Why Rick and Morty’s Summer Smith is actually very similar to her grandpa, Rick Sanchez.
A new character study on the Adult Swim hit from Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:04
At first glance, Summer Smith seems like a stereotypical teen girl.
00:08
[I’m not giving you my phone.]
00:10
[Put it in the stocking, Summer, or I’m joining Facebook.]
00:12
She’s obsessed with her phone, her body, and her reputation at school.
00:16
[This is my chance to gain some footing with the cool kids.]
00:19
But while some fans hope Morty will
00:21
turn out to be a genius like Rick, so far it’s the elder grandchild who shows an
00:25
unexpected connection to the person who claims he can’t stand girls like her.
00:29
[I’m ready when you are.]
00:31
[Bitch, I was ready yesterday.]
00:32
Summer and Rick both have oft-repeated catchphrases, and the scientist and his granddaughter have
00:42
a lot more in common than first meets the eye. There’s a long-standing joke
00:48
that Morty is most useful because he’s an idiot.
00:51
[You’re a perfect impenetrable suit of human armor Morty because you’re as dumb
00:54
as I am smart.]
00:55
And this is the perfect foil for Summer’s aptitude.
00:58
[What kind of monster are you?]
01:00
[A competent one.]
01:01
Summer is capable, and she’s the one who earns
01:03
the exceedingly rare shows of respect from her grandpa.
01:07
[You figured it out…Well, Summer did.]
01:10
Like Rick, Summer is able to assess a situation and slip into the role that
01:13
best suits the need.
01:14
[I think I look like this.]
01:16
[Wanna piss on him?]
01:18
[Get out of my head.]
01:19
On her very first
01:20
interdimensional adventure to the female-led Gazorpazorp, the role needed
01:24
is mastered, and with only slight hesitation she fits right in.
01:27
[You speak when you’re spoken to ding-a-ling.]
01:30
By the time she visits the Mad Max inspired
01:33
hyper-violent dimension in Rickmancing the Stone, Summer immediately understands
01:37
the rules of this world and takes charge.
01:39
[Kill me, please.]
01:41
[Okay but not because you told me too.]
01:44
It’s Summer whom Rick trusts to help him when he needs to escape the purge,
01:47
and Summer is completely unfazed in Morty’s Mind Blowers when she has to
01:51
save Rick and Morty from killing themselves.
01:53
Rick’s appreciation for his granddaughter’s talents might have
01:56
something to do with the fact that she even outperforms the scientist in some
01:59
of her storylines. She helps the devil succeed even as Rick tries to take him
02:03
down; she figures out how to save Rick from the teenage angsty hell of tiny
02:07
Rick’s mind;
02:07
[You put your mind into this body’s young
02:10
brain it did what young brains do — it shoved the bad thoughts into the back.
02:14
But those bad thoughts are the real Rick.]
02:16
And Summer saves them both with an
02:18
impromptu last-minute plea before their impending doom
02:21
[And if you think my top
02:22
is cute, you cannot execute.]
02:24
Even though Rick
02:25
might say he doesn’t adventure with girls,
02:27
[Are you sure it doesn’t make you
02:29
reevaluate your policy about taking girls on adventures?]
02:32
[No.]
02:32
There’s good reason for
02:33
Rick to keep taking her along. Even without access to Rick’s fancy gadgets
02:37
and tools, Summer proves that — just like Rick — she can get it done.
02:41
[Are you the ruler of this Earth?]
02:43
[How did you know?]
02:44
[The quality of your top.]
02:46
[Do you love it?]
02:47
[I love it.]
02:49
Summer and Rick are both pretty mean.
02:52
[It’s not a conversation
02:53
you’re holding me verbally hostage.]
02:55
[You’re both equally mercurial, overly
02:57
sensitive, clingy, hysterical, birdbrain homunculi.]
03:01
And she can match Rick’s
03:02
harsh criticisms when it comes to Morty.
03:07
When it comes to would-be-friends:
03:08
[Don’t tell me you’re friends with her.]
03:10
[Are you kidding me? I don’t even know
03:12
what she’s doing here.]
03:13
[You’ve got to look out for number one.]
03:15
[Number one is me asshole.]
03:17
And especially when it comes to Jerry:
03:18
[I don’t give a F*** what you think Jerry.]
03:21
[That’s you —
03:21
you’re a baby and an idiot.]
03:23
But despite her sarcasm and sass, she desperately
03:26
wants to be loved on a grand scale — just like Rick. They both seek validation from
03:31
the greater world around them, and Summer has a deep desire to be able to command
03:35
a room like Rick can. Summer wants the affection of her peers
03:38
[I want to be popular at school.]
03:41
And with all of his catchphrases and fourth-wall breaking
03:44
calls for our return, Rick seems to want us to love him. So despite pushing people
03:50
away, both secretly crave deeper connections. Summer can loathe her
03:58
parents in one moment,
04:00
[My God, my parents are so loud I want to die.]
04:01
and then feel great
04:02
relief to have them nearby in the next. Rick never admits how much he longed to
04:06
stay with Unity, but we know how badly she hurt him. Rick and Summer both have
04:10
it in them to tear people down.
04:12
[You’re a fu**ng moron, Morty.]
04:14
[Morety, you fu**ing idiot.]
04:15
But this is self-defeating behavior. They deeply want the love from
04:18
the people that they so often try to keep at arm’s length.
04:21
[My daughter’s going through a divorce and I am NOT dealing with it in a
04:24
healthy way at all.]
04:25
We’ve seen both characters hurt.
04:28
Summer when she
04:29
discovers that her parents might have preferred a life without her in it.
04:32
[It’s a real treat to be raised by parents that force themselves to be together
04:35
instead of being happy.]
