S09E01 was written PURELY from a predator's perspective
This is the only thought that has brought me any peace of mind concerning this damn episode. So I'll elaborate.
I'll preface this by saying this post is NOT about Eyepatch Morty returning to a Rick. A lot of people have expressed that Eyepatch Morty's behavior in S09E01 was well within expected parameters. The majority of abuse survivors in this poll that they felt represented and seen by this episode, and that's good enough for me. I have trouble Getting It, but that's irrelevant, I believe them. They explained that sometimes, even without any active hoovering on the abuser's part, the survivor may return out of loneliness, hope, desire for attention, or whatever. This tracks for Eyepatch Morty's character: he only had a robot for company, whose duties included asking how his day was. It's not far fetched to believe that loneliness was driving him crazy and that he craved some human interaction with a familiar face that had previously expressed admiration for him, and that he lost control as time went on.
Was this concept skillfully executed in the episode? Personally I'd say no. Not because the change was abrupt, but because Eyepatch Morty had seemed so worn out and flat when it came to Ricks, I got the impression that he had already been through this exact phase, like, 20 times by now!
But here's the issue: this very humane view on the matter wasn't touched at all in the episode.
The show up until now has been treating EM kinda like a tragic character. Powerful, but lonely. Free, but unhappy. It never treated him with pity, even though it was hinted that he has experienced abuse: the show wanted us to admire him and fear him, it presented him as a Survivor, not a Victim. He never lost. He was always careful. Always on survival mode. Always checking all possible exits, foreseeing all possible traps. Even when he got hurt, he was still in control in one way or another. The show always treated him with respect. And his musical motif, the only character with a musical motif of their own, was a particularly sad and slow piece. Just listening to it, you could tell that something had gone terribly wrong some time ago. That there is a great sadness there. That you have a reason to mourn when it comes to this character. That something (innocence? empathy? trust?) has been Lost.
S09E01 touched NONE of that, to a eerie degree:
Note: careful, I'm talking about the narrative of the episode. About how the plot is presented to us.
1) Eyepatch Morty's desire to hang out, have a human interaction with someone who respects him at least a little bit, his need to have a sense of control over a highly problematic relationship?
It gets twisted. He's presented as jealous of Morty Prime. He's seen as greedy, as wanting to go overboard with this newfound relationship in which he finally has some sense of control. His quips about it are no longer cool and indifferent and suave; they're childish and insecure and honestly pathetic.
2) His abuser-of-choice, the person who up until now treated him with SOME respect and understanding, previously going so far as to reject the moniker "evil" and clearly viewing EM as young and upset?
He loses all that empathy. In fact, it seems like he never had it, or that it had lasted for a whole lot of one hour before it expired. The narrative presents EM as no longer worthy of that empathy or respect.
Furthermore, the narrative in S09E01 treats Rick C-137 as just that good. Of course EM would want his attention, Rick C-137 is special! He's "a little different" from other Ricks, he's a softie, he's irresistible (bleeaarh)
So not only is the abuser whose POV we follow presented as somehow worthy of EM's sudden obsessive attention, he is the one "rightfully" rejecting the overly emotional victim.
Heck, Rick C-137 even declared that EM considers him his nemesis; like, bro, since when? He didn't appear to gaf about you last season. He would walk away from you without looking back. How did you manage to wrap your head around the idea that you are that important?
EM's interactions with Rick C-137, which had up till now been hesitantly respectful?
Completely ruined. Rick may have been in the right to destroy the Omega Device, but he rubbed salt into the wound. He mocked, he kicked a downed kid down. The narrative diluted their interactions, one of the best interactions of the show, into a handful horrible incest "jokes".
3) Eyepatch Morty's constant attentiveness, honed by survival, the very thing that allowed him to one-up basically EVERY RICK HE HAS EVER COME ACROSS?
It simply gets waved away. Oops, EM got too confident, and now he's sloppy. There were several things he could have done to more safely blackmail Rick C-137 into hanging out with him (keep the O.D. hidden, switch places with Morty like he did in Unmortricken, remain completely silent about the Omega Device threat and let Rick's imagination do all the work about the nature of the threat) but he chose the dumbest option.
One will say it's like his intelligence and cautiousness rise and fall according to what the plot demands in order to prolong the show; but I disagree. The plot could have been that Rick scanned the multiverse for a long time until he located the weapon; we would have reached the same end result, and it would have felt fair.
No. Rick destroying the weapon because EM got overconfident is what a predator would want. A predator would want to believe the victim is now sloppy. That their previous achievements are meaningless, see, they never could have REALLY escaped in the long run. Their victory wasn't meant to last. They were simply bound to get sloppy, to mess up. The abuser will have the upper hand once more. And they won't be defeated again.
4) There are incest "jokes", yeah. There have always been in Rick and Morty (bleaaargh). The difference now?
