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Rick and Morty S3 |OT| Keeping Summer Safe - Sundays on Adult Swim

B

boclfon479

Member
Real Hero said:
So Beth totally left right?
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Rick seemed really nice at the end of the episode, what I think might have happened is when Beth said she made up her mind, I think maybe she asked to go on an adventure with rick since she was complaining that he put her in froopyland to deal with her.

They both were on an andemture when the family came home, and that’s why both Beth and rick seemed happier.
 
D

dani_dc

Member
While I enjoy the episode, I'm a bit surprised by both Beth and Jerry characterisation.
Both were always heavily flawed characters, but I don't recall any indication of Beth being a serial killer or Jerry being a sexist/racist.
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
caliph95 said:
What
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I didn't even realize Beth was supposed to be a psycho until this last episode. Even so, she's not as lame as Jerry, who admits to being a sexist and racist and gets talked down by his own kids.

Jerry being a racist and sexist and a pathetic man is much worse than Beth being some kind of killer, seeing as this show is just fine killing all kinds of characters already.



Also, the line that goes "Am I evil?" "No you're smart" was terrible. I hate that crap and it makes Rick look really stupid
 
S

Spirit of Jazz

Banned
I was shocked that people didn't get that Walter White was a villain. Thinking Rick's somebody to aspire to literally makes no sense. The first episode paint him as a psychopathic alcoholic who has no regards for his grandsons well being and is willing to massacre innocents in order to achieve his own pointless goals. It's not even remotely subtle.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
This episode didn't do much for me, total downgrade from the last 2 eps.

Also i find funny that Dan Harmon is very angry and vocal about the awful people that have been latching to the show, yet have Rick throw a monologue that will only encourage them to stay awful "see, im smart, that's why i need to be an asshole, like Rick said", because they're too shitty and stupid to realize the point is Rick is a piece of shit.
 
V

Vault Dweller 111

Member
PSqueak said:
This episode didn't do much for me, total downgrade from the last 2 eps.

Also i find funny that Dan Harmon is very angry and vocal about the awful people that have been latching to the show, yet have Rick throw a monologue that will only encourage them to stay awful "see, im smart, that's why i need to be an asshole, like Rick said", because they're too shitty and stupid to realize the point is Rick is a piece of shit.
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He said that a couple days ago, can't really change the episode. The speech fit with Rick's character. If people are stupid enough to think it applies to them then there is not much that can be done about it.

They can't change the character based on a few idiot fans.
 
F

Finaj

Member
Spirit of Jazz said:
I was shocked that people didn't get that Walter White was a villain. Thinking Rick's somebody to aspire to literally makes no sense. The first episode paint him as a psychopathic alcoholic who has no regards for his grandsons well being and is willing to massacre innocents in order to achieve his own pointless goals. It's not even remotely subtle.
Click to expand...

And yet, there are people who look up to Rick. Heck, his monologue this episode probably reinforces that part of the community even more.
 
beat

beat

Member
Sblargh said:
See, the fake Beth stuff is what I love about this show.

Take a sci fi premisse: that you can make a indistinguishable clone with all your memories that can replace you.
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My only issue with that is that the offer undermines the way the robot dupes from a few episodes ago were (1)clearly not indistinguishable from the real Morty and Summer, and (2) robot Morty was not willing to step aside gracefully and cede life back to real Morty.

Both were fine on their own. It was a lot funnier that robot Morty was imperfect and that he wanted to live, and it’s a more compelling offer to Beth if she ditches her life but leaves her family without them even knowing she ditched. The two things just are a little incompatible.
 
V

Vault Dweller 111

Member
beat said:
My only issue with that is that the offer undermines the way the robot dupes from a few episodes ago were (1)clearly not indistinguishable from the real Morty and Summer, and (2) robot Morty was not willing to step aside gracefully and cede life back to real Morty.

