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ellewritesathing · 5 years ago

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So Close - S.S. X

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Prologue - S2E1 Part 1 - S2E2 + S2E3 Part 2 - S2E4 + S2E5 + S2E6 Part 3 - S2E7 +S2E8 Part 4 - S2E9 + S2E10 Part 5 - S2E11 + S2E12 Part 6 Part 7 - S3AE1 Part 8 - S3AE2 + S3AE3 Part 9 - S3AE4 Part 10 - S3AE5 + S3AE6

Word-count: 4.7k+

A/N: Motel California is one of my least favourite Teen Wolf episodes, but I hope you guys still enjoy what I did with it! Feedback and criticism is always welcome :)

This year was supposed to be different. Scott was getting his life together. The Argents weren't hunting anymore. Derek wasn't turning anyone else. Erica and Boyd were coming home. Different. Better. But it had been less than a month and if anything had changed, it was for the worst.

Scott wasn’t healing from his injury. The Argents were keeping secrets from each other. Derek was dead. Erica was dead. Different. Worse. And the fact that the bus was approaching a literal storm on the horizon felt more like another bad omen than just another bump in the road on the way to a crappy cross-country meet.

“Stop thinking about it, man.” You turned in your seat when you heard Isaac’s voice so that you were leaning up against the window and had a clear view of him and Boyd.

“Like you’re not thinking about it, too?” Boyd asked.

“Yeah, well, we’ll both stop thinking about it.” You rolled your eyes as you listened to Isaac speak.

“I can’t.”

“Look, it’s not like any of us can do anything about it,” you said, looking past Boyd to where Ethan sat with Danny. “It’s a little bus.”

“You sure about that?” Boyd asked.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket so you motioned for them to talk it out while you checked the message. It was from Lydia.

‘Allison is two cars behind the bus and we’re running out of gas.’

‘Just stop for gas. It’s not like you don’t know where we’re going.’

You turned back to Boyd and Isaac but your phone buzzed again.

‘You don’t think I tried that? She doesn’t want to lose you guys.’

You rolled your eyes and shared your location with her.

‘There. Get gas and just track my location, weirdos.’ ‘I love you, by the way. It’s sweet that you’re worried.’

---

“The two of you, back in your seats!” Coach yelled. You ducked into the seat in front of Scott and Stiles, flashing the girl next to you an apologetic smile. “Jared, again? Carsick? Ever ti- Why do you even get on the bus? McCall, not you, too!”

“No, Coach, I’m good.” Scott’s voice was raspy as he answered and he looked like he was going to puke.

“You’re still not healing?” You leaned over the seat to get a better look.

“I don’t know. Does he still bleed if he’s healing?” Stiles asked sarcastically and you glared at him. He stammered out an apology and you looked back to Scott with a much softer expression.

“He’s listening,” Scott said, looking over to Ethan.

“Then can he hear me telling him to-”

“Stiles, not now.” You looked over your shoulder at Ethan. “Is he gonna do something?”

“Not in front of this many people,” Scott said. He closed his eyes again, probably in an effort not to be sick.

“Okay, well, what about the two ticking time bombs sitting right near him?” Stiles asked, pointing at Isaac and Boyd a few seats in front.

You shook your head. “They’re angry but they’re not that dumb … I hope.” Isaac’s head tilted as you spoke, obviously listening to your conversation. You mumbled an apology for him.

“And what if they are? What are we gonna do?” Stiles asked, talking more to Scott than you. “Are you gonna stop them?”

“If I have to,” Scott answered, nodding slightly.

“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” you said. Scott winced as the bus went over a pothole. “Hey, are you okay? I can ask Coach to stop the bus.”

Scott shook his head. “Alpha wounds take longer to heal.”

“Yeah, I know that. But Isaac and Boyd are fine. You should be too.” You leaned over to feel his forehead.

“Mom, I’m fine. Promise.” He had this annoying little smile on his face as he held onto your wrist.

“Yeah, must be if you’re making jokes like that,” you said and pulled your hand back.

Eventually, the bus rolled to a stop behind about a million other cars on the highway. A traffic jam. Just great. You were too busy being moody to notice what was going on with Boyd in front, but you stood up when Scott struggled to his feet.

“Boyd, he’s gonna do something,” he said. You nodded and helped him into the aisle. Stiles grabbed your hand before you could follow Scott to the front.

“Stiles, not now,” you said for the second time in the past hour. You shook off his hand and took another step forward, but he grabbed your arm again and pulled you closer.

“Will you just sit down?” Stiles asked. “He needs this.”

“Let go of me.”

Stiles let go and you took a breath. “He needs a win after- after Derek, okay?”

You walked past him and slumped into what used to be Scott’s seat. Stiles slid in next to you with a stupid grin on his face. “Ah, atta-girl,” he teased and you glared at him. “You spend way too much time with the Hales, by the way.”

