Film Theory: Rick's Final Chance! (Rick and Morty Season 4)

in the Rick and Morty season 4 finale Rick has this epic anime inspired duel against Phoenix person the reborn BP it is now pipi and Rick for the second time the season gets rekt also shout-out to the funny detail of him drinking from his flask and immediately exiting his digestive tube probably just there to help him process alcohol more effectively anyway long story short I'm not surprised Rick didn't die we've seen him survive catastrophic injuries before but I'm more surprised that Rick didn't pull out a secret weapon no not that secret weapon gross get your mind out of the gutter no birdperson himself tells us that rick's catchphrase of Wubba lubba dub dub means i am in great pain please help me it's in bird person's own language in fact so if Rick suddenly said this in his final moments does that mean Phoenix person softens and gives up the fight against his friend nah too sappy for the show now if they'd realize their mothers had the same name now that would have been awesome hello Internet welcome to film theory the show that will go on forever hundred seasons films and theories films in theories 100 hundred episodes theorizing about films and theories and also TV and YouTube theory and sometimes even book theory comic comic comic series comic series that's the thing films in 300 years it's the one certain part about all of this as a hundred years hundred years until the heat death of the universe Rick and Morty hundred years films and theories heat death of the universe maybe you have to be drinking whatever's inside Rick's flask to be able to pull off a rant like that anyway it was worth a shot Citadel of theorists it's no secret that I have long been a huge fan of Rick and Morty and all things witty but Season 4 well I gotta say it really salvaged itself in the end for me I got to admit they didn't love the first half of the season sure I appreciated the mystery of the cat the references to the honey maze and getting introduced to the world of snake jazz but overall it was missing a lot of the character relationships that made this show so special to me but now that the season's over I can honestly say that this was probably at least the most meaningful season yet to happen and not because of clones or the return of Tammy or face-hugging aliens but because the season was all about the characters search for identity it was very much like the second act of a three act play we've established who our main characters are in the world that they live in and act 1 and now we see the problems introduced into these people's lives we see the toxicity that exists inside these relationships we learn that those who were once the butt end of our jokes might just be the best off this was a season where characters evolved and changed and found new identities for themselves and those who are unable to grow ultimately got left behind but where this all gets really juicy is that season 4 it doesn't just represent an identity crisis for each and every one of our main characters it's also the crisis of identity facing the show itself facing the people who make the show and understanding all of this is what gives us a clue as to what we might expect from season 5 so sit right back in your laser-proof Wranglers and pour yourself a nice Windies frosty Chino because it's time to hitch a ride with invisible theory Matt Pat's it's a new franchise season four sees every member of the Smith family looking for and/or questioning their place in the world or I suppose multiverse for Morty his unquestioned identity for the entire show has been as a Rick's sidekick it's easy to forget but season three ended with Rick and Morty beating up the president so they can spend a bit more time playing Minecraft together sure there have been hints here and there that their relationship might be decaying he bails on everybody he left you to rot in a world that he ruined because he doesn't care so if you really want your grandpa back grab a shovel the one that won't let you down is buried in your backyard but season four really took it all the way in episode one the death crystal episode we see more new choose not to revive Rick instead opting to keep him dead and prioritize himself dying at an old age and his crushes arms episode 3 the heist episode shows him opting to skip multiple adventures with Rick in order to pursue his own dream of writing a Netflix heist pilot the dragon episode is all about morty getting to go on self-directed fantasy adventures where he proves himself more capable in a world where rick's technology is useless until of course the show gives up on that really cool angle and just gives Rick godlike powers yet again not cool in the episode primordius Morty rises to become the leader of the glory so a lian's in the vat of acid episode he sees the limitations of Rick's plans and stands up to him about it are you dying of dementia when did you get so cocky tonight and in both episodes 9 and 10 it's Morty and summer saving Rick's life instead of the other way around up to this point Rick's scientific wizardry has always seemed like a solution for Morty because whenever they screw up they can just teleport or change realities but Rick and his bag of tricks are empty Morty over the seasons but especially here in season 4 has learned that they're