Rick and Morty

I'd say that R&M plays Comedic Sociopathy for laughs, with glimpses of humanity and consequences. BJ deconstructs it hard, and it's all about the humanity and consequences.

Can you imagine if, say, The Big Bang Theory was written in the style of Bojack?

edited 26th Oct '16 2:52:03 PM by TheHandle

Maybe then it wouldn't be so damn weird to watch videos of it where a person artificially removed the laughs.

Well Howard would be brutally murdered, because (and I say this as someone that actually kind of likes The Big Bang Theory) he is the single worst character on the entire show.

No, that's definitely Sheldon. Too much asshole and not enough funny for my taste.

Eh, I can empathize with Sheldon. Plus he's lost a lot of those traits as the show's gone on.

I suppose, but I haven't really been keeping up with the show. I'd still say that Howard improved much more markedly and faster than Sheldon did, though I suppose Howard doesn't have the potential Ambiguous Disorder factor going with him.

Howard regressed hard. His Oedipal complex shot up twenty points when he got all pissy about Stuart living with his mom. Bernadette is also a horrible person and a possible bio terrorist.

'This conversation about Big Bang Theory was thumped by the stick of inaccurate unecessary "Off-Topic" flagging.

OK fine, we should get back on topic.

Back on topic, opinions, Bird Person, insightful or just an annoying guilt tripper?

edited 26th Oct '16 6:42:26 PM by LSBK

Both.

Worse; Bird Person is an enabler. He cares about Rick's emotional state more then he does anything else, and all he has really accomplished is excusing Rick after he does one horrible thing after another.

He's a wonderful character though.

literally everything everyone has said in this conversation about Bird Person is correct

also he apparently is very fertile if that comment that whatsername in the Schwifty episode says about her diet is to be believed

edited 27th Oct '16 12:29:09 AM by Odd1

Add to that Birdperson rarely helps the situation himself. After guilting Morty into bailing out Rick, he picked up one can and then flew off for more action with Tammy.

He seems on the same level as Rick, an immoral jackass who has enough insight in the world to justify only being out for himself and few other special people and using others accordingly, the biggest difference is that Birdperson hides it in an elegant 'worldly' mystique much better than Rick whose just a honest jerk.

I have to admit I don't really miss him, like Beth, he was another of those characters they didn't really deconstruct enough to tell whether the show was genuinely siding with him or not (and either way he was a Karma Houdini up until then because Morty always caved into him, getting his brains blasted out by some supposed bimbo he didn't remotely analyse correctly felt rather poetic). Woe and behold, the instant Birdperson was gone, Rick decided to accept consequences for his own misgivings and being toxic to his family.

edited 27th Oct '16 6:40:35 AM by Psi001

Didn't Rick raise Birdperson or something?

I think that's how it was.

Did Beth ever hear that? Because that would be hilarious.

As of the finale, a lot about Rick falls right into place with the understanding that he's an embittered veteran of a war for independence that ended in dismal failure. He's Mal Reynolds with more science and fewer f*cks to give, basically. He has the cynicism of a disillusioned dreamer crushed by the weight of reality mixed with the desensitization towards human life of a shell-shocked combat vet.

The same is true of Bird Person. As Rick's brother-in-arms from the war, Bird Person gets Rick in a way that a lot of others don't because he's known him through so much and seen how he's developed both during and after the war. But at the same time, that also means he's also more willing to excuse Rick's negative qualities because of how tight-knit their bond is. They've bled together; it's hard to get more emotionally invested than that.

edited 27th Oct '16 9:10:54 AM by TobiasDrake

I still think Tammy is a robot, or at least an android. Maybe a cyborg. I mean, you can't sustain on just bird cock.

Y'know who I miss? Photography Egoraptor.

Rick's attitude has kind of made sense to me ever since the episode with the date-rape drug gone horribly wrong.

He's routinely been exposed to his absolute cosmic insignificance for so long that doing something as horrible as irrevocably damaging an entire world seemingly beyond repair, and then ditching it for an identical world to replace versions of himself and his grandson who die in a freak accident no longer phases him.

It's hard to argue that anything really matters when you can solve your problems with something like that.

I think what makes it harder to sympathise with Bird Person however is that, all his devotion to Rick is a case of secondary source. He didn't just guilt trip Morty into putting up with Rick, he guilt tripped him into always doing all the work to keep him out of trouble. Him? He's going back to his hut to fool around with Tammy. For all his seeming badass composure, he's actually never game for the adventures in the show.

He comes off more as one of those pretentious drinking buddies. He spends about an hour a day drinking with his best pal and only getting the positives of him, and thinks it's selfish the pal's wife won't keep him happy and their friendship stable just because she gets all the negatives the rest of the day and he smacks her stupid every time he gets home drunk. But they have a connection, man. She just doesn't get it. Even if they do have a truly bonded past, Bird Person at least seems to be trying to dump Rick as Someone Else's Problem in the present outside the fun times, making him look like a hypocrite.

I still think his fate at Tammy's hand was utterly poetic to this (especially since he died still failing to comprehend how he couldn't judge someone perfectly just from a few weeks of partying) along with the fact straight after Rick himself began to take responsibility for his loved ones into his own hands, even the clear negatives.

edited 27th Oct '16 5:18:04 PM by Psi001

Rick is someone else's problem. Bird Person is just an old friend. Morty's his immediate family. A family relationship typically involves more responsibility for each other than a friendly one.

Except that:

1. Always placing it onto Morty (the youngest child of the family) while refusing to lift a finger however seems either underhanded, or says a lot about his thoughts of Jerry and Beth's capability.

2. Not to mention the recurring issue they have with Rick is he abandoned them for most of their life in the first place, so Birdperson essentially stole him and became his family.

3. Bird Person recurrently comes off not as a peacemaker but, as mentioned before, an enabler. He is never shown consulting his best friend and advising him how to deal with things on his side, only shaming Morty into dealing with both his and Rick's weight and keeping his mouth shut about it (beneath his stoic attitude, he's surprisingly unpragmatic about it too, he flat out calls Morty a selfish dick whenever he suggests standing up to Rick's abuse). His general approach is whatever Rick wants, Rick gets, and he'll probably do the sort of, kind of right thing eventually anyway.

edited 27th Oct '16 6:43:14 PM by Psi001