Review: Rick and Morty, "The Jerrick Trap" | Season 7, Episode 2
It's not a Freaky Friday! Although it kind of is?
Jerry has always been Rick and Morty’s secret weapon. It’s impossible to respect him, which is, of course, the point. If Rick Sanchez is the nerd dream of godhood, the caustic genius whose will and brilliance let him dominate every situation he finds himself in, Jerry is his karmic opposite, a cowardly putz whose fundamental passivity inspires contempt or pity in everyone who meets him. Jerry is the kind of person every male I know was taught to live in mortal terror of becoming, a nightmare vision of excessive emotional vulnerability and neediness. He is definitively pathetic, in a way he can never shake off no matter how hard he tries to be cool or fun or badass. The fundamental Jerry-ness of Jerry will always get in the way.
The trick is that Jerry’s Jerry-ness is also a strange kind of strength, one that Rick himself can never grasp. The two are mirror opposites, but the thing about mirrors is they’re casting a reflection, and both men have more in common than either would like to admit. They’re both petulant, likely to be hung up on grudges, desperate to please Beth—hell, Jerry even has a slight edge, because Jerry’s at least willing to admit he needs people in his life. Rick devotes a lot of his time to making sure everyone knows he doesn’t need them, which is—if you think about it—just as pathetic as anything Jerry might whine. Jerry is afraid of everything, but Rick is most terrified of anyone realizing that deep down he’s not that different from Jerry at all: a soft, mewling blob of need, desperate to be loved.