And I’m glad I caught up, so I can now follow the discussions in this thread.
I’m caught up too, I think. Was Jerry giving birth, while Beth held his hand and Morty and Summer pointed guns on him, ever in an episode, or is that just an opening-credits scene?
Just in the credits.
So far…
Rick and Morty is back! All is schwifty once more.
I love how the fact that vampires are real is introduced so casually and then resolved completely offscreen. I felt the Beth & Jerry storyline was a little weak and didn’t develop the nature of their relationship much beyond what we’ve already seen, but the Tiny Rick story was great. I get the impression that Tiny Rick is more like what Rick was when he was young himself before he became a galactic traveler, Morty gets a chance to show how Rick’s been rubbing off on him by playing the world-weary cynic, and convincing him to go back to his original self by making him listen to Elliott Smith was hilarious.
Principal Vagina mentions that Rick is 80 years old, which is interesting. Summer is 17 and Beth got pregnant with her when she herself was 17, which means Beth is 34-35. Therefore, Rick was around 45 when Beth was born, and around 65 when he disappeared to explore the multiverse.
Also, the music to the “Let Me Out” dance is clearly an off-key rendition of “I Need You Tonight” by INXS.
Memorable quotes, first from Morty; “Get your shit together. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all your shit, and make sure it’s together. And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it somewhere, you know? Take it to the shit store and sell it. Or put it in a shit museum. I don’t care what you do! You just gotta get it together. Get your shit together.”
And;
Jerry: “I had a feeling that, in your mind, the ideal version of me is one smart enough to see you as a goddess.”
Beth: “Not such a stupid worm now, are you?”
Jerry: “Honey, when it comes to the subject of your ego, I’m Stephen fucking Hawkinson.”
Beth: “It’s… never mind, I love you.”
And the Vampire King; “From now on, no more of this clever name bullshit. From now on, when a vampire is pretending to be a human, they can just call themselves Alan Jefferson or something like that. It’s crazy, right? I mean, am I being an asshole? I feel like everyone in the room is looking at me like I’m the buzzkill. I’m not? Alright! Great.” (devours a virgin)
And both Morty and Summer: “PANTS!”
My favorite bit from this episode was what Jerry said right after Beth told him that her father was the reason their children were only half stupid: “Ha! You just called yourself - oh . . .”
Also, the Tiny Rick “Haha, yeah, goingtohighschoolwithmygrandkidsI’m TINY RICK!” followed by highfives.
I loved the Beth and Jerry parts of this episode.
There seemed to be a strange discontinuity between the scene where Beth and Jerry first saw the imagined versions of themselves, and then the next scene featuring Beth and Jerry, where they’re being shown a series of imagined couples.
At the end of the first scene, B&J were very pissed off at each other. At the beginning of the second, they were happily chatting together excitedly about what they were seeing.
Did I miss an intervening scene or something?
I like the Jerry parts of every episode.
Operation Phoenix was certainly terminated with extreme prejudice.
Is Beth’s problem that she is comparing Jerry to her father?
Well no shit Jerry is boring compared to a psychotic drug addict mad scientist, who has almost gotten you and your whole family killed numerous times. And incidentally abandoned you for two decades.
I think this is the dynamic they are setting up, and it reflects poorly on Beth and Rick not Jerry.
But yea locking your wife out of the car with a murderous hobo, and all the other times doesn’t reflect good on Jerry either. Does Jerry even have a job?
EDIT:Oh yea Rick is 80! WOW!
And did Tiny Rick and the operation phoenix clones reveal Rick has been white haired since birth?
Jerry had a job in advertising but he lost it with the disastrous apple presentation.
ETA: Apple as in the Apple Fruit Growers Association or something, not computers or the record company.
She also apparently thinks of him as being extremely submissive, seeing as how Worm-Jerry literally bent over the instant Real Jerry challenged it. “No! Nobody’s doing that!”
Also, Rick was only absent for 15 years, not a full two decades. Which, considering that Morty is 14, probably means that at some point we’re going to get a full explanation of why a picture of infant Morty was hanging on Birdperson’s wall.
The funny thing is everytime the shit really hits the fan Jerry is usually the one that responds the smartest and most assertive way, see the Cronenberg’s episode and this one when he assaults mental Beth.
Upon further review, this is the Elliott Smith song Summer played for Tiny Rick that convinced him to give up.
It’s a pretty clever Easter egg on the writers’ part, since the lyrics relate so closely to what Tiny Rick is going through.
Tell me about it. Yeesh.
Yes - but the clones were grown from Rick’s current DNA, presumably, and whatever made him look the way he does now - utterly unlike his daughter - might have rewritten his DNA entirely.
Great episode. The alien wedding-counseling plot was fun (loved seeing Beth as both a bloodthirsty xenomorph and some kind of Hindu demigoddess).
Favorite lines:
"Pretty specific pitch, Summer. I probably could turn myself into a teenager and hang out in the zit-covered, hormone-addled, low-stakes assworld that is high school, but here’s my reverse ask: why in the f___ would I ever do that, ever, and how dare you even ask me that, and why aren’t you more ashamed of yourself?
“Man, who would’ve suspected Coach Feratu?”
“Tiny Rick! Woohoo!” (and later) “Old Rick, ruinin’ everything!!!”
:: sharpens a stake; buys a plane ticket to Chicago ::
“I’ve dwelt among the humans. Their entire culture is built around their penises. It’s funny to say they are small. It’s funny to say they are big. I’ve been to parties where humans have held bottles, pencils, Thermoses in front of themselves, and called out 'Hey, look at me, I’m Mr. So-and-So-Dick, I’ve got such-and-such for a penis. I never saw it fail to get a laugh.”
This was a pretty schwifty episode overall. The B-story with Jerry’s penis was solid enough that it could have been its own episode, and it actually feels like it should have been - it almost detracted from the main idea of showing off random TV shows from parallel universes.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour myself a heaping bowl of Eyeholes and some soft-serve from Butthole Ice Cream and binge-watch the new season of Man Vs. Car.
Another pop music joke - during the standup comedian’s TV show, he recites his dis over “Popcorn” by Gershon Kingsley.
“Is it important that we know who Jan-Michael Vincent was in order to get this?”
“Nope.”
Werner Herzog lending his legendary voice really tickled me. Wonder how he was recruited…