---

After Stiles harassed Danny and found out that Ennis might live through the night, the mood somehow got more relaxed and double as tense. You hoped that meant Derek was alive as well, but you were too scared to admit it. As if saying it out loud would jinx it.

“Now the rest of you,” Coach said when he was done traumatizing Jared. “Don’t think we’re gonna miss this meet because of a slight traffic jam, or the minor tornado warning, or Jared. We’re gonna make this thing! Nothing's gonna stop us! Stilinski, put your hand down!”

“You know, there’s a food exit like half a mile up. I don’t know if we stop and then maybe traffic-” Stiles’ plan didn’t sound half bad but Coach wasn’t having any of it.

“We’re not gonna stop.”

“Okay, but if we stop-”

“Stilinski!” Coach blew his whistle. The werewolves of the bus looked like they were going to cover their ears, but you figured that was just because of the sound ricocheting off every surface in the bus. “Shut it! Seriously! It’s a little bus! Stop asking me questions!”

“I hate him,” Stiles said as he leaned back in his seat. “That man is like an impenetrable wall of-”

“Jared gets carsick,” you pointed out. Stiles looked over at you and you gave him a small shrug. “It would be a real shame if he got sick and we had to pull over to clean the bus. We'd be delayed at least an hour …”

“Yeah, a real shame,” Stiles said, beginning to get a sly smile on his face.

“A crying shame, even.”

“Oh no.” Scott came back looking like he wished he’d stayed in the front with Boyd and Isaac. “I hate it when you two look at each other like that. The last time that happened, I sprained my ankle!”

“Yeah, but did you die?” Stiles asked. “No? Then shut up. We’ve got a plan.”

“No way. You’re not harassing some poor kid!”

“You don’t even know who we're harassing!”

“Scott, you're not healing,” you said, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please, just sit down and let us handle this.”

“But-”

“Please?”

Scott took a deep breath and sat down, though it looked more like he just collapsed into the seat. You leaned down to kiss his head when you and Stiles got up.

“Thank you.” You gave him a smile before taking your phone out of your pocket and handing it to him. “Call Lydia and tell her we’re going to stop.”

“They’re in Beacon Hills. What’s that gonna help?” Scott asked.

“They’ve been two cars down since we left. Nice to see that nothing gets past those keen werewolf senses, huh?” You rolled your eyes and followed Stiles up to the front. He was already distracting Coach, so you slid into the seat next to Jared.

---

Scott stumbled out of the bus and Lydia and Allison were both there to help drag him to the bathroom. He was bleeding through his shirt and it kind of made you want to throw up.

“Woah, woah, woah. What are you doing?” Stiles asked just before you crossed the bathroom threshold.

“Saving my brother. What are you doing?”

“You need to stay out here with Isaac and Boyd.” Stiles kept talking over your protests. “You’re the only one of us they like! They’ll listen to you, okay? Look, you know I won’t let anything happen to Scott. I promise. No matter what."

You took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “No matter what.”

Stiles squeezed your shoulder before dashing in after the others. You turned to regroup with Boyd and Isaac but they weren’t that interested in what was happening to Scott. They just kept glaring at the twins.

You turned away for a few minutes to leave Melissa an update, and when you got back the two of them were gone. Isaac was beating the crap out of Ethan and Boyd was just letting it happen. You rushed over but Isaac didn’t hear you screaming for him to stop, and he didn’t care when you tried to push him back.

You managed to knock him down and then rushed to Ethan to make sure he was okay. Your hands were holding his face and you barely heard his ‘watch out’ before you saw Isaac stand again. He pulled his arm back to hit Ethan again, and you pulled him close to you, hoping that at the very least Isaac wouldn’t hit so hard if you were wrapped around the guy he was punching.

When the punch didn’t land, you took slow breaths and looked up. Scott had snapped Isaac out of it, and you were made distinctly aware of how close you were to someone who helped kill one of your best friends. You pushed yourself away and crawled back until you felt arms catch under your shoulders and pull you up. You clung haphazardly Stiles when you were on your feet.

“Thanks,” you said breathlessly.

“Anytime.” He moved a piece of hair out of your face and tucked it behind your ear. You thought he was going to kiss you, but you both snapped out of it when Coach told Ethan to get cleaned up because you were leaving in five minutes.

You both walked over to the group, and you tugged on Scott’s sleeve to get his attention. You took him to sit on the benches so you could talk.

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” you asked cautiously. Scott didn’t answer. “It’s not your fault Derek’s dead.”

“You don’t know what happened that night.”

“No,” you exhaled. “But Isaac told me that he had to pull you off of the edge because it looked like you were gonna jump off after him. I- I’m not arguing with you; I probably would’ve backflipped off that ledge if I thought it would make a difference. But, Scotty ... no one blames you for what happened.”

