EUGH

creating rickbot? rick didn't want morty to be lonely or to worry about him, even when rick himself was upset at morty for "treating" him like he's "boring" during the knights of the sun episode

the fear hole episode at the end? he carries a picture of morty in his wallet. he LIKES being able to see an image of morty whenever he wants. it might even bring him comfort. him putting it on the board was to also show how proud he was of morty, at the end, to the extent that he would willing part with something he obviously LIKES. (tho tbh he prob just grabbed another picture at home and put it in his wallet. it was clearly a school photo and they prob do have multiple of those)

like, this is something that is really coming across more overtly in the later seasons. in the earlier seasons, we saw rick go through cycles of controlling morty and then discarding him when they either got too emotionally close, when morty expressed anger/displeasure with rick, and/or when rick felt like he needed to "punish" morty for either of the two previous things (think the vat of acid or the two crows).

rick's toxic treatment and abuse of morty can be considered him "caring" about morty in his own fucked up way, even though it's not true love and care as it disregards morty's autonomy and feelings. however, for someone like rick to willingly exert control over another person instead of just abandoning them the moment they express something he doesn't like? that's basically him admitting he wants morty in his life.

INSANE INSANE INSANE.LIKE . ARE YOU KIDDING ME. rick cheating on his grandsonboyfriend with a SECOND grandsonboyfriend because ONE WASN'T ENOUGH ? and caring enough to HIDE IT ? framing the entire thing like an affair and titling the episode after a romcom? morty finally getting to be the bitch he didn't get to be in Unmortricken ? "he has a big ol crush on you," "sorry he made it weird," what the hell, ???? what the hell was that????? the subtext has become text.... morty foaming at the mouth with jealousy and rick showing his hand at every fucking turn.... it feels like s3 again in the best way....

at face value it does bother me they continue to make morty look so dumb/weak in comparison to EM, but i know there's a reason for this... truly i think morty has the same brains and fighting capacity as EM, and their base personalities are almost identical - they're both petty, manipulative, selfish, stubborn - but our morty is held back by rick's abuse; he's needy and insecure and fawning, and he becomes even less competent around EM because he FEELS less competent. morty made that comment about EM being smarter and about not being able to do his chemistry homework, but the truth is that when morty truly cares about something and feels sure of himself, he can do so much. he can disarm neutrino bombs ! he can manipulate rick fucking sanchez ! he was cleaning up rick's messes without rick and he has an incredible amount of fighting experience - he fights almost all of the same battles rick does. the only reason he isn't as skilled or snarky as EM is because 1) he doesn't need to be and 2) rick won't let him be. rick takes care of all the engineering all the most dangerous fights; rick keeps morty's confidence low and his reliance on him high; like any abuser, rick feels like he needs to keep morty down or morty will eventually leave him. he needs all that control because he's paranoid.

and he's paranoid because he's obsessed with morty, with being his Everything, with being the person morty loves most in the world. but paradoxically he can't ever be 100% confident in that love and can't ever have 100% of morty because he's abusing him !!! and he's too afraid to ever pull back completely on that abuse. he can't risk losing morty - even if he thinks morty will probably stay with him, the possibility that he'll assume his own agency and separate from the rickandmorty codependency is too agonizing. at the same time, he can't dig his heels in too hard or he will lose everything that makes morty morty, all the things he loves that he is in denial about loving.

the episode in a nutshell

The only things keeping Rick C-137 from being fully out with Morty is the family, mostly Beth as well as a bit of shame.

The only member of the family that has full knowledge of the relationship is Summer and she, I can't stress this enough, doesn't care but can, will and has used it as blackmail.

Why does Rick not wipe Summer's memory? He just doesn't gaf about her knowing cuz what's she gonna do anyway :p tell her mom? ....shit, probably.

Also Jerry has found out by mistake several times and he gets his memory wiped.

Moving onto the shame part.

I can see our Rick struggling with having feelings for Morty since he's the "Rickest Rick", he never considered falling for anybody as hard as he did for Diane before Morty. I think it was a very slow acceptance for our Rick but a very sudden and fast realization for our Morty right after the fear hole.

Over the seven seasons, Rick has avoided thinking about Morty in that way but it manages to slowly erode into something he knew was there the whole time. He never wanted to be "one of those creeps that moves in with adult Beths" but thats what he became and despite his best efforts to not think about it, it happened.