This Unnamed Girl is Morty's girlfriend in The Vat of Acid Episode.
Biography[]
Little is known about her, as she only appears in a single episode: for 4 minutes of a montage with no dialogue, and a brief return near the end. She is a bookish only child of late middle-aged parents. Meeting outside a coffee shop, she and Morty quickly started a relationship after the latter created a save point before making his move on her. Because the relationship went smoothly at first, Morty had no reason to return to his saved point and thus the two spent a lot of time together. They had their ups and downs and at one point broke up, but soon missed each other and reunited. The two of them were then involved in a plane crash in arctic conditions. Nobody knew where they were, leaving Morty to go out and seek help. After he succeeded in doing so, she was happy to be home with Morty, until Jerry mistook the reset device for a TV remote and accidentally returned him to the point just before they met. Upon seeing her again outside the coffee shop, a bewildered Morty tried to explain everything, but she was back to her pre-Morty state and saw him only as a crazy, babbling stranger. When he touched her cheek she pepper sprayed him and ran away. During the scuffle, Morty fell onto the reset remote and created a new save point of her macing his face, thus ruining his chance at another shot with his former girlfriend.
Later in the episode, her memories of Morty were restored after Rick merged all his alternate dimensions. In the ensuing public outcry she also would have learned of the bad things Morty did in those dimensions, but this did not destroy her feelings for him. When SWAT teams and a mob of protesters descended on Morty's house, she pushed her way to the front of the crowd and saw him jump into the vat of fake acid. Thinking he was really dead, she ran away distraught.
Appearance[]
She is a teenager with a slender build, long dark-brown hair, a medium complexion, a Greek nose, and prominent rose-gold lips. She is taller than Morty, a common trait among his love interests. She wears glasses; a black choker; a form-fitting, teal thumb-hole shirt with a dark-teal design on its sleeves and a light-teal circle on the chest; a striped reddish-brown skirt; and tan coloured flats. She also sports an olive-green shoulder bag.
Personality[]
She is caring and for the most part was quite happy with Morty.
Apparently she was a loner before being charmed by Morty at the coffee shop. She enjoys reading in her room, has no visible friends and, as we later learn, packs pepper spray for protection. At the restaurant waiting for Morty to meet her parents she looked nervous and distracted, then confidently introduced him when he arrived. From the start Morty brought out an extrovert and even assertive side to her otherwise mild nature.
She has a sense of humor. At least Morty made her laugh, and apparently so did Beth.
She appears interested in astronomical subjects. Her bedroom is decorated with a hanging display of the solar system and posters of outer space; a string of Christmas lights along the ceiling is arranged to give the impression of stars. She also has a planetary image on her phone. During their separation, Morty wins her back by surprising her with tickets for a trip to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), an atmospheric phenomenon she seems eager to experience.
On a more earthly level, the vinyl LPs and guitar picture on her wall suggest she likes classic/indie rock music. She later keeps a photo of Morty (striking a "sexy" pose) on her nightstand.
She is physically strong when she needs to be. During the plane crash she saves Morty's life literally single-handed, and survives the brutal aftermath. She has no problem defending herself, a fact that gets burned into Morty's memory. And when a fireman tries to block her way, she shoves him aside to get her last glimpse of Morty before he "dies".
Relationships[]
Morty was probably her first love, suggested by her initial giddy excitement over him. She got along easily with his family, laughing with them at the dinner table over something funny Beth said, although Rick does not appear to look at her.
She had a healthy, positive influence on Morty. Their love caused him to lose interest in the reset remote and let the relationship develop naturally, through good times and bad. Ironically, this had sad consequences for them both.
Episode appearances[]
| Episodes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | |||||||||||
| Season 2 | |||||||||||
| Season 3 | |||||||||||
| Season 4 | ✔ | ||||||||||
| Season 5 | |||||||||||
| Season 6 | |||||||||||
| Season 7 |
Trivia[]
- She is unofficially known as Carrie or Carey, because episode director Jacob Hair designed her as "a teen version" of his fiancée (later wife) Carrie Armellino. But this is behind-the-scenes lore. She is not named in the episode and fans more commonly refer to her as "The Vat of Acid Girl".
- According to series co-creator Dan Harmon, the love story of Morty and the girl (including the plane crash) was not in the script. It was devised by director Jacob Hair as filler when the scripted material ran 5 minutes short of a full episode. Hair drew on his romantic experiences at the time and on the 1974 air disaster book Alive, which he read (and said he may have been "traumatized" by) in middle school.
