Rick’s Sacrifice

Episode 1 of Season 2 is still my favorite episode of Rick and Morty, and I couldn’t figure out why for the longest time. Yes, Rick’s sacrifice is sweet, as are his desperate prayers to God. We see Rick as human . . . well, right before he tells God to fuck off in what might be the most hilariously blasphemous line I’ve ever seen.

“Fuck you, God! Not today, bitch!”

But there was something else. The way Rick never seems to make any errors in all of the timelines. The complexity of all the timelines. The fact that he tries to kill himself in self-defense. That he leaves himself cross-dimensional voicemails.

What was it?

Then it hit me: Trust. Rick Sanchez trusts Morty, more than he trusts himself.

When there are only two timelines, and Rick fails to sync them, Rick automatically assumes the other Rick is trying to kill the extra timeline instead of merge them. He then begins to try to kill himself in self-defense, which causes time to split further.

Let’s look at the implications of this — with only one extra timeline, Rick’s faith in himself is so low that because he was unable to sync the timelines, he assumes the other Rick is trying to kill him. That is deep. Imagine another you out there, on another timeline. What would the other you be doing?

You might think about being famous, or picking another career (which is what Jerry and Beth become obsessed with). But killing yourself? This is a mirror of Rick’s own mind. He’s suicidal . . . which becomes painfully obvious in the episode with Unity, and pleasantly narrated by Chaos Chaos’s “Do You Feel It.”

Rick reveals more than he means to when he claims he was trying to kill himself in self-defense. Rick is Rick’s own worst enemy.

Fast-forward to the end of the episode, where there are 69 different Ricks, Mortys, and Summers. Summer’s collar works. Her timelines merge. 1/69 of the Mortys has a broken collar. And this is the most beautiful part of the episode, and it only took me about 15 watches to realize it:

None of the Ricks suspect that Morty is double-crossing him.

In a broken universe where there are two Ricks, it doesn’t take much for him to suspect he is trying to kill himself. But in a broken universe where there are 69 Mortys, Rick trusts all of them. We see one of the 1/69 Ricks explain what is happening with certainty:

“Obviously someone doesn’t know how to put his collar on, and one of me is stuck trying to help him.”

Rick knows this with 100% certainty. He knows Morty would never betray him.

But Lisa, some of you may be saying, doesn’t that go against what we already know about the evil Morty?

No, because evil Morty is evil. He is the anti-Morty, if you will. Whatever Rick did to that Morty, it changed the core of his being. Rick knows he can trust all 69 of those Mortys because he knows who that boy is . . . there are 69 different outcomes, sure, but all of them involve Morty being a scared klutz. All of them involve Rick making sure Morty and Summer both have working collars before putting on his own collar (if Rick didn’t take this precaution, Morty would have been stuck by himself).

None of those Mortys have the capacity for evil. So while there is an element of randomness, that one factor remains the same — that Morty is trustworthy, and that Rick trusts him. Morty never betrays him, and Rick never suspects Morty of betraying him. In a world with 69 versions of the same situation, and knowing what we know about Rick, that is spectacularly touching.

Evil Morty is therefore so removed from Morty . . . he’s a liar, he’s manipulative, and he’s even a bit suave . . . that it makes me believe his soul itself is damaged. He shouldn’t exist on any timeline. He is an anomaly. What did Rick do to that Morty? Was he trying to make someone like himself, and took it too far? Did he then realize the value of Morty being a Morty?

Until season 3, I’m just going to have to speculate and listen to this on repeat.