merely a means to avoid actually living a real life they're irresponsible it's a lesson that's reinforced in that vat of acid episode when Morty learns through his video game style reset button that life constantly able to reset is pointless and that it's the consequences of our actions that ultimately make life worth living living without consequences is great but then I started wondering what am i living for we are who we are because of concert soin morty rejects rick's offer to find out which beth is his real mom in the finale it's him turning his back on Rick's trickery in favor of living a more normal consequential and thus a more meaningful life the season started with this R and all about Rick and Morty adventuring together for another hundred years but by the end of the season Morty's decided to be his own person outside of Rick's influence now that is a character arc morty and summer we work together that's that's our heart summer is coming at her identity from the opposite direction she's usually on the outside of Rick and Morty's adventures looking in but just like Marty she too is looking to establish a new and independent identity like any normal teenager throughout season four we see her trying new things to help define who she is she's inexplicably carrying a toothpick in her mouth it's a toothpick I'm a toothpick er now get used to it are you that desperate for a thing trying podcasts running from match to match on the love finders app what a stupid name for that thing or just getting into snake jazz snake yes it's also clear from episode 1 that she still feels left out and she wants to be a part of the Rick and Morty duo just joking around you just seeing if you guys pay any attention to me but over the course of the season we see summer develop into her own woman she rules over the glories of civilization she becomes an all-powerful Archer she saves Rick's life multiple times by the end of the season she's found herself as strong and independent she's happy to be Morty's sister and she no longer needs grandpa's approval she recognizes that her family was living a fairly normal life before Rick came in and disrupted it and she's over him driving him apart as she puts it in her last line of the season grandpa Rick don't drag us into your just because you're losing control summers desire to be part of Rick and Morty's adventures was never about finding ways to act the universe was always about being included now she realizes that she can just team up with Morty she can have that inclusion all without Rick's destructive baggage weighing her down of all the interesting plots and subplots from season four one that flew under the radar almost the entire time was the revitalization of beth and jerry's mayor season three ended with Jerry back in the family and Rick on the defensive and now just one season later even Jerry has found himself a new identity he is no longer the worm that we saw him as in season two he's now finding strength against Rick and is starting to reassert himself as the man of the household provided he was ever really the man of the household to begin with let's be honest throughout his season for adventures we see him save his own life we see him lead a civilization we see him save Beth's life we see him save Rick's life in a delightfully Jarry way save the day with puppeting only one with a decent heart most importantly of all though Jerry is coming to realize that he doesn't need to be the hero to be useful he might not have had any soul mates on the love finders app but Beth chooses him anyway he might be a dork who glorifies camping but his s'more stick ends up saving Beth Jerry is aware that he's a what but he's made peace with the idea that Beth and his family are all he really needs to be happy and when you look at that self realization compared to the endless misery and cynicism of Rick who can never truly be happy Jerry is the one who really comes out on top well I was impressed dad he saved my life no thanks to you which brings us to Beth who's faced in season four with the most literal identity crisis as she continues to grapple with the idea that she might be a clone and though we don't see much of her this season even Beth has an identity arc cloner otherwise she transforms from the insecure dissatisfied woman trying to numb her pain in earlier seasons to a confident mother I'm a mother you until your 18th birthday even if I get thrown in prison for non-consensual mothering and skeptical but ultimately loving wife look on the off chance that you use the gap I didn't use it did you me no but it's building a civilization with her father that really sets the turning point in her characters search for identity early in episode 9 we see the old Beth peek through as she delights over the praise that Rick gives her these kids may not be mine but you definitely are my little steampunk overlord and yet midway through the episode Rick abandons there just like he did to her when she was a child to prove himself as a god against another God which ultimately backfires and in turn it almost gets Beth leaving Jeri as the only one to save her by the end of this episode Beth's season arc is pretty much complete well I was impressed dad he saved my life no thanks to you and this old culminates with the season 4 finale where we come face-to-face with Beth's