Film Theory: The End of Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty Season 4)

Congratulations on the first half of

season

four, Morty, thanks Matt Pat. I'm glad you liked it. It's a program that you know requires a lot of brainpower to understand. I know we have to do another

theory

in your program. Oh geez, Matt Pat, haven't you done enough? From those, it really seems like you're milking our franchise for cheap YouTube views. Tell me again how many episodes the fourth

season

has and how many multi-week breaks you took during the release of those 10 episodes. Well, we're at number three. right now, so tell me again who is really taking advantage of this program for the views that fill you up.

Hello Internet, welcome to Film Theory, the show where we explore all the infinite realities and at this point I've made a

theory

about most of them, you know? I really enjoyed doing breakdowns of individual episodes of Rick and Morty this season. I guess you could call him Matt Pat. Selfish content. I did it because you know what I really wanted to talk about this show with someone other than Stephanie all along and, thankfully, you. Everyone seems to enjoy those little quick-answer theory mini-episodes too, which was great. I would expect to see probably a couple more of them when the second half of the season rolls around and say this isn't one of those theories that I spend a lot on. of time breaking down an individual episode or an individual character or specific moment this theory is about the fourth season of Rick and Morty as a whole, where the second half of the season and beyond goes from here because more than in past seasons there seems to be Ha There have been a lot of disgruntled Rick and Morty fans talking about how this has been a disjointed first season, without much focus, no real themes to latch on to, nothing deep being explored, and a shrimp parade of toilet humor piling on the Third Reich. and like snakes, a surprisingly large number of snakes like user dr.

Lecter put it in a Reddit quote in season four, we weren't seeing those family dynamics anymore. Now the premise is just fanservice, cheap laughs, crazy antics that are baseless and further the plot or premise of the show's final quote and I use that quote as an example. but it's really indicative of a lot of the conversation that I've been seeing this season on the show, but is that really true? What's the point of season four? There is a point. I mean, I'm sure in previous seasons the ending lines were a lot easier. To follow the first season, it turned sci-fi tropes on their head by showing that when you solve a problem with sci-fi magic, you actually create disasters.

You wish your dog could talk, if he could, he would enslave him. You want to shrink to explore the human. body, too bad, you're going to blow up a giant floating homeless Santa in the process, you want a hot girl to fall in love with you, well, spoiler alert, she'll turn into a praying mantis and try to eat your head, for What you will have to abandon your In the whole dimension, in the second season we begin to get real glimpses of how powerful Rick is, but also of the wanton trail of destruction he leaves behind him.

Rick becomes fractured when he offends peaceful planets, enslaves aliens to power a ship's battery, sells weapons to assassins, and gets most of his friends killed at the end of those 10 episodes. Fast forward to season 3 and we see how the damage he Rick's cause is not only on a galactic scale but also personal, specifically with the Smith family, it is an unhealthy relationship that exists between him and his daughter Beth has a massive ripple effect throughout the season as it drives Beth to leave to Jerry, causing the children to struggle with the separation and Rick ultimately unable to provide the emotional support that any of them really need. a big pickle

morty

reveal boom I'm a pickle until they've finally had enough and Rick is forced to return hat in hand specifically fishing hat in hand I'm fly fishing Rick no, not all episodes necessarily play with these themes, but In Generally, Rick and Morty seasons have arcs, which means that, in theory, season four should be no exception, so what's the art here and, if there is one?

What does it say about the narrative arc of these characters? What can we expect when the series returns? decides to return, which apparently according to my Google news alerts was supposedly January 12th and then January 1926. Seriously, I was excited every week. It seems like a lot of websites are worse at predicting things than I am and that says a lot of what I said. not in my history, I'm sure that at some point between me writing this episode and clicking publish this video, we're going to get a trailer that directly contradicts everything I'm going to say in this theory, so any selfish content is triggered in in case you need a little refresher on the fourth season of Rick and Morty.

Here's the best summary of the five episodes we've received so far. Episode 1. Rick and Morty collects some death crystals that show the user exactly how they are going to die and when Morty sees a version of him dying with Jessica by his side, he makes all the decisions from that moment on to preserve that future , causing a huge massacre on Maury Road, a group of us were going to go skinny dipping later if you wanted to join. No, I must continue. moving in ways that lead him to die with you, while Rick allows himself to be killed but keeps resurrecting himself in various cloned forms trying to return to his original reality.

Many of these realities are dominated by fascist animals, but Rick finally receives help from the wasp. of himself to get home we're all in this together wasps monsters episode 2 Jerry creates an app, so we don't know how this one will develop what are you guys doing? Did you develop an app on an episode concept to pull directly? Lag Mirror we see the world falling apart using Jerry's love finders dating app, which tells people who their soulmates will be, but it constantly changes as Rick seeks revenge to punish the man who used his bathroom. super secret and secluded.

