Rick and Morty Season 6 Just Did What Marvel’s Loki Never Could

Rick and Morty was one of the pioneer series that brought the concept of the multiverse into the pop-culture mainstream – but now everyone is doing it. In fact, after the milestone success of Avengers: Endgame Marvel has chosen “The Multiverse Saga” to be the big new multi-year story arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel didn’t waste any time getting into the weirdness of the multiverse with the Loki Disney+ series – but Rick and Morty just took that awkwardness to a whole other level! 

Marvel’s Loki series left fans as uncomfortable as it did enamored, thanks to main “will they, won’t they” romantic arc of the series, between Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston) and his female variant, Sylvie Laufeydottir (Sophia Di Martino). Loki and Sylvie had undeniable chemistry (and massive charisma, respectively) – but fans never stopped feeling weird that Loki could essentially end up hooking up with himself. 

Thankfully, Loki Season 1 let us off the hook of resolving that romantic tension, one way or another. However, Rick and Morty wasn’t about to let anyone off the hook that easy! 

WARNING: Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 3 SPOILERS Follow! 

In “Bethic Twinstinct” Beth Smith (Sarah Chalke) takes a page from Loki, falling in love with her own (possible) clone self, “Space Beth,” who chose a life of galactic adventuring as opposed to staying around and living a domesticated existence as a mom and wife. Unlike Loki and Sylvie, though, the makers of Rick and Morty certainly do go there, featuring Beth and Space Beth getting explicitly intimate all throughout the episode. While nothing graphic is shown, the sight of the two Beths making out and the scenes of them making love offscreen are plenty disturbing enough. Even if the audience is into it, the show has scenes of Summer (Spencer Grammer) and Morty (Justin Roiland) clearly getting traumatized by seeing their mom get it on with herself. 

Marvel’s MCU franchise often gets criticized for largely being asexual in tone. While the early MCU movies always came with the formula of a love interest for the hero, those romances were all either unrequited (Captain America: The First Avenger, The Incredible Hulk, Thor) or the actual intimacy between characters was downplayed (Iron Man). Even as the franchise has gotten bolder in its stylistic choices, Marvel hasn’t really been about bringing the heat – even in a film like Eternals, which had an actual sex scene. 

So while Marvel may be able to dip a toe into the twisted questions of our alternate selves, but only Rick and Morty is truly going to get raw with the answers. 

WATCH: Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 4 Trailer

Rick and Morty Season 6 is airing new episodes Sundays on Adult Swim.