Well, this is sad: I just got the pun in the title. The “Ricktim’s” is what threw me. Without the context of the rest of the episode, with its emphasis on soul-bounding and slut dragons, the joke was just too much of a stretch for my old man brain. It’s a good bit, though, for an episode that’s… hm. Well, on the plus side, Rick did not destroy an entire planet in order to stop his grandson from successfully pitching a Netflix series. So that’s nice.
So, Morty wants a dragon. He’s never going to be a genius, but he’s at least learned to try and demand some kind of recompense for the hell Rick puts him through, and before tonight’s episode begins, he managed to get his grandfather to promise to give him a dragon if Morty would follow through on helping him get a certain kind of crystal. (The crystal turns out to be purple, so fuck that. Sorry Chachi.) Rick does his best to weasel out of the deal but only succeeds in crashing his ship—and once Beth finds out about the arrangement, it’s more or less a done deal.
That’s not a bad set-up for a story. The biggest potential drawback would be familiarity—the show has done “Morty thinks something is going to be cool, ignores Rick’s advice, and it turns out Rick was right” many times before, and on a macro level, that’s basically what happens here. After he gets some fun flying time, Morty realizes having a dragon is way more uncomfortable trouble than its worth, and by the end of the half hour, he’s ordering Balthromaw off his lawn and out of his life forever. What makes this work, and what also makes it kind of icky, is in the details. Balthromaw isn’t a bad “pet” because he’s evil or dangerous or even boring. He’s bad because “soul-bonding” is a very thin metaphor for fucking, and things get really uncomfortable, really fast.
Look, I don’t know about this one. It’s pretty funny, and I admire how relentlessly the episode commits to the gag. Weirdly, it reminded me of that Simpsons bit that had Bart saying he “faked it” when Homer used to push him on the swings. If you watched that scene and thought “This is funny, but what I actually want is about fifteen minutes of this sort of thing where it just really, really doubles down on the idea, just really luxuriates in the subtext until it is pretty much literally text,” well, you’ll enjoy this. If you didn’t, it might be a little rough. I enjoyed having an episode of Rick & Morty that was off-putting for reasons that had nothing to do with violence, and I definitely laughed at a couple of the jokes, but I’m also not sure it entirely works.
The Simpsons joke was funny because it was shocking, and because it took something that was true about the relationship between the characters—Homer was feeling betrayed because Bart had replaced him, and Bart wanted him to feel bad about that betrayal to cover for his own guilt—and tweaked it just enough to make it into something else. The “soul-bonding” jokes here have shock value and not much else. Rick’s friendship with Balthromaw feels legit; it’s well-observed, fits with what we know about Rick, and for a while, it looked like this was going to turn into some kind of battle for the dragon’s attention between Rick and Morty. But once the phrase “slut dragon” pops up, the whole thing goes off the rails as a relationship metaphor. Hell, once Morty, Rick, and Summer find the cave of the slut dragons, it seems to stop being a metaphor at all.
All of which isn’t automatically bad; I don’t need episodes to be based on deep emotional truths to be entertaining and funny. But it just seems kind of lazy here. There are laughs in just how far the concept gets pushed, and some of them are pretty great, but it also ends up getting weird in a way that doesn’t really go anywhere. They don’t even do much with Rick suffering the dragon’s injuries. By the time Bathlormaw is begging Morty for a “quick hand bond,” the whole thing has more than overstayed its welcome (something Morty himself acknowledges). It’s fine, but it feels like the absolute least interesting direction to take either Rick’s connection with the dragon, or him briefly being in a realm where his knowledge of science can’t save him.
That last bit is especially odd. After making it a point to set up that Rick’s technology doesn’t work in magic land, and then having Morty actually knowing useful shit for once, the episode does nothing basically nothing with this. Rick’s figured his way through the problem in the space of a commercial break, and while he and Summer manage to fuck things up by ignoring Morty later in the episode, it has no real consequences and exactly no pay-off. I guess you can argue that’s a joke in and of itself, and that subverting expectations is a big part of the show’s appeal, but this doesn’t really seem to be doing that. Again: there’s humor in just how far the episode commits to its premise. But as a story, it all just sort of sits there.
