Film Theory: Rick REBORN? (Rick and Morty Season 6)

hey Rick that season six Premiere was really good but like thematically what was it all about and and where does the show go from here no time to explain here we go so there was time to explain who has ever taken this long to vanish I'm gonna start the episode now okay stop digging digging for hidden layers and there's impressed hello Internet welcome to film Theory the show that knows that what people call curiosity is just a chemical that compels animals to seek out knowledge ladies and gromplamites Rick Sanchez and the rest of his dysfunctional family are back and they came back hard last week season six Premiere Solaris did not disappoint I know there's been a lot of discussion lately about Rick and Morty losing its way over the last season or so but if this new episode is anything to judge by it looks like the show is coming back swinging huge lore reveals check my original Rick killed your family seems like you understand fine Morty that was a plus re-piping Hilarious Moments double check hey remember like a second ago when you pretended not to know who Iron Man was who was that for the introduction of a brand new villain check again oh you found me I shoot the first monitor too but there's also something else that's hiding under the surface of this episode something new something that makes me hopeful for the future of the series healing well there's certainly a lot of plot going on in this episode something that a lot of other channels have talked about exhaustively in Recaps and explainers by this point I see a whole lot less discussion on the themes of this particular episode I mean plot wise the show did more than enough to bring everyone up to speed with what they needed to know I explained it fine Morty your spoon feeding spoons but thematically this episode is a pivotal moment for the franchise as the characters pull not just a full dimensional reset but also a full emotional reset so consider this lesson analysis of what happened in the episode and more a breakdown of what I think this episode is actually trying to say to the audience what themes are Rick and Morty gonna be exploring throughout season six because between all the Sci-Fi mind games and portal gunless Dimension hopping this show is doing something else it's showing us two different and seemingly opposite strategies for coping with grief I know I know animated therapy is everyone's favorite subject to talk about when it comes to their favorite wacky sci-fi comedy cartoon but what Rick and Morty the show and this episode in particular have shown us is that traumatic experiences like watching your wife and daughter murdered right in front of you those are things that are gonna come with consequences not just consequences for the Lord lore of the franchise but also emotional consequences consequences that affect what these characters are and what they want to be moving forward so reset your Portal guns and your expectations loyal theorists because we're going in case you missed the episode here's what you need to know the episode picks up exactly where season five left off Rick and Morty stranded on the destroyed remains of The Citadel in Portal technology completely non-operable they're eventually saved by Captain Marvel I mean space Beth Rick accidentally resets all portal Travelers back to their original Dimensions which sends Jerry back to a failing season 2 marriage with Beth Morty back to the Cronenberg monster universe from when his Jessica Love Potion when awry and Rick back to the garage where he lost his wife and daughter this one moment finally confirms once and for all Rick's backstory that he was indeed blue pants Rick he was built differently he wasn't interested in being the smartest guy in the universe excuse me bro rich don't pass on this it also makes me wonder if evil Morty was also reset to his original Dimension by this move but that remains to be seen anyway we see the prison of grief that Rick has created for himself the voice of his dead wife Diane always one room away in a day that's set to repeat infinitely meanwhile Morty meets up with his original Jerry who is not happy to see him summer and Beth have both died and so Jerry has moved on with his life he's a Survivor he'll do anything to help his chances this includes stealing Morty stuff rejecting his help and leaving him to die throughout this fastest had to set trap thought you'd have coolers meanwhile summer Beth and space Beth go on a mini adventure to set portal navigation beacons for Rick to follow back to their Universe hashing out their own issues of family and identity while fighting alien space squids with interdimensional travel now made easier Rick hops on over to the Cronenberg Universe to save Morty and then seeks out the Rick from Morty's Dimension the same sci-fi Rick Prime that killed his wife and daughter setting the entire series into motion tracking Rick Prime to his invisible space base our Rick goes on a suicidal Rampage in an attempt to kill him but he stopped when Morty convinces Rick that his new family is more important than getting revenge Rick and Mort already pick up Summer Beth and space Beth before saving Jerry from the unhappy marriage in his original Universe heading home together as a happy family unit until season 2 Jerry releases a cute Abomination that ruins everything way to go Jerry cue the family having to find another new dimension though here they're gonna have to deal with one annoying trait bit of a rush job actually so they do say parmesan weird how do they say parmesan so I'm guessing that everyone picked up on the biggest running theme throughout this episode Rick's grief over his dead family the whole haunted by the digital ghost of your dead wife thing isn't exactly subtle as Rick returns to his