clone or the original Beth honestly the episode doesn't give us a whole lot of clarity at the promotion for their video game pocket Morty's after the episode may have by calling space math clone Beth in the game regardless the Beth's conclude that it doesn't matter sure you'd love for us to need that from you but I don't care what's in that file they've both found their identity 1 defined by not needing Rick's approval they're strong in their own ways and those ways don't include him leaving us with Rick himself who was in pretty bad shape at the end of the season Oh pat myself on the back a little bit here because I totally called the ending of the season not too much because I also made a video about how Rick didn't actually clone method also whoopsie there anyway Rick is left broken and alone at the end of the season for exactly the same theme that we've been talking about with every other character because instead of finding a new identity like everyone else Rick refuses to change he recognizes that he's a jerk to everyone and everything around him but he just doesn't do anything about it he thinks that lamp shading it by directly calling it out is enough but it's not at least not anymore this is him in season 3 bad father all the way to the max over here now compare that with his realization at the end of season 4 I'm a terrible father Rick historically was comfortable with the fact that he wasn't a good dad because he convinced himself that nothing matters he's not entirely wrong about that when humans are just a small speck of dust in an infinite universe yeah our actions are pretty meaningless on the scientific level but when you're not looking at the objective reality of the universe and instead zoom all the way down to the family level into the subjective reality in which we all live well then we're all the center of our own little universe and it's there that you're able to find true meaning true purpose and true happiness that is when your actions literally make a world of difference but will Rick ever be able to grow up and see that that is the fundamental question hanging over the rest of this show okay so our characters are having a bunch of identity crises throughout season four but does that really tell us anything about where the show is headed yeah a lot because the crisis of identity that the characters are having is clearly mirroring the discussion that the makers of the show are having about its identity throughout this season - this was the first season produced after the series was picked up for 70 more episodes and the pressure of how to handle that many more installments of the series while still maintaining what made this show great in the first place is the core arc throughout this entire season for don't get me wrong Rick and Morty being meta and break in the fourth wall is nothing new it all goes back to the pilot episode but it's never been as specific as it's been in season four we're almost every episode that aired has some deconstruction of what it means to make the show of Rick and Morty it's most obvious in the story Lord episode that we covered in great detail already but there's so much more to it and it all has one common theme the debate over making the show serialized or episodic serialized television tells a single story from beginning to end usually in chronological order like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad pick up in the middle of those series and you don't have a clear idea of exactly what's going on episodic television is often seen as more formulaic and events from one episode don't really affect all the other episodes around it think the Simpsons or Seinfeld or most seasons South Park things happen but there's always a reset button at the end of the episode it's a debate that's set up from the very first episode of the season we end it on this rant sometimes we'll do classic stuff you know other times we'll do whatever do anything a direct callback to a very similar speech that happens at the end of the pilot episode of the show when nothing mattered and everything was just meant for fun and that's not all in this very episode kicking off season four we have facist morty outright declare that he wants to have fun classic adventures like in the good old days you know it would really help if you could just say anything other than what you don't want I like mr. meeseeks okay now we're talking here fascist Morty is serving as the voice of fans who didn't like the more serialized route that the show was taking throughout season three or the season told an arc about Beth and Jerry's separation and the fallout with the rest of the family and Rick basically responding with tell me something that you do like is clearly a stand-in for the feelings of the show's creators it's them begging fans to stop complaining about everything and instead offer them something productive something they like some constructive criticism about the creative decisions that are happening on the show so the first episode of season four sets up this arc about the identity of what the show is and we see this debate play out throughout most of the other episodes in the vat of acid episode we get this exchange video game style saving device yes Morty I saw it on Futurama so you don't do anything unless it's original in the first few seasons Rick and Morty