What begins as a quest for bloody revenge turns into a budding friendship when Rick learns of the man's wife's untimely death, a friendship that is unfortunately cut short prematurely when the Phantom Cooper suffers a tragic skiing accident. Episode 3, we get a starting level location. scheme with Rick building a machine to randomize heist plans just to demonstrate how absurd and formulaic they are. Rando at the end of the episode, we get the big twist, the whole point of Rick's complex heist plans was itself a complex plan to sour Morty. The heist concept since Morty has been working on a heist script that may have gotten him a deal with Netflix and therefore prevented him from going on any future adventures, it's probably best to ignore one of the strangest Rick and Morty episodes until date, which is a lot for a show that once turned a character into a pickle, Marty gets a dragon who ultimately bonds more strongly to Rick, leading us down a rabbit hole of dragon depravity.

Also, Jerry goes to Florida with a talking cat who is presumably more depraved than even the dragon. We never really find out what the cat's problem is and in episode 5 Marty is bitten by a space snake which he subsequently kills and feels guilty about. A terrestrial snake descended back to the snake home planet and a snake planet realizes they're not snakes? In this verse alone, they invent time and space travel to try to take over Earth, forcing Rick and Morty to do Terminator-style time travel to kill the snake ancestors and prevent their rule. . They give them proof that there was something bigger and scarier to unite.

Against you, you little idiot, they went about creating a universe, destroying unthought of technologies, like time travel, now that everything can seem random and disconnected and honestly, it does even as I sit here writing and recording the episode , it's like a great fantasy: snakes, death crystals, muggings. plans a strange combination of episodes, but when you really take a step back and stop looking at the plots of individual episodes, it all points to a common theme which is ironic because the theme is about the fact that life is just a series of events Random, let me explain.

Each of these episodes deals with the idea of ​​destiny and whether destiny really exists or not. Spoiler alert. The show concludes that the answer is no, but let's look at each episode to find out how I came to that conclusion. Episode 1 is pretty good. -Nose Rick and Morty collect death crystals that show you how you are going to die. If you focus on following one extremely specific path or another throughout your entire life, you are guaranteed to know how you are going to die, is it literally holding your destiny in the palm of your hands or is it as the episode unfolds, Morty blindly follows the crystal's instructions to control the one thing in his life, how it ends, meanwhile he has completely lost control of everything else until the end. direction he can walk down the school hallways and even then, when the ending reveals that Morty's perceived death wasn't going to happen the way he expected, I want to comfort the people who are dying and have no one else in them. their lives.

There are really lonely people here, which in turn serves as our thesis for the rest of the season: if you try to control your destiny, you'll lose control of almost everything else. This whole idea is underlined by Rick's plot in this episode where he jumps through infinite universes and infinite versions of themselves, reminding us that there are truly infinite realities, many of which are fascist and the idea of ​​following your only and true destiny is ridiculous in the face of an infinite multiverse to show us how useless the idea of ​​control is that we have this example towards the end of the episode here, a holographic version of Rick, who has been unable to do anything to control his own destiny throughout the entire episode. episode, he finally gets a physical body for the first time, the first thing he ever does. celebrates how powerful he is, he can suddenly control everyone around him, he's all-powerful, he can move objects, the wasp kills him immediately, a version of Rick from another universe that emphasizes the idea that wasp stings are totally terrifying, no matter the universe.

You're in and as soon as you think you're in control of things you're done, there's a lesson here and I'm not the one who's going to realize it, don't worry Rick, I'm doing this for the sake of clearing things up a bit though. with that fun game through dating apps and destiny, imagine, Love Finders is an app that supposedly predicts your soulmate. Everyone on earth, desperate to find answers in their own confusing lives, immediately latches onto this idea, proving that everyone. he's just searching for this elusive idea of ​​his destiny, finding his one true love, the person he's meant to be with, because well, that would mean there's a plan for everyone's life, the problem is that soulmates people keep changing and finally they end up being random because there is no such thing as a soul mate and by proxy there is no destiny life is random sometimes you end up with the winner and sometimes you are attracted to a guy whose only future is to work as a telemarketer of dietary supplements on the off chance that you use the app and there's someone waiting for you sorry I didn't use it, you know we also learn a little bit more about how this fate business applies to Rick's bathroom habits in his life in the swamp?

Rick's remote shy. His pooping habits are a desperate bid for control in a universe where he feels out of control. You need the same thing I needed, Rick. Do you know what shy defecation is? Rick. It's a futile bid for control. You want to take the only part of life you really want. I think it's yours and you want to protect it from a universe that takes what it wants. He took my wife. He clearly he took something from you. We can spend our lives fighting it, but we can choose to be free. Rick knows he's probably better than most.