The victims are the ones who say them.
The victims are the ones who sexualize the relationship. Repeatedly.
(also, no, they had NO chemistry. Like, at all. It all felt forced and fake. Even as Morty Prime said this I asked myself "wtf is he talking about")
And Rick C-137? The one who would, at other times, shut this down?
He lets it slide. He embraces it. He joins along. It wasn't his idea, but he doesn't oppose it. Only at the end of the episode he slaps a "sorry, Morty made it weird", in which EM replies "we were never a thing", as if that interaction is enough to negate all the previous horrible ones and reset the board. It isn't.
And at the end of the day, a victim is blamed for that, too, as if it's not Rick the one who constantly says tasteless, horrible things like that, as if it's not him who is basically teaching Morty Prime to speak like that.
5) The moniker "evil", about which Eyepatch Morty had honestly seemed bitter until now?
Now he embraces it. He flaunts it. He claims it. He's Evil. You can tell that him hearing it won't resurface memories about abuse he put up without complaint, years he wasted hoping for his grandpa's approval, violent actions he had no choice but to take, about how his life might have once gone differently, about how he once might have hoped his life went differently.
No; now it's all about power. And nobody questions it. He's evil, he sucks. End of story.
6) Morty Prime, the other victim? Who would before hold Rick C-137 accountable for some things, call him out on his bullshit, fight back when he got replaced?
Now he's mainly jealous. Inadequate. Pathetic.
Even the bitch slap at the end was unsatisfying. A full-on fist fight would at least have been an expression of aggression between two equals. Now the whole scene felt like it was designed to humiliate Eyepatch Morty. Take him down a peg, or two, or fifty.
7) The family? Who know full well Rick's negative influence on Morty, as well as his propensity to act with horrible carelessness and hurt others?
They don't question Rick. There's an "evil" Morty, end of story. Why is he evil? What made him evil? Why is he mad at you? What did you do? And how is he more evil than our son, who has gone on full-on Akira mode?
that's it, that's the most that Rick C-137's narrative gets questioned
8) Eyepatch Morty's previous acts of goodwill? Namely, saving Rick C-137's life, handing his nemesis on a silver platter, offering Morty Prime to escape the Curve along with him, overlooking the numerous times Morty Prime rejected him or screamed for his death without attempting to extract revenge?
Gone. Forgotten. Like they never happened. They are not taken into account in Rick C-137's decision-making. Could Rick have tried a more gentle approach? Could he have tried to understand where Eyepatch Morty is coming from? Could he have tried a workaround? Who cares. Rick certainly doesn't.
9) Eyepatch Morty using the Omega Device as leverage to hang out? It's not presented as a desperate measure of a child terrified of losing control.
No, see, the abuser had no choice but to attack. They were right to do so. The victim deserved it. It's literally what Rick Prime (such a trustworthy person) warned about. There was never any room for compassion. And it's not Rick C-137's fault! His hand was forced (never mind that any Mortys who wanted to escape the Central Finite Curve, also had their hand forced, since Rick and Morty blood was literally needed to bring down the Curve) and it was all for the good, noble prospect of protecting his family --a family which he had no qualms of risking in favor of killing Rick Prime, by the way.
10) The Omega Device itself? The thing Eyepatch Morty wanted to feel in control?
Ha-haaaa, it's gone, he's not powerful any more! There's no need for Rick to fear him. There's no need to do as he says. You can ignore him or hurt him or abandon him. Sure, he may come back seeking pointless revenge, but the immediate threat is gone.
11) Simultaneously, his desire to be left alone, his indifference towards interactions with others, the thing that made it safe to leave him alone despite him having the strongest weapon in the world?
Gone. The stakes are raised. He may have lost the Omega Device, but it's clear he intends to be hostile from now on. In fact, we get an implication that he might intend to puppeteer Rick C-137 in the future.
Our protagonists are not going to let him open his mouth if he teleports in their living room in the future. He's going to get attacked on sight.
12) Eyepatch Morty's most hard-earned treasure, the one he committed countless atrocities to achieve, the one thing he cherishes more than anything in the world, his freedom?
Gone. Like that. Hoisted by his own petard. He lost it because he got overly emotional, because he dared to retaliate against mockery and derision instead of swallowing it down. It got taken from him by the one person whose company and approval he craved for, and this is framed as a good thing.
13) This moment from Eyepatch Morty's past, which had been presented to us for half a second, easy to miss for the casual viewer but signaling there is a very painful backstory there?
Now it's overshadowed by this PROLONGED scene in which the very thing Eyepatch Morty was clearly afraid of before now becomes a reality, by the characters we trust, and we get the sense us viewers are meant to enjoy this, to cheer, to join along.
