![]() Rick, as the burnt-out cynic, has a rock-bottom view of human nature, and thus he becomes the show’s voice of truth (à la TD‘s Rust Cohle). The episode seems to push toward the strange contention that both are forms of mindless self-distraction, but at least surrealist television isn’t so narcissistic. So Jerry, Beth, and Summer escape the repetitious mundanity of their lives by absorbing themselves in better visions of what they could have been, while Rick and Morty distract themselves from their boredom with mindless, surrealist television. Car ads with gimmicky salesmen (Mister Sneezy), and trailers for escapist action flicks ( Alien Invasion Tomato Monster Mexican Armada Brothers Who Are Just Regular Brothers Running In A Van From An Asteroid And All Sorts Of Things The Movie). Meanwhile, Rick and his grandson continue watching TV, which, it turns out, is just as mindless in other dimensions. They show possibility and potential – “you shall be like God” – which makes their creaturely existence suddenly seem mundane and insignificant. The goggles are like the fruit from Eden. And the marriage which has seemingly held them back, yielding such normal, humdrum lives. To fulfill their dreams, they had to sacrifice the daughter who was holding them back. And in their dream realities – where Jerry stars in Cloud Atlas and Beth, a veterinarian, performs surgery on “real people” – Summer is conspicuously absent. ![]() ![]() Jerry and his wife, Beth, married after Beth became pregnant with their daughter, Summer, while they were dating. Yet simultaneously, such an alternate self puts weight on the current, less happy, less-actualized self in this dimension. Focusing on our potential, our “infinite possibilities” or unlived lives, strokes out egos by affirming our talent and potential. Beneath the animation and the sci-fi, there’s a gut-level critique of what we value. What would you see in your alternate reality goggles? For me, it’d be an alternate self in the early stages of a promising career in law, publishing a theology dissertation, or living abroad in South America. He warns them of the vanity of “narcissistically obsessing about their alternate selves”, but the rest of the family – except his grandson Morty – go to the kitchen and fight over the goggles. “Infinite timelines, infinite possibilities”, as Rick tells them. Rick, more interested in trans-dimensional absurdity than his family members’ possible lives, disdainfully gives them a pair of goggles which allows them to flip through their alternate realities. The idea that in an alternate universe he is famous, and could have been famous in this one, captivates Jerry. As he flips through the channels – gunfights from a universe where people evolved from corn, violent antique shows, and a teddy bear spinning silk into a web – they come across Jerry, Rick’s insecure son-in-law, on Letterman. So Rick fixes the problem by hacking the family’s cable box so it can show infinite channels from other dimensions – not bad, for someone on a planet with poor cell phone coverage. If the meta bells haven’t started going off yet, they should. In “Rixty Minutes”, Rick complains about the Bachelor-style TV they’re watching, an obvious critique of escapist television, though an ironic one for a series whose protagonist is constantly trying to escape his pain by going to other dimensions, and bringing us with him. They replace the Rick and Morty of the alternate reality (who have died in an experiment), bury them in the backyard, and go on living life as before – same house, family, friends, etc. Unable to reverse the damage, Rick uses, as a last resort, a portal to another reality similar to theirs, but sans Cronenbergs. ![]() Rick made his grandson a love potion to use on his math-class crush, which ended up transforming the entire human race into praying mantises, and later into Cronenberg creatures. ![]() In the sixth episode, Rick Potion #9, we were introduced to alternate realities. Spoilers follow.įor those new to the series, Rick – an ingenious, cynical scientist – moves in with his daughter’s family and takes his grandson, the not-too-bright and insecure adolescent Morty, on adventures with him. In a series of brilliant episodes, episode 8, “Rixty Minutes”, stands out for the surprising depth of its meditations on regret. Then again, life sometimes mocks expectations. Adult Swim’s new series Rick and Morty is off to an unbelievable start, enjoying wide critical acclaim and no small amount of creative self-indulgence, in the best way. To be honest, I’d never expected zany sci-fi, Adam Phillips, and Leibniz’s best possible world approach to the theodicy problem to converge in a masterful twenty-two minutes on Cartoon Network. ![]()
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