“I blame me for what happened,” he said. “Everything that’s happened. Allison’s mom, Erica, Derek, the sacri-”

“None of that is your fault.” You held his face in your hands to make him look at you. “And you can’t keep yourself from healing because you don’t think you deserve to.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Scott looked away from you again and you sighed. “Derek cared about you. So did Erica, believe it or not. They wouldn’t want you dead.” You got up and held your hand out to him. “I don’t want you dead.”

Scott didn’t say anything, but he took your hand and followed you back on the bus. Allison asked if she could sit next to him, so you were left looking for a place to sit. Danny was out because he was with Ethan; Isaac and Boyd were paired up and, honestly, you were kind of avoiding them; and Lydia and Stiles were together. You ended up finding a random seat and hoping the drive wouldn’t drag on too long.

---

The bus came to a stop in front of possibly the seediest motel you’d ever seen. You stepped out and shared a worried look with Scott while Coach gave the group a talk. The more you looked at the motel, the more you knew you didn't want to be there.

“Listen up,” Coach started. “The meet’s been pushed till tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and the least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves. You’ll pairing up. Choose wisely.”

Pretty much everyone who paired up on the bus started looking at each other, so you made your way over to Scott, slipping your hand in his. “Hey, big brother who I love and adore most ardently,” you said with the biggest smile you could muster up. “Don’t suppose you wanna share a room with me?”

“Woah, Scott, no. If you’re with her, then where am I gonna sleep?” Stiles asked.

“You can share my bed,” Scott offered with a small shrug.

“I’ll just sleep on the floor. Thanks.”

You rolled your eyes and pushed them forward to grab the keys. You caught Isaac’s eye and smiled at him, hoping he got the mental ‘it’s okay, we’ll talk later’ message you sent and wouldn’t confront you about what happened earlier.

The room didn’t inspire much confidence but you pushed through. Scott asked who wanted to shower first and you shuddered. “I’m gonna check on Lydia. She didn’t seem too happy about being here,” you said.

You found Lydia outside her and Allison’s room, heading off to get new towels from the front. Allison was already showering. She looked pretty tense and you bumped her arm lightly.

“Lyd, what’s up? You’ve been kinda weird since we stopped,” you said gently.

“It’s just …” You watched her look around, like she was trying to find inspiration to word what she needed to say. “You weren’t here when I had a psychotic break and wandered around the woods for three days, but you were here when I had my second psychotic break and brought Peter back from the dead. And it feels like that. Like something horrible is going to happen tonight.”

“Yeah, I have that feeling too,” you admitted. “Though I don’t think tonight’s the best night for a naked stroll in the woods, do you?”

That made her laugh and shove you lightly, but the few moments of lightness vanished as soon as you stepped into the reception area. You watched her interact with the owner, and then when Lydia froze, looking at the number on the wall, you asked what it meant.

“It’s a kind of inside thing for the motel. My husband insists on keeping it up,” the lady explained. You held Lydia’s hand as she went on. “It’s a little morbid, to be honest.”

She told you that the Glen Capri had the highest number of suicides in all the motels in California. Lydia’s grip on your hand brought you back to reality, so you hurried out a thank you and rushed yourself and Lydia out of there.

“You forgot your towels!”

The two of you told Allison what you found out as soon as you were back in the room and she was dressed. All she asked is if you were sure that it was 198.

“Yes, and we’re talking over 40 years,” Lydia said. “On average, that’s … 4.95 a year, which is …”

“In this place? Kind of expected,” you mumbled.

“Yeah, but who commemorates that with a framed number?” Lydia almost yelled. You put your hands up in surrender and she rolled her eyes, motioning for you to move closer again.

“Wait, and they’re all suicides?” Allison asked.

Lydia told her that, yeah, they were all suicides and went on to describe a few different ways in which these suicides could have happened. But then she stopped. She was listening to something.

You looked over at Allison before leaning in closer and moving some of her hair out of the way. “Hey, Lyd, you okay? We don’t have to stay here if you-”

She got up and moved closer to the air vent, still listening, before turning around to face you and Allison. “The two people in the other room- they just shot each other. You didn’t hear that?”

You shook your head and Lydia pushed past you and ran next door, you and Allison following behind. The door was unlocked but you didn’t see anything when Lydia switched the light on. It was being renovated. You felt your heart rate slow down.

“It had to be right here,” Lydia said. She told you guys what she heard and Allison promised that she believed her. Lydia walked painstakingly slowly towards the wall, but you and Allison managed to take her back to the room. “There is something seriously wrong with this place,” she told you when the door was closed.

“But they were suicides, not murders,” Allison said. “And it’s not like this place is haunted, right?”

“I think that depends on your definition of haunted,” you said.

Lydia agreed with you. “I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room. Maybe that’s why they’re renovating; maybe they’ve been scraping brain matter off the wooden paneling.”

