About a third of the way into “Never Ricking Morty,” Rick and Morty kill a man collecting ticket stubs. The dude is jacked, but he deals with sudden explosive decompression about as well as anyone, in that he gets sucked out a hole into space. The instant his head leaves the train, the episode cuts to the same man in front of a VR game at Blips And Chitz. He disconnects from the machine and goes to sit with his family, not entirely sure what’s going on; the woman at the table, who calls him “Dad,” is frustrated when he acts confused, suggesting we’re seeing just a moment in a longer, infinitely more depressing low-key family drama. Then the man starts bleeding at the waist. He screams as the two halves of his body separate, and we cut back to the train to see that the ticket-taker has been bisected, his top half floating in space, his lower half bleeding over the carpet.
Maybe five, six minutes later, after a bunch of other crazy shit happens, we see the ticket taker’s head floating in the void, eyes bulging, and the episode goes back to the Blips And Chitz world, where the top half of his torso is spinning around spraying blood inside the building. A goony alien couple is watching a news report about the incident on TV, and the male of the couple explains that he’s part of a religion that believes their entire universe was created inside the mind of the man who’s spraying blood. The male says he doesn’t have sex so that they can make sure reality holds together; the female says that’s hot; they start to make out, just as the ticket taker’s brain finally fries, and “reality” is destroyed.
So yeah, it’s going to be one of those kinds of episodes. The kind that takes what could’ve been the premise for a full episode, or a novel, or hell, a whole TV series, and uses it as a one-off gag.
It’s the kind of format that almost always works on Rick And Morty; like the most perfect version of a late-night bull session between sci-fi and fantasy geeks who really know their shit and want to make fun of all of it. For most of its running time, “Ricking” gets by entirely on invention, finding increasingly unexpected ways to exploit, mock, and expand on the premise: a literal story device train, where narrative tools become inherent parts of the narrative itself. What starts as something like an anthology episode quickly becomes a daring sci-fi adventure and then Jesus Christ himself shows up. Whether or not something is “canon” or “non-canon” is absolutely a matter of life and death; and for some reason, multiple dudes are super cut and Rick and Morty say “cum gutters” a lot. (I guess it’s a riff on the chiseled abs or something? I’m not googling it to find out, anyway.)
It’s very funny, and it all goes by so fast it’s hard to begrudge much of any of it. Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, and Chris Meloni all do voices (Giamatti plays Story Lord, the evil super-cut mastermind; I think that was Meloni playing Jesus), and everyone seems to be having fun. Like a lot of the show’s strongest episodes, there’s a density and speed to the gags and story twists that feels almost overwhelming at first, but once you get into the rhythm of the thing, it’s thrilling to see how long the show’s writers can keep the energy up. You keep waiting for them to get stuck or for the pacing to drag, or for the episode to settle into a more conventional structure, and it never really does.
The ending is a letdown. I think the idea is that the whole episode is the Story Engine Morty bought, and Rick’s pro-capitalist rant (which even found time for a nod to the realities of Covid-19) is what settles it back into being a regular TV episode, given that TV episodes are made to sell commercials. I’m sure there are other explanations, but just because something can be explained doesn’t necessarily make it good. One of the big dangers of Rick And Morty is always the fact that relentless self-awareness can very easily lead to a script getting its head lodged firmly inside its own ass. “Ricking” attempts to make this flaw into a virtue, but it’s not a perfect dismount, even as funny as the “Rick turns to his faith in Jesus to kill Story Lord’s plot” twist is.
The last couple of minutes are an anti-climax, and even though it’s clearly supposed to be deflating, that didn’t make it more exciting to watch. Part of the tension of a script like this is wondering how in the hell they’re going to tie everything together in the end. If the whole joke is that the meta aspects of the plot are literally the actual plot in and of itself—where do you go with that? How do you provide an unexpected and meaningful conclusion when the whole design of the thing is to constantly push you out of it, to perpetually remind you of its artificiality even as that artificiality is the only thing that’s actually real?
I’ll be honest: the reason this review opens with a two-paragraph summary of a (very good) joke isn’t because I thought I had anything new or insightful to say about it. I just thought it was a solid gag that was indicative of the tone and style of the episode as a whole, and I thought if I spent two paragraphs talking about it, I might figure out how to write the rest of this. Clearly, that faith in my ability to bullshit only partially paid off. I’m not going to just list out all the jokes, because that’s not what a review does; you’d be better served just rewatching the episode if you wanted that. (I plan to, at some point, I had fun with it.)
The problem is, apart from acknowledging the cleverness of the conceit, there’s not a lot here to really discuss. I suppose you could get mileage out of the Bechdel Test joke, where Rick has Morty tell a story about his mother and Summer in order to circumvent the train’s systems; the idea is, Morty’s goofy nonsense about periods and scorpions and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is so out of place on the series (which is generally more male-focused) that it lets them accomplish… something. I dunno, exactly. It’s cute, and a little self-mocking and a bit cheeky, but I’m not convinced it’s much more than that.
