Jaffe comments that "Beth doesn't want to believe that Rick would purposefully avoid something so important to her."[1] Shepherd writes that "Beth has unresolved abandonment issues, and that mental agony is causing her some serious inner stress that comes out in snarky attacks on everyone around her."[2] Jess Joho of Mashable opines that Beth has a father or Electra complex, saying that the episode "takes Freudian symbolism [...] into the literal" and the choice of a pickle is a "literal phallic symbol".[3] Blumenfeld believes that "the conversation between Beth and her father shows more clearly than ever that they are blood relatives with a seemingly hereditary penchant for self-destructive narcissism" and notes that Jerry's "wet-blanket but well-meaning personality" had a "stabilizing effect" on Beth and the family.[4]