This Insanely Meta 'Rick and Morty' Season 4 Theory Will Melt Your Brain
Is this Rick's self-destructive end-game?
One of the most convoluted, depressing, and totally meta Rick and Morty fan theories of all time is about to blow your mind — especially if it turns out to be true for Season 4.
Redditor BigMartin58 posted their new theory to the /r/FanTheories subreddit on Thursday, and it has everything to do with Rick’s blatant self-awareness about being on a television show. Not only that, but he’s aware that Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon are controlling the entire multiverse he exists in.
“If my theory holds up,” the author writes in their TL;DR, “Rick is devising a plan to swap consciousness with either Dan Harmon or Justin Roiland in order to ‘get out’ of his multiverse and ‘into’ ours, similar to the microverse, in order to TRULY be in control of his own story, possibly in order to kill himself.”
Yeah, it’s totally insane, but the author does lay out some convincing evidence, the most potent being Rick’s knowledge of being on a TV show. And many episode plots parallel such a convoluted end-game.
"Morty's Mind Blowers" confirms that Rick knows he's on a TV show, so is that why he's so depressed?
“Morty’s Mind Blowers” in Season 3 offers the most recent and best supporting evidence for Rick’s meta knowledge, especially when he compares the episode format to the Simpsons Halloween special.
But the mysterious helmet Rick works on infrequently throughout the show — that many fans call the Suicide Helmet — might be the most important piece of the puzzle.
The Season 2 premiere, “A Rickle in Time,” seemingly uses the helmet to indicate Rick’s wavering uncertainty about whether or not he wants to end his existence. When time fractures due to his uncertainty, supposedly “each fracture alternates between the suicide helmet being in and out of view” (according to one long-winded theory, anyway).
Does that mean the helmet is both a symbol and the means through which Rick might one day transcend out of his multiverse to end his existence in the real world? Much like Toxic Rick rising out of the toxic wasteland, Rick prime would enter the real world to finally gain full autonomy and end his misery.
This helmet featured in "VIndicators 3: The Return of Worldender" appears throughout the series.
Rick’s catchphrase of “wubba lubba dub dub” translating to “I am in great pain. Please help me.” seemingly indicates that Rick does want to die — we saw a failed suicide attempt at the end of “Auto Erotic Assimilation” in Season 2 that proved as much.
Citing Rick’s obsession with not being controlled by any other governing body, the redditor makes the solid argument that Rick really does long to kill himself, but scripts written by Harmon, Roiland, and the rest of the Rick and Morty writing staff prevent that from happening.
In theory, Rick has autonomy offscreen, which is why he’s seen working on a helmet in several episodes. But as soon as the onscreen adventures start, he has to follow the script and leave that pet project behind. The only way out would be for him to transfer his consciousness out of the Rick and Morty multiverse and into the real world.
Season 3’s premiere “The Rickshank Redemption” also primed viewers for the concept that Rick could transfer his consciousness between bodies, when he moved from his body through some Gromflomites before taking over another Rick’s body.
Ultimately, there’s no way this theory is actually correct. Rick Sanchez cannot transfer his consciousness into the real world. Maybe the show might have him make this maneuver in some facsimile of the real world. At the very least, imagining a meta theory like this definitely informs Rick’s character in new ways that make him seem that much more tragic, assuming any of this is accurate.
Rick and Morty Season 4 has no currently scheduled premiere date, but it’ll probably be sometime in 2019.
