Community creator Dan Harmon’s animated sitcom Rick & Morty is constantly leaving clues for fans to build wild theories around, but one which claims that Rick and Jerry are stranded in a simulation is surprisingly convincing. Debuting in 2013, Adult Swim’s adult-animation comedy series Rick & Morty has developed over the years from a one-note (and hilariously tasteless) Back to the Future parody into a surprisingly thoughtful and subversive slice of sci-fi satire.
Sure, the show may not be as hyper-intelligent as some fans claim, but it’s positively brimming with clever twists and inventive subversions of audience expectations, flipping the script of sci-fi conventions on their head multiple times in every episode. The show’s quick-witted writing and twisty plotting have led fans to invent all sorts of theories about Rick & Morty, with some of these claims inevitably being more convincing than others.
But whether or not you believe that, for example, Miss Frizzle of The Magic School Bus and Rick share a universe (and a divorce), some of the show’s fan theories are hard to dismiss. Take the Simulation theory, originally proposed after the release of the show’s fourth outing 'M. Night Shaym-Aliens!'. This popular fan theory posits that the two of the show’s main characters, the unstable Rick and his gormless son-in-law Jerry, never escaped an alien simulation which is set up early in the episode.
Rick and Morty's Simulation Theory Explained
In the episode in question, the eponymous Rick and Morty are pursued through numerous simulated realities as a set of intergalactic scammers attempt to steal the recipe for concentrated dark matter from the duo. Initially, they target the easier-to-fool Morty, but before long they’re getting Rick to reveal his secrets as the pair’s attempts to escape the simulations turn out to be another, more convincing simulation each time. By the end of 'M. Night Shaym-Aliens!', it's revealed that Morty himself was actually only a simulation, and it was in fact Rick and a hapless Jerry who were being scammed. Of course, Rick is one step ahead and blows the scammers to bits with a recipe for explosives disguised as their much-desired concentrated dark matter.
Only according to this fan theory, that’s not actually what happened. Throughout the episode, Rick and Jerry repeatedly realize (although Rick is a lot quicker on the uptake than Jerry, naturally) that their reality is only a simulation they’re trapped inside, prompting them to escape again. But this theory claims that, even after their apparent escape, the pair are still stuck in a simulation unbeknownst to themselves, and their happy ending is only an illusion designed to keep them complacent and trapped, Matrix-style. Trippy.
All The Evidence That The Simulation Theory Is True
While it seems unlikely that such an early episode would slip in such a show-defining twist, there’s actually a lot of evidence to back this theory up. For one thing, the show hints at the twist again later in a story-within-an-episode. Season 3’s 'Tales from the Citadel' reuses the earlier episode's simulation-reveal for one of this anthology episode’s darker gags. In this instance, one of the show’s many versions of Rick successfully triumphs over authorities who are trying to keep him complacent. He manages to escape his fate, a lot like Rick and Jerry—only for the show to reveal that he’s just imagining this happy ending, Brazil-style, while the authorities detain him indefinitely. It’s exactly the fate that fans think occurred to another Rick earlier in the series, which could merely be a coincidence but, especially in an episode that launched another infamous Rick & Morty fan theory, seems too specific to not reinforce this theory.
But there’s even more concrete evidence of the theory, as shown by the Plutonians. Inside the second simulation of the episode, Rick and Jerry fly by some Plutonians, meaning these aliens first appear within the simulated reality even though their species won't be featured in the series proper until a few episodes later. This could seem like a mistake… Or it could be seen as proof that the later episode they appear in, and every episode after the fourth is all actually part of the simulation. If this is true, all of Rick’s adventures after the preceding installment 'Anatomy Park' have been taking place in a scam reality.
The Problems With Rick & Morty's Simulation Theory
While the Plutonian evidence may be convincing, the theory isn’t without its plot holes. For one thing, in season one Rick was simply too sharp to have the wool pulled over his eyes and it's more in character for him to have hoodwinked the aliens than vice versa. He's rarely on the receiving end of comeuppance (at least in not in the show's earlier episodes), and, while Rick and Morty's humor is famously dark, the ending would be unusually bleak even by this show's standards. The twist also references a sci-fi classic whose ending never actually clarified whether the characters were left in a simulation. The show is constantly referencing media both obscure and beloved, and this episode is no different from the very title being a pun on the name of The Sixth Sense filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, a director infamous for his corny twists.
In a more pointed reference, Rick and Jerry repeatedly escaping simulations can be read as a comedic recreation of the 1990 classic Schwarzenegger-starring sci-fi thriller Total Recall. But this satire from Robocop director Paul Verhoeven, adapted from trippy sci-fi author/ Blade Runner creator Philip K Dick’s eerily titled 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale', doesn’t end on an unambiguous note. The film never clarifies whether or not Schwarzenegger's Douglas Quaid genuinely defeated the corporation behind his fake memories or if the whole thing was implanted in his head. As such, there’s no reason Rick & Morty's parody of the movie would be any more didactic than the original film. So between Rick’s superpowered smarts and the fact that the source material isn’t clear on its ending, it’s fair to argue that, unlike some Rick & Morty theories, this one may not be watertight.
What The Simulation Theory Being True Would Mean For Rick & Morty
Regardless of whether or not Rick and Jerry are still stuck in that simulation, the theory has surprisingly little effect on the show’s overarching story. After all, viewers know that there are multiple Ricks (and Jerrys) in existence, as the series has always taken full advantage of the multiverse theory and constantly kills off its main characters only to have them replaced by identical doubles whenever it's convenient for an episode's plot. For all viewers can tell, Rick and Jerry may well be both in and out of the simulation at the same time, Schrodinger's cat-style, as the show has suggested that its countless different iterations of Rick and Morty make everything and nothing canon on the series at once.
The Rick and Jerry who may potentially be stuck in that simulation are, after all, no more or less real than any of the countless Mortys whose deaths the hero saw the future-predicting crystal during the show's fourth season premiere. As a result of the show playing fast and loose with continuity, the fact that one version of Rick and Jerry are still stuck in an alien simulation wouldn’t impede other episodes from featuring other versions of their characters, meaning viewers may never know for sure whether this theory is true (that is, not unless Rick & Morty's alien scammers ever show up again).