Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for Rick and Morty S8E6, “The CuRicksous Case of Bethjamin Button” (written by Heather Anne Campbell & Jess Lacher and directed by Eugene Huang).
Beth and Space Beth hate their lives. Set to the theme song of Cheers, the Beths wake up, go about their jobs (Beth doing horse veterinarian stuff, and Space Beth doing interplanetary alien-killing stuff), only to go to bed and get back up and do it all over again. I really liked the editing of this sequence as it cleanly cut between the Beths and the odd symmetry of their lives.
Exhausted, with bags under their eyes, the Beths return to the Smith household just as Rick and the other Smiths prepare to travel to Earth World, an amusement part that Rick is uncharacteristically thrilled to visit because it’s an unfathomable sh*tshow designed by an alien that’s never been to Earth, who has crafted it after his own vision of what it would be like: aliens think humans are disgusting, and they love it. The family tries to get the Beths to tag along, but the women furiously reject the invitation. Rick relents: “All right, fine; but nobody wants to see a Beths adventure.” Love the meta-ness, but with what happens next Rick couldn’t be more wrong.
The Beths enjoy a wine picnic in the backyard and discuss why they hate their lives. Space Beth states that they can’t just put it all on Rick, and Beth asks when was the last time they were truly happy. They agree that when they were kids, life was much better. Space Beth suddenly has an idea: in the back of her spaceship, she has a pot which can adjust its occupant’s age to anything. She encourages Beth to climb in, and adjusts her clone’s age to ten. The newly youthful Beth climbs out of the machine, marveling over how good she feels before scampering off.
I was initially worried that we’d get a “Ricklantis Mixup” situation with the Smiths jetting off to an unseen adventure, but we actually get both plots here. Rick is disappointed and angry to find that the dingy, dilapidated and dangerous Earth World that he loved has morphed into a modern, boring, tourist trap. The rest of the family, on the other hand, is pleasantly surprised. Morty bumps into a female alien who finds herself enamored at meeting a real Earth Person, and lustfully marvels at how nasty Morty smells and looks. Morty is just happy to meet a girl who likes him, and they set off.
Space Beth quickly has had enough of Young Beth’s monstrous shenanigans, and forces her back into the pod. Back to her normal age, Beth insists that Space Beth try it out. It doesn’t take long for Young Space Beth to similarly be a little a**hole, constructing a massive cardboard fort and evading Beth’s attempts to get her back into the pod. Crawling into the fort, Beth falls through a trapdoor into the pod, reverting her back to her child form and for the rest of the episode, I have no idea which Beth is which, which is part of the absolute chaos the Beth plot becomes. The Beths excited destroy the pod, and proceed to enjoy their newfound childhood, which includes eating cereal while watching television and Home Alone-ing their tree fort. From here on out, when both Young Beths are kids, I’ll just refer to them as Beths.
One of the Beths fires a zipline arrow into neighbor Gene, and after he offers them hot chocolate, they decide it would be more fun to hunt him through the house. After a brief debate, the Beths agree to both ambush Gene, slashing and stabbing their neighbor and sending his phone under the stove. The Beths argue over whose fault it was that Gene’s artery was severed, and they turn on each other, resulting in the episode’s requisite action sequence. During their brawl, one of the Beths (still no idea which one is which) ignites the stove, which spreads to an entire house fire. Gene, reaching to his phone under the stove, inadvertently degloves his hand, and finally manages to get his phone and use Siri to call 911. Keep an eye on your iWatches, viewers.
Back on Earth World, Rick learns that the designer of the park is still alive and lives down in the tunnels, through a staff door where the big-headed “celebrities” go. Rick attaches a collar to himself, Summer, and Jerry, inflating their heads to help them blend in. They proceed to the basement where they find the mastermind himself, Dr. Dogballs. He’s excited to see them, but has been chained to a track on the ceiling because of the animal p*rn that was found on his laptop (but just animals, not people with animals, he’s not a pervert). Rick unshackles Dr. Dogballs, and the scientist shows them the real Earth World, a disgusting, broken-down park that is mostly what Rick was looking forward to, but is also quite a bit sh*ttier than he remembered. Dr. Dogballs takes them into the bowels of Earth World. En route Rick portals out to assist Gene, but takes a moment to admit that Morty was right about his misplaced excitement for Earth World.