“Maybe we should find out,” Allison said. Lydia reluctantly agreed and they started walking out. “Y/N, you coming?”

“Uh, yeah.” You nodded, drumming your hand on your leg. “I just want to grab Stiles first. He’s pretty good with this stuff.”

“Okay, yeah. Meet you back here in like five minutes?” Allison asked.

You nodded and watched the two of them round the corner before going to find Stiles. You barged into the room to find Scott staring out the window, and for a split second when he turned to look at you, you could have sworn his eyes were red.

“Hey, Scott, you okay?” Stiles asked, walking out of the bathroom.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Scott mumbled. He looked at you. “Uh, everything okay with Lydia?”

“Yeah, I just need to borrow Stiles for a second,” you lied. Something was up with him. “The shower’s not draining right and he took that plumbing job like two years ago so maybe he could help.”

“Stiles got fired from-”

“Yeah, thanks!” You grabbed Stiles and pulled him out of the room, motioning for him to be quiet until you got back to Allison’s room.

---

“The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon,” Allison said.

“Yeah, I know. He was definitely a little off with me too,” Stiles agreed. “But actually, it was Boyd who was really off. I watched him put his fist through the vending machine.”

“See? It is the motel,” Lydia argued.

“But Isaac wouldn’t back down with Ethan earlier.” You shook your head, sounding unsure. “That’s not like him.”

“Still. Either we need to get out of here right now-” Lydia opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the bible “-or someone needs to learn how to an exorcism ASAP before the werewolves go crazy and kill us.”

“Okay, just hold on, alright?” Stiles said. “What if it’s not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?”

“You mean like three sacrifices?” Allison asked.

“What if this time it’s three werewolves?” Stiles asked. “Scott, Isaac, and Boyd. Maybe we were meant to come here.”

“Exactly!” Lydia exclaimed. “So can we get the hell out of here now? Please?”

Stiles looked at the bible in her hands and frowned. He moved to take it from her. “Hang on, let me see this,” he said. You looked over his shoulder and squinted at the newspaper clippings.

“Are those-” you started.

“The articles on the people who killed themselves,” he interrupted, dumping all the clippings on the bed.

“If all the rooms have bibles-”

“There could be articles in all of the rooms.” Lydia was the one who interrupted you this time. She mentioned the couple she heard next door again, but stopped when you heard a noise coming from the room and Stiles ran out, all of you following behind. The door was locked.

“That was not locked before!” Lydia yelled.

“It sounds like someone turned on the handsaw,” Allison said. You and her shared a look before pushing Lydia back and kicking in the door. Stiles rushed in and found Ethan holding the handsaw dangerously close to his stomach. The two of them wrestled it out; the handsaw eventually tossed to the side, Ethan shoved backwards into the heater, and Stiles tripping over the wire and almost decapitating himself of the machine.

You rushed forward and pulled him away, holding him in your arms for a second before the two of you scrambled to your feet. Ethan was getting up again. He stormed out and the four of you chased after him.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” he snapped when you reached the stairs. “I don’t know how I got there or what I was doing.”

“Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know?” Stiles told him. “We did just save your life.”

“And you probably shouldn’t have,” Ethan said, retreating back to his room.

“Guys, I’m gonna go find Isaac,” you said, not really paying attention to them. “We’ve seen all the wolves since we got here but no one’s seen him.”

Allison nodded. “Yeah, and I’ll find Scott. You two get Boyd.”

Isaac and Boyd’s room looked empty when you got inside, but you could hear something. The faint sound of crying and some scratching noise. It was under the bed.

“Isaac?” you called gently. The noise stopped. You crouched down and looked under the bed. Isaac’s frightened eyes stared up at you. “Hey, buddy, we’re gonna get you out of there, okay?” You reached your hand in and he crawled further back. You heard water running and hit your head on the bed when you looked up to see who it was. Boyd. With a gigantic safe in his arms. “Boyd, what are you doing?”

You followed him into the bathroom but it was like he didn’t even register that you were there … until you tried to wrestle the safe out of his arms. Then he looked you dead in the eyes before flinging you into the bathroom wall.

You groaned and your vision blurred, but you could still make Boyd out as he got into the water and placed the safe over his chest. Stiles and Lydia rushed in and tried to help but to no avail. Lydia told Stiles to get the road flares from the bus - they work underwater and could snap Boyd out of it, if he got it in time.

You dashed back into the room and fumbled through the nightstand. Lydia asked what you were doing but you didn’t have time to answer. When you found the lighter, you dropped to the floor and reached under the bed. You switched it on and shoved the flame into Isaac’s face. He woke up and grabbed the lighter from you, looking confused.

“Y/N, what the hell are you-”

“I’ll explain later! Right now, you’ve gotta help me,” you said, dragging him out from under the bed. Stiles was back with the road flare and he managed to wake up Boyd before you got there.

