Rick and Morty season 7, episode 2, “The Jerrick Trap,” is a mind-swapping adventure that people are going to be talking about for ages. It’s good old-fashioned Rick and Morty fun, and it’s a Rick and Jerry adventure, which I didn’t know I wanted.
It all starts with a mind swap experiment. You’ve all seen the clip from last week. Jerry comes to Rick wanting help with a rake situation.
“I was wondering if you could help me out with a bit of a rake situation.”
“A rake situation.”
That culminates in Jerry ultimately insulting Rick, saying he’s wasting that big brain of his. And then you get into the debate.
Born With It, or Earned
The debate is whether intelligence is acquired or earned. Did they both have the same starting point, and Rick has just used his brain capacity better? Or is Jerry right, and Rick was essentially born with it? As Rick says:
“I was born crying and pissing myself just like you. Then I became the smartest man in the universe, and do I get credit? No, I get to check my brain privilege.”
I kind of dug that entire line of questioning. As someone who literally calls himself Mr. Know-It-All, I really dug that whole idea, mainly because I’ve always said to myself that capacity and capability are very different from how you use them. I’ll never be able to build a rocket ship, but I’ve got tons of worthless knowledge when it comes to television and movies.
Dead Before the Cold Open Ends
So they literally do the thing. They swap their minds into each other’s bodies, and neither one of them can handle it.
Rick immediately has no other choice but to end it all, because his existence living as Jerry is just too much for him to handle. So there is triggering stuff in here, if you don’t like that kind of thing. Be careful.
Then Jerry wakes up in Rick’s body, and he literally can’t handle it either. Every hand gesture or movement opens up an arm pocket, and lasers and stuff pop out. At one point he accidentally just takes a step, and rockets shoot him up into the ceiling and fling him around.
In the end, Jerry and Rick are both dead, and we haven’t even left the cold open.
Meet the Jerrickys
The house has to fix it. So when they both wake up after the intro, they’re both Rick and Jerry, otherwise known as Jerricky. Both of them are Jerricky, and they’re both some version of Rick and Jerry.
It’s really interesting, mainly because we’ve all seen Rick sort of mellow out a little bit. Seeing Jerry be more aggressive was something I didn’t know I wanted.
“What is with my hair?”
“What do you care about hair, nerd?”
The three of us were sitting here, myself, Mrs. Know-It-All and Baby Know-It-All, and at this point all three of us were like, oh yeah. It’s unbelievable just how engrossed we were in this concept. They did a brilliant job pulling us in. Because of course, you take a simple concept and you make it existential, and you’ve got an episode of Rick and Morty.
The other thing, going off the talking points we’ve been making over the last few weeks, is that this still feels very much like early Rick and Morty. It’s a standalone adventure of a sort. It’s a Rick and Jerry adventure, and I find that very interesting.
Crystals Can Be Anything
Then you have this B plot that comes out of nowhere. Morty was running an errand for Rick, and you later find out he’s basically selling space drugs, even though Morty argues that crystals can be anything.
“Yeah, but these crystals are drugs, Morty.”
So, you know, whatever. Again, Rick and Morty is not the show for kids, if you’re worried about your kids watching things. It’s very much a grown-up show. It’s why it’s on Adult Swim.
While they’re sitting there talking, the guy wants to give them some extra stuff. He’s like, here you go, I hope it’s enough, I didn’t mean to insult you. And then, because Rick and Jerry can’t get it together, the guy feels more and more, like most mob people, that he can take them. As Rick puts it, he thinks he can take on God.
“Why don’t you leave those crystals here, since it’s such an insulting amount?”
“There it is. Now he’s thinking, oh, maybe I can kill God.”
Sure enough, the guy ends up with a hole blown in the middle of him. They allegedly kill that mob guy, whatever his name is.
You’re My Best Friend
It comes out that Rick and Jerry have combined their minds, and Rick and Jerry work together to build a solution. While they’re working together, they kind of dig one another. They’re like, you’re my best friend, you understand me. And he’s like, oh, well, yeah, of course I am.
I really dug what they were doing, because it’s kind of fun watching them. Jerry does his thing with his hair, he spikes it up, and Rick puts his hair down. It’s very funny.
And then they make a break for it. Jerricky decides to take off.
The Giant Jerricky Centipede
When Rick and Jerry break away and run, the family has to try to track them down. Meanwhile, the criminal element guy finds them. Dude abducts the entire family this time, all because he wants his revenge.
Hearing about it, the Jerrickys decide, all right, we can’t keep going like this, we have to go save the family, because of how much the family means to the both of them.
“Well, if we’re going to do it right, we might as well use our best idea.”
Their best idea is becoming a giant Jerricky human centipede. And I mean literally. It’s Jerry’s head, Rick Sanchez’s head, Rick’s upper half, Jerry’s upper half, Rick’s lower part, Jerry’s lower part, all attached like a giant centipede. They go and they rescue them, and it’s this whole big thing. And dude’s like, that was my problem, I tried to defeat God. It’s a great death scene.
Gene and the Rake
Ultimately the Jerrickys decide they have to be true to themselves, and they go to leave. That’s when Gene shows up.
“Excuse me, are you Jerry? Sorry, you have one of his heads. May as well have your rake back then. That’s right, I took it. I asked myself, why lie about it? Don’t you think he knows? Couldn’t I get my own? This rake, it kept my neighbors in my life.”
Gene is one of those interesting characters. Gene has replaced Jerry as the normal person dealing with the crazy. This is the second episode of the season, and I’m sitting here asking whether Gene is becoming a weird extension of the show. He went from being a random thing we saw once in a while throughout the episodes, and now he’s literally been in two episodes.
So Gene comes back with the rake. The rake that started all of this. You know, the rake situation.
They finally go, fine, whatever, and they end up separating themselves. By the end of the episode they’re love-hating one another. I liked it.
So there you go. Now you know. And if knowing’s half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
The Verdict
Rick and Morty season 7, episode 2, “The Jerrick Trap,” is a strong 9.0 on the Know-It-All Index. The three know-it-alls, the Know-It-All family if you will, have all come to a quorum. We’ve come to a consensus.
I like everything about it. Again, it feels like a classic Rick and Morty episode.
The voices, you don’t even notice anymore. So anybody who’s still talking about it can just kind of, whatever, because I just don’t notice. They’re doing great work. And you realize more and more that the writing has always been the king. The voices were incidental. Yes, they established certain things, but at the end of the day the writing is exceptional. The show is excellent for many, many reasons, and chief among them is the writing.
We’ve missed no beats.
Let me know what you thought of the episode. Do you like the direction things are going, and are you enjoying Gene coming along for the ride more often? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. Never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