Both were fine on their own. It was a lot funnier that robot Morty was imperfect and that he wanted to live, and it’s a more compelling offer to Beth if she ditches her life but leaves her family without them even knowing she ditched. The two things just are a little incompatible.
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Doesn't Rick say "I learned you can't be replaced, or at least that it would be more work than I'm willing to do" to Morty?

It was implied that it was a huge favor he'd be doing for Beth, that'd he only do because he loves her and wants to give her the freedom to choose.
 
G

Goodstyle

Member
TimeEffect said:
I didn't even realize Beth was supposed to be a psycho until this last episode.
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Ya, they foreshadowed that she was an awful person, but they didn't exactly telegraph that she was straight up psychotic.

Hints at Beth's true nature just off the top of my head:
- She was cold, borderline cruel to Jerry in the first season. Her response to Jerry asking if she loved her was really something.
- Jerry's perception of her and her perception of Jerry was really twisted. Also, her ideal Jerry's perception of herself was as this godlike figure which speaks to an egomania on her part.
- There's just a lot of instances of her ego hurting her family in various ways, and then taking zero responsibility.

But this just suggested she inherited her father's narcissism, not that she is this child sociopath. The only thing that may point to that is how quickly she chose Summer over Morty. She just had like, zero hesitation. For most mothers that would be a painful choice, but she just picked Summer right away and didn't give a shit how Morty would feel.

Also, the line that goes "Am I evil?" "No you're smart" was terrible. I hate that crap and it makes Rick look really stupid
Click to expand...
Honestly, my enjoyment of the episode is 100% based on how sincerely they wanted us to take Rick there. There's 2 ways to look at that scene:

1) Rick's a shitty dad who's trying to intellectualize his shittiness and then spread his awful cynism to his daughter and basically tore her away from her family.

2) Rick is a jerk, but he knows what's what. He gave his daughter the greatest gift of all, and his being smart and cool and stuff is totally a positive thing that so much of the audience is meant to relate to and stuff.

There aren't enough face palms in the world to cover my feelings if #2 is what the writers wanted us to take from that scene.
 
S

Stabby McSter

Member
Goodstyle said:
Honestly, my enjoyment of the episode is 100% based on how sincerely they wanted us to take Rick there. There's 2 ways to look at that scene:

1) Rick's a shitty dad who's trying to intellectualize his shittiness and then spread his awful cynism to his daughter and basically tore her away from her family.

2) Rick is a jerk, but he knows what's what. He gave his daughter the greatest gift of all, and his being smart and cool and stuff is totally a positive thing that so much of the audience is meant to relate to and stuff.

There aren't enough face palms in the world to cover my feelings if #2 is what the writers wanted us to take from that scene.
Click to expand...

the writers probably aimed for the first one, but a small portion of the audience will probably interpret it as the second one
 
M

MrBadger

Member
I never really enjoy it when they focus on Beth, Jerry and the divorce stuff. It's just not that enjoyable and it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. The three before this one were fantastic but this one was just alright.
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
Spirit of Jazz said:
I was shocked that people didn't get that Walter White was a villain. Thinking Rick's somebody to aspire to literally makes no sense. The first episode paint him as a psychopathic alcoholic who has no regards for his grandsons well being and is willing to massacre innocents in order to achieve his own pointless goals. It's not even remotely subtle.
Click to expand...

But Skylar is a shrew am I right?

Boggles that people watched such a God, morally complex show and think any of the characters is "right."
 
H

Hellwarden

Member
I feel like the writers don't know what to do with Beth and Jerry. I do think it's sort of a problem for a long running series where you can mix up episodes from seasons, and the characters barely change at all, despite having moments that seemingly would change them.

Like just a few episodes ago, we had this moment with Morty saying Beth was a good mom.

download.png


It feels like that Beth straight up can't be Beth from last night's episode.
 
K

KenzinFive

Member
Hellwarden said:
I feel like the writers don't know what to do with Beth and Jerry. I do think it's sort of a problem for a long running series where you can mix up episodes from seasons, and the characters barely change at all, despite having moments that seemingly would change them.