The universe is random, but he has always thought that maybe if he is smart he can control it. The thing is, his fixation on controlling his life ruins everything else in his life, just like Morty's control of his destiny ruined Morty's life in episode one. Rick is desperately alone, he can't. even connecting with other people like Tony, with whom he has a lot in common and instead spends most of his time sabotaging the people and relationships around him because shattered relationships introduce elements he can't control, such as vulnerability emotional, loss of obligation, so you keep these things.

Remote is the best way to control your own destiny. Interestingly, this episode also features what could have been a lesson for Rick towards the end of the episode. Tony decides not to let his needof controlling things governs his life more and instead sets out to do the things he loves to do and has been too afraid to do this could have been an example to Rick about how wonderful life can be when you just let go control, but it's not because Tony dies anyway, he just wanted to leave them. and you tell the bathrooms that all his Tony died he left his job he started living life to the fullest he crashed into a tree space skiing down the mountain space it's because the universe is random and letting go of control doesn't give you more control over yourself you live or die CSUN is a disappointment, but I think you're getting episodes three of the drift, except, oh hello, in the use, the themes of destiny and Rick trying to control it with an arms race for the most randomly executed controlled ones. heist in the universe again, the idea here is that it's useless to control your destiny, even for an AI, even for the smartest guy who programs AI, it's all wrapped up in a totally confusing plot, the whole heist was just Rick trying to exert control over Morty. future by getting him to turn down a deal with Netflix, another takeover by Rick.

That being said, Netflix, if you have an opening in your schedule right now, I'd love to share with you my super secret goal of being a game show host, I promise it won't be as obnoxiously edited as the circle. I really tried to watch that show. I know you really want me to see it. You've been putting it in my recommended feed the whole time, but man, I looked at it. like the first 10 minutes, since it's hard anyway, episode 4 keeps the fate-defying fatalistic party going by taking all of the D&D fans' fantasies and ruining them with dragon stuff, it doesn't seem like this one relates directly to the topic, but it is not a coincidence. the show takes the high fantasy themes of dragons, soul bonds, and heroic quests and then completely undermines them historically.

These fantasy elements appear in stories that have some kind of destiny. Drop the jewels into the volcano. Save the world. Go on an epic journey because it's your destiny you are the hero in our chaotic random universe we use high fantasy as a means of escape because those stories are nice and linear and make sense like heist stories, but no one in Rick and Morty is the hero and this is not a D&D game where there is a Dungeon Master guiding your character's story, this is a real universe, we are the dragon's best friend, you were hired to suddenly have soul bonds with an older person and it's not pretty and it certainly is. 't Destiny's big fantasy is more like a grotesque reality, the TLDR here is that your fantasies won't save you and there's nothing romantic about our story, it's a little gross and uncomfortable just like reality, the last lesson that shows us this season is in episode five, which is less about trying to control your own destiny and more about trying to control the destiny of other people or snakes sentient snakes of the snake people it's just a strange season, in an effort To control the fate of an overpopulated snake planet, Morty sends a terrestrial snake to replace one he accidentally killed in outer space in the process plus he directly alters the fate of an entire species he changes his perceived fate unfortunately not just as fate is not something real shouldn't alter someone else's because it will come back and bite you literally over the course of the episode, we see that trying to affect your future or worse yet, going back to your past to fix your future only results in a huge disaster.

The universe is too complicated to alter what is supposed to happen or try to do so. control anyone else's future he can't do it even if you're a sentient snake even if you're Rick Sanchez at the end of our half season we have a lot of open questions but one thing we know for sure is that we can't control the answers, there's no way to t

rick

you into controlling your destiny because you don't have one, and on that encouraging note, we're left to piece together what this lesson means for Rick, the people in his life, and the rest of this season.

Everything around Rick in the season tells him that he can't control his place in the universe and, frankly, his family is starting to tell him that, too directly, Morty refuses to blindly follow Rick in episode 1 by not being able to resurrect him. not even listen to their arguments before. flying in a spaceship, Morty knows that Rick will say anything to control the situation, whether or not it's in his best interest. In short, more tea leaves Rick for dead in episode one of the season and he doesn't care in the slightest. getting bored of the adventures when Rick and Morty aren't robbing graves in episode two and episode four.

Morty has to be bribed with promises of a dragon before dating Rick robots with you. I said no, her relationship with Rick which has been the foundation of this franchise is on the rocks. She's sick and tired of Rick's antics. Morty isn't the only one either. Rick's devoted daughter is also finally facing Rick's manipulative control. about his life and that of his family from episode 1 I don't know if adventures fit into my son's life. I'm fine and again in episode 4, if Morty ever gives up on a single dream, it better be because of his own disappointment.

