Adult Swim’s 2013 adult animated series Rick and Morty took the world by storm. The comedy series became extremely popular for its raunchy humor and interesting science fiction storylines. While the show often deals with high-risk adventures that deal with life and death consequences, the show often shows glimpses into extremely mature and serious themes. This brings an added element of depth to the show that keeps audiences tuning in for every new episode.

The show follows the story of Rick Sanchez, voiced by Justin Roiland, as he moves in with his daughter and her family after 20 years of no contact. While living there, he takes his grandson Morty, voiced by Maurice LaMarche, on adventures involving different planets, dimensions, and gadgets. It’s not long before his granddaughter Summer (Spencer Grammer) joins the adventures. The family finds out that wherever Rick goes, trouble follows closely behind.

Trauma

For being a comedy series, Rick and Morty often shows how trauma affects different people. Rick is known as the most wanted man in the universe across multiple dimensions. As the show points out the reason why Rick became a wanted man, audiences see war, rebellions, and covert missions that all shook him to his core. With the small details about Rick’s past, it is easy to see how the traumatic experiences have affected him.

The show also gives glimpses into the link between trauma and substance abuse. While part of Rick’s charm is his drunken escapades, it is implied that he didn’t start using alcohol or drugs until after his wife and original daughter died. Even in his friend’s memories, Rick’s substance use was not heavy until after he had been in battles and lost a lot of his friends. It shows a link between the stressful events of Rick’s life and his dependence on substances.

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Broken Father/Daughter Relationship

In the later seasons of the show, it is said that Rick is not from the dimension the show takes place in. The truth comes out that Rick’s real daughter, Beth (Sarah Chalke), is dead, and he chose to change dimensions and move in with her 20 years later. In the relationship, Beth believes that her father abandoned her. This gives her a serious complex that has her doing anything to keep Rick in her life. It is a terrible mindset for any healthy or appropriate boundaries.

Rick, on the other hand, knows that the Beth he is living with is not his actual daughter. In the earlier seasons, Rick shows a distant and passive attitude towards Beth. It is as if he only said what she wanted to hear, so he could stick around. In later seasons, Beth begins finding a voice for her boundaries. This causes Rick to see her in a different light and show her genuine respect. He begins to make a real effort in a relationship with her.

Political Upheaval

Rick and Morty‘s themes often deal with emotions and internal struggles; however, there is an interesting side story that spans a few seasons. The Citadel is a place of Ricks from different dimensions that came together to create their own government and jurisdiction. Ruled by a shadow council of Ricks, the Citadel was becoming heavily reliant on cloned Mortys as a trade.

Individuals in both the Rick and Morty classes became unhappy and dreamed of change. This left the governing body vulnerable for a political uprising from Evil Morty. When Evil Morty became a president promising to unite the people, he quickly turned into a dictator. It didn’t take long for Evil Morty to dispose of the shadow council and ultimately cause the downfall of the Citadel.

Parents’ Effects on Kids

Besides the relationship between Beth and Rick, there is a lot of insight into how much effect parents have on their children. Summer has pent-up anger towards her parents, mostly because she knows that she was the only reason they stayed together in an unhappy relationship. The tension in her parents’ relationship affects both her and Morty. It became worse when Beth decided to divorce Jerry and mess up the family dynamic.

There is also Morty, who was seen taking after his father’s personality. Jerry, played by Chris Parnell, is a very submissive and whiny person, which in turn, shaped Morty into an anxiety-filled kid that can barely make a decision for himself. It took many adventures with Rick before Morty could start thinking for himself.

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Consequences of Actions

A lot of the show includes mess-ups and fixing broken situations. Most of these situations are due to the family’s denseness; however, Rick has to face many consequences in the macro story arc. In the season two finale, the family is forced into hiding because the alien Galactic Alliance tracks Rick down and wants to take him to prison for treason. Beth is on board with anything Rick suggests, putting her whole family at risk, because she doesn’t want Rick to leave her again. The strain put on the family makes Rick face the ripple effect his actions caused.

In the season three episode, “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender”, Rick’s actions are the main focus again. When Rick is mad about helping the egotistical Vindicators that Morty practically worships, he gets drunk. While blacked out, he creates a Saw-like puzzle that the group must solve in order to make it out alive. Normally, Rick would be able to transport away, but he drunkenly left his transporter. This made him face the fallout of his handiwork. While most of the group was scared or worried about solving the riddles, Morty knew how to get through it all. He knew Rick and had seen all the drunken escapades that landed the duo in hot water before. Not only did Rick’s actions come back to bite him, he witnessed first hand how they affected Morty.

These serious themes are not what audiences expected from the comedy series. The wacky visual style and ridiculous stories lull audiences into a sense of surrealism. Then, audiences are given life lessons that thrust them into a story that tackles some of the hardest parts of life. The themes almost come out of nowhere and give viewers a very real look into the complexities that life has to offer.