04:37
But both Summer and Rick cope by going out of their way
04:40
to avoid facing the problem.
04:41
[I’m gonna move to the southwest and…I don’t know
04:45
do something with turquoise.]
04:47
Rick is used to getting what he thinks he wants, like
04:50
separating Beth and Jerry, or throwing a successful house party. But then he gets
04:54
out of dealing with the ramifications of his actions by resorting to outrageous
04:58
solutions, like transforming himself into a PICKLE RICK, or freezing time for a few
05:03
months. And we can see that Summer is learning
05:06
to follow and Rick’s footsteps by taking extreme over-the-top measures to avoid
05:10
the real issues that are bothering her. When her boyfriend starts dating someone
05:13
new, she augments her body. She claims that she wants her parents to get
05:17
divorced
05:18
[Whose idea was this stupid custody weekend thing? I want to be abandoned.]
05:22
But then when this actually comes to pass, she’d rather stay in a
05:25
different dimension married to a warlord then deal with the fact that her parents
05:29
split up.
05:30
[Losers look stuff up, while the rest of us are Carpen all them diems.]
05:33
[Listen to your sister Morty.]
05:35
In some ways, Summer also thinks like Rick, and sees
05:37
the world as he does. Just like her grandpa, Summer understands how to win an
05:41
argument by throwing out traditional ethics and assumptions.
05:44
[You work for the devil!]
05:45
[So what?]
05:47
[So what?1?]
05:48
[At least the devil has a job. At least
05:50
he’s active in the community. What do you do?]
05:53
Like Rick, she understands relativity, and knows that people parse the world
05:56
through their own frames of reference.
05:58
[If the machine was made by spider people,
06:00
normal would mean eight legs.]
06:02
So while Jerry, of course, needs a lesson in fancy
06:04
alien truckstops
06:06
[You have no frame of reference. You’re in a universe beyond
06:08
your imagining.]
06:09
Summer calls Christmas a human holiday
06:11
[Happy human holiday, Dad.]
06:12
Yet for all their similarities, Summer is also different from Rick in a couple of
06:17
key ways.
06:18
[Isn’t it interesting Summer, that after all that stuff we just did
06:21
nothing really mattered and there was no point to it? Kind of makes you wonder huh?]
06:25
Summer represents a more optimistic side of the
06:27
Smith family. She’s as yet unconvinced by Rick’s worldview that nothing matters.
06:32
Whether it’s because she’s a young, potentially naive teenage girl, or
06:36
because she understands something Rick doesn’t, Summer still has high hopes for
06:39
the good in the world. She holds strong opinions about right
06:43
and wrong, and takes a stand for what she believes in.
06:45
[Morty, open your eyes. There is no they. These poor people’s bodies are being
06:50
used. They’re a planet of puppets.]
06:52
[Yeah I can hear you.]
06:53
[Uhhh.]
06:54
She also shows empathy. Despite traveling inter-dimensionally a bit more
06:58
frequently now, and knowing that she’s one of an infinite number of possible
07:02
Summers, Rick’s granddaughter maintains appreciation and respect for life.
07:06
[No. no! Don’t hurt anybody!]
07:08
She shows genuine concern for her neighbor across the street
07:11
[God I feel terrible.]
07:13
[Yep, it really makes you appreciate how fickle the universe can be.]
07:16
First Snuffles the dog,
07:17
[You can’t, like, endow a creature with sentience and then rip it away.]
07:20
and especially for her grandpa
07:23
[Because I love you and I’m trying to save your life.]
07:26
Summer freely expresses her love and
07:28
admiration for Rick, always calling him grandpa Rick unlike Morty.
07:31
[Grandpa Rick.]
07:32
[A city of grandpas?]
07:34
[My grandpa was my hero.]
07:36
[Grandpa Rick must have gotten shitfaced.]
07:38
[Shut up Summer.]
07:39
It’s obvious how much she admires his brain
07:41
[Oldest Rick trick in the book.]
07:42
[Fake gun. Shoot me in stand off. Brilliant!]
07:45
Summer also attends family therapy and appreciates the benefits of self
07:49
awareness and self-analysis. Rick can sometimes show signs of caring, but it’s
07:53
Summer who proves capable of harnessing emotions that Rick would dismiss.
07:58
[Listen to it Tiny Rick. Listen to Elliott Smith. Feel what he’s feeling.]
08:04
Her efforts in
08:05
Big Trouble in Little Sanchez prove just how much she cares.
08:09
While Morty would have preferred to stay with Tiny Rick, it’s Summer who employs
08:12
empathy to realize Rick’s pain. And then sacrifices her new popularity at school
08:17
to save the old man. As we see more and more how much Rick there is in Summer, it
08:22
becomes clear that she’s far more than just a teen girl with boy troubles. The
08:25
show may use her sparingly, and sometimes as a damsel in distress or an extended
08:30
metaphor for teen angst, but when we start to view Summer as we
08:35
view Rick, it’s easy to see all the potential that Tiny Rick admits is in her.
08:39
[Don’t short sell yourself Summer. You got everything it takes.]
08:42
So, it’s interesting that the show has yet to explore many other versions of Summer as
08:46
it’s done with Rick and Morty, because it would make sense that there’s at least
08:50
one Summer out there who could prove an even better nemesis than Evil Morty. And
08:55
there’s definitely a dimension with a different title for this show — Rick and Summer.
08:59
[Uh-huh. Totally let’s do it.]
09:01
If you can’t get enough Rick and Morty content, then
09:04
be sure to check out our friends at Wisecrack, who have put out some of the
09:07
very best videos on the show. And they’ve also got a new Rick and Morty podcast
09:11
you can click here to go to their channel or find them at youtube.com
09:15
slash wisecrack. Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video