That’s my only real criticism of the episode. It’s very, very clever, but that cleverness never gets out of its own way to be more than what it initially appears. There’s no point to this in the end beyond the thought experiment, and while the show never needs to be deep to be good, it’s best episodes at least connect to something more than “stories, huh?” That doesn’t make this bad or unfun, but it’s a trick that gets hollow the longer it goes on. Regardless, this was inventive and unusual, and it’s good to have the show back for the second half of its season.
Stray observations
- Oh hey, it’s One-Eyed Morty! Remember when we thought that was going to be a thing? (By now, I really should’ve accepted that this is never going to be a show that’s all that interested in epic battles between good and evil, but every so often it still tricks me into thinking something is going to matter when it obviously won’t.)
- “I really don’t like the attitude around here. It’s a very ‘lower me into acid’ attitude.”
- “Ladies and gentlemen, the Jackie Chan of Human Shielding.”
- “He gets to spend eternity in every writer’s Hell: The Bible.”
- So Story Lord escapes the Bible by explaining to Jesus how the Christian god is just a mash-up of two older religions. That’s cool. He’s a good villain. Very fit. Can’t wait till he comes back.
- “You did the most important thing. You bought something.” -Rick
173 Comments
That might be the furthest I’ve ever seen a writer get up his own ass. At the very least, Harmon deserves credit for that.
At least it doesn’t feel as exhausted as some of the earlier Season 4 episodes.
If you go back one or two reviews, I made a comment saying that maybe going back to the “simple” stuff after all the criticism of Season 3 was a mistake and Dan Harmon should go back on his meta bullshit.
I get what I fucking deserve, I guess?
I’m as huge a fan of Rick & Morty as anyone, but even clever self awareness has its limits. Literally saying you’re overwritten and stuffy, while being ultra meta, in the episode can only take you so far. There was some real quality stuff here, that will probably be more enjoyable on subsequent watches, but the weight and utter shotgun approach to the byzantine plot left me playing catch up throughout than enjoying it as much as I should.
“That might be the furthest I’ve ever seen a writer get up his own ass.”
Is this yyour first ever Dan Harmon show?
Harmon, it must be said, is perpetually crawling up his own ass. It both helps and hurts him….(as it would.)
There was a brief behind the episode video with Harmon and one of the other writers and they clearly state, “Yeah… that episode got away from us…”
You’ve never seen Community then
I have. Extensively.When Community gets overly meta it’s usually in service to a character (typically but not always Abed) but this was just “Hey. Aren’t stories wacky?”
The Bechdel gag was very good, the part where Rick thinks he’s just some professor who gets suddenly killed by Vietnam PTSD-Morty was solid. This feels like one of those episodes that absolutely kills on repeat viewings for sure.
Honestly, the Bechdel story made me laugh so hard I cried. Actual tears welled up, I laughed so hard.
“I’ve loved you ever since you were mailed to me by a Doctor…woman.”
YES, SUMMER. TRY MY TEA.
The Bechdel gag was funny because it met the text of the test but completely shit on its spirit.
Why is it good to shit on the spirit of the Bechdel test tho
It’s not that so much as highlighting that it’s easy to meet the text of these guidelines while completely missing its spirit. I don’t think it’s mocking Bechdel so much as mocking those who bring it up in writing rooms only to have two 1D women talk about a sandwich for 30 seconds to meet it.
The little pink bows on the scorpions is the lampshade on the joke.
I could be way overthinking this.
Because even Alison Bechdel admits it’s a pretty shit test to determine if something is feminist and a very low bar to clear. Which this episode really demonstrates by showing how a weak a passing story can be.
(While also reinforces has extra sad it is so many TV shows don’t pass.)
It’s not good but funny. They’re cheating on a figurative “test”.
Shut up
It isn’t, but I feel like the joke was more that it was insane to ask “Rick and Morty” to pass it ever. That’s the gag.
Not good, but funny. And it really did not do that so much as this was a story meeting the Bechdel test being told by a 14 year old boy. Of course it was perfunctory and terrible.
I recall that Bechdel herself has said that the bar is ridiculously low and yet so many stories fail it. It’s not supposed to be that hard to meet in the first place.
I think there’s a double joke to that, like it’s a female driven story being told by males so why wouldn’t it sound boring?
This episode is the double decker taco of meta-humor lol
That’s exactly it. They are checking a box they’ve been told to check while shitting on the actual intent of the test.
It’s mocking the storyteller, not the test itself.
More like a turducken. With Mexican quest blanco on the side.
Nah man, the Bechdel Test part was funny because it shit on the annoying parts of Rick and Morty’s fanbase!
Little Column A, Little Column B
They really need to do that more.
That’s not why the gag was funny. It was funny because it elegantly highlighted the reductive nature of the Bechdel Test by demonstrating how easy it is to pass it without actually producing a feminist story. If even an infantile, sarcastic, misogynistic scene can pass the Bechdel Test, it should make people question the actual value of the test. Which I’m pretty sure Alison Bechdel has pointed out herself in the past.
