A Final Season of Rick and Morty

24 -- Give and Take

"Well..." she sighs, concerned. "That's true, but it's really only half of it. Give & take—Giving nurturing and receiving understanding. He needs someone unequal to him too, to give nurturing to, to give meaning to his life by earning love. Yeah, he would receive understanding from me, but I'd only enable him—We'd become like the Joker and Harley Quinn, just laugh as we torch the world we hate and become more alone for it."

A dog had come over and was now sniffing Morty's leg. Morty starts to back away from it but Rayna steps closer, motioning for him to stay, "Ignore it. Only dogs in movies piss on people."

"Well..." Morty tries to, finding his mood disrupted. "Anyways, he can get any Morty for what you just said—Ahh gross!" smelling—then seeing—the turd the dog laid in front of him. He scares the dog off and moves away from the smell—

"Wait, not where you'll get shit on," Rayna says, motioning to the pigeons in the tree Morty moved under.

One shit just misses him as Morty dodges, getting pissed, and he throws a rock at the birds, "Leave us alone, nature! What am I going to slip on earthworms again too?"

Protective, Rayna moves to where Morty is and continues the discussion. "But did you ever think it wasn't a whim to change Mortys? That it was just an option? That it hurt each time."

"Then why—"

She touches his shoulder to help him calm down. "He manipulates you because he's afraid your growth will make him alone again. He's a junkie taking one hit after another of cheap thrills. So he needs an investment that grows because of what he gives them. That's probably why I got married, because I needed that too." And she realizes, "I still need that. I love you too..."

And Morty's eyes start to tear up.

Rick's hands grasp the pages harder:

Though I intentionally tried to play you two against each other, now I fear I'll cause it unintentionally, which somehow feels worse. Please do the right thing and hug him, tell him you love him. It feels good, it's not just the endorphins ("happy hormones" ;-p). Become a junkie on that new drug.

Just before tears fall, Morty looks away, trying to stop himself. Rayna goes to hug him but Morty says, "Stay with me then. I'll stay if you stay, as a middle-man—middle-woman—or whatever. You're a therapist."

She thinks twice about it, but, "I can't stay, I'd just manipulate everyone. I don't think I was ever taught how to properly see people as anything but objectives."

"So then do nothing, let him mute you or something, or—sometimes..."

"Right, and render me into a blowjob machine? No thank you," she says with half her face wry.

Morty grumbles out some dry sarcasm to agree, "Yeah... it's not like two mute people would be good, cuz I won't be saying anything so I don't piss him off. But I don't get why he hates mimes."

They both try to smile, and the tenseness in their chest relaxes some.

(Cue "Cry" by Roger Molls.)

(The following is marked with time stamps because the scene is choreographed to the song as if it were animated, and loosely timed to reading speed.)

Rayna sits down in Morty's shadow, now looking up to him, literally and figuratively. But Morty was low on answers, "Well then ask me if things you want are manipulative," and he sees her consider it more, but still not bite, so he becomes desperate for more reasons, "And... you're not giving Rick a choice. That's manipulative."