Isaac pulled you out of the way when Boyd launched the safe across the bathroom as he sat up. You mumbled a thank you and waited for your heart to slow down. But then you remembered something. Scott.

You raced out, almost crashing into Allison. “I can’t find Scott anywhere,” she told you, panic in her eyes.

“It’s happening to him too, isn’t it?” Stiles asked.

“What do you think? Three out of four werewolves seem to have it.” The words tumbled out of your mouth without thinking, but thankfully Lydia was talking so you didn’t have long to dwell on it.

“Uh, guys?” Lydia pointed out to where the bus was stopped. Scott was standing in front of it, doused in gasoline and holding a flare in his hands. You moved to run over but Stiles caught your wrist. The situation needed a more delicate approach than tackling him.

“There’s no hope,” he said when you all stopped in front of him. He sounded defeated.

“What do you mean, Scott?” Allison asked. “There’s always hope.”

“Not for me,” he said. “Not for Derek.”

“Derek wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt.” It was like Scott couldn’t even hear Allison, so you decided to try to get closer to him. If you could get the flare out of his hand … “People keep getting killed.”

“Scott, listen to me, okay?” Stiles begged. He was taking steps closer right with you. “This isn’t you, alright? There is someone inside your head telling you to do this. Okay? Now-”

“What if it isn’t?” Scott asked. “What if it’s just me? What if doing this is actually the best thing I could do for everyone else?”

“It’s not,” you promised. Talking was enough of a distraction that he let you step into his gasoline puddle.

“It all started that night. The night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that?” Scott had turned to Stiles now. “You and me, we were- we were nothing. We weren’t popular. We weren’t good at lacrosse. We weren’t important. We were no one … Maybe I should just be no one again. No one at all.”

“Scott, just listen to me, okay?” Stiles repeated. “You’re not no one, okay? You’re someone, you’re- Scott, you’re my best friend. Okay? And I need you. Scott, you’re my brother. Alright, so …” He stepped into the puddle of gasoline. “So if you’re gonna do this, then …” He put his hand around the flare. “I think you’re just gonna have to take me with you. Alright?”

“What he said,” you smiled gently. “I love you, Scott. And I’m not letting you do this by yourself.”

Scott was crying, and you grabbed the flare out of his hand as he collapsed onto Stiles. You threw the flare to Allison, but she was distracted and fumbled. You heard it clatter to the ground and then Lydia screaming. The next thing you knew, Lydia and Allison had knocked the three of you down and the gasoline went up in flames.

And from those flames emerged one of the most horrifying things you’d ever seen: the Darach.

---

You knocked on Isaac and Boyd’s door and started talking as soon as they answered. “There is no way that I’m sleeping in this crappy motel,” you told them. “The rest of us are sleeping on the bus, you in?”

The agreed and you walked them to the bus. Things were still tense because half of you were dealing with almost killing yourselves, and the other half was dealing with trying to stop it, but they were better. You’d changed shoes and Scott was washing the gasoline off in the shower. Isaac and Boyd slumped into adjacent bus benches and you saw Lydia and Allison were already snuggled up under a jacket and asleep. You sighed and sat down, waiting for Scott to come back.

“You don’t look too comfortable,” Stiles said, hopping over the seat in front of you and to get to the window seat on your bench.

“Mmm. Waiting up for Scott,” you mumbled. “How long does it take to get gasoline out of your hair?”

“Uh, in my experience it’s easier to just shave it off. Not a real hit with the ladies but effective.” You laughed and leaned into him. He was warm.

“That why you grew it out? Hoping to get more attention from the girls?”

“Nah.” He gently moved some hair that had fallen over your face when you moved under his arm. “Just the attention from one.”

“And how's that working out for you?” You were playing with the drawstrings of his hoodie.

“Not as well as I hoped, but I’m hanging in there.”

You must have fallen asleep in Stiles’ arms, because you woke up with the two of you covered by Scott’s jacket and Coach yelling. Scott had been asleep on the bench in front of you.

“I don’t want to know,” Coach told you all. “I really don’t want to know. But in case you missed the announcement: The meet’s canceled, so we’re going home. Pack it in!”

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles slow burn #stiles stilinksi imagine #mccall!reader #teen wolf #teen wolf au #teen wolf rewrite #so close

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gusticeleague · 8 years ago

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With the third season of Rick and Morty on the horizon, and since I don’t think anyone’s done this before, I decided to give my ranking of all the Rick and Morty episodes (from the first two seasons).

My metrics for judgement are as follows: I’m attempting to judge the show purely on its own merits, which each episode being held to the question “is this the show at it’s best?”, which to my mind is a character-driven high concept sci-fi show that actively critiques but never outright condemns the humanist philosophies behind its chosen genre.