I think the point of the Bechdel test is that it’s a very low bar to clear and still most movies can’t do it. It doesn’t speak to the quality of the work any further.
It did show how crappy male writing for women is in general, even if it passes a very specific test that it had to study hard for.
I liked how stiff and awkward the Bechdel gag was. I also like how they left story-train.com a 404.
The Vietnam bits seemed like a nod to Jacob’s Ladder.
Wasn’t that Rick as ( a different) nutty professor and PTSD Morty gag a take-off on Jacob’s Ladder? I don’t know if I understood Jacob’s Ladder enough to make that comparison, but maybe…?Oh, and once I googled the Bechdel test for a reminder of wtf it is, I was in stitches. Is that good or bad? You decide.
Yeah, this was a clever-for-clever’s-sake episode, which aren’t my favorite. But it’s still damned good to have this show back.
One-eyed Morty is a thing. Just a slow thing. Not gonna overuse him when they don’t have to. Remember, he is leader of the Citadel of Ricks now.
And with both Pringles and Wendy’s commercials before, during and after this episode, Rick’s rant at the end about the goodness of consuming was funneh
This episode reminds me a lot of Community, very much an Abed meta episode…
the post-credits gag was almost entirely the same as the one from Community’s finale, too
And South Park’s Mr Hankey.
So the goal was clearly to tell the most meta, self-aware Rick and Morty story ever, and they succeeded. I loved that the map was Dan Harmon’s story circle. I loved that even though they made that really implicit, Rick’s (and therefore Dan’s) goal was to try to escape the confines of that circle by telling a story that didn’t follow it.
This was a good follow up to the Rattlestar rewatch. Seriously, the snake-episode is one of the best ever. So, eating your own tail became thematic tonight. Breaking the Fifth Wall could have turned into something. I half expected Rick and Morty to crawl out of a television-The Ring style-and run around Adult Swim in live action, killing all the showrunners. I bet that came up in the pitch-meeting. Other Adult Swim shows have already done that, (I know YPFIGTH has done it and I’m pretty sure Aqua Teen went there once too) so I appreciated why they didn’t go in that direction. Once they took the hard swerve into Jesus and Veggie Tales the premise was topping out, but that was fine. B+ feels like a good grade. These tend to improve upon the rewatch when you can pick up more shit, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it slips up to an A- episode after a while. They should retire the “Oh no! We’re stuck in a clip show meta joke,” though. Interdimensional Cable was kind of a tepid episode tbh, “Plumbus” and “Little Bits” excepted, of course.
One season of Robot Chicken (please come back!) ended with Seth Green and that other guy killing their entire staff before being cancelled by adult swim producer Keith Crawford. It’s become a running gag that RC gets cancelled at the end of every season, and renewed at the beginning of a new one.
I remember that! You’re right.
The sequel that was hinted at in Sausage Party suggests something similar.
I thought it was kinda funny how almost all of the clips from the trailer for this season (half season? I guess?) were all just from this one episode, meaning we have almost no idea where they’re gonna go for the rest of it.
holly shit. i guess the meta never really stops.
And disappointing. I was looking forward to Evil Morty, Tammy, Bird Person, etc.
hasn’t anyone told you? linear narratives in harmon shows don’t count after the second season.
They do have about 65 more episodes to go.
a feminist masterpiece.
Okay…a lot of dots just got connected here. Too lazy to look it up but someone mentioned episode 5 of this season being about eating your own tail. If you look back on it, that’s literally what this entire season so far has been (and may continue to be) about. This makes me look back on even the “weaker” episodes of season 4 with new respect and has me curious if the gag will continue, or if they’ll go ahead and embrace the “think outside the circle” mentality they’re lampooning so far this season and really go for broke. I guess I’m saying that I really enjoyed this episode and even if takes them until season 5 to get back to the characters, I admire this season’s attempts at humorously trying to dissect the fanbase. While not my favorite season, the approach works quite well in hindsight.
Whoever designed those Christian cartoon characters clearly grew up in the subculture….that is a level of specificity I’ve never seen on television before. It wasn’t just Bob and Larry, it was also Psalty, McGee, maybe Gerbert….a couple were so obscure I didn’t even recognize them.
The use of Jesus in the scene where Rick and Morty are about to be annihilated by all their enemies was also a literal deus ex machina which is probably one of the oldest and hoariest plot devices in existence. That’s why the Bible is called out as “every writer’s Hell” since it and other tropes within it have been done to death over the last 2,000 years.
Not quite. ‘Deus ex machina’ is a plot device dating back to Greek theater which comfortably predates the Bible or Jesus Christ. I doubt Rick’s reference to the Bible as being ‘every writer’s Hell’ had any particularly deep meaning beyond a sorta funny thing to say.
Maybe not a deep meaning, but the Bible as a narrative is … a mess. The Gospels don’t always line up with one another, tons of years are missing, and if you take it as literal events, it makes no sense so I mean someone like Story Lord who is devoted to story continuity and plot devices is gonna struggle.
Uhhhh… no. The Bible is every writer’s hell for exactly the reasons NDP described. It wasn’t just a non sequitur.
