Hey guys, I’m Dev and of course I’m not done talking about ‘Rick and Morty’ just yet.
Season 3 is off to a helluva start, and there’s still plenty of episodes left to get fans speculating.
Don’t get me wrong,
I’ve got nothing but respect for the insane amount of dedication it takes to come up with these crazy fan theories.
And I definitely wouldn’t mind a hit of whatever they’re smoking, cause honestly some of this stuff is insane even by ‘Rick and Morty’ standards.
So, in the interest of science, let’s try to debunk a few of the wilder 'Rick and Morty' theories floating out there.
Starting with the Mega Seed theory.
In the first episode of the series, Rick drags Morty to Dimension 35C on a quest to snag some megaseeds.
It's Dimension 35C, and it's got the perfect climate conditions for a perfect kind of tree, Morty! A Mega Tree!
He never really gives a good explanation why he needs them, just that they’re for ”research.”
Once Morty gets those seeds all the way up his butt,
And I'm gonna need you to put them way up your butthole, Morty, way up there as far as they'll fit!
he discovers a side effect when they dissolve in his rectal cavity: Temporary superintelligence.
Square root of pi, Morty, go! 1.77245385... Woah!
That got people thinking.
What if Rick isn’t the smartest mammal in the galaxy?
We all know Rick never leaves home without his trademark flask, but maybe it contains something even more special than just booze.
According to the theory, he fills the flask with a concoction of ground-up megaseeds.
And the reason he’s constantly guzzling is so he can maintain the genius intellect the juice gives him.
That would explain why he wants the seeds so badly, and why he won’t tell Morty what they’re really for.
Sounds plausible, right?
I mean, Rick is always drooling, and we know that’s a side-effect of the seeds.
Ohh man, oh woah, Jeez!
But that’s also one of the main reasons this theory doesn’t really hold fleeb juice.
Because once the intelligence wears off, the hangover makes you super stupid.
You're gonna lose most of your motor skills, and most of your brain functionality for 72 hours, Morty.
And Rick C137 is always at the top of his game.
I mean the season premiere, jumping from mind to mind and body to body was some of the best things I've seen on this show.
So I doubt that he's dumb in any capacity.
He gets locked up by the Federation at the end of Season 2, and I doubt a maximum security prison would let him keep his flask.
But that’s where he pulls off one of his most brilliant schemes ever, all without a single sip.
Yeah, he could have smuggled in the flask somehow, but that doesn’t really cover the bigger paradox.
Mega trees only grow in another dimension.
And the only way for Rick to get there is with the Portal Gun that he invented.
You know, that highly coveted piece of tech that the smartest minds in the multiverse can’t figure out?
Relinquish the illegal technology to the nearest Federation representative!
So if he’s only a genius with the help of the seeds, there’s no way he could have invented the Gun to get them in the first place.
It’s a classic chicken-or-the-egg scenario.
Though I guess it’s possible that an alternate Rick dropped in on him to give him the gun or the seeds.
Well, how’s this: someone straight-up asked Dan Harmon in a reddit AMA last year.
And he said the flask just contains plain old vodka.
I have a lot a vodka. Then I'll take one of those, I don't need the rest.
The booze keeps Rick anchored to his identity.
And if he gave up vodka for some crazy sci-fi brain juice, Rick would lose sight of who he is.
It’s not 100 percent official, but Word of God is as close to canon as it gets.
So let’s move on to a couple theories involving time travel shenanigans.
In the wild sci-fi world of ‘Rick and Morty,’ you’ve gotta think time travel is on the table, right?
Ay man, remember me? I got something for your ass! Don't mess with time!
I mean, there’s a big cardboard box marked “Time Travel Stuff” that’s been sitting in Rick’s garage since day one.
And messing with the timestream opens up a whole mess of possibilities.
Like the theory that Rick C137 is actually a grown-up Morty.
Maybe the “real” Rick died on one of their adventures, leaving his Morty stranded and helpless outside of his home dimension.
He spent decades searching for his Rick, drowning his grief in alcohol and growing up to be the drooling image of his grandpa.
What have you done to me, Morty?!
