Why Rick is Planet Curious | Rick and Morty

this video is brought to you by surfsharkvpn [Music] hey wisecrack greg here to talk about our favorite sociopath rick sanchez if you spent five minutes reading weird reddit threads or watching rick and morty you know our dude is the smartest jerk in the whole wide universe and yet there's one thing he's uniquely incompetent at forming close relationships he sacrificed himself to save all of us rick he died well at least he didn't die in vain he got these crystals and these babies just saved this lame ass party up and dumped up he can't tell his daughter apart from the clone he made of her and his former best friend bird person now exists only as a mangled screaming corpse in rick's garage all right we'll give you a little more time in a universe in which he sometimes seems all powerful rick is almost completely alone so what can rick's loneliness teach us about friendship is he simply too brilliant and special a genius alpha loner that pathetic normies could never possibly understand whatever yeah whatever a dad makes a toilet look like r2d2 when it breaks the front page of reddit but i'm charles manson because i gave you your own world instead of an ipad could his loneliness possibly be good for him or is he just a sad old cosmic sex pervert and what does this all have to do with rick's desire to make sweet sweet love to a whole last planet i i don't understand isn't it obvious morty i the planet let's find out with the help of one of the dudes who basically invented philosophy in this wisecrack edition on rick and morty why does rick a planet spoilers ahead for rick and morty and before we continue i want to give a shout out to this week's sponsor surfsharkvpn with privacy becoming a bigger concern for online consumers every day there's never been a better time to get a vpn surfsharkvpn secures your data with industry-leading measures by using uncrackable encryption and the most secure vpn protocols and aside from providing privacy to your browsing sessions a vpn 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connections obviously his relationship with morty is central to the show and i'm i'm so proud of you i only wish you could have bought more i i love buying things so much morty rick are you do you need to go to the hospital i love you morty rick insists on taking him on almost all of his adventures and despite his sometimes sadistic way of showing it he seems to genuinely care about him and gets a little bitter when others occupy morty's attention everybody off but the relationship that exists between rick and morty isn't really friendship to see why we can turn to one of the founding fathers of just about any subject you studied in school aristotle the concept of friendship is super important aristotle's discussion of ethics as he sees it friendship is a necessary aspect of living well and becoming a moral person that's because our friends help us know and do what is right helping us to become as aristotle will put it virtuous and wise also friends are just a nice and good thing to have without friends aristotle tells us no one would choose to live even if he possessed all other goods the philosopher distinguishes between three sorts of friendships friendships based on utility where the friend is loved because they are useful friendships based on pleasure whether friend is loved because they are witty or attractive or fun and finally complete friendships where the friend is loved simply for being who they are without offering any specific use or benefit and we can see all three versions of friendships at play across the wider rick and morty universe rick's relationship with morty is a classic example of a friendship based on utility he likes morty to go on adventures with him because morty's idiot brainwaves cancel out his genius ones making it harder for his enemies to detect him when a rick is with a morty the genius waves get canceled out by the uh morty waves meanwhile the relationship rick develops with tony the shy pooper might be a friendship based on pleasure if you touch my toilet again you die i need a friend i have a million cooler friends than you i'll be seeing you you'll be dying we're gonna be friends gonna be dead even though he won't admit it rick is sad after tony dies because it means he can't have fun trying to humiliate him for using a secret toilet anymore congrats tony have fun with your stupid toilet that you get to use all by yourself now and who can blame them man most of my healthiest adult friendships were birthed from striking up a conversation with a stranger making a number two combo meal in a chick-fil-a bathroom but according to aristotle there is a problem with those first two types of friendships they're not gonna last because the friend is only valued for what they're able to do for us our relationship with them is easily dissolved once they stop being useful are enjoyable there is no real evidence that rick especially values his morty as opposed to any other possible morty whose brain waves could be used for the same purpose how many ricks have you had five i see in contrast the third type of friendship a complete friendship is able to last because a friend is loved for who they are themselves in a complete friendship both people want the other to have and achieve good things it's less a transaction between two