The subplot with Jerry and the talking cat was great, at least. It’s slight, but the slightness works to its benefit. Jerry finds a talking cat in his bed, they go to Florida for an adventure, the talking cat is kind of a dick. Then Rick scans the cat to figure out what the hell is going on, and what he sees is so horrible that it almost breaks him and Jerry. That’s more or less it, but it works, and it’s good to see Jerry going on an adventure that doesn’t end with him doing something stupid and pathetic. I like the low-key weirdness of it all, and just how resolutely the episode plays the reveal of the cat’s history (which we never see), with Rick wiping Jerry’s mind to protect him from madness, and the cat wandering off to go hook up with the dragon. Both this and the main plot were clever, but the talking cat (!?!) benefited from being short enough to not need to be anything more than that.
Stray observations
- It’s weird that this batch of episodes is almost over. Waiting two years for this is kind of a bummer.
- “You know who’s into dragons, Morty? Nerds who refuse to admit they’re Christian.” -Rick (This has the cadence of a cutting joke but it doesn’t really land. Personal taste, really, but Rick being dismissive works better when it feels like it’s based on something that’s kind of true, and this just seems like the cadence of an insult without the insight to make it effective.)
- Summer is into a show called Ass. It’s like Bones, but they solve “ass-crimes.”
- Balthromaw had a Duckman lunchbox. Neat.
- “It takes, like, 78 years to hang a dragon to death.” -Morty
- “Shadow Jacker, you haven’t come out of your Masturbation Cave in eons!” Okay, that one got me.
- “He was in my home, where I keep photos of my parents!” -Jerry
127 Comments
Hey, I wanted to get ahead of all the other commenters on this one and state all of the obvious, unoriginal bullshit that I totally believeand that makes me better than everyone else who watches the show before any of the usual suspects do:- I have not watched this episode and may never watch it but I’m still going to comment on it with a completely unearned, smug self-confidence.- The fanbase is 100% Toxic and Problematic men, and every single one of them are Incels. I say this despite not ever meeting any of them and not having any friends or anyone to talk to outside of Social Media. – I’m not going to outright say that I’m Brave and Unique for my completely unchallenging and unoriginal dismissal of fans of this show, but I think we all know that I am based upon my anonymous, no-stakes criticism based upon stereotypes.- I thought this episode was both the best ever and the worst ever. Either way, I would have written it better despite having no success in my own creative life to validate my self-importance.- I’ve listened to Harmontown or I haven’t and so I’m going to speak with complete certainty and confidence about what Dan Harmon and the other writers were thinking. Mainly, every one of Harmon’s jokes are criticisms about the Toxic and Problematic fanbase which includes all viewers except me.- Everyone who disagrees with me isn’t a true fan.Welp, I doubt I covered everything but I’m comforted that there will be plenty of insufferable and earnest commentators who come in and fill in the gaps.
Weird episode
People have mentioned before that the ratings for this show have been a bit skewed on this site and I’ve mostly disagreed — but now I honestly can’t say they’re wrong after this one. How you feel about this episode is entirely subjective (imo i thought worst one from this batch so far), but literally half of the paragraphs in this review start off by pointing out negatives with the writing and how it felt lazy and one-note. I feel like a B+ is way too generous for how the review reads
I feel like people want to protect themselves from admitting this season has been mediocre and way inferior to the show’s earlier years – and we waited over two years for it.The show’s only move so far this season has been “look at how random we are”. It feels aimless and pointless in a way the show had never felt before.
The premiere was great. This episode deserved a C though. It really was one of the worst episodes of Rick and Morty ever. Some episodes in Season 3 were just as weak though. So it’s not like this show has ever been particularly consistent.
I think it was slightly better than last week’s episode (only slightly). Crewcoo’s Nest is the first Rick and Morty episode I have no desire to re-watch. It was just boring.