This is a far cry from the gamble we saw in season 1 who was desperate to make sure her father remained part of this family no matter what she did, even in season 3 she still wanted him as part of the family, but now that she got over it, she sees Rick for who he really is. and she's had enough, she's also stepping up in her own life by taking an active role in the summer of motherhood in episode 2 as part of her new mantra, a role we've never seen her take on. before. I'm a mother, you until you turn 18.

Even if I get imprisoned for being a non-consensual mother, we will also see Beth reconnect with Jerry, criticizing him less, making decisions that show that she is rebuilding a stronger, healthier relationship with him, which we all know doesn't make Rick happy and although it may she is not. -consensual II motherly summer doesn't take any nonsense from Rick this season or he offers to take her on adventures and she doesn't care that you want to go to the world of tits summer not today this sucks again it's a long way from the summer we He seen in previous seasons that she is more sure of herself than we've ever seen her as a pop culture trendsetter or I'll tweet and you'll be canceled and repeatedly proves that she doesn't need any man or Grandpa Rick to help her. make decisions, can you come back then?

Lastly, we have Jerry, yes, even Jerry, for crying out loud, is perhaps the most pronounced arc of the series. Become a stronger person, less influenced by Rick's constant degradation. Beth assures him that they are together for the right reasons. in episode two, in the event that it normally happens, there is someone out there. I did not use it. Did you know that we are all good dogs? in episode 5. Jerry actively solves problems, even if he is in his own mess and Jerry's Quay by refusing Rick's help. showing Beth that he can function on his own and not give in to Rick in situations where he would have previously run away to Jerry's daycare.

I won't let you die and I won't tell Beth that you almost committed suicide sounds like we all win for me if I survive it will be without you and if I die it will be in your What a Merry Christmas Wow, long story short, the family is moving away from Rick four seasons in the family finally recognizes that Rick's clenched fist control is not for his own good, he is not a cool, benevolent force of the universe, he is just a drunk, depressed, lonely idiot and everyone is done tolerating him, that's why that throughout these five episodes, Rick is either alone or finds a new partner. in most of them, he is alone in episode 1, is alone again seeking Tony's friendship during episode 2, reconnects with old friends in episode 3, and spends his time with Bartholomew the dragon in episode 4. , completely disconnected from his family as we head towards the halfway point of the season, my money is on the story of Rick becoming more isolated as his family loses interest in his antics and his strange novelty because the guy is just toxic. , he is self-destructive, he is a vortex of sadness that will eventually ensnare him and him.

Anyone who was near him at the time of death is no longer needed. Rick, for one, has abandoned his family in the past, but this time it looks like it will be the family that abandons him or, probably more likely, Rickles will see this happening and just walk away. first so he could have the last laugh and say that he was the one who decided to leave. If the theme of the season continues, it seems likely that it will end with Rick completely separated from the Smith family, alone, with no one and nowhere to go, which in Turn sets up the next season as his quest for character growth or the quest of a replacement family, so say what you want about the comedy of the season or the overall episode structures, they're not my favorite, but they're probably not the worst either.

The worst, no one else, episode four is probably the worst, but Anyway the rest are pretty good. I love the bathroom episode, but one thing that can't be said is that the season is not advancing the growth of these characters and their story. We've changed dramatically throughout this season from where they started in the first place and Rick, as the slowest and most resistant to change, looks like he'll be left behind. Rick and Morty never has someone hitting you with the message too hard. which is one of the things I like most about this, but regardless of what comes next, you can bet one thing: I'll be there to break down the selfish and selfish content to gain selfish content that at the end of the day is still just a Theory Oh ,

film

theory, and before I let you go, I have to ask you a favor.

YouTube has lately been asking its users for satisfaction surveys. Basically, they'll watch a video you've watched and throw it back at you. Hey, on a scale of 0 to 5 stars, what did you think of this video? If you could rate us highly, that would be tremendous. Seriously, it's the best thing you can do for this channel right now because sometimes the theories are controversial whether people agree with you or not, they might like to give you a thumbs up or whatever, but the quality of the video is still correct, so it rates the video as high quality, that way YouTube is like wow, this is a channel that produces high quality videos. let's spread it out on the platform and not hide it from the rest of the world, that would be great, so if you see one of those surveys that I'm showing on the screen right now, they looked like this, they tend to This happens more often on mobile devices, but if you can rate us 5 stars that would be tremendous, thank you so much for doing so and hey if you haven't subscribed yet make sure to subscribe because when Ricky Morty finally returns later this year.

You can bet we'll cover it, this is the last one for a while, we have a lot of other fun theories coming up, but I can't wait for the second half of the season, make sure you're there, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Thanks so much for looking. I've been Matt Pat. This has been real. I will see you next week.