- The wordless montage of the relationship is reminiscent (but not a parody) of the "Married Life" sequence in Up (2009). In both stories the male protagonist gets plane tickets for a surprise romantic trip that is cruelly thwarted by fate.
- In Volume 2 of The Art of Rick and Morty (published in 2021), author Jeremy Gilfor gives the girl's name as Carey. Gilfor worked with Albro Lundy as a writer's assistant on The Vat of Acid Episode. There may be an in-joke with the nomenclature. Carey is an Irish given name, equivalent to Carrie in English; director Jacob Hair is of Irish descent. Hair's wife Carrie Armellino, on whom he modeled Morty's girlfriend, is of Italian descent.
- She was the third official girlfriend of Morty.
- As she was in another dimension, she clearly has a counterpart in Morty’s home dimension.
- Although she visibly speaks in some scenes, including saying Morty's name four times, her voice is never heard.
- Morty was checking out a porn shop when he first spotted the girl and created a save point. The porn shop is kitty-corner from the coffee shop. This detail becomes important in the girl's perception of Morty after he is accidentally returned to that saved point.
- Despite pepper spraying him, she appears when Morty is about to jump in the vat of acid, hinting that after remembering everything he did, she was willing to forgive him before watching him die.
- The circle on her shirt is open to interpretation. It is a universal symbol for many things, including the cosmos, togetherness, and the cyclical nature of life. She seems intelligent and likes reading hefty books, so she may know and value the circle's symbolism enough to wear it over her heart.
- The girl's parents were modeled after the parents of director Jacob Hair, John and Susan. Hair revealed this in a 09/20/20 Instagram post celebrating the episode's Emmy win, along with his storyboard sketch of Morty meeting them for dinner. He also identified the girl as "a teen version" of his fiancée, Carrie Armellino. They married in November 2020.
- The girl and Morty have a scene in her bedroom: she is reading a book at her desk, he is sitting on her bed, looking bored while playing a video game. The intimate setting underscores how the honeymoon phase of their relationship has ended, which means they have been seeing each other at least 3 to 6 months. After a short split they rebond, only to have their love put to an extreme test. In their final moments as a couple, sitting on the sofa in the Smith living room, their body language clearly shows they have moved into the attachment phase.
- Beth probably bought the Northern Lights vacation for Morty, because she liked the girl and felt she was good for him. She would feel the opposite about Morty's next girlfriend in the series, Planetina.
- As the stricken plane breaks in half, the girl's main survival instinct is to keep her glasses from flying off her face. Morty tries to retrieve his airborne backpack (with the reset remote inside), but the girl uses her free hand to yank him back into his seat, thus saving his life. Meanwhile, the woman seated behind them prays desperately, and continues to pray even as she is sucked out of the aircraft to her doom.
- Although the snowy, mountainous location of the plane crash is not identified, the girl's and Morty's destination was most likely Fairbanks, Alaska, considered the best place in the United States to view the Northern Lights.
- The plane crash survivors resort to cannibalizing the dead to stay alive (except for the girl, who spits out her only taste in revulsion). This is alluded to in the next episode, Childrick of Mort (S04E09). When Summer and Morty are lost in the forest, she tells him, "If I die, don't eat my ass. That'd be weird".
- When the girl visits Morty in the hospital, her left arm is bandaged and in a sling, even though she was using it normally after the crash (hugging Morty, helping him on with his snow jacket). We do not see what she experienced after he went alone for help, but she was evidently injured during that time.
- It is unclear if the two adult plane crash survivors (one man and one woman) were rescued or not. The local TV news story about Morty and the girl's homecoming would naturally focus on them since they were from the same area; the others could have returned home elsewhere, such as out of state. Conversely, in the real-life tragedy recounted in the book Alive - the 1972 Andes flight disaster, on which this part of the story is based - several people who survived the crash subsequently perished in an avalanche. Such an occurrence could conceivably have befallen Morty's companions off-screen after his departure, from which only his girlfriend escaped with her life. (An overview shot of the crash site does show the wreckage at the foot of a snow-covered slope). We never learn the fates of the adults either way.
- If the timeline is consistent with the historical events, Morty and the girl's plane crash ordeal lasted 72 days.