It certainly predates JC but not most parts of the Hebrew Bible. I am not sure anyway if we can say that the Bible uses Deux Ex Machina.
I’m one of those guys who always says “why are they using a white jesus?”
But, in the context of this episode, it’s quite perfect and funny.
Also Denver the Last Dinosaur, apparently.
The inclusion of Denver was so random, but then again, so was the rest of the episode.
Something always bugged me about Denver the Last Dinosaur.In the theme, the song goes “He’s my friend and a whole lot more.”What are they implying?!?
I had to show my wife, who’s younger than me, the opening of that show on YouTube after the episode ended. And then the opening of Dinosaucers just because.
Yep. I went to a church school. I instantly went oh fuck its the VeggieTales. Guess Dan Harmon had to be stuck at one as well.
Harmon would have been a grown-ass adult when VeggieTales came out. I think VeggieTales is like Davey and Goliath in that it managed to crossover from a niche Christian product to mainstream pop culture.
I thought it was fairly obscure but your probably right. Weird stuff like that tends to have a second life on the internet.
There’s this great little webcomic where Larry asks some kids if they want to meet Jesus so he drives off a cliff
I have seen them parodied on other shows, most notably ATHF
I went back and there’s no real Gerbert character in that scene, but holy shit thank YOU for the obscure christian TV reference.
Oh man, I’d forgotten about McGee & Me (and I saw Psalty live as a kid), but you’re right, that’s definitely him.
Or they watch Hannah and Jake a great deal.
I didn’t find this episode very funny, or most of this season for that matter. I’m seeing a mix of “OOh, look how clever I am” and “you’re all dumber than me if you like what I’m ranting about”. It’s like the meta-self-awareness of Community without Abed’s charm and imagination.
I’ve been analyzing this episode too much since I saw it tonight. Right now, I’m convinced it functions as the equivalent of The Beatles’ “Glass Onion”.
Something obscure that you feel smug about not explaining? Cool.
You think a song from, what many critics consider, the greatest album by the biggest music act of the 20th Century is obscure and expect someone to explain it to you on a comment section when you have an entire world of information available to you at the click of a button? They’re not being smug, you’re just being a lazy asshole.
Are you referring to my post or the episode?
Definitely a stream of conscience flow to both
Maybe it’s just me, but them basically spoiling every single possibility of an epic showdown with past villains actually left me awestruck. If those stories are so benigh and tame enough to just throw away like that…what on earth do they possibly have in mind?!?!
I don’t think they’ve spoiled them. Those threads are there for the writers to resume if and when they have something worthwhile to add. But since none of that stuff was planned in advance, it’s probably constraining to feel like they have to work on it out of some unintentional debt to audience expectations.
I say spoiled in a generalized sense, but I did find that this episode was likely a bigger milestone than people have reviewed.
If audience expectations have been subverted, I have to imagine that they’ve already cooked up something that might make Pickle Rick seem tame.
And yes, that’s another audience expectation, but then again this loop is exactly what the episode was making fun of in the first place, lol.
What bothered me is that more than one dog used the same blast in the face to take out his opposing cat. I thought cats were smarter than that.
Keep in mind the original explanation for “Evil Morty” was already figured out and written out in detail by a fan who was paying attention to the clues, and since that theory has kind of taken off, they have acknowledged that was what they were going to do and they have to come up with something else. But I would guess they don’t know what.
Tammy and Phoenix person was supposed to just be a throwaway post clip joke, a “the federation isn’t really destroyed!” kind of thing, but fans thought it was introducing a new villian.
So basically the room filled with monkey and type writers spoiler method of twitter?
That makes sense, that’s why I view this episode as a much bigger deal. The writers have only a handful of episodes left, so they got to make the best of it. Would be better to just humorously undermine their own work so they can have a better slate to work with in the future.
“The writers have only a handful of episodes left” This season.
After that they’ve still got an order for at least 60 more in the future.
I thought it was obvious that I meant this season, since we were all waiting on the same hiatus to be over. And they could order a hundred episodes, doesn’t matter if the show goes stale and cancellations are always a threat. Community made it to 6 seasons, but it sure wasn’t pretty.
harmon has a good quote about how impossible it is to do that kind of ‘mystery’ writing anymore because the internet just figures it all out. westworld season 1 is a great example of that.
What was that explanation? Was it the one about Evil Morty being the original Morty who got too cocky or smart, or some other one I’ve not stumbled upon?
Yes. More specifically, that the reason Rick leaves Beth just before Morty is born, and the reason Rick’s always leave, is that originally Rick actually loved Morty, and nurtured him and encourgaed him, and this lead to Morty becoming evil and murdering his whole family save Rick, so Rick always leaves and comes back when Morty is 14 to him. It also explained that a huge part of Rick’s inner pain and self hatred is that the one time he really loved and cared someone it blew up in the worst way possible, so he is shitty to Morty and people in general partly because of that.
