Anna Daniels
Of course, Rick could always be lying. Occam’s razor seems to suggest that Rick is, in fact, lying. Rick lies frequently and capriciously, sometimes with the best interests of the universe in mind, but other times just to mess with his family or maintain his own narcissistic cover. (See: the season 3 episode “Morty’s Mind Blowers”, wherein Rick alters his grandson’s memory to erase the moment he mistakenly uses the phrase “taken for granite” instead of “granted.”) If Rick had lied to Jerry about the origins of the cat, that would bring all the previously mentioned rational explanations back into play, but in this instance it just doesn’t seem likely.
To elaborate: Rick is, first and foremost, a toxic narcissist, and that’s putting his psychiatric diagnosis generously. Rick has done all kinds of terrible things, and he’s certainly not above designing a talking cat just to mess with his idiot son-in-law. But if that was the goal, history suggests he wouldn’t have been able to resist a gloating reveal. When Rick finally reunites with Jerry towards the end of the episode, he has to deploy a Schrodinger’s Box to divine the hidden backstory of this mysterious feline. Whatever horrors hid in that cat’s checkered past, they seemed to have an authentic effect on both Rick and Jerry: Jerry doubles over and vomits, while Rick curses his own curiosity.
Written by: Looper