14) Eyepatch Morty's musical motif, that is mysteriously missing from this episode? The thing that first clued us viewers that EM's story is a sad one, that there is something to be mourned here?
It's gone. The tone shifts. He may have once been a victim, he may have once been desperate; no more. Now he's no longer in the right, not one bit. He's the aggressor now. He will buff himself in prison, escape, and he will loom over the protagonists to exert pointless revenge. He will need to be dealt with. He has gone too far. He does nor deserve pity or compassion.
15. And the narrative don't give us any hint that this episode is something other than a predator's wet dream, that the victim might have some more valid emotions, or that something more troubling is at play, or another approach was needed.
Oh, Morty Prime absolutely gets that Eyepatch Morty felt the need for affection and wished for true connection...
...and he mocks Eyepatch Morty for ever believing this human interaction was real (who the f mocks another person for thinking a human interaction was real?!) And Rick joins along.
And at the end of the day, the family looks away.
...Why does all this make me feel better?
Because I'd call the episode itself abusive. Predatory.
(as much as an episode can be, obviously)
It twists the survivor and forcefully thrusts us into a narcissistic predator's point of view, and we follow along as faithfully and unsuspectingly as Morty does.
Any two or three of the stuff listed above, by themselves, don't mean anything whatsoever. ALL OF THEM TOGETHER, without a hint of understanding spared for Eyepatch Morty's sake, especially in contrast to how he was previously presented, now sharply shift the narrative from "abused child, survivor" to "irrational, aggressive villain".
It feels more like a smear campaign aimed at us viewers rather than an actual character arc. Eyepatch Morty's character is deconstructed, his achievements and abilities stripped from him, his dignity taken away, the boundaries he had set for Rick trampled upon, his emotional needs mocked.
Like, the ONLY thing this episode didn't do --and I'm glad-- was have Rick C-137 tear off his eyepatch and burn it into a crisp before of his eyes. Yikes. I hadn't realized this episode could be even worse.
THIS WHOLE EPISODE IS HOW A PREDATOR WOULD WANT THE EVENTS CONCERNING THEIR ESCAPED VICTIM TO PLAY OUT, IS WHAT I'M SAYING. With themselves, the abuser, as both worthy and unchallenged, the escaped victim as overly emotional, secretly yearning the predator's attention and yet simultaneously rejected by the predator, punished for trying to have the upper hand. Rick C-137 basically acts like a predator's self-insert in this.
I think the actual message of this episode is the reverse of the obvious narrative: it's the predator the one who is obsessed with the escaped survivor and wants to live out a fantasy where he is both wanted back and gets to reject the victim, a fantasy where he gets the final say. At the same time, while the predator's narrative sees the escaped survivor as someone smart and cool (smarter than the other Mortys, ton of ultra cool implants --mind you the implants we had seen in S07E05 were a lot more low-profile and sensible) the same narrative also wants him to get hurt as much as possible. It's a very twisted, monstrous kind of obsession.
The most insane thing is that this smear campaign is basically believable; everyone's actions are juuuust a bit off but not to a blatant degree. And Eyepatch Morty's motivations, already concealed by his endless masks, now get forcefully painted in a more negative light; at this point, even if he outright said "what??? I would never do that" no one would believe him. If he says "I didn't attack your home" no one would believe him, even though we have several canon episodes with fake, altered, or missing memories! If he says "stay away from me, I still have the Omega Device", the answer now is "what's that?"
This episode manages to do something I previously hadn't thought possible: isolate Eyepatch Morty further from the only people who could have functioned as allies.
• it's a fake narrative inflicted on the protagonists by a malicious third party --we have precedent of altered memories affecting a person's perspective without said person being none the wiser literally in the previous episode, Hot Rick; not to mention that on the very next episode we see that a Rick can completely change the memories of their whole life-- Contesters for that would be Rick Prime's electronic ghost, Puppetloser Rick, the farts; anyone who would want Eyepatch Morty isolated from the only people who could act as potential allies. If that's what's happening, we should meet this entity during this season.
• or the creators of the show have changed their tune about how the story will go, for an indefinite amount of time. Maybe they want the story to be about how misunderstood abuse survivors are! But if that's the case AND the episode is real, then I'd say they've gone too far and given the constant incest jokes, I no longer trust them to depict abuse and survivors properly. I have no intention of following the show to see if, 10 seasons from now, MAYBE Rick C-137 will be held accountable. And I DEFINITELY don't want to watch 10 seasons only to have Eyepatch Morty "realize the error of his ways" and apologize to the protagonists for lashing out or whatever at the end. BLEAAARGH.
Either way I'm not listening to a predator's narrative.
Personally, I do still hope this was the fake reality episode. I have trouble believing that the same human beings who designed the scene of Eyepatch Morty falling down in terror before Evil Rick really did mean us to feel victorious during a scene when the same child is being beaten down by his family.