That certainly would recontextualize all the “Rick is sadistic to Morty stuff”
The series finale will doubtlessly involve the game “Downbeat”. This is so when they finally end that game, they can discover the entire series is ending too, as a “downbeat” ending. At that point, they will dig “Story Train” from the closet, if only to escape that way of ending the show.
That circle diagram with the eight parts and “pays a heavy price” — that’s Harmon’s story structure. Although I’ve never bought “pays a heavy price” as a description of what happens in a Harmon story. More often — for example over and over in “Community” — the protagonist gets what they set out to accomplish, but in succeeding they also realize they hurt other people or were acting out of unacceptable motives. So the rest of the episode is about them setting things right, very often giving up what they sought to attain in exchange for something more important. There might be someone who pays a heavy price, but it’s not the protagonist, otherwise the protagonist wouldn’t be facing a tough moral choice.
I only caught the last half of the episode—I have it on DVR so I’m definitely coming back for it!—but did I imagine that the post-credit stinger had a reference to the coronavirus?!? Sure, South Park has shown us that a quick turnaround on an animated show is possible and ADR rerecords are always possible, but it was a bit astonishing regardless. If my entire premise is wrong, I guess this post made me look quite the fool.
Not the stinger, but the final scene before the credits did make explicit reference to the virus, yes.
Was the animation during the “grand finale” segment improved or were my eyes tricking me?
It definitely started out with some CG, I thought that was gonna be part of the joke, where they break the “5th wall” or something and change mediums. It definitely seemed like the animation was stepped up just a bit though, which I also think is part of the joke, that we’re watching a scene from the future of the series, years down the line, where the animation has “improved.” It’s a small detail but it really sells the joke.
I think this episode can be added to the long list of examples of why the Bechdel Test couldn’t matter any less than it already does.
R&M haters are going to have a field day with this episode sadly…
this episode, like the ones that came before is consciously telling the audience“we’re NOT doing evil morty”, “we’re not doing The Citadel of Ricks”“there is not Continuity”, “that’s all reductive teevee bullshit, to give you what you WANT not what you NEED”that’s the Message, if there is one
Sounds to me that the show’s creators now hate it and their fans.
Yep, basically. After how shocked they were from the audience response to Evil Morty this pretty clearly (to me at least) was them putting some storylines to bed that they never had any intention of seeing through to the end. I loved it
This anthology episode was IMHO far more funny than either of the interdimensional able episodes and on a level abovethe anthology episode of Morty’s Mind blowers.The riffing on capitalisms and Christianity definitely seemed shoe-horned in and out of place, but broken down, some of the bits, namely the Bechdel test; the Final stand of three armies; and the ongoing dissection of the hero’s journey were individually good parts.The only thing the other one anthology episode Morty’s Mind Blowers has over this episode is that that older episode moves the story along with the notion of Rick unilaterally wiping the minds of Morty nd Jerry nonchalantly, turning Jerry in to a quivering mess.
Cum gutters!
Literally bringing Harmon’s story circle into the show as a device was pretty nifty. Most of all: I laughed. Good Rick & Morty.
I hate when Rick and Morty hawks Rick and Morty merch I can’t actually buy!!!!
“It’s not a train, it’s a story device. Literally. A literal literary device quite literally metaphorically containing us.”Hey, that’s the tagline to Snowpiercer!
I thought that tagline was “this is like, Willy Wonka but post-apocalyptic”
To me, the funniest line comes (I’ll always now hear “gutters” after that word) when they’re going on about the story wheel/train. Rick’s “You don’t HAVE to do anything” was some 5th wall, or even 6th wall, breaking stuff.
I could be wrong (and often am) but there was something about the tone of this review that felt a bit off, like Zack’s quite depressed or something, going through the motions, commenting on what he saw, but struggling to either be positive or negative, just filling time (and the word count) until he got to the end, which to me at least made it quite a bleak read even though it was a review that I mostly agreed with.
i can see this being a tough episode to find an angle on quickly.
He was probably bummed and burned out by watching that shitty Westworld episode that he also had to review at the same time as this.
Christ I feel bad for anyone who’d have to watch both shows back to back.
Yeah, analyzing and writing both a season finale and a mid-season premiere at the same night at the same time would wear anyone out. That’s why I feel for him.
I’m generally not a fan of Zack’s writing at all but I think this recap/review was perfectly reasonable response to such a befuddling, 22 minutes of television
I woke up from a nap about 5-10 minutes into this episode, and I tell ya, trying to make even a semblance of sense out of what was going on was a whole experience in itself. I’m pretty sure I thought I was still asleep
I’m sure you discovered by now that watching it from the beginning wouldn’t/doesn’t change that at all lol
Eveything involving Ticket Man was hysterical. Just flying in space, slowly dying in all realities. Superb.
“but he deals with sudden explosive decompression about as well as anyone, in that he gets sucked out a hole into space.”
Getting sucked out a hole into space isn’t how he dealt with it. It’s what happened to him.
If a viewer doesn’t get the references then the “show is too clever for its own good.”
The episode is the answer to the question, “Is it possible to get too meta?”And the answer is yes. Was still a fun episode but it was a lot. I guess for me it was missing that extra layer of emotional depth the best R & M episodes have.
