#ajdjsjdhaj im sorry i just have so many Thoughts on this

[sour-n-salty-citrus]

Do you like the backstory for rick? Idk I kinda preferred it when Rick's past was a complete mystery and i dont really care about diane at all. I didn't expect the writers to actually write a canon for him either but I guess they realised how much the audience wanted one for him

Ajdjdjeidjs ack, I'll be honest I'm not... keen on it.

(Bolly-quinn actually puts it into words well how I feel about Rick's backstory here)

I liked the mystery element of his backstory! I know it's always exciting to have things in canon, but like... it being open to interpretation was something I always appreciated.

And... ugh, hoo boy. I'm torn. I mean, I love that Rick is completely different from what dudebros and like- "high iq" redditors present him as. He's a man who loved his wife and daughter, loved them so much he would rather give up travelling the multiverse, becoming a genius scientist, just to stay with them. He was vulnerable, soft, and caring. He wasn't nihilistic and reckless and selfish and some "alpha male who wouldn't let anything tie him down". He was ridiculously romantic, optimistic, sweet and loving, and maybe even kind.

And I don't give a shit.

I don't! I don't care. This might sound incredibly cruel and unfair, but I don't care that Rick lost his family.

Ok- let me explain.

I'm... disappointed. I'm disappointed that losing Beth and Diane is all it was that made Rick into the complete and utter monster he is today (or the start of the series anyway). I don't mean to undermine his loss and grief- at all! It's just... for him to go on a (seemingly decades long) killing spree, slaughtering any version of himself he seemed to come across... christ. Maybe in his eyes, they were all as bad as that One. Which is understandable. I'm very lucky to have not experienced that kind of loss. I haven't had to Grieve the way Rick did. Maybe I just don't get it, because I've never felt it. That's fair.

It just felt... god, I don't want to say excessive. I know, people process grief in different ways, and for some it manifests in unhealthy ways, some lash out at the world, fixate on trying to find an explanation, to find justice, etc. And I like how Rick was an absolute inconsolable wreck at first. Something like that, it needs time to process and overcome before you can start moving again.

I just- I don't know. Something rubbed me the wrong way about it all.

It's like- it's not that I wanted Rick to have spent all that time partying or something. It's just- argh, i don't know! Maybe someone else can put it into better words lol.

I hate that he immediately jumped into not giving a single shit about other people (save birdperson and squanchy!). Like- when he blew up those aliens who gave him whatever it was he needed. Ah- ok, they probably weren't exactly innocent or anything, but still. I think it was just I felt if we ever saw Rick's backstory, I'd want it to be a slow decline into who he is, show him gradually losing so much of his morality and becoming so jaded. Idk i guess i just wanted it to be like, a series of significant (and lesser but still important) events that lead to him going down that path rather than- this ONE thing that just apparently completely ruined him? And yeah ik ik it was a BIG thing, but like- i guess i was expecting.... more? Maybe something like idk Rick trying to save all the other Beths and Dianes and failing, idk, just... something more.

I actually would have preferred it if Diane lived. I dont know, I just- man I really hate the dead wife/daughter turns ordinary man into callous asshole trope. I agree, it's hard to really care all that much for Diane, and for a while I couldn't understand why. I thought, idk, is it internalised misogyny? Do I just not like Diane because I want to ship Rick with someone else?

I think I get it now. Diane, for all her significance in Rick's backstory, just... isn't a character. She's just- the motivation Rick needed to kick off the story. You could replace her with literally anybody else Rick could have loved and it wouldn't feel any different. She just doesn't feel special. She's no more unique than any other Dead Wife. We get nothing, literally nothing of her. I kept thinking, why? Why does this just not hit that hard? Rick's had emotional moments with Beth, with Birdperson, even with Summer and Jerry. And then I got it- it doesn't feel earned. It felt like how you feel when you see side characters or extras in the background of an action movie die. Maybe some faint sadness, but mainly nothing. We as an audience get nothing from Diane, we don't know her, don't get to see how she matters to Rick, don't get to see her relationship with Rick, we don't get any chance to connect with her character. So when she dies and Rick gets his montage of seeking revenge, it doesn't feel earned. It feels more like I'm being told about how this guy suffered than really seeing it (which i believe, may have been the writers intention actually...). It's kind of like a feeling of "damn that sucks bro... and?". There's no real heavy emotional response that I could really get from it...

I actually would have preferred if Rick and Diane broke up, divorced. I feel like that would offer so much more for them BOTH as chatacters. Instead of their relationship being happy and sunshine and rainbows until a Big Bad came in and took that away, I'd prefer it if Rick's downfall was just... his fault. (Actually His fault.) If his marriage fell apart because he couldn't make it work. If he estranged his daughter because he couldn't properly handle fatherhood, despite loving her. If he was flawed, terribly flawed, because of his own misjudgement and shortcomings. I guess my biggest problem, is that this is presented as someone having the perfect life, which is then taken away as a result of someone Else. It's too easy to then say, oh, it's not his fault he's like that! He had his heart broken, his life ruined! He lost himself in a revenge spree, poor thing... I'd have rathered if it was just a little bit more... realistic? If Rick had been the root cause of his own problems. If he'd experienced tragedy, but also been the cause of much more. I just wish there'd been more of a balance? It just felt so rushed. And not because of the montage- it just like Rick became completely apathetic way too fast. I just hate hate HATE the "he was a good guy with the perfect little life until tragedy struck and he was never the same". Rick never made the effort to improve his life, to do better, to be better. He's actively a cruel, callous, unkind person (complex, yes, but these are traits no one can deny he harbours). He's done far worse than was done to him, and that will never be justifiable to me... it just all feels so very cliche and out of place, and out of everything, this was the one thing I had hoped they wouldn't do.

I think the writers are aware of this, strangely enough. I mean, Rick even calls it his "crybaby backstory". I think they didn't want to leave it open any longer, and just got it out of the way. I don't think they really want to elaborate on it anymore. From what I predict, they want to focus on the here and now of Rick (and Morty, haha), and the development of who Rick is NOW, instead of who he WAS. I think they kind of just went, here's your gut-punch, your tragic backstory, now leave it alone. Diane is dead, Rick had a hard past, the series is about moving on and change. Now can we PLEASE get back to the sci-fi shenanigans?

(There was something I LOVED about the backstory though, and that was the soundtrack! Like the music for the Battle of Bloodridge, it fucking SLAPPPEDDDD. I can't imagine making synthwave emotional, but it actually kind of worked! The swell of the music actually did a lot more for getting a reaction out of me than the content lmaooo. It kind of reminded me of Kurzegast's "optimistic nihilism" for some reason... I actually liked the Bloodridge track so much, it got me a little into synthwave, which i never listened to before! The music producers this season have just KILLED IT!)

#citrus speaks #long #ajdjsjdhaj im sorry i just have so many Thoughts on this #as critical as it sounds i promise i dont hate it that much #rant #is this a rant? it sounds like one akdnaja #RaM #Rick and Morty spoilers #rick and morty #RaM S5 finale