Top 10 Darkest Rick And Morty Season 4 Fan Theories
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
WRITTEN BY: Laura Keating
Season 4 of Rick and Morty has a premiere date and we couldn't be more excited! In the excitement of it all, we decided to rank the darkest fan theories for what we can expect to see in Season 4 of this cult cartoon. We're looking at possible answers for Beth's clone situation, Evil Morty's plan, and other unanswered questions. Do you believe these fan theories? Tell us why or why not in the comments!
#10: Run the Jewels’ “Oh Mama” is Canon
In the music video for “Oh Mama” by American hip hop duo Run the Jewels, Rick and Morty get up to some pretty shady business. Murdering and stealing from alien gangs, engaging in torture followed by more mayhem, it’s pretty dark stuff. But what if it were to be considered canon? At the end of the video, a Morty is rendered unconscious (or perhaps killed off) just before the Rick’s other Morty and Summer show up. It’s been pointed out that Mortys are more or less human cloaking devices for Ricks. What if our Rick (or others) regularly pick up spare, Rickless Mortys to brainwash and coerce them into violent acts only to dump when it’s mission complete? Sadly, we wouldn’t put it pastRick.
#9: Jerry is in the Wrong Universe
Since it’s airing, fans have theorized that in the season two episode "Mortynight Run" that when Rick and Morty come back to pick up Jerry from the Jerry daycare "Jerryboree" they take home the wrong Jerry. With all the dimension hoping and reality switching Rick and Morty tend to do, it can sometimes feel like high-stakes musical chairs. But what are the costs of this? Sometimes the worlds look the same but for a minor difference or two, so what consequences would there be if the Rick’s are always this cavalier about switching out denizens of those realities? How would you feel about being dropped into a different reality against your will? Is one Jerry smarter than the others? A worse father? Sneezes small parasitic marshmallow universes? It’s certainly idea for the writers to play with.
#8: Beth is a Clone
Beth’s dissatisfaction with her life comes to a head and Rick offers to clone her so that she can travel the universe with her family none the wiser. It’s left unclear whether she’s cloned or not. The fallout of that uncertainty happens in the very next episode and Beth has an existential breakdown. So, what if this Beth is really a clone? If Real Beth comes back and is more like her father (i.e. sociopathic) than before, it’s possible Rick will still terminate his own clone daughter – a Beth who will develop family memories and has already reconciled with Jerry. Or would Rick dispatch the real Beth? We warned you, these are Dark Theories.
#7: Rick Replaced a Dead Rick
The theory goes that the world our Rick slid into (and eventually Cronenberged, way to go Rick!) was not Rick’s original world, that there had been a Rick there or meaning to return there when he stepped into a recently open slot. He clearly doesn’t mind hoping ship, as he and Morty have done it at least twice. It’s what made that opening available that’s so grim. It’s possible that Rick C-137 took the place of a Rick who was killed, or a Rick who successfully committed suicide. As heartless as that move would be, it could be worse: that he saw C-137 had a good thing going and knocked off the inhabiting C-137 Rick himself.
#6: Rick Isn't Actually Smart
After Morty, ahem, internally smuggles Mega Tree seeds home because Rick claims he needs them for his research, the seeds dissolve and Morty is temporarily brilliant. This theory posits that Rick literally needs them, regularly dissolves the seeds himself, and that’s what he’s constantly swigging from his flask. Meaning that even if he has above average intelligence on Earth, his god-like genius is the result of years of literally juicing his brain. What’s dark about this? Rick has made a lot of enemies, and if this is true what happens if he runs out or loses access to the Mega Trees right when he needs to science up a solution? Are there side effects to that kind of long-term enhancement? It’d be interesting to find out.
#5: Rick's Morty Isn't Rick's First Morty
Just like we’ve come to accept that the Rick we follow is C-137, throughout the show we’ve just accepted that our Morty is the corresponding C-137 grandson. But isn’t it just as likely that the Morty we follow is from an entirely dimension? This theory proposes that the Rick that we follow has already gone through a number of Morty’s leaving behind a self-serving legacy of dead grandsons. It’s a pretty dark theory that seems to be confirmed by the fact that Rick has memories of a baby Morty (but was apparently not around for the infancy of the Morty we know), and that Birdperson had photographic evidence of this.
#4: Rick Turned Evil Morty Evil
The appearance of Evil Morty threw viewers for a loop, but where did he come from? Tying into the previous entry, the theory is that Evil Morty is actually our Rick’s original Morty, perhaps left for dead and now hell-bent on revenge on ALL Ricks. Seeing as all of the other Morty’s ever encountered are pretty easy going, it’s safe to say that if trueRick really did a number on him. And just look at the Morty we follow: he’s barely known his grandpa for a few years and already has a growing kill-count. Seeing as Evil Morty tried to incriminate our Rick for murder in an elaborate plan to lure him out specifically, we’d say that he has a bone or two to pick.
#3: Morty Will Burn Down King's Landing Sorry, I mean...
#3: Morty Will Kill Rick
Morty is given a lot of grief, even though he’s displayed ingenuity and the ability to make tough choices over the years. For example, after learning that his new friend, Fart, planned on killing all carbon-based lifeforms, he killed Fart to literally save the universe. The theory that Morty will one day kill Rick may not play out in season four but will likely be hinted at again. At the beginning of season 3, when he thought that Rick was going to callously let Summer die and was then antagonized for it, he shot Rick rather than take any more BS. If Rick went too far, or Morty learned ugly truths, it’s not a stretch to think that he’d finally snap. He’s done it before.
#2: Morty's Worst Memories
We all knew that Morty had seen some shit – just not how much. In “Morty's Mind Blowers” we see that Morty has had some of his memories removed (some forcibly) because the trauma of what he and Rick do is sometimes too much to bear. It’s so common that Summer even has protocols for if things go wrong. But what if it goes too far? In a Scenario Four, they were on the brink of killing themselves. Is there a scenario in which Morty sees something so horrible there’s no going back, or he just flat-out kills Rick? Would Rick roll those dice? Well, yeah, for a laugh, of course he would.
#1: The "Kill Helmet"
One of the most tragic themes woven throughout the show is Rick’s self-loathing. It comes out in several ways, be it his rampant alcoholism, his disregard of seat belts, or (most heartbreaking and famously) his actual suicide attempt. According to one dark theory, his means to end it all is subtly in the background of his garage. We first get a glimpse of a random helmet sitting on his workbench in the second episode; and Rick even tinkers with it from time to time in other episodes. Its purpose has not been explained but some fans have linked it to the creepypasta of the Kill Helmet. Of the dark theories out there, this is certainly the darkest.
