Rick and Morty: Big Trouble in Little Sanchez

September 14, 2015 3:28 AM - Season 2, Episode 7

Rick sends Jerry and Beth to off world marriage counseling, but their marriage is so unusual that it causes unexpected issues. Rick transforms himself into "Tiny Rick" to sneak into Morty and Summer's high school. He's immediately liked by all the students, but at what cost...
posted by emptythought (27 comments total)

This was a fun Beth and Jerry episode. Laughed out loud at "THEY'RE CO-DEPENDENT". I wonder if those Beth and Jerry monsters were inspired by Forbidden Planet's monster from the Id.
posted by cazoo at 7:35 AM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not a bad episode, but not a great episode. The Buffy story that threatened to be the story and then wrapped up with a cut away and everyone congratulating a job well done was a fun touch. Tiny Rick as a teenager representing, quite literally, the adolescent angst of coming to an age where one recognizes that death will happen, but at the same time, longing to escape the confines of teenagerhood...interesting?

Question: Would Rick's regular body have died if they had not transferred his consciousness back into it?

Operation Phoenix, NO GO.

Jerry and Beth, marriage counseling. Perhaps the stronger story of the episode. "My god, they're co-dependent!" The hard line for these type of Beth/Jerry storylines is that the writers have to let it stand. They cannot continue to be the Yo-Yo couple who go from virtual divorce to sitting happily together on a couch, be it post-apocalyptic word or post-therapy world.
posted by Atreides at 7:38 AM on September 14, 2015

|,,|, Tiny Rick ,|,,|
(those are supposed to be "metal" horns)

I enjoyed the use of Elliot Smith not just as some "mopey teen" gag, but a way to break through to Regular Rick, and an appreciation of Smith's craft. "Oh god, what is life? How can someone so talented die so young? What is being young? I'm not young, I'm old. I'm, I'm gonna die. my body isn't real. Summer, Morty, it's me, Rick. Regular Rick! ... I need you to connect the blue one to my left temple and the red one to why doesn't anyone really like me."

For your enjoyment/misery, Elliot Smith - Between the Bars (and a solo acoustic performance for good measure). This is the second sad song to be featured in this season.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:21 AM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love how whenever Tiny Rick expressed himself artistically (through song and dance) it became an outlet for his grown-up self to speak. The grown-up self that knows that this all is for nothing and doesn't want to grapple with his own mortality.

Which makes it seem like music (and culture at large) is a valuable tool to accessing these deep burried fears life brings (in youngsters) and let their guard down, to become vulnerable to "deep thoughts". (Examplified further through that Elliot Smith song towards the end.)

As opposed to how music (and culture at large) is more often portrayed: engaging pleasure to distract from one's life and troubles.

I liked that.
posted by bigendian at 9:03 AM on September 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

They cannot continue to be the Yo-Yo couple who go from virtual divorce to sitting happily together on a couch

Yes, they can. Beth and Jerry plodding through their shitty marriage "at least until Morty has graduated high school" is the most depressingly realistic thing in the show.
posted by ryanrs at 10:24 AM on September 14, 2015 [14 favorites]

I have to agree with ryanrs. The strange complexities of the universe only show Beth and Jerry that there are scarier things out there than their broken relationship, and they're holding onto the very normal idea that they need to Be There For Their Kids, despite the fact that their kids have now repeatedly survived adventures in other worlds.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:39 AM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes, they can. Beth and Jerry plodding through their shitty marriage "at least until Morty has graduated high school" is the most depressingly realistic thing in the show.

Realistic, sure, and I agree. From a story writing perspective, how many times can they fall back on it, though? I think this is at least the third time in 17 episodes. It's one thing to have their marriage be dysfunctional, but they need to exhibit it in ways that don't come across so similarly to previous storylines. And to be clear, I'm not complaining about Beth and Jerry not having a happy marriage or not having a happy marriage after a conclusion where they're momentarily happy with each other, I'm complaining about the leering prospect that the pair are stuck in a loop of repeating storylines where they begin at the point of separating and are reconciled with the appearance of at least a lengthy period into the future.

I'm reminded of Al and Peggy Bundy. They are a model of a dysfunctional marriage, which Beth and Jerry can definitely replicate. I just don't want to see Beth and Jerry go through the same story over and over and over.
posted by Atreides at 12:17 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

I really liked this episode, especially compared to a couple earlier ones this season... and i also think they aren't really over one-note-joking the marriage thing?

This really feels like another case of the show otherwise being so good that people get hung up on that part just being average-ish. Even when the simpsons was good, the whole Homer/Marge thing was basically a three note joke at most.(I'm sure someone will write an essay as to why i'm wrong, but that's how i remember it and i rewatched the good seasons pretty recently).

