It was also because C-137 is the universe where Rick and Morty give themselves Megaseed Enemas, therefore making Our Rick able to kill Other Ricks like they were Regular Dumb People. It’s actually quite possible that even though any Garden Variety Rick is “the smartest man in the universe,” they might all be much less intelligent than the seeds would make a Morty.
I present, for peer review and critique:
The Necessity of Megaseeds, a tumblr essay
-Rick couldn’t put a megaseed up his own ass because he already had one there
-Our Morty isn’t C137 because it took a full season and then some to see Morty behave with any sort of confidence, especially when it comes to standing up to Rick. In the pilot, Morty starts showing signs of fighting back against Rick’s antics, a possible hint towards a rebelling Morty… THE Evil Morty.
-At the end of the pilot and throughout the first season, we sometimes see Rick behave extremely erratically to the point of slobbering everywhere, whereas in later seasons, you can see certain bits where he casually sucks drool back in, like he’s more used to it now, although he still has extraordinarily emotional outbursts… And occasionally covers rooms in his own shit, like he’s suddenly lost control of his bodily functions.
-Rick is arrogant. Morty knows it, Rick’s associates know it, and most of all, Rick knows it. His assumption that he always already knows exactly what he needs to know leads to his mistakes. (ex. Running from the weird alien in the pilot after exclaiming that he’d basically already seen everything, or losing his arm in Froopyland because he assumed he was safe) What bigger mistake can the smartest man in the multiverse make besides assuming he can’t get any smarter? Because Ricks are arrogant, they’d never concede that one of them was smarter, even if it was temporary and artificial. It would most likely never cross their mind without writing it off with “the loss of motor control makes it impractical and dangerous,” plus, a Rick desiring more intelligence would likely seem to him like conceding to his own imperfections.
-Rick has clearly improved over time. In the pilot, as mentioned earlier, he grabs Morty and RUNS when he sees a new and terrifying creature. The end of Season 3 contrasts this by showing that Rick has the capability to kill by essentially not whitelisting someone who tries to simply TOUCH him, as well as using shrinking technology, seeing cloaked assassins, and in a stunning display of what might actually be humility, chooses to pretend to be a different Rick instead of going forth with the arrogant decision to say “fuck you mr president I do what I want.” It seems the biggest difference between C137 and the other Ricks is his apparent ability to recognize his own toxic behaviors, which he seemed much less aware of in Season 1.
A couple of meta notes now:
-According to Doctor House (so, uhh, actual citation needed), there’s a drug derived from certain cough medicines which causes permanent brain damage UNLESS the user drinks a shot of vodka a day, as the ethanol offsets some chemical process. It’s possible that the megaseed’s side effects and Rick’s extreme alcoholism play off each other in this way, though sometimes they may sometimes amplify one another, as seen in the Vindicators episode where he manages to kill an extinction-level threat to the universe, set up Saw games for the Vindicators, alienate Morty in favor of a person Sober Rick doesn’t even fucking remember, AND cover a whole room in his own shit in a matter of a few hours.
-Similarly to the above point, the movie and accompanying show “Limitless” presents NZT, a nootropic that for twelve hours unlocks full control of your brain processes, but after repeated use can cause migraines, intelligence loss, and outright blackouts in which you might kill someone. A visionary in this series concludes that he must use the potential power of NZT to research a cure-all for the side effects. Why would Rick behave any differently knowing he can probably eventually treat the megaseed side effects or cure them altogether?
-Rick knows that he’s in a tv show, almost in the same way that Colbert’s character in the Microverse Battery is now aware of his universe’s boundaries. In a defiant act against his own “god” and perhaps in preparation for what he knows will present him with constant episodic conflicts, he elected to simply give himself a boost. Ultimately, there’s no better way to justify that only one Rick (and one Morty, I’ll get to that) understands the necessity of megaseeds than by being the only Rick and Morty pair that KNOWS they’re in a tv show.
-As a brief aside, I think “Morty Waves,” as Rick puts it, are bullshit that Rick made up to keep Morty nearby and believing himself stupider than he actually is, and the actual reason he needs Morty around is because he does in fact help Rick stay camouflaged, but by getting him into unexpected situations rather than being so stupid it “cancels out smart waves” (what a dumb fucking idea, it’s almost like a parent telling a lie because they know how their kid will process it and react) Morty isn’t dumb, in fact, he frequently displays a far greater emotional intelligence and self-awareness than Rick has. Mortys are simply disruptors.
-Earlier I mentioned that the pilot Morty is likely Evil Morty, or at least not the Morty we follow now. This would explain why our Morty doesn’t frequently tell Rick “solve this problem by shoving a seed in your ass and thinking through it before you start to shit yourself.” He can’t explain something to Rick that he himself doesn’t know exists, and Rick would certainly not let him learn about it again if, say, his original Morty took some seeds and/or serums and used them to go around slaughtering Ricks.
On a narrative level, the Mind Blowers room is an explanation for why Morty’s trauma is seemingly minimal, but on a purely practical level, it serves as a reset, allowing Rick to constantly remove Morty’s memories of things that might elevate him to a level that could threaten C137 Rick himself. Ultimately, the defeatist behavior Rick displays at the end of Season 3 comes from his understanding that Morty IS a disruptor, regardless of his intelligence or moral standing, and Rick would much rather feel emasculated in his own home than create a second Evil Morty.
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