didn't have to worry about being unoriginal because it was presenting us with new characters establishing its own style but now the makers of the show have to continue to make decisions about whether characters and stories should reoccur how original their concepts need to be and on and on and on and we're seeing those debates literally taking place on the screen through the voices of these characters in that very same episode we also get this line there's no such thing as a bad idea Morty it's about execution this discussion of there being no bad ideas is a frequent topic in groups of creative individuals they even poke fun of what many consider to be the weakest episode of the series morty wanting a dragon isn't an idea I'm not talking about that I'm constantly pitching you ideas Rick and us they're not even we're thinking about this whole sequence isn't just two characters arguing it's a writers room debating what can and can't be an episode of this show it's a debate that we see embodied in other episodes too by Jerry's mysterious cat in the middle of the season a cat that literally stands for everything not needing an answer and just having fun when Jerry asks why the cat can talk we get yet another writers room ask quick why are you talking why should that matter why should it not matter of course there's the story Lorde episode which literalizes the fear that the writer's team has of draining Rick and Morty of all their story potential even the final episode of the season has a reference to this ongoing tension the way she lived over serialised Tammy like evil Morty and birdperson are too important to the quote unquote plot of this show and are thus in Rick's terms over serialized they can't be episodic characters they have to only take part in episodes that are part of the serial narrative every character in that last episode talks at some point about their arc and how important their arc for the season was so how does it all shake out what conclusion does the show reach what is the show's meta arc for season four well again we turn to that vat of acid episode in it morty embodies both halves of the serialized versus episodic debate his reset button gives him the literal ability to be episodic where consequences don't matter he is literally hitting a reset button but he himself is a continuous serialized entity continuing across all those different timelines and having lived both sides he comes to this conclusion any show can be random smart funny but it's the running threat of these characters their relationships the dramatic stakes that run through their lives those are the things that make Rick and Morty such an exciting show to watch it's the consequences of these characters actions that matter we'll every episode from here before wording the plot in some way no certainly not Rick and Morty can have their cake and eat it too you can intersperse episodes about fascist trampers snake terminators while occasionally bringing back birdperson or evil Morty or mr. meeseeks so the identity that the makers of Rick and Morty have settled on is what Rick preached in the very first episode of the season moderation on both sides so what does any of this mean for the eventual season 5 that'll come like three years from now well we'll probably still be seeing continuations of our story developments morty and summer will be teaming up for more adventures heck it might feel more like summer and morty than Rick and Morty and Rick will be on outskirts all alone he'll be doing more solo adventures maybe revisiting people and places from his past as he tries to prove himself to be a good friend heck a good person somewhere in his past and you know what I don't think he's gonna find it he'll find that almost everyone has a bad taste in their mouths from their interactions with him he's been knocked down a few pegs throughout this season he still to be knocked down a few more in order to finally force that true change the seasons art will probably have to result in Rick coming back to the family as a changed man or the family being forced to forgive him in some way and in order to do that you really need Rick's egotism to be shattered and then the family can finally reunite and be stronger together as a unit or you know what who knows maybe Rick will never redeem himself maybe he'll just be a tragic figure doomed to his own misery or they'll spend the next ten episodes doing nothing after all they have 60 more episodes left that they're on the hook for might as well burn through some time with more stupid Morty dragon adventures before getting into that serialized heavy stuff they got to stretch the storyline out a long time but hey that's just a theory a film theory and cuts you

Channel: The Film Theorists

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Keywords: rick and morty, rick and morty season 4, rick and morty season 4 episode 9, rick and morty season finale, rick and morty beth, beth clone, rick and morty season 4 episode 10, rick and morty season 4 finale, mr poopybutthole, mr meeseeks, rick and morty trailer, rick, morty, adult swim, rick sanchez, rick and morty train, rick and morty full episode, rick and morty theory, film theorists, film theory, matpat, film theory rick and morty, rick and morty episode

Id: HVd9dth_Hoc

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020