See I thought the heist episode was the best of these four
yeah. Season 3 of Community was kind of week, and season four is just retreads. oh wait? this is different Dan Harmon show that the fans can’t accept how a series changes and evolves and can’t always be “new” cus it exists in a world where the show exists? wow
Some episodes are hits, some are misses, some are foul balls that work the pitch count. Weak is a matter of opinion. Or maybe we have Jerry’s commenting.
Grades for Season 3 episodes off the top of my head: A, A, A, C, B, A, A, A, A, B. Same for Season 4 so far: A, B, C, C. Quite the contrast.
I’d go: Season 3: A, B-, B+, B-, A-, A-, A, A, B, C+Season 4: A, B-, B+, C
i dind’t frequent this site for S3 – but really, folks thought the Vindicators episode was bad? it’s one of my favorites – however, teh Wirly-Dirly episode that followed seemed subpar.This episode seems subpar – kinda mailed in (relying on sex jokes is never “quality”). Not gonna argue. S3 was a real bounce-back after a mediocre (IMO) S2. This season seems a little more “We’re establishing what this show will be long-term, and mission-of-the-week stuff is it” – which is fine with me, i always preferred MOTW X-Files episodes to the serialized ones. But it definitely seems like the stakes are lower
The premiere was great. This episode deserved a C though. It really was one of the worst episodes of Rick and Morty ever. Some episodes in Season 3 were just as weak though. So it’s not like this show has ever been particularly consistent.
The premiere was great. This episode deserved a C though. It really was one of the worst episodes of Rick and Morty ever. Some episodes in Season 3 were just as weak though. So it’s not like this show has ever been particularly consistent.
It feels a lot like Comedy Central era Futurama to me, especially with the generic fantasy setting. Okay technically the generic fantasy setting was direct to video Futurama but the general point is the same. This season’s been pretty decent on average, but every episode has had some rough spots and plot points that aren’t half as clever as the writers feel they are. I liked the heist episode since at least it used its one joke as the springboard for a bunch of inventive visual gags, but the one joke in this episode was “dragons having sex” and it didn’t do much with it one way or another. I’m kind of scared since this seems like a preview what syndication deal Rick and Morty could be like. My hope is that this is just them warming up and the next 65 episodes we get until like 2032 are hotter than the average temperature of the Earth’s surface at the time they’re finally done.
The problem is that the showrunners are now contractually obligated to make eighty episodes and are probably running scared – quality control and/or laser focus have invariably disappeared up a dragon’s butt hole.Rick and Morty is quickly turning into latter The Simpsons or the Family Guy – where most of the new episodes are likely to be filed under ‘stuff’ or meaningless riffs on popular culture.The clever takes on sci-fi may become increasingly infrequent now that they have a quota to fill and are relinquishing creative control to other writers to meet that quota.
Depends how you interpret it. The review mainly seems to read “This was funny, and I can see why others would have dug it, but I kept expecting this or that to happen, which could have potentially been more interesting, so i was kind of disappointed, although I can’t really point to anything wrong other then not taking directions I would have liked to see them take.”
It’s funny, it kind of reminds me of the bit from the season premiere where Rick says “Instead of telling me what you don’t want, how about you tell me what you do want?”
Basically Zack is saying, “I’m not saying I didn’t want this, but this is what I would have liked instead.” Like Zack has absorbed Rick’s counter-criticism subconsciously.
Completely agree. This review was so well-written, really top-shelf tv writing. It made a clear, nuanced case for why this ep didn’t land in ways non-nerds could understand. …But then it gave the ep a B+? Maybe they were avoiding the C- this ep deserved because it would attract knee-jerk reactions from the vitriolic R&M fan base.
Agreed. Unfortunately this whole season (if you want to call a total of 5 episodes a season..) has been really disappointing. After the incredible high that was last year, it would have been difficult for this season to top it, but it honestly just feels like the writers are going for complete randomness over anything substantive. That isn’t to say these eps have been bad, just no where near as good as the writers have proven they can be.
