Which Beth Is The Clone on ‘Rick and Morty’?

After over two and a half years of fans obsessing over one question, Rick and Morty finally addressed whether or not Beth was a clone. And if you’re still wondering which Beth is the clone, Space Beth or Family Beth, then you’ve entirely missed the point. Beth’s saga was never about questioning her place in the universe. It was about questioning her place in her father’s universe.

Though Beth’s clone ultimatum was first presented in Season 3’s penultimate episode, her true uncertainty can be traced well before that. It can actually be traced back to her long-held parental abandonment issues. “The ABC’s of Beth” positions Beth (Sarah Chalke) on the brink of a mid-life crisis. As she’s going through her divorce with Jerry (Chris Parnell), Beth stumbles upon the dangerous toys and inventions Rick made for her as a child. While she’s trying to right her childhood sins, Beth comes to realize that she is just as smart, capable, and cutthroat as her father. That’s when Rick (Justin Roiland) gives her a choice. She can either stay with her family or Rick can make a perfect clone of her that will stay with her family while the real Beth finds herself in the universe. If she ever chooses to return, that clone would be destroyed and her memories would translate to the original Beth.

Was Beth meant to be as great as her father? Or was she supposed to stay with her family? Those were the lines of thought “The ABCs of Beth” led us to consider.

But true to Beth’s position as Rick’s daughter, what Beth truly wanted from Rick’s offer was far more complicated than that simple line of questioning. In the final moments of Season 4’s “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” it was revealed that the choice whether or not to clone her was actually a challenge from Beth to her father. “For once in my life I want you to decide, Dad,” Beth says in an erased memory. “Do you want me to stay here and be part of your life? Or do you want me to leave?”

There’s more to this challenge than Beth asking her father who he wants her to be. Hell, it’s even more complicated than her asking Rick if he wants her to stay with him. After years of pain from being abandoned by her father, Beth is asking if Rick regrets his choice. In a way she’s giving him a chance to go back in time and possibly rewrite one of the biggest mistakes in his life, leaving his family. Yet instead of making a decision, instead of either acknowledging his comfort with his past choices or assuring his daughter he does want her in his life, Rick takes the coward’s way out. He clones his daughter, mixes up Clone Beth and Real Beth to the point where he can’t tell which is which, and unleashes them both into the world.

Beth asked her father for one thing, to make a choice. And Rick was incapable of even doing that. That’s why it doesn’t matter which Beth is real and which one is a clone. The entire ultimatum revolved around Beth asking her father where she belonged in his universe. By refusing to choose, Rick set a brand new standard for terrible parenting.

That’s why both Beths and the rest of the family don’t care when Rick teases which Beth is which. By virtue of there being two Beths — neither of which who know if they’re Rick’s real daughter — he’s proven to them that he sees them as interchangeable. For once this family sees Rick as the weak, selfish, cowardly man he secretly is, a man so scared to answer a difficult question that he cloned his daughter. So when Space Beth says, “The truth is we have more important shit to do like raise our kids and stamp out the federation, neither of which seem like they want anything to do with you,” she’s not trying to be mean. She’s being honest.

No one in the Smith family cares that there are now two Beths, and you shouldn’t either. Morty (Roiland) and Summer (Spencer Grammer) end the episode thrilled to have two awesome moms, and Jerry ends it trying to unsuccessfully hit on his space ex-wife. Beth’s ultimatum was always a test for Rick. It’s one that he failed spectacularly while losing whatever respect he once had from his family. It looks like those Dr. Wong sessions may be working.

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