Rick and Morty Season 7 Is Making Gene More Important Than Ever

Rick and Morty Season 7 has made it through its second episode with Adult Swim, and it’s starting to build on a pattern where Gene is becoming even more important than ever! Rick and Morty has kicked off this newest season not with a return to one of the bigger narratives running from the end of the sixth season, but instead more episodic stories showing off more sides of Rick. This includes the characters around him as well as they are starting to get more development, and it surprisingly also means characters you’d never expect being very relevant like Gene. 

Rick and Morty Season 7’s premiere saw Gene being included in Rick’s partying group of friends as the designated driver at first, and then got the party going even further with his surprising ties to Hugh Jackman. And as Gene has grown closer to his neighbor, it’s made clear in Episode 2 that he’s starting to see Rick as more of a friend as well and wanting to be included in more of Rick and Jerry’s life. It’s with this sentiment that he inadvertently ends up saving Rick and Jerry at a very crucial moment.

Rick and Morty: Why Gene Is More Important Than Ever Now

Rick and Morty Season 7 Episode 2, “The Jerrick Trap” has a story that’s actually sparked by Gene. Jerry goes to Rick for help because he believes Gene has taken his rake, and this turns into an argument between Rick and Jerry that ultimately ends up in a fight that sees Rick and Jerry swapping their minds. This all goes as South as you would think as their brains end up being fused together in a wild new way, and they nearly end the episode deciding to fuse even further as “Jerricky.”

Gene appears at the end of the episode to apologize for taking the rake, and admits it’s because he wants his neighbors to be in his life even if it’s over something so small. Jerricky isn’t moved by this, but ends up stepping on the rake and it awakes the “Memory Rick” that Rick had planted within Jerry’s mind in order to help reverse their fusion should it all go wrong. That’s two episodes now where Gene has played a big part, and it might not be the last. 

Would you want to see more Gene in Rick and Morty’s future? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!