Ok Here I Am Again With Another Meta Analysis For Rick And Morty Season 6 Because Of Course My Obsession

ok here i am again with another meta analysis for rick and morty season 6 because of course my obsession phase isn’t over yet

apparently this season is a lot focused on the family smith. it was a big hypothesis when he only had the titles for the season to base our opinions on, but also when it started to air it was pretty clear ALL the smiths are the main focus on this season. the dynamics they have as a family, the nuances, the ups and downs, how they (dis)function - it appears to be explored very heavily this season. lately (a little bit in season 5 too) all five of them seem to be treated as a family, and not just a bunch of people that happen to live together.

which is nice, i really appreciate it, especially because they seem to mix that with sci-fi stuff and humor and honestly i couldn’t ask for anything else (i can’t be the only one laughing the shit off myself this season all the jokes are landing to me please)

my point is, i wonder if the reason why they decide to explore this theme so much is due to quarentine.

right now the smith family are stuck with each other. with the portal gun broken, rick and morty can only go so far in their own dimension, and since they can’t afford to screw things up, they really seems to be doing things tamer and less dangerous than before. in other words, they have nowhere to run and rick needs to deal with his family more often now.

this sounds A LOT like quarentine to me. you going a little bonkers, but also needing to deal with your peer’s crazyness as well. it’s the time you need to confront how disfunctional your family really is but how you love them so deeply you have no other option but to endure them. (i’m talking about non-abusive homes here, please). personally, i think i got a lot closer to my parents and brother after this hell, and it seems fitting the writers went through that as well.

considering season six was written during a more flexible but still real part of the lockdown, i find it a good hypothesis they decide to write the show analog to what was happening in the real world. the smith family can go to school, work, go out to ice cream, but at the end of the day there’s not a lot they can do but to be under the same house for long period of time -  they can’t travel, they can’t pretend their problems don’t exist, they can’t go out often. they need to confront each other.

with this new premiere for episode 4, night family, it got really clear to me how they are willing to just dive deep into the family dynamics, making it more smith-centric. it has been a common theme that rick is acting more like a grandpa rather than a crazy asshole scientist lately, how beth is actually willing to be a good mother now, how jerry is finally being assertive about his place in his home, how morty and summer seems to have a more love-hate bond than just a i-cant-stand-you bond. they are still all fuck ups in their respective areas, they are still horrible people, but they are their OWN horrible people

also the fact that the smith family CHOOSE each other rather than just accept they need to live together adds a new layer to things. no one is from that reality, in the first episode they had the choice to be in their origin dimension if they wanted to and they’ve had tons of opportunities to just walk away before. after a long, long jurney with the same people since half the season 1 (and this jerry from season 2), we can say that the smith family aren’t connected because rick is a control freak, but because they do love each other and this is their burden to carry. in the end, family is a burden you can’t throw away, but it’s your burden and i love that.

and the fact that they actively made the choice to keep each other close is so much nicer than whatever the abusive dynamic they had in later seasons. it’s a found family, they became a found family even if disfunctional as hell. i love that