Rick and Morty season 6 episode 4 spoilers follow.
As much as Rick and Morty has historically pushed back against it, fans have long been obsessed with the notion of a "Big Bad", someone who can pose a real threat to Rick's maddening genius.
In the early days, that threat was, more often than not, Rick himself. But with the arrival of Evil Morty, viewers immediately latched onto this evil fan-favourite instead. Eventually, this fixation was rewarded with a squanch Evil Morty storyline at the end of season five where his plans ended up changing the show forever.
And now, in season six, a not-so-new threat has risen in the form of "Weird Rick" who, it turns out, was actually responsible for the death of our Rick's Diane.
But beyond the premiere, we haven't heard a peep from Weird Rick, or Evil Morty for that matter either. Now, that might be just because the writers love to switch things up between canon and stand-alone stories. Or maybe, it's because a new "Evil" member of the Smith family has secretly reared their head, four episodes in,
'Night Family' starts off simply enough. Rick has developed a device that programs your unconscious body to carry out useful tasks and chores while you sleep. All the Smith's soon get involved, learning Spanish and training their abs into the wee hours. But things take a creepy turn when the Somnambulator transforms their lives into an actual nightmare.
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It turns out that the zombie-like 'Night Family' are actually sentient, and they're pissed that no one can be bothered to rinse the dishes. Instead of apologising via Jerry's letters to Night Jerry, Rick goes full-Rick on them and invents plates that can't be smashed, just to prove a point.
This backfires on Rick, of course, and from that point on, the show veers into a heightened version of Severance where the day and night families fight for control over their own bodies. What's interesting here though is that the usual Smith family dynamic hasn't been reflected by whatever weird, raspy shit is going on with the Night Family.
Usually, it's Rick who comes out on top, with Jerry clearly way down on the bottom rung, but when darkness falls, Summer's the one in charge.
Across these past six seasons, Summer's evolved from a fairly typical teenager into someone far more formidable. Just this season alone, we've seen Rick's grand-daughter use Wolverine-style claws in a big alien fight, plus she single-handedly protected Rick and Morty while they were wrapped up in episode two's virtual reality game. Yippee Ki-Yay, indeed.
So yes, Summer is far stronger than she's ever been before, but it's still surprising to see her casually wrest control of the Night Family like she does. And she's not just the leader. Night Summer is also far crueller than the rest, taking joy in the suffering of their daytime counterparts.
This isn't just some throwaway gag either. Multiple times throughout this episode, it's strongly implied that this ruthless Night Summer has always existed inside of our Summer, but it's only because of Rick's device that we're finally seeing her for the first time.
Given that she's always been here in secret, it seems safe to assume that Night Summer, or "Evil Summer" will return at some point, especially now that the show is embracing canon more.
This also sheds some new light on comments made by Spencer Grammer during promo for season five. In a chat with Inverse, the voice actor behind Summer hinted that an evil version of the character could arrive in season six:
"...It was really fun because to be more in control and more like Rick in a lot of ways, which to me feels like a very natural progression for Summer. I can’t wait until she starts messing things up more. Evil Summer is probably the most like Rick she can possibly be. The female people in the family take after Rick a lot, so that’s where her intelligence lies. She’d have to beat out Rick’s mind, in a way?"
Now we're almost halfway through season six, it looks like we've finally had our first glimpse of Evil Summer in action. How she will return in future episodes remains unclear, but we can probably assume various timey-wimey sci-fi shenanigans will be involved.
Does this mean that Evil Morty will be close behind? Quite possibly. When he left this section of the multiverse, it always felt like a return would be possible, and a clash between Evil Morty and Evil Summer seems too good to pass up.
Whatever happens though, this feels like yet another great step forward for Rick and Morty this season. Not only are the writers achieving a better balance between the absurd and the meaningful, they're also centring female characters with far more depth than this show has ever attempted before.
Between Beth's clone romance and Evil Summer's positioning as a new Big Bad, the Smith women are no longer bystanders or bit players in Rick's world. They're very much integral to the story now, which should have always been the case. And that's as clear as day.
Rick and Morty season 4 airs Sundays on Adult Swim in the US, and airs in the UK on E4 and All 4 at 4am every Monday.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
