Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Rick and Morty: Season 4 finale!
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Rick and Morty just ended its fourth season with one of its biggest and most significant finales yet. The Smith family laughed a little, learned a little and managed to bring down an intergalactic empire for the second time. And as the dust of battle settles, it’s looking like the series will feature two versions of Beth Smith going forward.
Rick and Morty: Season 4 Finale Review
Read on for a breakdown of exactly what’s going on with Beth now, why it’s such an important change for her and how this “Two Cool Moms” status quo could alter the series in Season 5.
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Which Beth Is Real?
“Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” is basically a sequel to Season 3’s “The ABC’s of Beth.” That particularly grim episode explored the relationship between Rick and his daughter in greater depth, culminating in one of the show’s more intriguingly ambiguous endings. Rick created a perfect clone of Beth so that one version could return to her family and the other could leave Earth behind to seek a new life among the stars. That episode was intentionally vague as to whether the Beth who stayed behind is the original or the clone.
The finale follows up on that twist in a big way by bringing the wayward Beth back into the fold and forcing both the original Beth and the clone to come to terms with one another’s existence. It isn’t long before they’re united by a common hatred of their father. And rather than eliminating one Beth and restoring the status quo, the finale creates a new one where both Beths will coexist in the same household.
Throughout this conflict, the finale dances around the idea of revealing which Beth is the original. Ever the self-serving manipulator, Rick tries to convince both Beths they’re the real deal. We eventually learn even he doesn’t know the truth, as he used his memory-wiping machine from “Morty’s Mind Blowers” to erase the memory of creating Clone Beth. And even when Rick replays that erased memory, he discovers he was too cowardly to actually watch while the two Beths were sorted. There’s literally no way of determining which Beth is the “real” one.
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Two Beths Are Better Than One
Frankly, not only does it not matter which Beth is real, but the series is better off this way. Like Schrodinger’s Cat, until we’re shown evidence otherwise, each Beth is simultaneously real and a clone. And even if one were revealed to be a clone, does that really mean much? After all, Rick and Morty themselves have been refugees from their original dimension ever since Season 1’s “Rick Potion #9,” and Rick has transferred his consciousness among a number of host bodies over the course of the series. How is the Rick we see in the Season 4 finale any more “real” than the Beth clone?
This uncertain status quo means each one’s journey is equally important and valid. It’s a way of allowing the series to explore two radically different sides of the same character. One version is Beth the nurturer – the woman who chose her family and career over a desire for adventure, even if that choice has transformed her into a high-functioning alcoholic who deeply resents her husband 90% of the time. The other is Beth the thrill-seeker, the one who’s turned out to be the spitting image of her father, for good and for bad.
The whole point of creating Clone Beth was for Rick to give his daughter the chance to see how her life might have turned out if she had made different choices. Bringing both Beths together and making both be recurring characters is a way to actually explore the idea in greater depth rather than just leaving viewers to wonder. The stage is set for all sorts of weird, compelling Beth-driven episodes that simply wouldn’t have been possible in past seasons.
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Having two Beths is a way for the series to really explore and flesh out a character who too often has been ignored and sidelined in the past. Even Season 4 largely ignored Beth until the final two episodes. But now twice the Beth means at least twice as many opportunities to put her front and center and explore her roles as mother, wife, daughter and solo adventurer. Fleshing out Beth as a complete and fully realized person is all the more important now that she seems intent on moving beyond her need for Rick’s love. With any luck, we’ll see entire episodes built around the sisterly dynamic between Beth 1 and Beth 2, ideally with Jerry tagging along to provide some extra comic relief.
What Will Change in Season 5?
All signs point to “Two Cool Moms” being the ongoing status quo as the series returns in Season 5. We’ll see one Beth play the traditional role as household leader and breadwinner, even as her counterpart continues exploring her “hero phase” and gets into all sorts of sci-fi mischief. There may even be some blending of the two roles, with Earth Beth taking the chance to have fun in space and Space Beth attempting to get back to basics at home. And no doubt both versions will continue struggling to make peace with their dysfunctional family relationships and the ever-disapproving Rick.
As for Rick himself, it appears the downward trajectory of his character arc will continue (and possibly even accelerate) in Season 5. Rick started out Season 3 on top of the world. He defeated his enemies and reasserted his place at the head of the Smith household. Rick’s closing monologue at the end of “The Rickshank Redemption” set the tone for a darker season, one wherein Rick’s increasingly selfish and toxic behavior weighed on the rest of his family. But since then, Rick’s grip on power has loosened. He’s fought a losing battle against Dr. Wong’s influence over Beth. He failed to prevent Jerry from returning home. He’s lost fights with the President, Zeus and now even his best friend Phoenixperson. Rick has basically driven everyone away, a fact that’s laid bare in the closing moments of “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” when a dejected Rick is left to sulk in his garage.
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Season 5 may not leave a lot of room open for traditional Rick/Morty adventures. If anything, we could see Beth taking Rick’s place in that regard. At which point, the question becomes whether Beth can prove herself a better influence to Morty and Summer or if she has too much of her father in her. meanwhile, Season 5 may mark the point where Rick finally has to come to terms with a lifetime of toxic behavior and decide whether solitude is really something he wants. And we can’t help but wonder how all of this might play into the show’s biggest loose end – the fact that the Citadel is now ruled by Evil Morty. Will the downfall of Rick C-137 be all Evil Morty needs to finally emerge from the shadows?
We’ll find out how the show builds from this ending when Season 5 rolls around. As for when that might be, it’s hard to say. Creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon did promise shorter waits between new seasons, but voice actor Chris Parnell recently revealed no dialogue has yet been recorded for Season 5. Fans will likely have to wait until at least 2021 to find out how having two Beths around will reshape the series.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
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