original Dimension we as the audience see that his past strategies for coping with the loss of his wife and daughter have been well as unhealthy and over the top as you would expect from a man like Rick Sanchez unable to fully accept the loss of his wife Diane Rick recreated her as an AI a literal disembodied voice that follows him throughout their home always just out of sight and one room away you thought if you could see or touch me it might give you level of comfort but of course because this is a creation made by Rick meant to torture himself the AI is also eager to bring up the young Beth who tragically never made it past childhood did you find out you'll find him you always do everything you set your mind to accept keep your family alive well all of this might seem cruel remember it's self-inflicted cruelty Rick created this Ai and everything that it does is ultimately something that he programmed into it you're not her you're a thing I built to torture myself in this Dimension Rick is living in a mental prison of his own creation and he isn't the only one in his grief he's also forcing everyone around him to live in a physical prison as well Rick is so unwilling to let go of the past that he's kept his home in a state of Perpetual stasis pulling a wand division by locking his real-life neighbors into a cycle that repeats the same day over and over and over for the decades that Rick's been gone his trauma has trapped the innocent bystanders in a never-ending Loop all because he's unable to let go of the past they say my mind is held captive in a Time Loop trapped in the day of a traumatic event by the agony of a formidable intelligence that my body spoils and yearns for death so in Rick The Show presents us with a man who clearly cannot let go the trauma of his past he's created a prison for himself he submerges himself in suffering every day clearly this is not the healthiest strategy for confronting your grief something that the show repeatedly hammers home or weirdo I pity them wish they could let go and move on sounds healthy sure would be but while that's already a powerful commentary on the power of grief and what it can do if it consumes you this episode also shows a completely different way for a father to react to the death of his wife and daughter and no we're no longer talking about Rick here see Rick isn't the only man who's lost his family in this episode as Morty returns to his home Dimension now a jungle covered Cronenberg post-apocalyptic Wasteland we meet his original Jerry life on the hellscape has not been easy sadly it was more than this universe's Beth and summer could survive we've spent a long time in that ice a gentle mutant licked us out but Beth got sick and summer didn't thought by the time our Morty finds him this Jerry stands alone against the world a hardened Survivor but unlike Rick who's been stuck in the past Jerry's a man who's chosen to let go to move forward to get over the loss of his loved ones your mom and sister died Morty and I moved on from caring and that is the best deal you will ever get so take it Jerry's worked so hard to get over this pain that he wants nothing to do with his own son with a long lost Morty finally returns to the home Dimension so the show is very clearly presenting us with two different fathers both confronted with the horrible reality of a dead partner and child reacting to it in two seemingly opposite ways one Rick is stuck in the past while the other Jerry is looking towards the future Rick is desperately clinging to what he's lost while Jerry would just as soon forget it all entirely giving up everything else he had in his old life in the process now whenever Rick and Morty shows us this kind of black and white contrast It's usually the Creator's way of trying to tell us something it's almost as if the Rick and Morty writers are pitting these two opposite coping strategies against each other to see which one works but instead of choosing sides here Solaris is actually telling us that these methods aren't all that different though it seems like both Rick and Jerry are dealing with grief in opposite ways the truth is that they're making the same mistake as much as Jerry might talk about leaving the past behind looking forward and moving on with his life he's still haunted by his past just as much as Rick is we see this at the end of the episode when Rick Prime shows up in the Cronenberg Dimension Jerry sees this as an opportunity to take revenge on the people who ruined the world that he knew do you hate them too I could be done for a little teamwork now admittedly that might have just been a fake out in Jerry's part to fool Rick Prime into letting his guard down but throughout the rest of the episode we repeatedly see that while Jerry says that he's let go he clearly hasn't when Morty shows up Jerry is only willing to talk to him on friendly terms for as long as it takes to steal all his stuff Jerry is actively running away from serious conversations with his natural born son leaving notes behind as a distraction technique in order to buy him time in order to escape even if they weren't related this might be the only other normal unmutated human left on the planet but Jerry can't seem to accept any kind of future that involves accepting Morty's help even ones that get him away from this live living nightmare if Rick comes back we can we can find you a new reality a new mom a new summer a job oh you don't get a cam except for this conversation my life is perfect Rick was always right everyone needs to let go he's taken Rick's advice of Letting Go and stretched it to its unhealthiest extreme he's let go of being a dad to Morty and summer a husband to Beth part of society as a whole all of that is part of the man that Jerry used to be on a surface level that might seem like he's escaped