on the way Jerry leeches off others to become better temporarily. The real fear of Summer and Morty is one they don’t realize: They don’t want to be Jerry’s kids and they don’t want to become him.
But as we later learn, every daughter is the doo-doo out of the butt of her father, but that’s not the end of it. The fact that Summer is far more like Rick than Jerry is a repudiation, implicit and explicit, that children must become their parents. Jerry discovers his truth, that he cannot blame his children for his failures, cannot blame anyone but himself for his racism and sexism and inappropriate parenting decisions.
Beth and Rick have their own adventure, one with an intentionally ambiguous ending. Although there’s a sad sweetness there, that being Rick admitting he cares about and loves his daughter, the ending could be awful. Is that a clone or Beth in that final scene? Is it even Rick at all? Who knows?
Although it’s acknowledged by Rick that everything is infinite and he was an awful father, that doesn’t mean he was right on everything. He didn’t set up his Froopyland correctly, he assumed Beth pushed Tommy into the honey, he assumed she was a sociopath, and he said “See you later, Stone Cold Steve Austin.” Yes, it’s funny, but it’s the sort of memory he’d erase from other people in the context of last week’s memory nonsense.
It was a great episode; the list of inventions was beautiful and dense, as well as Beth’s usage of them and realization that she’s truly her father’s daughter. She hates it and loves it. Tommy (played amusingly by Thomas Middleditch) is like an even more perverse Game of Thrones character, and that school play to explain his awful history was wonderful.
At this point, we really have gotten insight into all the family members on the show, in a way you wouldn’t have expected from the archetypal portrayals in the first episode of the show. Rick and Morty has evolved and expanded, and its multiworld universe is perhaps the most complex on television. It’s sad that we only get one more episode of Rick and Morty for a while, but we gotta savor it while we can.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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