I’ve tried to avoid using other shows as a comparison unless it’s to illustrate a point, but in some cases it’s pretty unavoidable when this show unapologetically rips off its plots from movies wholesale. Episodes get more points for good story structure that adds to a good moral, strong critique or parody of an established science fiction trope that is otherwise well explored and strong character development that builds across episodes and firmly establishes a continuity. And when in doubt, it mostly comes down to “which would I rather rewatch if I only had those two competing episodes to choose from?”.

All clear? Alright, without further ado…

The Definitive Objective Extra-Schwifty Ranking of every Rick and Morty Episode

1. Rixty Minutes (S1E8)

Well, what else was it going to be?

What begins as an epilogue to Rick Potion #9 ends up becoming the central thesis for the entire show up to that point, that while the character’s existence isn’t significant on the cosmic scale and Summer’s birth basically creating the entire family was an accident of fate, sometimes seeing things from that perspective makes you realise how miraculous it is that you are here now, and instead of wrestling with your own insignificance and the possibility of “what could have been”, you accept and embrace the life that you have now, for all its faults. That those revelations are paired with the interdimensional TV both builds the tension for how the conflict happening outside of is progressing and relieves it by providing a reprieve from the revelations that happen from it. This episode is the show at its best, and probably one of the best episodes of television period.

2. Meeseeks and Destroy (S1E5)

One of the smartest writing decisions in the show is that it doesn’t do the old domestic magic/sci-fi show trope of having the main character’s adventures kept a secret from the rest of the family or having a convenient reset button at the end of each episode. Instead, it aims to explore the emotional consequences of interacting with Rick’s world, and Meeseeks and Destroy marks a turning point in the show where all of these adventures start to actually matter to the show’s continuity and to the character’s growth. This is actually my personal favourite episode, but I think it’s just shy of being the best for two reasons: the A-plot relies on a reversal of the normal story structure, with Morty leading the adventure instead of Rick so it’s not the most “typical” of the show overall, and the two plots don’t come together as fluidly as they do in Rixty. Still, it’s a very close call.

3. Auto-Erotic Assimilation (S2E3)

Beyond a few references at Beth’s mother and a few (potentially false) memories, we never really get to see how Rick operates in a romantic relationship. So it’s interesting to see Rick at his most vulnerable and with someone he actually has actually has some love for in Unity, the one-who-is-a-million that got away. An emotionally raw story about two people who are good together but aren’t good for each other, paralleled with a B-plot of Summer and Morty learning that given total freedom, humans (well, blue alien people) will undoubtedly give in to their worst impulses. Also, man, that ending is one of the most gut-wrenchingly depressing endings to a show I’ve ever seen, and it lands perfectly. Maybe a little too perfectly.

4. Morty-Night Run (S2E2)

Probably the show’s best straight-forward adventure episode, which helps set up the Galactic Federation conflict that will eventually pay off at the end of Season 2 and is probably the best demonstration of Morty attempting to apply idealistic Earth morality to a more morally complicated universe to which Rick is perfectly adapted. A plethora of memorable characters like Krombopulous Michael and Jemaine Clement’s crooning sentient gas cloud, some excellent psychedelic animation and art direction, and a consistently funny B-plot of Jerry’s time in a daycare full of alternate versions of himself and confronting just how pathetic he is make this episode a real winner.

5. The Ricks Must Be Crazy (S2E6)

This is the best of what I like to call the “nesting doll” episodes of the show, where the adventure is a continuous descent or ascent through several layers of the sci-fi trope of the week. The first two thirds of the episode are a great slow boil before the “oh, shit” moment of the Mini-Verse scientist killing himself, and the final race out of the teeny/mini/microverses, intercut with Summer in Rick’s car is one of the most expertly paced sequences in the entire show. It’s also the only episode that gives Rick a compelling nemesis in the form of Zeep Zanthorp - a being he unintentionally created who is smart enough to challenge him, which annoys Rick to no end. I really hope they bring him back, since Rick is pretty short on compelling enemies (besides the Council of Ricks). Fingers crossed for some car trouble in Season 3.

6. Close Encounters of the Rick Kind (S1E10)

The idea of Rick being the only person(s) able to challenge him could have served to make Rick a little too smug and perfect for his own good, but the Council of Ricks serve as the perfect synthesis and literalisation of Rick’s self-loathing and his detest for sprawling authoritarian institutional bodies. Every alternate timeline/universe/dimension (do they ever settle on one definition? They’re all used fairly interchangeably) strike a perfect balance between absurdist weirdness and incredibly internal consistency, and every rewatch makes you pick up on new details you didn’t notice before. And look, I’m not made of stone, Jerry and Doofus Rick’s friendship is actually quite sweet, and I hope they get reunited someday.