The emotional depth’s been lacking in general so far this season. Lots of ironic remove instead (the heist episode felt similar to this in that way, a story about stories rather than a story about the characters). Pickle Rick was great because it had a crazy premise but still managed to say something new about the characters. Here, the story quickly abandons the Rick and Morty trapped on the train, then switches to a weird joke about capitalism in the real world. Seems like a missed opportunity to have a character beat, like having train Rick have to confront his inability to escape his reality, or having real Rick react to seeing this helpless simulation of himself.The show’s still great, but for me it’s been a step down from season 3 so far.
I agree but I think this was a new level of remove and abstraction and randomness that made this episode difficult for me to enjoy. Even the heist episode had a general sense of fun that this one lacked and wasn’t this many levels of meta (while also having the poignant and dark storyline about how Rick was screwing over any possibility of Morty achieving his dreams or even having interests so he’d continue to go on adventures with him)
You did see that when Rick tore off the operation panel sticker. He was angry and horrified. You also saw what real Rick thinks of it in the post-credits. He doesn’t GAF. They’re not alive in any way that matters! They have no souls! PUPPETS OF FATE!
The whole point of the episode was that Rick and Morty is so unstructured and at the same time structured (Dan’s circle) that they could potentially do anything but at the same time their “potential isn’t limitless”. And so the ending plays out in two ways:- The fact that they sometimes do more emotion, comebacks, and broader stories will literally burn them out in the end, when they’re so constricted by the demand of it that they are no longer “free”. This in a way makes the potential limited because the audience will slowly start expecting more and more of the more canon stuff in detriment of their freedom to go wacky.- At the same time, the playing out of these moments in a non-canon way on screen literally frees them from exploring them the rest of the season (“there, it’s done! Moving on…”) as they get them out of the way, and are able to go back to straight adventures like the snake episode. All this makes the trailer for this season more funny as it teased all these clips but at the same time was released in April 1st, and this episode makes the clips both real and a false promise. Well played.
Is it bad that I want to buy the Story Train?
I mean, I went to the website immediately after and was disappointed as hell.
No the whole point of existence is for you to buy something.
Did anybody else notice the Harmon story circle gag? I can’t decide if it was ballsy or the worst thing the show’s ever done. Probably both. Let’s go with both.
I’m of the mind that this didn’t work. It might have if Rick and Morty wasn’t already so at pains to be meta, but like some of the experimentation in latter day Community, it ultimately feels like wheel-spinning where I’d opt for funnier, more cliched stories over ‘bold new takes’ on fiction. For example, yes, I see the point being made in making fun of fans for wanting an ending to the evil Morty plotline…but ultimately they’re the ones who put that plotline in there twice. Similarly, while continuity can be a confine, it’s also often something that allows a show to grow and mature, a concept that Rick and Morty here, and elsewhere, gives the finger to. But what do we get in place of growth and maturity? Meta nonsense? Increasingly stale gore-comedy? A lack of status quo just as bad as many of the shows Community used to make fun of?
Harmon is an interesting writer, but he wears his self destructive tendencies on his sleeve and it leads to this.
Did I miss something? Has Harmon announced that he’s never going to follow up on or return to the Evil Morty character? Has he declared that the show will no longer have any continuity? I mean, Adult Swim ordered like 70 episodes, so he’s got a lot more to go and he’s gotta fill it with something.
No you haven’t missed anything, people just seem to want a continuous story arc constantly to all television at this point, which is dumb.
I agree. This reminded me a lot of on Community when Harmon just got too meta and too up his own ass. And it’s not auspicious that we’re already here in like the 35th episode of Rick and Morty whereas at least Community went through multiple 22-25 episode broadcast TV seasons before it got to this point
Well, precisely two seasons, anyway. (I’m a Community season 3 naysayer, and supposedly “classic” episodes like “Remedial Chaos Theory” and just make me roll my eyes.) The Community episode this reminded me most strongly of, however, was season 5’s “G.I. Jeff”—kind of sort of “about” Jeff being in denial about aging and regressing into childhood, mostly about making fun of G.I. Joe for half an hour and piling on meta bullshit.
The praying as “something they never do” was funny as Rick did just that back at the end of the season 2 premiere when he was stuck alone in the time anomaly and thought that he was going to die there.
There’s a difference, I think, between praying to a generic God and praying to the Christian God. The Jesus-y stuff is a whole extra layer to the cake that Rick believes is a lie.
Are we supposed to believe this is some kind of MAGIC xylophone?
It’s not the worst episode, but it’s a bit hard to get into. Too random, too much meta-stuff and too much ass-pull at the end. It’s not enough to draw attention to the flaws of the show and mock the expectations of the watchers. Those expectations don’t come from nowhere. The best R&M episodes don’t feel like they are making stuff up as they go, they feel like there’s a logic to the escalation and a method to the madness …
I also feel like making fun of the Bechdel Test would be funnier coming from someone else. I like Dan’s work but let’s face it, he is absolutly not in the best position to shit on the spirits of feminism and Alison Bechdel’s test. You can absolutly joke about that… if we know for sure it comes from a good place. Not if you are known for sexually harassing a co-worker.Yes all this “box-ticking” can be a huge drag, but stay humble kiddo.
