Episode 22: “Pickle Rick” from Rick and Morty by Jessica Gao with Amy Winters
3/26/2025 | 36m - Latest episode
Well, Dear Listeners, we’re getting gross and into therapy this episode with “Pickle Rick” from Rick and Morty, selected by our very own Amy Winters! We touch on the boring work of mental health, the challenge of being “too smart” for therapy, the Shakespearean nature of Rick and Morty, the power of acceptance, and the opportunity to get it on with an alternative universe version of yourself.
This Episode's Guest
Amy Winters is a writer, editor, and all around storyteller with a BA and MA in English Literature and an MA in American Studies. She spends her days working to advance education across the nation (no small feat!). She is also a self defense expert, so she may be able to kick your butt and then tell a good story about it. Amy is a host on the literary podcast, Finding Good Bones.
Amy's Show Notes
What Amy is reading - Songs of a Lost World - The Cure
What Kate is reading - The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Meet this week’s guest: Amy WintersEpisode Five | Episode 13 | Episode 19
Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon as part of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming, Rick and Morty is an award winning, animated sci-fi sitcom. Episodes run roughly around 22 minutes. It first aired in 2013 and will begin its 9th season in May 2026. The premise is an estranged grandfather who is also a mad scientist comes to live with his daughter and her family, and goes on misadventures with his sweet but somewhat neurotic grandson Morty.
Pickle Rick is the third episode of Season Three, which premiered on August 6, 2017.
Jessica Gao is a writer who has worked season three of Rick and Morty. Her credits include Silicon Valley, Robot Chicken, The Mighty B!, Back at the Barnyard, Star Wars: Detours, and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. She was also the the creator and head writer of the TV series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which was awesome.
Family therapy has roots in the the emergence of the child guidance movement and marriage counseling in the early 20th century in the U.S. and the U.K., but wasn’t formalized until the 1940s - 50s.
Strip malls are defined by multiple stores connected to one another, usually one story high, that share a foot path and parking lots. As of 2024, the U.S. is estimated to have over 68,000.
Justin Roiland was arrested and charged with felony domestic battery and false imprisonment in January 2020 in Orange County, CA. This was in relation to a woman he was dating at the time, and once publicized triggered many others to come out with additional allegations including sexual assault, sexual harrassment, and predatory behavior towards minors. Ew.
Dan Harmon first rose to prominence as the creator, executive producer and showrunner of Community. In January of 2018, amid the 2017 #MeToo discourse, Harmon alluded to his own sexual misconduct, and went on to specifically apologize to Megan Ganz after she publicly named herself as one of his victims. He was her boss on Community and come on to her multiple times, and then made it a really shitty place for her to work when she turned him down. She didn’t forgive him initially, but after he acknowledged his actions and offered a more detailed apology on his podcast Harmontown, she ultimately accepted.
Rick is now voiced by Ian Cardoni and Morty is voiced by Harry Belden
While the concept of Monster of the Week certainly predates this, the first use of the expression was in the 1960s series “The Outer Limits.”
The specific song was Between the Bars by Elliott Smith, if you’re in the mood to feel sadder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5g-91mwiNs
Here is a lovely thread about “Long time roommates” and “very good friends”: https://www.quora.com/Could-a-same-sex-couple-have-realistically-lived-together-posing-as-friends-or-roommates-in-Victorian-or-early-20th-century-England
Episode Seven: “Sonnet 65” by William Shakespeare with Liz Larson: https://www.findinggoodbones.com/episodes/episode-seven-sonnet-65-by-william-shakespeare-with-liz-larson
Learn more about the internalized misogyny Kate is demonstrating in this article in the Journal of Integrated Social Sciences.
It’s either intelligences or just intelligence, but not “intelligencies.”
There is an INSANE amount of Pickle Rick merch, like, holy hell!
ALPHA MALES ARE NOT A THING: https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/z99-099
Did you know that Rube Goldberg is the only person whose name is listed as an adjective in the Merriam Webster dictionary?
Request your own recommendation on a selection of writing picked by Kate and Amy just for you: https://www.findinggoodbones.com/contact
Join Drew Allen and Anne Hurst in supporting the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/FindingGoodBones
