The Rick and Morty Darkometer: S3 E6 – ‘Rest and Ricklaxation’

In the first episode of season 3, Rick bade us ‘welcome to the darkest year of our adventures’. Each week, we’re going to judge the new episode on exactly that basis and see where it registers on the darkometer.

We kick off this week with Morty mooning over the newly single Jessica, and managing to stutter awkwardly at her before Rick arrives to drag him off on what is promised to be a ‘quick twenty-minute adventure’. Six days later, both have received a space-medal for flying intro and destroying some galactic monster or other, and both nearly break down in the car afterwards, with Morty on the verge of tears and Rick exclaiming that he absolutely was not in control of the situation. This all happens before the opening credits.

They take a well-earned break at a space spa, getting briefly consumed by some kind of big pink relaxation beast. Of course, even this comfy corner of the universe can only do so much to relax them – Rick gets incredibly angry at the speaking voice of the employee manning the detoxification booth. The booth itself begins shaking violently, and dumps them in some kind of awful green garbage hellscape.

Rick blames the employee he mouthed off to – with even more bile than usual – and Morty curls up into a ball of self-hatred, believing they have actually died and gone to hell. Rick mocks the idea for its stupidity, but quickly realises the truth – that they aren’t in hell, that they’re not even strictly them, that they are the toxins that the booth removed.

Back in the spa, Rick and Morty leave the booth, feeling better than ever. Rick apologises heartily to the employee, who isn’t sweating it, and they have an enjoyable ride home. No tension, no mutual abuse, no getting sidetracked by some deranged whim, so you can tell something’s seriously wrong.

Sans toxins, Morty becomes a paragon of energy and quick wit, enrapturing most of the school in a way eerily reminiscent of Tiny Rick, and effortlessly arranging a date with Jessica. At this point, Rick intrudes again, having picked up a transmission from toxic Rick on his fantastical phone – toxic Rick having, to his own simultaneous elation and disgust, had to invent his own toxic broadcasting apparatus.

Morty, sensing trouble, proceeds to snap Rick’s phone and dissuade him from investigating, saying they’re better off without their toxic aspects. Which, at this point in the episode, isn’t an unfair conclusion to draw. It’s not long before the cracks start to show, though – speaking at a mile a minute, Morty tanks his dinner with Jessica, taking this cheerfully in his stride and immediately picking up another woman at the bar.

He brings Stacey – who’s thoroughly on board – home, only to discover that Rick has recovered the toxin isolation tank from the space spa, has made contact with toxic Rick and Morty, and has a plan to merge them all back together. Morty is naturally reluctant, there are some differences of opinion, one thing leads to another and Stacey ends up in the booth. Rather than this turning her into a combination of herself and Rick and Morty’s toxic qualities, it switches them, putting her in the isolation tank and bringing toxic Rick and Morty out into the real world – toxic Rick, obviously, having lied about the plan.

This prompts a fight between Rick and toxic Rick, and it’s a treat. It’s always a highpoint of the show when Rick is let loose with his gadgets, and this time it’s doubled up – you could almost completely miss how he’s hidden some incredibly dangerous weapons around the house, including what initially seems to be a grenade but is actually the egg of an alien terror-beast. In spite of his total self-hatred, toxic Morty manages to hotwire Rick’s car and fly it into the midst of the fight – finishing the job Rick and toxic Rick had started of wrecking the house – and the toxic twosome escape.

Summer and Beth both witness this strange conflict – and, yes, it’s strange even by this family’s loose standards. Rick makes a disturbingly out-of-character apology for his behaviour bringing them into danger, and offers to cook them a nice meal. He is also, to Morty’s disgust, strangely blasé about toxic Rick’s boast that he will turn the whole world toxic. Finally, when Morty declares that their conceptions of the healthy/toxic binary are very different, Rick has the advantage he needs – that the booth separates out what the user themselves consider to be toxic. And, crucially, non-toxic Rick has no hesitation in slapping Morty round the chops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0m_05jWJpM

Toxic Rick and Morty successfully send beams of toxicity across the globe, because this show doesn’t mess around with ticking clocks and the mere potential that something bad might happen. This gives us some fun cutaways of a church service, a couple of restaurants, and a child’s birthday party getting toxic’d up. But not long after, non-toxic Rick and Morty turn up to stop them.

Toxic Rick boasts that they cannot stop him – Rick responds by shooting toxic Morty. As it turns out, one of the qualities Rick considered to be toxic was the bedrock care and attachment he feels for his grandson. And despite toxic Rick’s prickly exterior, he cannot stop himself from showing concern when Rick shoots toxic Morty again. Which, naturally, Rick laughs at.

With toxic Morty’s survival on the line, toxic Rick begrudgingly agrees to merge back together with healthy Rick. The reformed Rick then simply turns off the world toxifier, and everything is back to normal, although those children at the birthday party have some serious consequences to deal with. But it’s not over yet – healthy Morty, still incredibly reluctant to get his toxic side back, flies away.

A mere three weeks later, healthy Morty has become a stock market kingpin, and is in a healthy relationship with another attractive woman. It’s not to last – Jessica rings him up asking him to come back, and despite having called it that Rick is trying to trace his location, he keeps the call connected long enough for that to happen. Which suggests that even Morty’s healthy self retains a self-destructive impulse deep down.

Rick portals in with Jessica in tow, and sticks healthy Morty full of toxic Morty, returning him to the babbling simp we know and love. Just to twist the knife, Jessica adds that she didn’t really miss him all that much, and only went along with this scheme because Rick (or, as we now know, Rick’s toxic side) kept drunk-dialling her and crying about it. And, in the closing scene, she’s revealed to be dating Brad again, but perfectly willing to toss Morty a crumb of affection to keep him interested.

This episode brings one of the show’s recurring themes front and centre. We’ve constantly had glimpses of both Rick and Morty with the brakes off – the evil iterations of the two who were wiping out other Ricks, Rick in his stupor last week, and Morty on the purge planet – and now we’ve seen them incarnate. Curiously, though, toxic Rick is the one who actually cares about Morty, so we are forced to imagine that healthy Rick’s charm is just a veneer, and an eerily convincing one at that. We know he can turn it on when he likes, and here, as usual, Beth is getting the best of it.

Despite Morty being characterised in the first episode as having ‘some kind of disability or something’, we also see that, without his self-doubt crippling him, Morty is intelligent enough to make it in the stock market, and socially intelligent enough to make it in the business world and seduce grown women. In fact, given that he became ‘the tiny wolf of Wall Street’ in only three weeks, he seems to have almost superhuman drive and achievement – not too unlike Rick himself. It’s mere luck of the draw – or possibly a reflection of what jobs pay best – that he turned his hand to the stock market, rather than, as Rick has always encouraged him towards, mad science.

And I suspect this will not be the last we see of the ambitious, terrifyingly competent Morty. He’s tasted success now, and it’d be very odd if Rick didn’t have something lying around in the workshop that can suppress his inhibitions – and yes, that could well include a stiff drink. Which could well be a hint as to the true nature of Rick’s alcoholism. Remember Doofus Rick? He was still a fine mad scientist, but was repressed, shy, and crucially, seemed sober.

The darkometer rates ‘Rest and Ricklaxation’ a solid nine out of ten. It doesn’t need the usual flowery analogies when it’s already confronted us with the savage duality of man.