7. Look Who’s Purging Now (S2E9)

The main character throughline of Season 2 is seeing how Rick and Morty start to rub off on each other over the course of their adventures. This comes to a head in this episode as we see how willing Morty is to emulate Rick in his amorality when he goes “full Purge” and how Rick is taken aback by what his grandson could become following in his footsteps while also confronting the limits of his joy/apathy of the bloodshed that ensues from his adventures. It also has the sharpest piece of social satire the show has ever done, where after the newly freed aliens try to rebuild society after the overthrow of their aristocratic overlords devolve into arguing over the division of labour and wind up reinstating the Purge again anyway from the frustration of having to create a functioning society again. Defeatist? Maybe. Hilarious? Absolutely.

8. Rick Potion #9 (S1E6)

Probably the episode that’s most important to the overall canon of the show. It sets the tone for the adventures to follow, gives a true point of no return for the show as a whole, as well as a great deconstruction of status-quo beholden storytelling and the creepy ethics of love potion plots. Had this just been a ranking of season one episodes, it would probably rank higher, but as you can probably tell by this list, the show has definitely topped this one since. I also want to point out just how incredible the show’s art direction and character creation is when it comes to all the varying designs of the Cronenbergs. I really hope the animators got a raise after this episode.

9. Total Rickall (S2E4)

The Thing through the lens of a Community clip show turns into a paranoid existential thriller that escalates perfectly, has an excellent twist that probably ended up ruining a load of friendships in real life and revealed a ton about how the Smith family operates and sees each other. It does test the limit for how many wacky characters you’re willing to put up with, and it can’t really escape the insular insubstantial feeling of bottle episodes as a whole, especially if you buy into the theory that this episode and Morty-Night Run take place in another universe and so it doesn’t really matter to the show’s continuity as a whole. But it give us Mr. Poopy Butthole, so I’m willing to forgive it.

10. Big Trouble in Little Sanchez (S2E7)

This is a tough one to rank, because it has the greatest disparity of quality between the A plot and B plot. Beth and Jerry’s “mythologue” oriented marriage counselling is such a perfect science-fiction idea of making a metaphorical conflict real that it probably had enough to be the plot of the whole episode. Unfortunately, it’s paired with a B plot that tries to do the same thing with Tiny Rick. He’s funny as a visual, but the episode has to go to some lengths to inject tension into the proceedings. Why can’t Rick just stay in his young body forever other than some convoluted explanation about how teenagers push all their bad feelings into the back of their minds and therefore Old Rick will be erased (I think?). I felt it could have used an additional conflict where Rick loses some of his scientific brilliance because of his young brain overwriting his old one, or maybe a better acknowledgement that Summer was the one that pushed Rick into a self-described hackneyed high school plot that even he found too simple a pitch. Still, it cracks the top ten on the strength of the Beth and Jerry plot alone, which I plan to go into more depth about later, so stay tuned.

11. Anatomy Park (S1E3)

There are three inevitabilities in this world: death, taxes and sci-fi shows doing a Fantastic Voyage plot. Rick and Morty’s take is to fuse it with Jurassic Park and also have it be the show’s Christmas episode, which gives us a story which is never dull and has a lot of great jokes (“Oh, never mind, I was thinking of the T. rex”) but doesn’t come together in any interesting way other than the blood raining at the end, which also raises the question of whether the show was planning at this point to keep Rick and Morty’s adventures a secret from the rest of the Smiths. Also, I’m of the mind that Christmas episodes tend to work better when they’re placed later in the show’s run, as all the familial conflicts can play out better when you’ve had more time to get to know the characters and how they became the way they are It’s good, Maybe could have been better had it aired later in the show’s run and the writers had a better idea of what the show’s status quo was.

12. Raising Gazorpazorp (S1E7)

Having an adolescent raise a baby warmonger alien is some great application of science fiction to the mundane, and Morty’s relationship to Morty Jr. yields some touching moments. Tthe gender politics of planet Gazorpazorp feel a bit rote and stereotypical and an excuse to make a lot of obvious “battle of the sexes” jokes, and raises a lot of gripes I have regarding how mainstream science fiction comedy approaches and incorporates women and the feminine into its worlds, even if it does a little bit of softball criticism by drawing attention to Rick’s casual misogyny. Good, but could have been better.

13. The Wedding Squanchers (S2E10)

A great finale that pays off the long-brewing confrontation between Rick and the Galactic Federation, and sets up a lot of interesting developments for Season 3. But as a result of that, it kind of feels a little incomplete in a way that the first season finale didn’t because they knew they were getting renewed.

14. A Rickle In Time (S2E1)

I loved the multiple timeline split-screen bits and Rick explaining at length about how he doesn’t care about Morty and Summer, which sets up what I believe to be Rick’s arc through Season 2 revealing his softer side. But the Beth and Jerry B-plot is basically just trying to give them something to do, doesn’t really contribute any tension to the situation back home and doesn’t tell us anything new about their relationship.

