art and stuff

weirdly enough i have less of a bone to pick with Field of Dreams than with There's Something About Morty. Maybe even less than with Hot Rick. Probably because unlike those two it left my precious continuity intact lmao. But also perhaps because of how i personally interpreted its ending & message

to me, it seemed like Morty went from vaguely feeling like he deserves better than his current circumstance, to growing confident in that belief as he gets closer to the Good Smiths, to then feeling like a horrible person as he becomes the catalyst for the deterioration of Good Rick and, eventually, the demise of the whole family. Morty's look of peace during the motorcycle ride at the end i interpreted as him thinking something along the lines of "i am a horrible person, but so are my family, so i belong", which is… a doozy of a conclusion to come to, but compelling in a tragic way

now, i realize that there are several factors going against this interpretation. For example, the overwhelming focus on Good Jerry in comparison to Good Beth and Good Summer, plus the whole "you're my dad" bit seem to imply that the core of the conflict was Morty trying to find a better parental figure. From this perspective the message is, indeed, pretty bonkers. C-137 is many a thing to Morty, but a good parental figure he is not, not compared to our current Jerry, nor even compared to the Jerry that wanted to turn him into a super-survivor or something

speaking of, what a weird and unnecessary twist that was! No matter what interpretation of the main lesson of the episode we're going with, wouldn't it have been much stronger and natural-seeming if the Good Smiths were just… good? If Morty's desire to return to his own dimension came from within. Maybe it's because he sees that by being there he's not letting this family properly grieve and move on. Maybe he realizes that he's ruined for normal life, that he's grown to rely on sci-fi shortcuts and adrenaline rushes too much. Hell, maybe he decides that this nice violence-free existence isn't worth never going to Boob World

and if you really want the Good Smiths to be the ones to push Morty into leaving - sure! There's a very logical way this could happen! They've just lost their Mort(y), and they could gradually become unhealthily obsessed with not losing this one as well. Always keeping him in their sights, not letting him get involved in even mundane thrills, sabotaging his portal gun so that he can't make the "obviously bad decision" of returning to the family that endangers him on the regular, etc. imo Morty would still want to escape this - both more natural and more gut-wrenching - setup