So… how are you doing after that Season 8 finale? I’d love to hear your thoughts, but ai Lu I hope you’re okay.
Oh I’m literally running all over the walls and gnawing at my arms ok I absolutely loved it!! It truly was a Beth season after all!! 💕
I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it so this might all be a ramble rn but I especially loved how the climax of the episode was Rick (and Memory Rick and Memory Diane too) choosing the path that was best for Beth. Like narratively, I will always love Diane and definitely wish to see more of her and Rick and their life together and having their daughter etc, but at the same time Diane isn’t a character anymore you know?
She’s an idea, a ghost, a memory, she’s Rick’s past.
Clinging onto her both stagnates the characters from growing and the show as a whole by always having to circle back to her, in a way this kinda felt like letting go of that storyline but in a poetically beautiful way that actually shows how this idea of Diane affects her family.
Memory Rick was so fixated on her and reuniting with Rick’s memory of her that he actively (although maybe not intentionally) hurt his daughter by using her as a conduit to reach Diane. Sure they had bonding moments too but it was always with the ulterior motive to reach Diane. All of that literally brainwashed Beth into thinking that she needed to do whatever she could to keep her parents together, to keep Diane “alive” even if that meant killing herself. She considered driving off the cliff Thelma and Louise style in hopes that mommy and daddy would be together … and she would be there too, not even necessarily as a priority but as a bystander to her parents’ relationship like an additional accessory and she was ok with that since all she really wants is to be with him.
It reminded me of how in “Fear no Mort”, Morty’s fear is essentially Rick not caring about him and the rest of the family if Diane is in the picture and while I wouldn’t say that is Beth’s fear, it is definitely something similar that she feels guilt over and why it was very easy to exploit that in her mind.
She wants her father to be happy but the only way she thinks that is truly possible is by holding on to her dead mother, even if it is at the expense of herself.
What I loved especially though is that despite being memories with little to no parenting experience, both Memory Rick and Memory Diane also (not just Rick and Space Beth) freak out once they realize what she’s doing. They want to be together, of course they do … but not at the expense of their daughter because she’s real. Despite the fact that Rick C-137 lost his Beth as a child as well as his Diane, he has a daughter in his life … in fact he has two!
Adult Beth (both Home and Space) is alive, she is real, and she is Rick’s present. She is who matters now.
Regardless of how beautiful and in love Rick and Diane were (or in the case of the memory versions … are lol), their relationship is not worth the cost of their daughter.
Rick himself sees that when he opens up to her and talks her down from her breakdown.
I really do love this episode because it hinges on this idea of Rick needing to move on from Diane, which may be true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean romantically (although in time he might be able to do that as well) as we see it doesn’t work out with Bug Anne. Instead, the moving on occurs by saving Beth (the current — and most important at least rn imo — woman in his life 🥹❤️) from these thoughts and feelings that consume her but letting go of the past and focusing on the present … she being his daughter and he being her dad, and the family they now have: Space Beth, Morty, Summer, and Jerry, as opposed to the family they had.
Like Morty said in “Cryo Mort a Rickver”, “But I am family, and you did choose me” has become a running theme throughout the show now and this episode only solidified that as Rick does choose Beth and her sanity, over clinging on to his past.
Also Rick letting his idealized memory of his wife be happy with an idealized version of himself is amazing actually and took real growth, it was probably the best for the situation imo
The whole thing was heartbreaking and heartwarming and beautiful and it was quite possibly the episode I’ve been waiting for.