Rick Sanchez Creates A Fantasy About Walter White's House

Rick and Morty fans have spotted a startling similarity between Rick’s old house and the home of another television anti-hero: Walter White. And while they can’t agree on the reason this is the case, they do agree that it seems like an intentional Easter egg.

The long-awaited Season 3 premiere of Rick and Morty dropped without warning on April Fool’s Day, and fans are still reeling from the surprise. In the wake of the momentous occasion, Rick and Morty devotees across the internet wasted no time in publicly freaking out about their favorite moments. And since this surprise premiere is the first new piece of Rick and Morty we’ve had since 2015 — not counting the courtroom animation and other shorts — fans have taken it upon themselves to watch the episode over and over, dissecting every moment of it.

Joe4422, a redditor with a particularly keen eye, noticed that in Rick’s flashback sequence, the house he used to live in looks a lot like Walter White’s house from Breaking Bad. (Spoilers ahead.)

Held prisoner by the Galactic Federation and hooked up to a Series 9000 Brainalyzer, Rick eventually agrees to show a Gromflomite interrogator the memory of the day he invented his famous portal gun. After a quick pit stop at McDonald’s to get some McNuggets and discontinued Szechuan sauce, Rick pulls up to what we assume is his old house.

Rick replays the memory of how, while he was trying to figure out the secret to interdimensional travel, his wife Diane and a young Beth died in a portal-related incident. He shows his Gromflomite interrogator the three lines of math that allegedly hold the secret to the portal gun’s functionality. As we know, though, the “secret” is actually a virus, and the entire memory is faked.

This is where the Breaking Bad fan theories come in.

Except for a few small differences, Rick’s house in the fake memory looks an awful lot like Walter White’s house. The color of the siding and trim, the location of the garage, the shapes of the roof, the location and shape of the front windows, the driveway, the gravel instead of grass, and even the trimmed hedges near the front door all match up.

This could be a parallel between the two characters, Rick and Walter, who pursue their egomaniacal goals at the expense of their loved ones’ safety and happiness. To take it a step further, in the Season 3 premiere, Rick ends up getting rid of Jerry, a very Walter White move.

“Rick also says that Jerry had to go because ‘he crossed me,’ similar to what Walt says to Skyler and the police about Hank,” offers redditor photographiraptor.

Others suspect it has more to do with Rick being a jerk.

Redditor Little_Tyrant says the Breaking Bad house is all part of Rick’s joke on the Galactic Federation. Since he’s making up the memory, why not throw some nonsense in to show how much smarter he is than they?

“He’s telling them the story they EXPECT to hear: how a good ol’ genius broke bad and invented interdimensional travel,” writes Little-Tyrant. “The Government wants a one-dimensional, cliche origin story and that is EXACTLY what he gives em. The Breaking Bad house is actually a pretty subtle way to highlight how dimwitted those expectations are.” After all, weren’t they the least bit suspicious when Rick, the smartest mammal in the universe, gave up the information so easily?

Redditor epicmarc thinks the Easter egg was actually poking fun at the audience.

“I think it’s also a little joke towards all the people expecting/clamouring for Rick’s backstory,” they write. By offering a glimpse into Rick’s history and then abruptly pulling out the rug, the show seems to suggest that we’re not ever going to get the satisfaction we’re hoping for.

Whatever the case may be, we know that every little Easter egg in Rick and Morty is almost certainly intentional, so the Breaking Bad connection probably is too. We’re sure to see more in the rest of Season 3, which is expected to come out this summer.