‘Rick and Morty’ Brings Back Beth’s Other, Other Love Interest After A 10-Year Hiatus

Following the untimely demise of, or deadbeat abandonment by Jerry Smith, Beth will always remarry with the same man — but Morty will never have another Dad.

In the early seasons of Rick and Morty, the marriage between Beth and Jerry was a constant source of tension and B-stories as the two very different parents who were stuck together by a surprise pregnancy constantly questioned whether or not they are really soulmates. Despite the fact that Jerry and Beth have found each other in a near-infinite number of dimensions and created countless Mortys for countless Ricks to take as sidekicks, Beth’s cold stubbornness constantly bristled against Jerry’s pathetic softness, and the couple even briefly separated for Season Three.

As the Season Two episode “Mortynight Run” established, when a Beth calls it quits with her Jerry, she finds love again in her kindhearted second husband Paul Fleishman. In tonight’s new episode of Rick and Morty, “Nomortland,” Paul returns to the canon as the new patriarch of Jerry “Mooch” Smith’s old family, possibly suggesting that Space Beth is more of an extramarital affair-type fling rather than a leave-your-husband lover.

In “Mortynight Run,” Paul, voiced by series mainstay Ryan Ridley, introduced himself to our Jerry — or, at least, our Jerry at the time — at the Jerryboree, the daycare where Ricks dump their Jerrys when they have nowhere else to put him for various reasons, most of which are listed on the intake form. This marked the first time when Jerry found himself in a room full of himself, having been absent from the adventures that involved alternate dimensional versions of the Smith-Sanchez family thus far.

There, Jerry meets Paul, who introduces himself by saying, “Infinite timelines, some of them, Beth remarries. But don’t worry, I treat Beth very well, and I do not overstep my bounds with Morty. Every kid needs a dad, but there’s no replacing you!”

Then, nearly a full decade later, Paul returned in tonight’s “Nomortland,” bringing that same deferential good-nature to his role as the new head of Mooch Jerry’s family, whom Mooch had abandoned long before the events of the episode after feeling unappreciated and unloved for too long. And, when Stubble Dimension Paul lays his eyes on his wife’s ex-husband and his clean-shaven doppelganger, he welcomes Mooch and our Jerry (henceforth to be known as “Eagleman”) back into the home with jovial excitement.

Apparently, in any dimension where Jerry leaves his family for good, whether through abandonment or (probably Rick-related) death, Beth decides that the best replacement isn’t some polar-opposite of her first husband, or even a husband who could be as cold, ruthless and self-interested as herself. Instead, she runs into the arms of the nicest, most understanding and most Jewish man in the Rick and Morty universe, who we can’t help but believe is a better husband and father-figure than any Jerry has ever been.

Every kid needs a dad, but maybe Morty is better off with Paul.