- A theme of self-destruction runs through the episode and punctuates the girl's story arc with Morty. When they are lost in the mountains following the plane crash, Morty tries to stab himself; her reaction - first anger, then grief - gives him renewed hope in their love and even sets him on hero mode. After losing the relationship through a couple of mishaps with the reset remote, a depressed Morty uses the device to repeatedly throw himself into a zoo's gorilla enclosure. The girl finally sees Morty's "suicide" in the vat of fake acid.
- Jerry, who for all his faults is not an evil character, gets particular dislike from fans for his clueless blunder that "reset" Morty's history with his girlfriend. Other fans cut him some slack and blame Morty for not creating new save points as the relationship progressed, and for leaving the reset remote within Jerry's unthinking reach.
- It is shown later by Rick that every timeline Morty was reset to, which includes the plane crash and recovery, still happened in an alternate timeline, but Morty was disintegrated the moment Jerry used the reset remote on him.
- This and the other timelines Morty was reset to was combined so Morty could "pay for his crimes". This may explain why Morty's girlfriend was so distressed by his death even after her pepper spraying him.
- It is shown later by Rick that every timeline Morty was reset to, which includes the plane crash and recovery, still happened in an alternate timeline, but Morty was disintegrated the moment Jerry used the reset remote on him.
- Morty's attempt to reconnect with his girlfriend was doomed from the start. When he realizes he was returned to the saved point at the adult bookstore, he screams in astonishment. This catches the girl's attention off-camera, which then pans left to reveal her staring at him uneasily. Thus her new "first impression" of Morty is not of a courteous young gentleman opening the coffee house door for her, as before, but of some little weirdo yelling at nobody outside a sleazy porn shop. She is immediately alarmed when he approaches her to see if she still knows him (which she doesn't). In his state of mind Morty would have needed several "do-overs" to calm down and maybe think through the situation, a tall order for an impulsive and not overly bright 14-year-old kid. But the unfortunate end of this encounter eliminated those chances.
- Morty and the girl could never have truly started over from square one. In the "reset" reality the girl would just be getting to know him, while Morty was flabbergasted that their entire history together had seemingly been erased (except from his mind). To avoid losing her again he might have tried playing along with her innocence, but being Morty he would inevitably slip up with his memories and the girl would start to wonder how he knew so much about her already. Thus Morty would either have to continue the charade using the reset remote for damage control, or break down and try to explain to the girl about the device and their "past" love. Neither of which would have boded well for a relationship redo. The romance worked in the first place because they grew as a couple through normal and honest sentiments shared over real time, without ulterior motives or scientific gadgets. Having already experienced this with the girl only to see it all vanish, Morty would not be able to recapture that sense of happy discovery for himself.
- Throwing himself to the gorillas apparently had a purgative effect on Morty's heartbreak over the girl. He decides he is done with the reset remote and returns to Rick, believing he had learned a lesson about consequences. Morty tells Rick that he "had fun" and "sowed those wild oats", but says nothing about his lost love.
- Rick never acknowledges Morty's girlfriend. When she meets the Smith family, he is more focused on his drink and on Beth; and he is conspicuously absent from the welcome home party after her and Morty's rescue. Having observed her with his grandson in person, Rick would have deduced she was the reason Morty's save point activity stopped, but apparently he shrugged off the relationship as just a delay in his calculated revenge scheme against Morty. (A delay Jerry wound up resolving for him anyway). When Morty returns to the garage, Rick does not mention the girl because he would have seen the remote clips of her pepper spraying him, confirming it was over between them.
- When the girl's memories of Morty were restored, they would have included her pepper spraying him several times (due to Morty repeatedly resetting the save point remote). It is not explained how she would have reconciled this with the original "meet cute" memory of their first encounter, unless she decided to believe whatever Morty was trying to tell her before she maced him down.
- Rick's merging of the realities left the girl and Morty with no viable future together in that dimension, since Morty now had to "pay the piper" for his earlier misdeeds. His only options were prison, "suicide by cop", or covert escape by faking his death in the vat (Rick's devious plan for him all along). Seeing Morty do the last and believing it was real was very upsetting for the girl, but at least it would have offered her closure.
- Morty is confronted with the consequences of his actions, but there was one he remained ignorant of: losing his girlfriend a final time when she remembered him again after the merge. She arrived too late for Morty to see her before he jumped into the vat, so he never knew she had come back to him.
Gallery[]
