Rick and Morty fans have long wondered about one question: Has Rick Sanchez changed? Is he becoming more caring? Let’s look at the evidence to understand the thinking of showrunners Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland.
.
.
Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:00
There’s one big question most people wonder about over the first three
00:04
seasons of Rick and Morty: has Rick Sanchez changed? Is he becoming more
00:09
caring?
00:10
[What’s that Rick?]
00:11
[I love my grandkids. Psych, just kidding my new
00:14
catchphrase is I don’t give a fu**.]
00:16
Much of the humor in the show derives from the fact
00:19
that Rick is not concerned about the well-being of others, especially not his
00:23
grandson Morty. This reverses the trope of the wise mentor who has everything
00:27
under control and can generally ensure his partner’s safety. In Rick’s case he
00:31
primarily uses his grandson for his own personal gain and shows little reaction
00:36
when this causes Morty horrible pain and suffering.
00:39
[I’m in a lot of pain Rick.]
00:40
[Yeah, I can see that. But do you still think you’ll be able to help collect my seeds, Morty?]
00:46
[Are you kidding me?]
00:47
Rick’s tendency to exploit Morty gets more and more extreme and Rick eventually claims
00:51
that he only brings Morty on his adventures because his low intelligence
00:54
serves as camouflage.
00:56
[See, when Rick is with Morty the genius waves get canceled out
01:01
by the Morty waves.]
01:04
Rick treats his whole family with consistent contempt, disdain
01:07
and irritation.
01:08
[As far as grandpa’s concerned you’re both pieces of shit.]
01:11
He dismisses Summer, manipulates or ignores Beth.
01:15
[I mean, you know, your mom could put me in a purse or a pocket, you know if
01:18
she really needs me to go.]
01:19
[Nobody needs anything okay? it’s fine.]
01:21
And openly
01:22
insults Jerry on a regular basis.
01:24
[If I wanted to watch someone throw their life
01:25
away, I’d hang out with Jerry all day.]
01:27
But despite this, he insists on taking Morty and sometimes
01:30
Summer along on his adventures, often against their will. We get the distinct
01:34
feeling that maybe Rick enjoys their company after all.
01:37
[Experience!]
01:39
As the show goes on
01:40
Rick also starts expressing more concern for their safety and emotional
01:43
well-being. He even seems to have learned something about the value of
01:50
relationships and the perils of trying to be above everything. When he says:
01:54
[Take it from me ice you can’t just float around space not caring about stuff
01:59
forever.]
01:59
The other Rick’s think it’s pretty clear that Rick cares about his
02:02
family and they consider him to be an aberration for this reason:
02:05
[You’re a rogue, Rick — irrational, passionate, you love your grandkids, you came to rescue them.]
02:10
In season two we see Rick experiencing deep emotion. After Rick opens himself up to
02:15
his girlfriend Unity but she abandons him, he attempts to commit suicide. The
02:19
time lapse after his attempt showing that no one checks on him emphasizes his
02:23
loneliness
02:27
Rick is gradually revealed to be someone who is in a great deal of emotional pain,
02:31
and Bird Person reveals that Rick’s catchphrase is actually a cry for help
02:37
[In my people’s tongue, it means I am in great pain, please help me.]
02:41
One reason
02:43
it’s complicated to decipher whether Rick is actually changing is that
02:47
whenever he does feel emotional or close to his family Rick goes to great lengths
02:53
to hide this from them.
02:54
[Yeah I don’t care.]
02:56
[Oh I know. Everyone knows you don’t care.]
02:59
[So?]
02:59
And when he does appear to let out a genuine sentiment he dismisses it as a
03:03
joke.
03:04
[So now you know the real reason I rescued you. I just took over the family
03:07
Morty and if you tell your mom or sister I said any of this, I’ll deny it.]
03:10
He also avoids situations in
03:11
which you might be forced to express his emotions. His adventure in anatomy park
03:15
conveniently allows him to get out of a Christmas party, and turning himself into
03:18
a pickle is done specifically to avoid going to a family therapy session. Every
03:23
time Rick grows closer to Morty or other family members he finds a way to ruin or
03:27
reverse the connection that has developed.
03:29
[I’m not driven by avenging my dead family, Morty. That was fake. I’m driven by finding that Nugget sauce.
03:34
I want that Mulan McNugget sauce, Morty.]
03:36
Also, some of Rick’s most
03:38
emotional moments are witnessed only by the audience.
03:41
We even see Rick crying when he’s shown childhood memories of Morty. In this
03:45
moment of vulnerability the wall that Rick has carefully constructed around
03:48
himself is shattered. But no one in the show witnesses this moment and Rick puts
03:53
the wall right back up again and discourages Morty from trying to form a
03:56
bond.
03:57
[Hey Morty, you want connection go be part of some stupid Club like all those
03:59
dumb Rick’s. you know maybe I don’t connect because I’m the Rickest Rick
04:02
there is.]