parties and more a mutual two-person fan club and in case you're interested i'm currently accepting applications for my own fan club so uh hop on in the comments if you're a good candidate aristotle specifies that complete friendship is rare since it can only truly arise between those who are good and alike and virtue but certainly the other members of the smith sanchez family seem to possess something much closer to it jerry and beth aren't particularly useful to one another and beth appears to get very little pleasure out of being with her husband we will have as much fun as possible on our titanic themed getaway let's lose the tude please it's supposed to be romantic but despite this they remain drawn together out of love i was impressed dad he saved my life no thanks to you likewise morty and summer for all they get on each other's nerves share a close sibling bond rick on the other hand has become more and more isolated from others as the series progresses hi i've placed an auto-response chip in my brain so i can spend time with my family but you are spending time with your family thank you for talking to rick all right i'm finished with my breakfast and my amazon wishlist there's admittedly at least one example of a complete friendship involving rick which has been depicted on the show in the season two episode total recall he is seen sharing a deep bond with a talking pencil named pennsylvester of course pennsylvester was actually a member of the species of parasitic space worms who took the smith sanchez family over by inserting themselves into their memories not exactly the kind of stunt you should pull on your buddy right so why is rick so isolated again aristotle can help us out he thinks friendships need to involve equality if great differences arise between two friends in terms of how good they are as people or how much money or power they have not only will they struggle to remain close but one will feel inferior the others superior as he put it for those who are much inferior to kings do not deem themselves worthy to be friends with them this is why lebron james goes on vacation with dwayne wade and chris paul and not a 23 year old car salesman in training who just learned you actually have to do your taxes rick is clearly not the best person in the universe far from it he makes kenny powers look like a decent guy if anybody wants to pick on anybody in class aim for him because i ain't watching but he is the most intelligent and this has given him powers that far transcend those of the average human this is most obvious in the case of his relationship with jerry who rick has nothing but contempt for because of his average intelligence one possible rick has opened an interdimensional daycare for ricks to leave their jerry's in if they ever accidentally tag along on their adventures i don't know how this works help me what the aristotle thinks that friendship is especially impossible between human beings and gods since gods are better than humans to the greatest degree and you know are immortal and have the power to give and take life and whatnot so if it seems impossible for lebron and bryce the young car salesman to be best friends imagine how hard it would be for an average dude to be friends with zeus or any other resident of mount olympus true friendship is between equals who desire the absolute best for one another and zeus is never going to be able to wish that some dude named brandon was his equal mount olympus is full brandon go home no one wants you here go make a human friend so if aristotle a real friendship grounded in equal goodness needs to be between two human beings he probably didn't intend to get to the heart of rick's problems with forming relationships he was reportedly more of a bob's burgers guy but he did rick's powers have detached him from his humanity to the extent that he sometimes forgets the word for humans summer's just a hyper-emotional needy little it's the word i'm looking for here a human over the course of the series rick has become increasingly more and more powerful and increasingly more given to describing himself as a sword of god if god exists it's me the only entity seems to feel anything like the same affinity with is bugs bunny to me this was all just a bit like when bugs bunny with the opera singer for 20 minutes and this makes sense rick has god-like powers over his environment he's able to manipulate the fabric of not only his own universe but of an infinity of possible realities his tiniest whims can alter intergalactic history also rick might be unable to die and all that explains rick's peculiar desire to do body on body stuff with planets or collective minds because in banging a god-like entity he might feel equal to one for instance unity rick's on-again off-again hive-mind girlfriend explicitly states that her goal is one day to absorb every conscious mind in the universe and become what the single-minded once called a god oh i like that oh that's pretty sexy he relates to unity because this is something he can also aspire to in a way that both his human family and the vast majority of his alien acquaintances simply cannot but no matter how many lives he creates or how many hive minds he goes all the way with rick is not actually a god he might have certain godlike powers but his appetites and interests remained all too flawed and all too human