Like just a few episodes ago, we had this moment with Morty saying Beth was a good mom.

download.png


It feels like that Beth straight up can't be Beth from last night's episode.
Click to expand...

He might have told his mom that she's a good mom to make her feel better in that episode. Because she absolutely made Summer's problem worse by refusing to call Rick for help. She made it better in the end, but Beth just kept escalating the issue due to her stubborn pride.

Beth isn't perfect, but she's at least willing to acknowledge faults and try to make herself better. She's also willing to show her kids she loves them, which is more than what Rick can do. Of course, none of that precludes from also having messed-up sociopathic tendencies that she partially-inherited from her dad.

Maybe this episode will click with me in a rewatch. I definitely wouldn't put it as one of the season's best at the moment.
 
L

Lmo911

Member
dani_dc said:
While I enjoy the episode, I'm a bit surprised by both Beth and Jerry characterisation.
Both were always heavily flawed characters, but I don't recall any indication of Beth being a serial killer or Jerry being a sexist/racist.
Click to expand...

Beth is a bit of a surprise, but she is Rick's daughter. "I am my father!" It's kind of natural that she would have his tendencies and would have probably become way more Rick than she is without Jerry intervening and getting her pregnant. Rick pretty much says the same thing while they're at the amusement park.

As for Jerry, I think people try to project on him as some kind of voice of reason/victim in the face of Rick's crazy. Jerry is anything but: he's cowardly, manipulative and unable to accept responsibility for his actions. He's the modern incompetent white male father figure. So... of course he's probably racist and sexist deep down inside. Those are the only things that would allow him to have any control over his existence, much like getting Beth pregnant was probably the only way he would have held on to her for as long as he did. Jerry is basically a 17 year old in a 40 year old body.

Edit: And yeah, Jerry would probably vote for Trump.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Someone on Twitter made the decent point that if Beth had chosen the clone option than we wouldn't see any kind of difference in her behavior (literally the point of the clone) so that her tenderness at the end of the episode indicates she's real Beth and she's had a moment of growth

That's enough for me to chalk this up to "deliberately ambiguous"
 
Z

Zubz

Banned
The Technomancer said:
Someone on Twitter made the decent point that if Beth had chosen the clone option than we wouldn't see any kind of difference in her behavior (literally the point of the clone) so that her tenderness at the end of the episode indicates she's real Beth and she's had a moment of growth

That's enough for me to chalk this up to "deliberately ambiguous"
Click to expand...

The clone would've been made after that point of growth, though, right? What if Beth grew, but also wanted to keep growing elsewhere in the multiverse?
 
S

SuperLeviathan

Member
Xe4 said:
Uhhh... no? It makes it clear that Rick is a horrible monster and probably the true villain of this show. He comes into peoples lives and ruins them for his own selfish benefit and is an alcoholic deadbeat asshole who only gives a fuck about himself and anyone who will help him further his selfish goals in life. The show in no way wants people to be like him.

Like, watch this scene and tell me that it's possible to come to any sort of different conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KmzJZUqpj4&ab_channel=RickAndMorty
Click to expand...

Yet Rick is always right, anybody who disagrees with him (Jerry, the Vindicators, Morty most of the time) is always wrong, and never has to suffer punishment or even setbacks for anything he does. That's what seperates Rick from Cartman, Bojack or even Master Shake.

Even in this episode, Beth isn't allowed to have a legitimate greivance with Rick because she was a sociopath as a kid.No one can look better or be better than Rick.
 
D

Dr. Worm

Banned
The episode makes a point of showing parallels between Rick, Beth, and Jerry - none of them ever really take responsibility for their own actions, but they go about it in different ways. Rick has the power - he doesn't need to answer to anyone or do the right thing, but he does try to be good to his family. (I don't think caring for his family is something that makes C-137 stand out from the other Ricks - we see the Ricks sent by the Citadel in S1 love their daughter as well, even she is from a different dimension. If he's the Rickest Rick, he loves his family more than the other Ricks, not less.) Beth inherited some of Rick's more dangerous traits, but without his power as a mad scientist, she can't escape responsibility - she stuck with her kids and tried her best as a mother. She's literally the link between Rick and Morty, and her relative success as a mother shows in Morty. Jerry is the same as both Rick and Beth in that way, which might be how he ended up with Beth anyway. In Jerry's case, he's too cowardly to own his actions, which forces him to be bailed out by Beth or Rick.

