Rick And Morty Finally Revealed Rick's Tragic Backstory And Fans Are Loving It

Rick Sanchez on "Rick and Morty" has always appeared to be the embodiment of nihilism. He doesn't care about anything or anyone; even his family seems to annoy him all of the time. He has no problem hopping from one dimension to the next any time he screws up so royally that he ends up destroying the planet in one manner or another. It's no surprise that a prominent fan theory has emerged detailing how Rick abandoned (or killed) his original Morty prior to the events of the show, and the Morty we all know and love worked with a different Rick at some point.

When you realize you're just one person out of an infinite realm of other versions of you, so everyone is both real and unreal simultaneously, it's understandable Rick would feel that way. However, his tough outer exterior seems to have softened in recent seasons. He's more willing to listen to his family, and a lot of the time, he makes an effort to include everyone in his adventures throughout Season 5. Everyone went on a space adventure in "Mortyplicity," and every member of the Smith family, even Jerry, got to play a role in the giant Voltron-like robot they controlled in "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion."

It's all great to see, but Season 5, Episode 8, "Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort," may have just given us our best look yet at Rick's heart when we see the lengths he'll go to save Birdperson. It's a heartwarming episode, and to many fans, it's the best one of the season.

The show has name-dropped The Battle of Blood Ridge, which always sounded like it ended in tragedy. Rick and Birdperson may have defeated their enemies that day, but the real heartbreak came when Rick asked Birdperson to go on adventures with him throughout the multiverse. Birdperson refused when Rick made it sound like nothing matters, so the two went their separate ways that day. Rick even outright said that he loved Birdperson, and that kind of character development has gone over big time with fans. 

A Reddit thread highlights all of the praise with u/Greeve3 kicking things off with, "Easily the best episode of the season thus far." Other compliments include "One of the top of any season IMO" and "A lot of back-story for 5 seasons in. AWESOME." While getting a lot of exposition to how exactly Rick and Birdperson became friends is great to see, the episode also excelled for fans in setting up intriguing plot points that could factor into future episodes. The most notable was the reveal Birdperson has a child, but there's also the dialogue indicating Rick's original Beth died some time ago, which would seem to imply the Morty he's traveled with all this time isn't his biological grandson.

It's clear that many Redditors love these kinds of episodes where the show answers lingering questions while raising even more questions; as u/AnActualPlatypus writes, "The jokes actually landed, the premise was interesting, the episode structure was great. The lore was just the cherry on top." With this kind of praise, perhaps the show will be more willing to dive into Rick's past from now on outside of a single episode per season.