this is good in a way rick probably could rule the universe if he wanted to but he's more liable to get distracted by playing roy at blips and chits holy this guy's taking roy off the grid this guy doesn't have a social security number for roy but it also makes it harder for him to relate productively to the other entities that might otherwise be his peers case in point his relationship with unity who upon hooking up with rick is quickly derailed in her divine ambitions as she strives instead to satisfy his every horny whim their relationship has the potential to be a complete friendship but thanks to rick it never becomes anything more than a friendship of pleasure or as the kids call it buddies unity could you get rick out here please he's unavailable he's having sex with you we get it gross aristata also tells us that human beings are between beasts and gods with elements of the animal and the divine we're able to speak and exercise reason but we also lie cheat burp and fall asleep during our mom's birthday zone and this rick is no exception he's just edged slightly closer than most of us to the god side because of his science fuel powers some ricks have attempted to overcome their loneliness by banding together along with their mortys as the citadel of ricks but even leaving aside the citadel of rick's well-documented political problems the rig that the show focuses on rick c137 refuses to join the citadel because he hates other rigs and why does rick c137 hate other ricks maybe i hate myself maybe i think i deserve to die i i don't i don't know in fact unity aside rick hates pretty much every single other entity he encounters who is it all like him to the point of physical violence from zeus the literal god and the actual father of his planet lover's children to zeb zamflork the smartest man in the mini universe recreated to power his car for aristotle this would also be significant since as he insists you can only be a good friend to others if you are able to love yourself as well aristotle calls the friend another self we recognize ourselves and what is good in our own lives and our friends this is why aristotle thinks even if you had everything else you wanted you will still need to have your friends around you to be happy interestingly perhaps the most obvious example of such a friendship being depicted on the show is in fact between jerry and doofus rick i.e the dumbest iteration of rick from an alternate timeline in which everyone apparently eats their own i'm not doofus rick i'm rick j 19 zeta 7. oh is that the timeline where everybody eats poop jerry you know this guy eats poop right hey i don't eat poop you guys are always so mean to me he and jerry are kendra's spirits and doofus rick is genuinely impressed by his son-in-law wow you really are wise jerry i i guess that's why you work in advertising what's more doofus rick helps jerry come to terms with the objective worthlessness of his prized star wars novelty coin collection telling him that the joy the coins bring him matters more than their market value you bought them because you like them they have value to you that's what matters although their friendship is brief it is clear that jerry believes doofus rick somehow completes him that he is the father-in-law he always wanted and that the feeling is more than mutual doof is rick not self-aware enough for self-loathing is a better friend to jerry than smart rick could ever be but rick c137 is perpetually alienated from his family because unlike them he can plausibly aspire to become a god he may have manifested some sort of butt he can do that he is the smartest man in the universe however there are plenty of other entities he has encountered with who are in a similar situation who might make a decent friend but ultimately he remains alone because he is unable to exist happily with himself this is why he pursues seedy affairs with hive minds and makes unprotected love with planets he is trying desperately to compensate for the void he feels within but his own emotional limitations prevent these relationships from being complete friendships and for all his smarts he's almost certainly never going to be wise enough to obtain a community at the same time he's almost definitely never going to become a god but what do you think wisecrack should rick tone down his erratic genius for the sake of having some buddies to watch interdimensional cable with or is the loneliness worth it when you can do almost whatever you want with no consequences let us know what you think in the comments thanks as always to our patrons for your support hit that subscribe button like you're making a clone of yourself to become best friends with and don't forget to ring that bell and as always thanks for watching peace [Music] you

Channel: Wisecrack

Views: 379,721

Keywords: rick and morty, adult swim, rick and morty season 4, sci fi, rick & morty, rick sanchez, dan harmon, morty, morty resets his life, morty and stacey, beth smith, jerry smith, summer smith, morty smith, unity, unity rick and morty, rick planet babies, rick poop planet, wisecrack, show me the meaning, what went wrong, deep or dumb, greg edwards, philosophy, video essay, aristotle, psychology, animation, cartoon network, rick and morty season 4 finale, pickle rick, justin roiland

Id: QbNbCmoSW50

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021