Is ‘Rick and Morty’s Jerry Going to Have an Affair?

There’s no character on television quite as pathetic as Rick and Morty‘s Jerry Smith. This is a man who is so sad, so much of a loser that a wild dog once stole his unemployment check. But what if this constant joke of a character is setting himself up to be the source of Season 4’s biggest drama? Rick and Morty may be hinting at an upcoming affair between Jerry and one of Summer’s friends, Tricia.

Tricia (Cassie Steele) has always been one of Rick and Morty’s funnier side characters. She was the one who said in Season 3 that she wanted that “penis in the foreskin” kind of love. She’s a bit of a weirdo, and it’s implied that she’s a freak in the sheets. But Tricia hasn’t really been a major part of the series until recently.

The closing bumper of “Promortyus” saw Tricia talking to Summer (Spencer Grammer) about her dad and his new beekeeping hobby. That exchange ended with Tricia’s blunt “Summer, I want to fuck your dad” and Summer firing back with “Oh really?”

Ever since that conversation fans have been joking online about how Jerry (Chris Parnell) is going to get laid. But kidding aside, it’s worth considering. Would Jerry really have an affair with his teenage daughter’s friend?

The first thing to consider is Tricia’s age. Since she’s Summer’s friend it seems reasonable to assume that she’s in Summer’s class. If that’s the case Tricia would likely be somewhere between 17 and 18, and if she’s the latter that would legally make her an adult. Jerry would still be a garbage person if he even considered sleeping with a woman the same age as his child, but he wouldn’t be a criminal.

Also, even if you take Tricia’s sexually charged one-liners as just the ramblings of a horny teenager, she isn’t the most trustworthy person when it comes to fidelity. The B-plot of Season 3’s “The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy” revolved around Summer trying to make her boobs bigger so she could compete with the woman who stole her boyfriend. At this point in the series Summer and Ethan had been dating for a while. Ethan first made his appearance in Season 1’s “Anatomy Park”, implying that the pair had long been an item. And who was the person who went on a tainted camping trip with Ethan? Tricia Lange.

You could argue that Tricia didn’t know that she was doing anything wrong or that she didn’t realize her camping trip with Ethan was romantic. But come on. Tricia seems smart, socially well-versed, and sexually knowledgeable enough to know what she was doing. It would be a huge leap to go from that low-stakes trip with Ethan to potentially breaking up a marriage, but it is possible.

Then there’s Jerry. As helpless as Jerry is, it’s been proven that he’s not romantically hopeless. After he and Beth (Sarah Chalke) separated he was the first to rebound with a hot alien chick with psychic powers. For anyone that’s good, but for Jerry that was great.

We also know that he is capable of cheating. One of the memories in Season 2’s “Total Rickall” saw Jerry having an affair with Beth’s fake husband, Sleepy Gary. Of course the whole thing was an illusion created by alien parasites. But that moment proved some part of Jerry isn’t above infidelity.

All that brings us back to Tricia. Right now Jerry is barely keeping his foothold with his family. His wife and children have gone from borderline hating him as they did during the separation to once again tolerating him, their annoyance most noticeable during “Rattlestar Ricklatica.” He’s back with a wife who’s still uncertain about her place in the universe and who very well may be a clone. And he’s going through whatever existential crisis that causes a person to take up beekeeping. Taking interest in another woman who’s actually interested in him doesn’t seem like the craziest leap in the world. But if Jerry acts on any of Tricia’s advances one thing is for certain: it’s going to ruin his life.

New episodes of Rick and Morty premiere on Adult Swim Sundays at 11:30/10:30c p.m.

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