Like what _animated_ show, in which you can pretty much entirely watch the episodes out of order without missing anything but subtle background stuff(which also feels somewhat unique to this show) handled it better? Sometimes it kinda feels like this show is being graded against the super hard standard of itself.
posted by emptythought at 1:18 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Beth needs to get two or three story lines of her own before we go back to the broken marriage well. The show has dedicated what may amount to hours of screen time exploring Jerry's insecurity, complacency, and emotional neediness, but we hardly ever see Beth outside of her relationship with Jerry (or, to a lesser extent, her relationship with Rick).
posted by Iridic at 1:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [6 favorites]

Did the brain scanning devices remind anyone else of something?
posted by SansPoint at 4:34 PM on September 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

This episode also showed Morty being the most Rick like to date. I bet Morty is going to have some kind of emotional reckoning with that pretty soon.
posted by mayonnaises at 8:29 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

You mean, emotional Rickoning, right?

I'll see myself out.
posted by Atreides at 9:14 AM on September 15, 2015 [13 favorites]

Yeah, Morty is trying so hard to be as jaded as Rick is. The thing is, he doesn't have Rick's years of experience / sinister supergenius. The way they're building Morty's Rick-emulation up, I suspect it's going to bite Morty in the ass at some point before the end of the season.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:33 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man, if they ever put out a Rick and Morty soundtrack album (which, please do! PLEASE!!!), Side One will be the most depressing collection of songs ever compiled. (Side Two, however, will be bangin'.)

Mazzy Star - Look On Down From The Bridge
Blonde Redhead - For the Damaged Coda
Belly - Seal My Fate
Chaos Chaos - Do You Feel It?
Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
Fart and Morty - Goodbye Moonmen
Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
--
MC Haps - Flu Hatin' Rap
Rick and Morty - Get Schwifty
Rick and Morty - Head Bent Over
Rick - The Rick Dance
Booty Bass - Shake That Ass Bitch
Tinkles - Summer and Tinkles Theme Song
DMX - X Gon' Give It To Ya

Any I missed?

Anyway. Rick's standard-issue clone vats are just one more piece of evidence in my less and less kooky There Is Only One Cartoon Superscientist hypothesis. (Working with a clonesy/pandimensional-inclusive definition of "one.")
posted by Sys Rq at 12:19 PM on September 15, 2015 [20 favorites]

"Man, who would've suspected Coach Feratu....?"
posted by signal at 3:20 PM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

I was kinda hoping to see Summer go Buffy Summers, but I guess that's better left to my imagining.

Some voice-acting stuff that I found interesting: Jim Rash played the Nuptian therapist, and Alex Hirsch (creator of Gravity Falls) cameo'd as Toby Matthews. Bill Cypher also makes an appearance on one of the control panels.
posted by vaghjar at 3:33 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well then get your shit together! Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all your shit, so 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!
posted by Rhaomi at 10:08 PM on September 15, 2015 [9 favorites]

I love the nihilism of this show. Also my theory is that the entire disastrous therapy scenario was all fake.
posted by bq at 10:13 PM on September 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

The vampire stinger was really great.
posted by French Fry at 11:16 AM on September 16, 2015

Well then get your shit together! Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all your shit, so it's together.

I loved this line. Totally using it as soon as I can.
posted by numaner at 10:01 PM on September 16, 2015

I'm glad I didn't watch this until most of the way through the week. As happy as Jim Rash showing up in a guest role made me, I'd have been yelling, "I'M TINY RICCKKKKKKK," at my friends all the time until they caused enough bodily harm to stop me. Now I'll only be doing it for a few days before the next episode.
posted by sparkletone at 12:02 AM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I love the nihilism of this show. Also my theory is that the entire disastrous therapy scenario was all fake.

I honestly thought that there would be a Total Recall-esque stinger to this effect, especially after Rick was so certain that the therapists could not possibly fail, 100% success rate, etc.

I was also hoping for the further adventures of Goddess-Beth and her army of Super-Jerrys, seemed weird that they just sort of disappeared like that.

All in all I enjoyed this episode, and for the first time, I enjoyed the Jerry and Beth storyline more than the Rick and Morty (Summer seems to dance back and forth from episode to episode) storyline.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:41 PM on September 17, 2015

I really loved that these folks have this amazing device that brings mental images to life - literally - and this is how they use it. Now that is a very realistic portrayal of the use of technology.

Also enjoyed the vamp stuff being entirely off-screen. R&M subverts expectations like this so often that I no longer am surprised when they do it. Didn't see the vamp stuff? Seems totally reasonable here.

Pants!
posted by phearlez at 11:31 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

\m/ Tiny Rick! \m/
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:34 PM on December 29, 2015

I gotta say, it bothers me a little bit that Tiny Rick had grey hair.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:41 PM on December 29, 2015

South Park managed the strain of Sharon and Randy's marriage phenomenally well, whereas here, while I have no qualms with any particular episode, the repetition is showing.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:19 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

After I saw this episode, I turned to my sweetie and said, "That is so realistic and also why I never want to get married again."
posted by luckynerd at 3:08 PM on June 15, 2016 [3 favorites]