I’m pretty sure they were making fun of male writers’ terrible attempts at writing women, not at the Bechdel Test itself. I feel that if they did want to make fun of the test then it would have been Rick making up the story, or at least throwing in some snarky comments about how bad Morty’s story was. Instead they had Morty come up with a terrible depiction of women because of his ignorance and lack of understanding of women.The terrible (but funny) depiction of periods, their stilted conversation, and the following line kind of drives home that point to me:“I’ve loved you ever since you were mailed to me by a Doctor…woman.”
They know it’s going to ruffle feathers so they get out their angst in 2 minute bit
Uh, when did they make fun of the Bechdel Test? And why do you think Can Harmon singlehandedly writes and directs this show?
All that those pointed questions achieve is making you look dense, but i will humor you for a second so that the next sexist fanboy can’t play dumb the exact same way.The Bechdel bit? Could totally be interpreted as “feminist criticism is dumb and is dragging storytelling down”. You are gonna say that it’s not but there’s room for it and it’s already sus.
Dan Harmon is credited as co-creator and main writter of the whole show in general and this episode in particular. As such he does gets more responsabilities, more money and more credit. It’s not coming out of left field to mention him.
If you can’t read subtext and can’t handle peope criticizing Harmon just crawl back up his ass, but we don’t all have to join you.
Speaking of missing subtext, the point of the Bechdel joke isn’t that feminism is stupid. It’s that the test doesn’t prevent a hack male writer (like Morty) from writing a story that’s terrible, artificial, and somehow still dominated by puerile male interests (like guns). It’s punching up at those male writers, not down at women who want more representation in film and television.
Other than being a co-creator, though, this episode is credited to neither Roiland nor Harmon. The credited writer is Jeff Loveness with the staff writers included (which does not include Harmon or Roiland). The criticism that this is a “Harmon” episode seems to come from the assumption of things Harmon likes. The last episode to be credited to Dan Harmon was The Rickchurian Mortydate.The Bechdel joke didn’t really touch on feminist criticism. It focused on a teenaged boy trying to tell a story about women – something we’re shown repeatedly Morty does not understand.
I thought the joke was that Morty came up with a story that technically met the minimal standards of passing the Bechdel test but was a) terrible and b) wasn’t actually feminist in any way
A fair reading of it. Whichever way you slice it, it didn’t to me feel like they were making fun of the Bechdel Test as a thing nor was it saying that the world is incapable of telling complex female stories — Morty was incapable of it.
I figured that they got told to pasa the Bechdel test and would do so in a way that demonstrates that having that super low bar accounted for doesn’t make something a feminist masterpiece.
You’re REALLY dumb. No one cares what you think about anything
It could just be demonstrating that something can pass the Bechdel test and completely miss the point of it. As mentioned above and below it’s Morty telling the story, so he’d be capable of passing the test, but missing its point.
The Bechdel bit was showing both how it was legitimate in how poorly written for women most male written fiction is, but also how easy it was to pass while violating the spirit of it. We expect so little of female characters and this did a great job of lampshading it.
You’re not an intelligent person.
Fun fact: the map of the train is Dan Harmon’s actual story circle template. https://thescriptlab.com/features/screenwriting-101/10833-8-steps-to-better-the-story-in-your-screenplays/More than most episodes, this one follows it almost exactly, and Rick even calls out the (I think) paying the price step when looking at the train map.
This was one of those episodes where you can just FEEL Dan Harmon flexing on the world at how clever he is. It was very cool, fun and meta as hell, but not the best R&M have to offer. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am always impressed at how unique, ballsy and clever this show continues to be.
I can just visualize the writers for this episode laughing nonstop and losing their shit and simultaneously patting themselves on the back for how chaotic and nonsensical this episode was. Tbh the Becdel Test bit was the funniest part
I took Rick’s pro-Capitalism rant to be a little self-deprecating acknowledgement that Rick & Morty have started doing commercials for crap. They’ve done 3 that I know of.
how the hell did Adult Swim or someone not buy story-train.com and have something waiting for us there? I admit I laughed quite a few times in this episode but it ultimately did feel like it was sort of making it up as it went along, which is fine sometimes. Hearing Mr. Poopy Butthole proclaim “my lord and my god!” as the Cut Christ descended from the sky was a highlight for sure.
they did, it redirects to Rickandmorty.com
It definitely did not when I tried it after watching it live. Good to know someone got on that.
I am sure they only wanted to show advertisers just how rabid R&M fans are. WE ALL CHECKED THE WEBSITE. Those numbers tell so much about us. I don’t even mind…they…earned…it.
No doubt they did. and I might have bought one of those action figures!