15. Pilot (S1E1)

As pilots go, Rick and Morty’s one is pretty good. It tells you everything you need to know about the scope of the show, its characters and the type of humour you can expect from it. The “Rick and Morty hundred years!” rant is one of the show’s best moments. But it was clearly still finding its voice, and there’s a bit of weirdness in that you think the show is going to pivot the way having the rest of the Smith family not know about Rick and Morty’s adventures, which they thankfully did away with.

16. Ricksy Business (S1E11)

Despite introducing us to Birdperson and Abradolph Lincler, this episode feels kind of unremarkable in retrospect, and ultimately just feels like they threw in all of the ideas they couldn’t fit into the earlier episodes into this one in case they didn’t get renewed.

17. M. Night Shaym-aliens (S1E4)

The second best of the “nesting doll” episodes. The simulations inside simulations are a great Inception riff, even better than their actual Inception parody (more on that in a second). We really get a good look at Jerry’s insecurity and what drives him as a character, and the first real demonstration of Rick’s cunning and preparedness that also helps lay out the cosmic scope of his reputation. However, I don’t find the Zigerian scammers that funny, despite David Cross’ best efforts as the voice of their leader, and they’re a little too similar to the nudist scammer aliens from the first Futurama movie for my liking - the fact that they’re squeamish about nudity had to be a dig at that, surely?. But the overall set-up is solid and seeing Jerry casually strut through a low-res simulation of his life is pretty hysterical.

18. Lawnmower Dog (S1E2)

The worst (or really, the least good) of the “nesting doll” episodes. The direction the Scary Terry plot goes in is unexpected, clever and genuinely touching, but I don’t find the “dogs take over the world” plot that remarkable in any way, especially in comparison to the rest of the show.

19. Get Schwifty (S2E5)

This episode got a lot of shit when it aired, and it’s easy to see why, seeing that it had to follow a hat-trick of three great episodes. It’s a fairly solid Independence Day/Day The Earth Stood Still parody, but it’s definitely the show’s most lazily conceived plot, not to mention that I’m fairly sure that entire sections of the script appear in the previous episodes. That said, the giant space heads are a great visual (and gave us some great meme fodder), and it sets up the endgame of The Wedding Squanchers by reintroducing us to Birdperson and Tammy, if very inelegantly.

20. Interdimensional Cable II: Tempting Fate (S2E8)

On my first watch of this, I didn’t find this episode that funny, and the only TV bit that really made me laugh out loud was “Man vs Car”. The context for the Interdimensional Cable here, instead of being a distraction from the potential collapse of Beth and Jerry’s marriage is them waiting in a hospital for Jerry to recover from a fatal alien illness, which could be a potentially interesting idea if he hadn’t been immediately cured at the episode’s beginning, which immediately sucks all the tension out of the episode. Where the tension in Rixty Minutes (the episode this is self-plagiarising) lies in whether the Smith family will ultimately be broken up for good, this one ends up hinging on...the fate of Jerry’s penis. It keeps trying to ring some tension out of Jerry wanting to feel significant for having saved the galaxy’s answer to the Dalai Lama, and while I like the ultimate lesson that you can’t make people love you, the journey to get there doesn’t really work as well as it could have. They even make a meta-dig at themselves that they can’t improve on perfection, and at that point you kind of give this episode the ranking it deserves.

21. Something Ricked This Way Comes (S1E9)

At its best, Rick and Morty subverts and deconstructs well-worn science fiction tropes and the plots and lessons that tend to play out when played straight, and works best when it incorporates those proceedings with examinations of the American family dynamic and how we fight the daily battle of finding some kind humanist purpose and meaning in our lives in a universe for which that pursuit is bound to end in failure. While this episode has the best Summer plot and arguably the show’s best joke in the form of the Butter Passing Robot, Ricked is probably the most lazily conceived version of itself possible, picks a lot of very easy targets and ends up feeling very bored with itself as a result. While it aims to be an examination of how science fiction stories have replaced or perhaps better refine the old superstitions and morality lessons that horror stories play off, while actively critiquing how similar the two genres are in execution, the actual plot is basically Rick becoming a mouthpiece for how much the writers hate superstitious thinking and going “haha you brought Stephen King to a Kurt Vonnegut/Stanislaw Lem fight, get riggedy-riggedy-rekt son”. The B-plot of Jerry insisting that Pluto is a planet pokes fun at climate change denialism, and while a great demonstration of how facts and evidence have become summarily rejected in political discourse in favour of dogma and superstition, it doesn’t escalate into anything bigger like the best episodes of the show do. Hell, they can’t even agree on what the moral is at the end, and instead just resolve to literally beat up some political strawmen in lieu of actually finding a cohesive message. While that might be cathartic to some, for a show that isn’t content to give its audience easy answers, it’s punching well below its weight.

#rick and morty #rick sanchez #morty smith

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