What Rick & Morty Fans Noticed About Summer

Rick and Morty may spend a good deal of its focus on its titular alcoholic scientist and naive companion, but the rest of the Smith family still get plenty of time to shine. Summer, for example, may seem like a normal teenage girl on the surface, but if you look closely, she has all the makings to be the next Rick Sanchez... if you could ever pry her away from her phone. 

Summer's not afraid to get real with her family. She'll trash talk Jerry or Morty any day of the week, and sometimes, it really seems like she could be Rick's favorite ... provided he had a favorite, if he was actually capable of forming genuine relationships. Summer is a smart, resourceful girl. After all, she was able to work her way into a position of power when the group went to a version of Earth that had descended into a Mad Max-style post-apocalypse in "Rickmancing the Stone." However, some fans have noted that Summer does, indeed, have one fatal problem that could be holding her back — and if she could just get over this one character flaw, then she could become a galactic heavyweight like her grandfather. 

A Reddit thread started by user jobo555 points out one of the final moments of the season 3 episode "Morty's Mind Blowers." Rick and Morty have lost most of their memories, and right when they're about to kill themselves, Summer walks in to save the day. She breaks out the instructions (apparently this isn't the first time this has happened) and restores their memories. The final instruction on the card reads, "When Rick & Morty awake leave the room." Unfortunately, Summer doesn't leave, and the titular duo take their anger out at her because they believe she allowed them to fall asleep in the middle of watching Interdimensional Cable. 

Summer ends up on the wrong end of a Rick tirade, and fans quickly noted that this wasn't the first time Summer has ignored clear instructions. Redditor Donboy2k mentions, "Summer is not the best at following instructions. Remember purge planet? 'Ohhh he might've said to take it outside.'" As seen in the episode "Look Who's Purging Now," Rick instructs Summer to place one of his device's outside before launching it into space. Summer has it go off in the garage, destroying the roof in the process. 

By all accounts, it seems as though Summer either doesn't listen, or doesn't care enough, to do everything Rick says to 100 percent. Reddit user notsafeforh0me brings this up by stating, "She has done this so many times she doesn't care was our theory." 

Summer doesn't get to go on as many adventures as Morty, but she still often has to clean up the messes her brother and grandpa make. Maybe it was fun at first, but by now, Summer's mostly just going through the motions of making sure her family doesn't die. The way she slouches into the chair after giving Rick and Morty their memories back in "Morty's Mind Blowers" really exemplifies how over all this she really is. After all, it's not the first time they've berated her, and it certainly won't be the last. Either way, it will be interesting to see how Summer continues to grow when season 5 debuts... eventually.