Lowkey surprised you missed that the episode was a deconstruction of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle concept, its blatant after the cop sequence, like they show the thingIts used as a Chekhov’s gun for the rest of the episode
Hold up, people think this episode was good? They think that tired Incel joke about this Betchel test was good? Jesus wept.
You suck
i like this season overall butthey are spending A LOT of screen time deconstructing their own show which is all very super meta, feeding back into nihilism, strangelymuch like Story Lord, himself
Seems to me like the whole episode was a criticism/retort by the creators about being trapped in their own stories, hamstrung by fan obsessions and expectations. Plus exhaustion with the endless debates about “canon” or “non canon,” capped with a blatant jab against “the system” that demands endless product from creatives, no matter how lame or pointless it becomes.
Deconstructions of narrative are fun as…I dunno…6 minute YouTube videos? We’ve got 4 more episodes of this season and then probably a much longer wait for a new season and this felt like treading water and was just too circular to do anything satisfying. I don’t mind when R&M gets meta but I need some kind of payoff like the show has pulled off in the past (like the unexpected emotional beats in “Rixty Minutes” or the satisfyingly labyrinthine story structure of “Ricklantis Mixup). It seemed painstakingly crafted and lazy at the sake time.
I was mentally exhausted halfway through this episode…and it was baller as fuck
“Oh hey, it’s One-Eyed Morty!”Gee, you’re easily impressed.
A few stray observations of my own:I really thought that was Stanley Tucci as Story Lord, so I was very surprised when I read the credits.I’m 99% sure they included Evil Morty, Tammi and Birdperson just so they could put them in the trailers. The fact that they didn’t *really* appear (for a given value of real) just makes it funnier.I liked the appearance of Harmon’s story wheel as the shape of the train, having just read up on it this week.The whole ‘idea that could be used as the basis of a series but is used as a throwaway joke’ thing put me strongly in mid of Red Dwarf, who used ideas that would have made great films and dealt with them in 30 minutes, most notably ‘Back To Reality’ and ‘Gunmen of The Apocalypse’.
nice red dwarf tie in, I thought of back to rick-ality as well. Also, yes, padding a show with nonsense visuals that only serve the trailer is…so Spielberg.
I thought this was a great episode – maybe even top 10 overall. And a relief after the previous 4 episodes that felt tired and vacuous. I’d rate it equal to episode one of this series which seems to be undervalued by some fans.Like Episode one this is a critique of humanistic values: in episode one conceived as fascism (fascism as nostalgia and the need for a ‘meaning’ to life), and in episode six as commercial story telling.The ‘meta’ elements were not forced or formulaic at all – this was David Lynch or Shakespeare meta not Family Guy meta. By which I mean it’s a level of irony that doesn’t give the audience a smug and comfy place to hide in ‘above it all’ , mocking the dupes from a high place of snark (episodes 2-5 of series 4 fell into this trap) , but instead implicates our ‘deepest’ desires in the savaging of ‘narrative’. Note that before Jesus appears Rick is already feeding the story teller sentimental and ‘commercial’ snippets of narrative, making Jesus’ appearance a logical culmination of sentimentality not a deus ex machina! What’s the implication? That commercial culture will be suffocated in its own cliches if it doesn’t respect ‘real’ creativity? But I like the way the ending nullifies that too: ‘real’ creativity is also just a way to make money and perpetuate our pointless species. This is Macbeth level nihilism.
I think what you’re dissecting there is the problem with TV reviews in general, not just this particular episode of Rick & Morty.
You do not have to give it an A, but just know that it blew my jaded son’s mind. He did not know what to make of it, which may have been the point of the exercise. However, while you’re the critic, I think you got very close to saying that the episode was critic proof, while at the same time being respectable. Getting back to my viewing of the ep. with my son—I tried to make some sense of it, on his behalf, by telling him: “That disoriented feeling, that was the point—they’re saying that story-telling makes you high without drugs!” Well, if anything could have killed my son’s buzz, it was that. He stopped looking wowed, and turned on youtube (to watch someone reacting to youtube, no doubt).
“So Story Lord escapes the Bible by explaining to Jesus how the Christian god is just a mash-up of two older religions. That’s cool. He’s a good villain. Very fit. Can’t wait till he comes back.”And his explanation was complete BS: Yahweh isn’t the syncretic result of the Sumerian Yah and the Mesopotamian Weh because those two deities never existed in those mythoi.Go fig.
Yes also it’s the Israelite God, not the Christian God.
I dunno, for the first episode back after a long break, it felt overly-masturbatory to me.. maybe instead of flexing on the idea of stories, just tell an actual good story
The toy commercial aspect of the plot ties in to the episode’s thesis concerning the show writers’ (or any professional artists’) struggle to balance artistic integrity and “marketablity” (selling out). Do Dan and Justin make episodes to sell merch and toys or do they make Rick and Morty to make envelope pushing, ground breaking comedy?
“every so often it still tricks me into thinking something is going to matter when it obviously won’t”Thank goodness for that. One of the only times this show falters is when it pretends to have depth.This was the “worst” episode of Rick and Morty yet. As in, I only give it a B. Zack touched on why: it can’t get out of its own way.