‘Rick And Morty’ Season 6, Episode 5 Recap: Destined For Incest

The Rick and Morty writer’s room have had a bit of fixation on incest lately, with a disturbing episode last season where Morty and Summer accidentally make a baby, and more recently, when Beth falls in love with her own clone.

In “Final DeSmithation,” there’s a genuinely funny incest joke running throughout the episode that manages to mine plenty of comedy without being gross about it. The Smith family’s Panda Express trip turns sour after opening their fortune cookies, as Jerry’s fortune doesn’t contain a generic platitude, but an unsettling prediction – that he will have sex with his own mother.

Of course, Jerry is spooked; while the family finds his discomfort hilarious, Jerry fears that the fortune will, somehow, come true – stranger things have happened to the Smith family. While the kids torment their increasingly paranoid father, photo-shopping his mother’s head onto sexy lingerie shoots (the Smiths, it seems, are unnervingly desensitized), Beth warns Jerry not to let his fortune cookie spoil their trip to the zoo.

As Space Beth is about to drive the family to the zoo, Rick steps in to tell the family that his probability detector is sensing something off about Jerry, so he should stay behind while Rick examines him. Rick, it turns out, is lying – he’s actually doing Jerry a favor for once (Rick’s hatred for Jerry has certainly diminished over the last few seasons).

When Rick does aim the probability detector at Jerry, the readings warn that the fortune might actually come true. It’s the start of a Rick and Jerry solo adventure, and the two head back to Panda Express, Rick assuming that somebody with the power to control destiny is trying to get his attention.

After a fun, visually spectacular shootout with the Panda Express employees, who are moonlighting as meth dealers, Rick is directed to the source of the mysterious fortune cookies, a company called “Fortune 500,” which turns out to be one of those massive business conferences where empty-eyed motivational speakers ramble LinkedIn jargon – the only thing that’s missing is some crypto-coin pyramid schemes, and NFTs.

The entrepreneur running the operation is a very on-the-nose Gwyneth Paltrow caricature, named “Jennith Padrow-Chunt” who believes she can manifest her own destiny. And she actually can, as her accurate fortune cookies have the power to alter the very fabric of reality – all of those meaningless fortunes are manufactured to raise the value of the real ones. And those who haven’t yet fulfilled their destiny are not able to die, meaning that Jerry is temporarily immortal – until he does the deed with his mother.

Rick is inspired by the power she holds, and wants to take it for himself; even the smartest man in the universe can’t control destiny. And it turns out, the source of that godlike power is an alien with stomach issues which feeds on chaos and digests it into fate, its poop being the source of all the world’s fortune cookies.

Said alien is attended to by a hillbilly keeper, who deliberately planted disturbing fortunes in the cookies in the hope of attracting a rescuer, so he can release and, umm, marry the creature – a quick one-liner even implies that a rogue fortune sparked the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s not a great plan – you’d think the guy would just print a fortune that would explicitly direct fate in his favor, but it leads to this hilarious situation, where Jennith Padrow-Chunt has brought Jerry’s mom to the factory, so he can fulfill his twisted destiny.

This leads to another creative fight scene, in which Rick’s “Inspector Gadget” props go up against a group of grunts with fortune cookie superpowers, with Rick figuring out a way to use their powers to his advantage. Like the best of Rick and Morty fights, it’s less about the tension, and more about Rick finding increasingly deranged ways to slaughter his foes.

While facing off against Jennith Padrow-Chunt, Rick realizes that the annoying entrepreneur is immortal, with her destiny still unfulfilled. She wants to become the world’s most successful businesswoman, a hilariously dull way to utilize the power of destiny. Rick helps her fulfill her fate in seconds, hacking Goldman-Sachs and buying her out. But Padrow-Chunt isn’t finished – she eats a bunch of random fortune cookies, and is transformed into an Akira-esque mutant.

During the battle, the creature is let loose (and instantly kills its keeper), while a ball of chaos explodes into a vortex, sucking all the cookies in, along with Padrow-Chunt. Rick’s priority is to save the creature with the magical stomach-lining, but Jerry’s fortune becomes disturbingly close to reality, as the vortex pulls off Jerry underwear, and pulls him towards his mother’s lubricated crotch.

Hence, Rick has to choose between saving the power to control fate, or saving Jerry from his terrible, terrible destiny. And Rick actually chooses to save his son-in-law – if that’s not evidence that Rick has developed a healthy amount of empathy, I don’t know what is; the old Rick would have happily replaced Jerry with a variant, after disposing of the old, “tainted” version.

Hence, Jerry is released from the dreadful prediction of the fortune cookie, and Rick has lost an incredible opportunity. As the adventure winds down and the two return home, Jerry calls Rick his friend, which puts Rick into a blinding rage. Turns out, that Rick had eaten a fortune cookie predicting he would make a new friend – he was immortal until Jerry uttered those innocent words. Plus, Jerry wasted the world’s last fortune cookie on a mere thank you note.

Rick’s patience is finally shattered, and he slaps Jerry in the face – Jerry responds not with anger, but by quietly weeping, which seems to genuinely unsettle Rick. He apologies, Jerry accepts, and the two slip back into the house, having grown closer.

It’s a hilarious exchange which pretty much summarizes the dynamic between the two – Jerry might be misguided, annoying and pathetic, but Rick can’t stay mad at someone so dorky. “Final DeSmithation” proved to be another great episode (season 6 hasn’t disappointed yet), taking a break from lore-building to focus on character, and wacky adventures.

Rick and Jerry make a great comedic duo, Jerry still retaining the innocence that Morty lost long ago.

If you enjoyed reading, check out my recap of the previous episode here