That's how I ended up viewing the episode, at least.
 
N

NotLiquid

Member
Chained Prometheus said:
I mean, we know from the S3 premiere that it's not even the second body of his that he's been through, remember?
Click to expand...

Hell we know from three episodes ago that we're technically not even looking at the same Rick at this point - both Detox Rick and Toxic Rick had themselves incubated because they ended up killing each other, and in the episode before that, Rick was loaded with bodily augments.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
This episode just felt mean. It's like they realized they were making Jerry off to be too sympathetic so had to drag him back down (and this episode kicked him hard, multiple times, like the kids saying that they no-hesitation chose Beth and told him that a few times over). But to balance it out, they also dragged Beth down as low as she's ever gotten.

Although they did care enough to make sure that Tommy's father didn't die for a murder he didn't commit.
 
G

Game-Biz

Member
Loved this episode. Beth has always been a shitty person, from what I can remember. Shitty people can still do nice and loving things 99% of the time and yet still be a shitty human being because of the 1% of the time where they fucking do horrible fucked up shit. I do agree, though, that it was jarring to see Beth go psycho. But I I found it funny.

I might be misreading what some here are saying, but it reminds me of discussions about Walter White. Some people couldn't wrap the concept around their heads that although Walt was a fucked up, evil guy, he still could care about someone and even be capable of doing good things. But that doesn't make him a good man. Being an evil person doesn't mean you have be evil in every way all the time. It goes without saying the good actions of a terrible person does not excuse the fact they are a terrible person. It's almost has if fictional characters, like most real human beings, aren't one dimensional robots that are 100% consistent with their beliefs and actions, good or bad. If they were, it'd be horribly boring. Also, I think we can safely say that anyone that thinks they should get their morals from this show is probably not all that smart.

At any rate, who is the most morally astute character? Mr. Poopy Butthole lol? I can't think of anything bad he has done, except for maybe hanging out and being friends with Rick.
 
D

deleted

Member
Zubz said:
The clone would've been made after that point of growth, though, right? What if Beth grew, but also wanted to keep growing elsewhere in the multiverse?
Click to expand...

Or Rick could've modified the clone a little bit to be better with him. So he can let his emotions towards his daughter out. He says he loves her, which doesn't really fit him.

I think we can't take everything Rick does at face value. He has so often shown a hint of feelings towards his family, even Jerry. Everytime he does that though, he course corrects and jumps the other way.

Every time he shows that he is affectionate to this particular version of Morty, he talks him down a lot, soon after. He wouldn't have to save Jerry. He does though (and then has sex with his ex-girlfriend).

It won't be a full redemption arc, but you can see some twisted goodness is still left in Rick. He's not completely sociopathic, but he wants himself to be. I could see him nurturing the family to be more like himself to not feel lonely all the time. And Morty is going there. Summer is too.
They are not eye to eye, but the are 'growing' and learning to adapt Rick's interdimensional ways.

And fuck all those people that aspire to be like Rick. It's an interesting character study, nothing more. He doesn't have to be a role model but he also doesn't have to be completely evil so nobody can sympathize with him from time to time.
I'm excited to see how this will all play out in the end.
 
G

Game-Biz

Member
xyla said:
And fuck all those people that aspire to be like Rick. It's an interesting character study, nothing more. He doesn't have to be a role model but he also doesn't have to be completely evil so nobody can sympathize with him from time to time.
I'm excited to see how this will all play out in the end.
Click to expand...
I liked Morty's speech on Rick in the first episode of this season:

”I wanted you [Summer] to have a normal life, that can't happen when Rick shows up. Everything real turns fake, everything right is wrong, all you know is that you know nothing and Rick knows everything. And well he's not a villain Summer, but he shouldn't be your hero. He's more like a demon or a super fucked up God."
 