In the bowels of Earth World, Dr. Dogballs excitedly shows Jerry and Summer his “finest creation:” a pantheon of imprisoned, big-headed celebrities and notable figures. The realize that the creations are not costumes; they’re actually recreated famous figures (with big heads) and they’ve been engineered to destroy the park up above. Citing Westworld and Jurassic Park, Dogballs proclaims that the best tribute to Earth is a theme park that ends in chaos. A giant antenna rises out of the modern Earth World and shoots out a wave, and every big-headed celebrity on the premises suddenly has glowing purple eyes. They proceed to violently attack every visitor, and the ones surrounding Jerry and Summer break from their confinements and move in for the kill. They first move in on Dr. Dogballs, who is delighted to die at their hands. Summer and Jerry inflate their heads, giving them a “head” start (I am deeply sorry).
Morty is still enjoying his time with the female alien, but her obsession with his dirty human-ness is starting to be a bit of a turn-off. No matter: the alien, after angrily reacting to Morty’s resistance to her increasingly dirty demands, is torn apart by the celebrities. Said monsters, ranging from Weird Al to Mike Tyson to an entire multi-headed combination of the Culkin family, continue to tear through the park in gruesome fashion. Reuniting with Morty, Summer and Jerry finally escape the carnage of Earth World.
After healing Gene and extinguishing the house fire, Rick moves to confront his daughters and is met with a bevy of booby traps, most of which he easily handles with him being more frustrated than injured. Him blowing up the treehouse is what finally distracts the brawling Beths, and he places them into individual cells. “Enough kindergarten, I don’t have time to be your dad,” Rick says. “You never did!” counters one of the Beths. Rick mutes the cells, and this unites them into working together. When Rick repairs the aging pod and lets one of the Beths out to be aged up, the other Beth pretends to be suffocating, and Rick panics and lets her out as well. With both freed, the Beths force Rick into the aging pod and crank it up to 360 years, resulting in a withered, barely-mobile Rick with more obvious cybernetic enhancements. The Beths proceed to take out their anger on their dad, beating him up and yelling about what it’s like to be left alone, to be in the hands of an unreliable caregiver. “You didn’t want us! You just wanted to f*ck off!” As the Beths start to cry, they say in unison, “All we wanted was to be together!” Now welling up himself, Rick feebly tells his daughters that he’s proud of them for what they just did to him, and that they’re both his daughters. Hopefully this brings to an end the debate over whether Beth or Space Beth is the “real” Beth after the heartbreaking “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri.”
The three embrace, bawling, and a normal Rick rebuilds his daughters’ treehouse, and suggests that his daughters return to normal. The epilogue of the episode, set once again to the Cheers theme, finds the daughters returning to the status quo, although seemingly a little happier in their professions. They also visit Gene to repair his house, and enjoy a bottle of wine in their treehouse. They’re joined by Rick, who puts his arms around his daughters to enjoy the sunset before a quietly happy moment is interrupted by Morty, Jerry and Summer crash landing in the backyard.
Best Moments
- Morty approaches a photo op of the famous figures. He excitedly calls out Marie Curie, who is actually, searingly obviously, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- Jerry pees in a bush sitting down.
- Upon seeing the Young Beths, Gene immediately guesses that it’s Beth and her clone and both have been youngified, and that they’ve booby-trapped their treehouse (which is exactly right on the money).
- As a firefighter carries an injured Gene out of his burning house, Rick portals in offering a briefcase stuffed with cash. Tossing Gene to the ground, the firefighter takes the briefcase, declares “We’re done here, boys!” and they leave.
- “Say something racist,” the horny alien begs Morty.
