Rick and Morty: Bethic Twinstinct

September 19, 2022 7:27 PM - Season 6, Episode 3

Gotta love yourself or no one else ever will, broh.

Beth and Space Beth surrender to the inevitable. Jerry reveals the pillbug emotional defense system that Morty gave him. It was a hell of a Thanksgiving.

posted by Etrigan (19 comments total)

I didn't understand the last bit.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:06 PM on September 19, 2022

Jerry went to check his feelings about himself, and turns out, they're platonic.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:21 AM on September 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

It was Jerryboree.
posted by Etrigan at 4:34 AM on September 20, 2022

I'm sorry, I wasn't specific. I meant what was the deal with Rick putting away the wine?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:07 PM on September 20, 2022

Unexplained as of yet.
posted by Etrigan at 1:50 PM on September 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks!
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:03 PM on September 20, 2022

So, speaking from experience here, alcoholics have this thing that they do sometimes: they'll pretend to throw their booze away, but not really toss it out. Late in my alcoholic career, I'd wake up, see how low the level in the bottle on my nightstand was, and throw it in the trash... but leave the cap on, and not pour it down the sink. Later that day, when I was past my hangover, I'd start thinking about that bottle, and how it was only dirty on the outside, and besides, alcohol sterilizes, right? Rick can make a new controller for his liquor cabinet cloak in less than ten seconds.

Pretty good episode for the adults; Jerry may have actually leveled up in terms of grown-up functionality, both in coming to an accommodation with the Beths (compare/contrast with the episode where he finds out what his parents are into), and in checking out the possibilities of doppelgänger attraction for himself. And it's weirdly comforting to know that there are still some things that will squick the kids out, even though they've been around the block themselves.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 PM on September 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

I was thinking that the bottle was the venusian stuff that the Beths started on, so he was grumpily hiding it away. I wonder what the bottle with the tiny Morty in it contains, some sort of space-tequila?

I found the realism setting in the video game to be quite amusing.
posted by Marticus at 10:35 PM on September 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

I found the realism setting in the video game to be quite amusing.

See also: Penn and Teller's "Desert Bus"
posted by mikelieman at 4:56 AM on September 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I figured that cranking up the realism would lead to a Jumanji situation. I’m glad they swerved me.
posted by Etrigan at 5:06 AM on September 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was thinking that the bottle was the venusian stuff that the Beths started on, so he was grumpily hiding it away.

Yea, this scene is preceeded with Rick saying "I think we all learned something important today." His lesson appears to have been that Beth can't hold her venusian wine. So he locked it away and destroyed the key.
posted by pwnguin at 9:12 AM on September 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

thousand yard stare cringe mode activate

think we're gonna need some time with Dr. Wong.
posted by lalochezia at 3:33 PM on October 1, 2022

I'm just 100% done with this show's obsession with incest.
I know this is arguably not incest, but the recurring theme over the seasons is clear.

The show has clever jokes and references, and the plots are insane, but... I'm done.
posted by Acari at 10:12 AM on October 5, 2022

Acari, if themes of incest are a dealbreaker, you should absolutely stop watching this season now.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:13 AM on October 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

My favorite game was the text adventure. There's something inexplicably hilarious about a game where you're trapped in the woods while trying to pick up your mother at the airport before it gets dark. Also, vampires.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:08 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

It also strikes me that fucking your own clone (or an alternate reality version of yourself) is maybe the most "meta" sexual act.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:23 AM on October 11, 2022

Really great ensemble acting in this one. Their overlapping reactions to various horrors is so good, almost impossible to transcribe or imagine the script. Eg: SQUELCH "Ahh!" "Ehh!" "What the fuck?" "Dad's a bug! Dad rolled into a bug!" Or: YOU HEAD NORTH. YOU ARE IN A FOREST. IT HAS BEEN THIRTY MINUTES. YOUR MOTHER IS WAITING AT THE AIRPORT. "Oh shit." "What the fuck?" "Uhmmm, maybe keep heading north?"
posted by chortly at 10:35 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

For years I've wondered...if I were to encounter a duplicate of myself, would we bang or immediately try to kill each other?
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:32 AM on October 12, 2022

If I and my duplicate were, say, in our early twenties, then sexy times would possibly commence.

Now at a flabby and wheezy 58, not so much.

I've been puzzling for a week over the idea that Beth/Beth is incestuous. I don't think of identical twins as being duplicates and so it never occurred to me to see MomBeth and SpaceBeth as anything at all like identical twins and thus, there was to me nothing implicitly incestuous about their relationship.

And, regardless, my sense of what incest is and what's wrong with it is entirely about the social implications and consequences, not biological, and therefore this didn't squick me out at all. (Unlike the example in a later episode.)
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:35 AM on October 12, 2022