from his past but the truth is that he's just blindly running from his past and blindly running from your past is still letting that grief control you our Rick and this original Jerry are both men who never really process the grief of losing their families Rick chose to wallow in his grief while Jerry chose to run away from it these look like different responses but ultimately both approaches have the same Consequence the grief remains unresolved it continues to haunt them in Rick's case it's a literal haunting an AI ghost and a nightmare reality of his own creation and while Jerry might not have been directly responsible for creating this particular nightmare world he he refuses to leave it when the opportunity presents itself he chooses to remain there just like Rick I mean this right here is not the face of a man who's happy or satisfied with his course of life you see the show is presenting us with a false dichotomy here where the only choices seem to be clinging to the past and drowning in your grief or running from the past and ignoring your grief but as it so often happens the real solution is to reject the false dichotomy and choose a third option confronting the grief and resolving it and that's what Rick and Morty both the show and the characters are trying to tell us in this episode this is how you resolve Rick's character Arc so what does a healthy approach to dealing with grief look like well according to Dr J William Warden of Harvard Medical School a mental health expert who specializes in grief counseling the solution to negative feelings isn't to numb them like Rick so often does nor is it to run from them like we see with Jerry here no the solution is to accept those emotions to feel them so your body and brain can move forward with the best parts of your life while leaving behind the painful remnants now that's not to say that you should seek out your green even inflict emotional pain on yourself I mean we've been watching Rick do that to himself for the entirety of the show seeking out pain because that's what he thinks he deserves but accepting pain is not the same as seeking it out and Rick seems to be moving past that phase of his grieving in fact Rick seems to be embracing one of Dr Warren's recommended methods for healthy grief processing learning to rely on family you know I guess it doesn't matter where we're from if we're together huh good final moral thing this is everyone's original Dimension now great wrap ups kids for all his attempts to push them away in the end Rick realizes the importance of family even if the family he has now is a found family assembled from variants and clones that he's gathered from throughout the Multiverse and when Mr frontals escapes containment and puts everyone at risk see what happens though Rick is quick to bail on the entire Dimension notice the one thing he doesn't bail on is his family he could have left you guys you think the concept of Family Matters to me I'm not even your Rick that's right Rick you could have left them behind but you didn't because unlike Rick Prime you care I promise I'm not you know fate to make that Rick comeback for you to be bait the guide have to Value something in fact I think we see the very moment where the switch flips in Rick's mind when Morty doesn't let Rick continue on his mission to kill Rick Prime go down there he's still good what good care of you die why do you care if I die yeah when you get it from him not me I don't know him you're my grandpa Rick Rick and Morty a hundred years in that moment Rick realizes that protecting Morty his living family is more important than avenging his dead family though Rick doesn't quite give up on his quest for Revenge just yet this is another huge step in his personal healing process throughout its more recent Seasons Rick and Morty has dealt with the tension between classic Rick and Morty Adventures versus the show's Canon and persistent narrative the episodic sci-fi hijinks that make the show fun to watch versus the plot and character arcs that truly Elevate the show to another level but I think what the season 6 premiere does is make clear that both of these things don't have to be in Conflict both are meaningful and important this episode and I suspect this season are gonna be about how Rick copes with his grief using the classic styled Adventures but now embracing his newly found and chosen family the creators of the series are combining these two parts of the show and in doing it they suddenly hit on something important sometimes you don't realize when you're healing sometimes it's only after the fact that you look back and see how much you've grown and if you ask me making this season a bunch of episodic sci-fi Adventures while secretly also being Rick's Healing Art is how you move forward is it a prediction is it wishful thinking Well for now we're just gonna call it a theory a film Theory and hey if you enjoyed this analysis of what Rick and Morty has to say about coping with grief and the loss of loved ones and you're going to want to subscribe because as interesting episodes like this pop up we'll be covering all their deeper things as soon as we can after the episode airs because you know you gotta be smart if you're gonna truly appreciate Rick and Morty and hey in case you missed it check out this video you see on screen right now where we talked about what the show has to say about the depressing reality of living in modern society nothing says uplifting feel-good content online like a deep philosophical discussion on why Happiness Is A Lie enjoy that one my friends and as always I'll see you next week

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 2,295,520

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Id: PImEpJiHa9c

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 17 2022