04:03
Early on in season two Rick’s character makes a major leap
04:06
forward by sacrificing himself to save Morty. But again this sacrifice is
04:10
something only the audience sees, and Rick will not admit that it took place.
04:14
He prefers the illusion that he is cold and distant.
04:17
[But I feel like one of the
04:18
64 Rick’s like sacrificed himself for me maybe? I think?]
04:22
[Shut up Morty. The last
04:24
time you felt something we all almost died. You little piece of shit.]
04:27
And Rick is
04:27
clearly successful at hiding any emotional depth he has from his family,
04:31
since at the start of season 3 Morty says this:
04:34
He left you to rot in the world that he ruined, because he doesn’t care. Because nobody’s
04:37
special to him Summer. Not even himself.]
04:40
We see how lonely and miserable Rick is
04:43
and how much each of his family members longs for acceptance from him. So we
04:47
desperately want to see Rick showing his caring side to his family:
04:50
[I love you Jerry.]
04:51
But the show plays with our desire to see Rick openly care and we’re
04:55
constantly duped into thinking he’s expressing genuine emotion when he
04:59
actually isn’t. This cycle is set up in the pilot episode when Rick gets into an
05:03
argument with Jerry at the breakfast table and then masterfully manipulates
05:07
his way out of it by getting his daughter on his side.
05:09
[This was a good
05:10
breakfast Beth. You really made the crap out of those eggs. I wish your mother was
05:14
here to eat them.]
05:15
[Oh, Dad.]
05:17
The show continues toying with our desire to see
05:19
Rick care as Rick turns himself into the Galactic Federation in the final episode
05:23
of season 2 after hearing his family express their love for him and seeing
05:27
the damage he’s inflicting on their lives. Of course it emerges later that
05:34
Rick actually turned himself in as part of his plan to destroy the galactic
05:37
federations economy and not to help his family. In Vindicators 3, The Return of
05:42
Worldender, viewers were led to believe that a drunk Rick was declaring his
05:46
feelings for Morty but he was actually talking about noob noob. So
05:56
where is Rick heading emotionally? He goes through cycles of caring and not
06:00
caring about the family and everything else, making his notorious character arc
06:05
look more like a sine wave — he can fluctuate between caring and not caring
06:10
multiple times even within a single episode. On top of this we get cycles of
06:14
his pretending to not care when he actually does, and pretending to care
06:18
when he doesn’t. In Rick talk, Rick caring and not caring at the same time are two
06:22
equally possible impossibility making him the Schrodinger’s cat of
06:26
emotional connection since we can’t really see inside he both feels and
06:29
doesn’t at once. Dan Harmon, the show’s co-creator, points out the duality at the
06:34
root of Rick’s character:
06:35
[The planet is dying, the Sun is exploding, the universe
06:38
is cooling, nothing’s gonna matter. The further back you pull the more
06:42
that truth will endure. But when you zoom in on Earth, when you zoom into a family,
06:48
when you zoom into a human brain and a childhood experience, you see all these
06:52
things that matter.]
06:53
These comments reveal a key insight — that the secret to finding
06:56
meaning in our lives isn’t actually about what we know or don’t, or
07:00
understanding some truth.
07:01
[Unity I am so sorry. I didn’t know freedom meant people
07:04
doing stuff that sucks. I was thinking more of a choose your own cell phone
07:08
carrier thing.]
07:09
It’s about what size view we take; what we choose to focus on. So if
07:12
the key is really about how we look at things then finding meaning is a choice.
07:16
Rick’s arc isn’t really a prolonged search for meaning though — it’s a back
07:20
and forth between finding meaning and his love for family, and then rejecting
07:24
it because he can’t reconcile that with his knowledge of the vastness of the
07:27
universe. This duality and fluidity and changing his mind are what make Rick such
07:31
a fascinating character.
07:33
[I just got bored. Everybody out.]
07:35
His behavior can go
07:36
unexplained and his personality can go rogue depending on his mood and the
07:40
context. The choice is a rejection of typical narrative structures in which a
07:44
character must move permanently in one definitive linear direction. So far the
07:48
show’s creators consciously avoid giving Rick a backstory except for that fake
07:52
backstory he concocted, so as not to reduce his complex character to a flat
07:57
explanation. Even if we learn more it’s doubtful they’ll ever take Rick out of
08:00
this constant state of flux. Most importantly this lack of resolution
08:04
mirrors real life — what we feel and how we act changes from year to year and day
08:09
to day. We can’t always explain our own behavior; we certainly don’t know each
08:13
other’s character arcs, and we can go through cycles of despair and happiness,
08:17
connectedness and loneliness. We’ve all at some point lost and found meaning in
08:21
our lives, and then lost it again and then found it again. So we can all relate
08:25
to the true answer to this question: Has Rick changed? The answer is yes and he’ll
08:30
continue changing on and on with no comforting certain end in sight.
—
This post was previously published on Youtube.
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
—
Photo credit: Screenshot from video