S

Sblargh

Banned
Rick's speech this episode doesn't feel like his usual ambiguity and hipocrisy though.
Two things it reminds me of:

- Captain America saying that when the entire country is please asking for you to stop being a nazi, you should stand like a tree and fight against minorities because you and only you are the judge of right and wrong.

- Morpheus on the Matrix saying it is prudent to go on a serial killer maniacal rampage on your school and slaughter everyone you have ever met because anyone who isn't as special as you is a potential enemy who, just in doubt, should be killed.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
Game-Biz said:
I liked Morty's speech on Rick in the first episode of this season:

“I wanted you [Summer] to have a normal life, that can’t happen when Rick shows up. Everything real turns fake, everything right is wrong, all you know is that you know nothing and Rick knows everything. And well he’s not a villain Summer, but he shouldn’t be your hero. He’s more like a demon or a super fucked up God.”
Click to expand...

Yea this is pretty much spot on.

I can't believe there are people out there who could aspire to be someone like Rick.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
People are generally not very good on picking up on the actual message and themes in the media they consume, even if they're getting bashed over the head with it. Its like people getting pissed at Star Trek for pushing "SJW" politics despite it always being a show about a Utopia future most conservatives would hate that was always political since the very first show.
 
beat

beat

Member
If clone Beth was really completely identical to real Beth in body and mind, then surely she would have exactly the same dissatisfaction with life that real Beth does. How would Rick prevent clone Beth from ditching? I think the two would both have to know that the two of them exist, one here taking care of her 'real' life and one out there doing crazy Rick-type stuff; that might help keep the one who stayed from wanting to escape her life.

So I dunno, I'm inclined to think Rick did make a clone but the clone was sent out there.
 
S

Starfish Hero

Member
I pretty sure it's been all but stated previously that Beth is Rick without the ambition. This episode definitely expanded on just how much of a violent sociopath she is, but none of it was that far removed from what we've seen of her character, especially this season.
 
M

Mazre

Member
Jerry - "Now you're gonna help me, right?"
Morty - "She just did."
Summer - "Yeah, clean up your own mess."

That bit got me good. Otherwise probably my least favorite episode of the season on a first watch. Felt like we got two B plots rather than an A and a B.
 
C

chrisPjelly

Member
Ehh, probably my least favourite of Rick and Morty (and I'm someone who thinks S3 is generally the show's best season to date so far). I know there's going to be a payoff but did they really have to make Beth and Jerry sooooo overtly unlikeable? Both of their side adventures were lame as hell and the jokes weren't nearly as playful or creative as their standard.Ah well, I hope the finale will be fun.
 
G

gun_haver

Member
Episode was all right. I don't get what the big deal is about Beth - why is she so bad, compared to the other characters? It's an absurdist show which revels in amorality as a source of fun/dark humour.

I've only been watching the show for about a month - seen it all, but in a short span of time - so I haven't really thought about it on any deep level, although I don't think it really warrants it, either. Seems like there's a bit of over-analysis and, for some damn reason, heavy politicisation of the show that isn't being prompted by the text itself. Maybe it just attracts a certain kind of mean-spirited nerd, or something, I dunno! That's about as much as I'm going to think about it lest it ruin me enjoying the improvised nonsense and cool sci-fi plots any more than it is already.
 
J

JC Sera

Member
How are we not sure that the beth we saw in this episode is another clone that finally self-actualized and this cycle has gone on more times than we know, similar to dimension skipping with Rick & Morty.
 
P

Peter Ian Staker

Member
I just don’t get why people expect a real character arc from the show.

The show has made it clear that through memory erasing, clones and alternate universes none of the characters will ever learn anything from their experiences.

Hell we don’t know if this is C137 Rick we see every episode.
 
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