Until one day he travelled back in time to the universe where Rick abandoned his family
and started the whole thing over again with his younger self.
There’s a whole lot of problems with this one, mostly the fact that Morty’s are some of the stupidest beings in the multiverse.
When a Rick is with a Morty, the genius waves get cancelled out by the Morty waves.
It’s literally the entire reason Ricks hang out with them.
And we’ve already debunked the mega seed theory, so unless Morty figured out some other way to make himself a genius and block his idiot brainwaves, it doesn’t work.
Not to mention the fact that there’s an entire council of alternate Ricks, and none of them seem to notice that C137 is, y’know, not a Rick.
There’s another, even weirder theory that comes to us courtesy of reddit.
You know how every Rick has a Morty, but only ours seems to have a Summer?
We learn in ‘Rixty Minutes’ that, in a lot of universes, Beth doesn’t accidentally get pregnant in high school.
Fine! I'll find a world where you bothered to have me... We're playing Yahtzee.
The theory goes that Rick abandoned Beth on purpose, leaving her in an awful emotional state so she’d make the ultimate bad decision of hooking up with teenage Jerry.
Which sucks, because f*ck Jerry, honestly.
If you can find one too, we should be safe for hours, maybe days!
That way, he’d get his very own Summer for extra brain jamming.
Problem is, the theory assumes that Rick knew about Morty and Summer’s brainwaves before they were born.
And the only way that works is if he travelled forward in time to find it out.
These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to time travel theories, but once again, the creators are here to shut it all down.
See, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland hate time travel.
Just listen to them talking about it in an interview with CBR:
Time travel is a real shark jumper. It's just a dangerous toy to pull out.
The closest the series has come to time travel is in ‘A Rickle in Time.’
And even there, they never actually travel backwards through time.
Only the 4th dimensional testicle travelers really did it. Played by Key and Peele which I think is pretty awesome.
What the f*ck?! Your time is all ripped up to hell! You broke time, twice!
Rick and Morty just deal with the huge mess that came from pausing the world at the end of Season 1.
The whole episode is Roiland and Harmon exploring what a pain in the ass time travel stories are, so we’re probably not gonna see them in the future.
I personally think that dimensions are way cooler than time travel. Just going to a dimension where there's asses farting, I dunno.
I'm a fan.
So what about the box in Rick’s garage?
That’s Harmon and Roiland’s way of saying they’ve literally put time travel “on the shelf,” so don’t hold your breath for any chronological shenanigans.
‘Futurama’s’ already got you covered on the front, anyway.
We'll have to bring her around again!
Now this last theory is the one that’s really got everyone thinking, and it’s all about Eyepatch Morty.
Have you guys ever wondered why Eyepatch Morty hates Rick so damn much?
Or how Rick has pictures and memories of baby Morty even though he left the family six years before he was born?
According to the theory, it’s because “our” Morty didn’t originally belong to Rick C137.
His Morty was the Eyepatch Morty.
In their universe, Rick stuck around to raise his grandson.
But at some point, he betrayed or abandoned Eyepatch Morty.
Possibly in the opening credits.
Then, Rick C137 hopped into the prime universe, and took the place of their missing Rick.
So how do we debunk this one?
Well, we can’t.
For one, it’s legit. It’s built on really solid reasoning.
Can't argue with that. Great! I'll see you later.
We can’t explain the whole thing here, but check out Rickest Rick’s reddit post for a damn near airtight argument for it.
Sure, you can argue that maybe Rick popped in to visit young Morty in secret, which would explain the flashbacks and baby pictures.
But honestly?
It’s impossible to completely disprove any of these fan theories.
That’s just the nature of the beast.
We can’t read Roiland and Harmon’s minds, and we have no clue what they have in store for the future.
So to all you theorycrafters out there:
Keep doing what you do!
‘Rick and Morty’ wouldn’t be as awesome as it is today without a passionate fan community diving deep into every episode.
But if you find yourself stressing over whether Mr. Poopybutthole really exists,
Or wondering if every single episode takes place in it’s own separate parallel universe,
Just remember the immortal words of Morty Smith:
Damn girl, you need to chill out!
And enjoy the rest of Rick and Morty Season 3