Rick and Morty kicked off its eighth season last night on Adult Swim. While “Summer of All Fears” did frame itself around why it’s very important to return a borrowed phone charger, it was really about several other themes that run much deeper—in grand Rick and Morty fashion.
Early in the episode we learn that Rick has imprisoned Summer and Morty in a Matrix-style simulation as punishment for taking his phone charger. It’s classic Rick to use wild science to overreact to something so petty, but less expected was the fact that he accidentally left his grandkids brain-jacked into another reality for the equivalent of 17 years.
On the outside world, it’s been the length of a drunken Rick nap. But when Summer and Morty emerge, they’ve both lived those years—yes, they were virtual; yes, there sure was an awful lot of talk about phone chargers—and have the equivalent emotional damage to go with that. Morty is more haunted than Summer; his simulated life involved a prison stint, then military service complicated by a growing attachment to his squad mates. Even worse, he had to endure being repeatedly killed in battle and regenerating, with the agony of watching his friends die (and stay dead) until he was the last man standing.
Summer, however, quickly figures out that to crack Rick’s matrix, she’s going to have to make phone chargers obsolete inside the simulated world. It takes 17 years, but she does it, and emerges from the experience feeling like a confident 34-year-old tech CEO. Beth encourages Rick to let the kids hold onto their memories when they first emerge—something he advises against—and for a good chunk of the episode, we see what happens when the siblings are restored to their teen bodies, but with their new “life experiences” intact.
Summer, who immediately recreates the short haircut she had as a thirtysomething, handles things pretty well at first. “I love that she is able to think on her feet and that the character can adapt to any given set of circumstances,” voice actor Spencer Grammer told io9 at a recent Rick and Morty press day. “And eventually, basically topples over Rick’s intentionality in some way, right? Like she always is a foil to his evil in some ways. And also saves them too. I think that’s been my favorite thing [about playing Summer], trying to play her in such a way that she feels like she is figuring it out like in the moment, but just happens to be very good at doing it. That’s probably been my favorite part of her.”
Though Summer and Morty have a healthy amount of sibling rivalry, Rick and Morty fans have seen over the years that they usually end up having each other’s backs in the end. Harry Belden, who plays Morty, jokingly chalked that up to “trauma bonding,” since they both get put through the wringer being part of Rick’s adventures.
That bond serves the characters well when Morty’s lingering “Summer of All Fears” shell shock drives him to very nearly blow up the closest nuclear power plant. Summer stops him by coming clean about just how manipulative she was of his experiences in the matrix. She had to be, she explains, because she was desperately trying to figure out how they could escape.
“Isn’t that whatever great sibling relationship is—like, you’ve survived your parents, the experience of your parents. So somehow you are bonded in that no matter what. Even if you end up becoming very different people, no matter what you share that experience [of] trying to figure out how to be human beings,” Grammer said. “Oddly, Summer and Morty are very capable at being adults, it seems—well, maybe not so much Morty in that episode, but he was sacrificed [in “Summer of All Fears”] for their good. And she takes responsibility for that, which I think is the biggest thing about being a grown-up is that you do make mistakes, but you take responsibility for them and you ask for forgiveness.”
She added, “It’s nice to be able to show that. It’s a pretty in-depth, meaningful episode for the first episode of the season. We have some lighter ones as we go along, but [the premiere is] a pretty interesting take on what we all go through—and, you know, capitalism at large.”
For Belden’s part, “I want to see the venting sessions between Morty and Summer [about] all the horrible things Rick has done to them that we haven’t seen on screen.”
Elsewhere in “Summer of All Fears,” we get a new perspective on Summer and Beth’s relationship. At first, Beth is thrilled by this newly mature version of her teen daughter—though that wears thin rather quickly.
“Obviously over the past 80 episodes their relationship has evolved so much,” Sarah Chalke, who plays Beth, explained. “But I think in that episode in particular we get to see a whole new dynamic between Beth and Summer. It was really fun to play because they’re sort of interacting more as peers. I think Beth really loved that and then hadn’t really run the play in her head of where that could go and the downsides to that—which Rick obviously sees right away.”
In the end, Chalke said, “That eventually comes around to realizing the best part about your childhood is your childhood, in being 17 and not knowing how hard it’s going to get, and wanting Summer to have the benefit of that for the rest of her life. It was a fun episode to get to do.”
New episodes of Rick and Morty arrive Sundays on Adult Swim.
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