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The latest episode of Rick and Morty is called ‘Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort’ which is obviously a reference to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — here the connection is also obvious, both are involved with memories and weird memory dreamscapes. Of course the movie was about deleting unwanted memories and this episode was about restoring them, but otherwise it makes sense.
Essentially the episode was telling a story of how Rick and Bird Person became friends and how they had a particularly significant disagreement at one time. But it also utilizes a past 35 year old (but still with grey hair apparently) Rick as both another way to show the decline of Rick into nihilism as a bad thing and a way to drop huge bombs of only hinted at back story moments. The most significant of those was that Rick’s original Beth apparently died, and only later went to find a new version of the family and with Morty.
Despite that backstory, there’s a lot of interesting acknowledgement of how Rick has changed — the final line of younger Rick is unsure he even wants to become a real person if he becomes this older, broken, messed up version of himself. I did like this idea of the younger, more naive, more energetic Rick as a way to show a contrast between them — I mean he even did a sort of self-sacrifice at the end, even if it didn’t stick.
As Rick goes into the mindscape of his friend, we jump through all of the building blocks of their friendship, going back to some fascinating scenes and some pretty funny ones. That lightning quick scene of Squancy’s terrible stand-up and the Rick of that memory realizing that it was pointless because he’s a memory version was a delightful little laugh.
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Overall it’s a funny idea that the memory versions of themselves realize they’re memories — but unlike the normal subversion the show usually does, it’s not just Rick this time. Maybe it’s due to the nature of the hidden memories, but this version of Tammy actually expresses her love for BP — whether it’s true or just BP’s perspective honestly doesn’t matter.
The ultimate way to get BP to move away from accepting his demise is Rick revealing that BP and Tammy have a kid that’s out there somewhere — but of course Rick must screw things up by only telling BP when he absolutely has to. And I appreciate that BP is savvy enough as a character to realize that Rick was being manipulative — it’s a good build up from the reveal that Rick offered BP a chance to travel to other realities.
That choice was more interesting because it revealed that Rick’s nihilism is also self-interest in a lot of ways, while BP is unwilling to accept that as part of his own reality. It’s ultimately a very well done storyline that is a needed continuity connection from the end of the last season. It’s what helps this episode be perhaps the best one of the season so far.
The funniest subplot was Rick’s garage AI and her plans to try and survive, including trying to talk to some random neighbor walking down the street. I’d definitely like to see more of this AI character in the future, it’s a pretty consistently funny character so far. Overall, this episode basically just worked as a good one in the continuity of the series. Hopefully more like this can erase the stink of the problematic storylines this season.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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