I’m normally pretty harsh on Zack’s reviews but I pretty much agree with all of his criticisms here. Like he said there were a lot of interesting ideas here: Rick being in a realm where his knowledge of science didn’t help him, Rick being connected to the dragon, Morty’s D & D stuff actually coming in handy, but the episode didn’t really explore them at all, just breezed past them for easy jokes. Having said that, I still found the episode basically funny and enjoyable as I’ve found all the eps this season. It just wasn’t mind blowing and didn’t explore the characters psychology at all the way most of the Season 2 and 3 eps did.I also agree that the subplot with the cat was really good though. It was strange for an episode to have such a closed off B story like that but I liked the weirdness of it and the disturbing ending, which was more like old Rick and Morty
It really is a letdown how little they did with the fantasy angle. You thought that they were really in a situation where Rick would have to improvise and lean on Morty to get through, then it cuts back and….NOPE. He learned how to make a magic gun that transforms anything into anything and actively mocks Morty for wanting to stick with genre conventions. Which I guess is the point, but it feels more like a lampshade for lazy writing than a vehicle for saying something interesting.
Well, I don’t think it’s impossible to have a review that mostly focuses on the negative while still having an overall positive score. The thing is, while I agree with all the criticisms laid against the episode, I still really enjoyed watching it. The good in the episode is mostly just the normal things that are good in Rick and Morty, so there isn’t a whole lot to write about it, or reason to – should the episode get a low score just because previous episodes are so good that there isn’t much to say about what’s good in this one that’s new or interesting? That leaves most of the review to having to be discussing the negatives even if the episode isn’t actually bad.
When I saw the previews for this episode, I thought Rick was going to end up fucking the dragon. And I was kind of right.
Should be “than” not “then” in the headline…
you with you’re ENGLISH and your RULES
Sir, I believe itz “yer” and “yer”
write
Nowadays, the correct use of English is too much to expect from journalists, and if you correct them, you’re a nazi for some reason. Still: Zack, fix that shit. It’s annoying as fuck.
Also: “the episode does nothing basically nothing with this”. Jesus Christ.
He still hasn’t fixed the spelling. It would be really trumpian if he was trolling us by making himself look more unprofessional: I’m not one of those fake media people who “spells things correctly!” DOUBLE DOWN!!!
Maybe dragons are the concept of value, following an initial period of inconvenience.
Yeesh, another boring episode. Worse is they wasted good premises, specifically Rick trapped in a magic world where his tech can be beat easily, the RPG superpower gun, Morty’s spellbook, and Jerry’s adventure with a talking cat. It was paint by numbers plot and character actions with these good ideas. Summer’s vanity foils her, Morty’s innocence betrays him, and Jerry is a dope in the most generic plot structures. This is lazy writing and I’m starting to suspect Harmon and Roiland are trolling the audience, or they simply don’t give a crap about the show anymore because this is bland, rote, and worst of all, not funny.
When they revealed the weird specifics of the dragon’s hoard, I thought for sure he was going to have a few packets of a certain dipping sauce…
They way they went at the slut-dragon humor had the feel.of a South Park episode. That’s not nec a knock, but the escalation of the premise felt that way to me.
Roiland and Harmon probably found out about Bad Dragon dildos one day and crapped out this script as a result. It feels very lazy.
Shadow jacker’s staff looked like something straight out of the Bsd Dragon website.
Deep down in your gut, you know Bathlormaw is right about Orcs and Dwarves. That slut dragon is the only one with the guts to say anything about it.
Considering the season opener, Dan Harmon literally saying it, and all other evidence…it’s kinda hard to take any death threat against Rick serious since he’s immortal.I liked the episode, I rolled with the whole idea that dragons hate humanity because they make the best soul bonding mates but require them to consent to it. However, what is a death threat to Rick other than a mild discomfort? Kinda hoping they address it before the season ends.
See, I feel like the problem here (with the review) is sort of expecting too much. People probably have seen that cut and past joke “you must have a high iq to appreciate Rick and Morty.”
The weird thing here is that it feels like this review sort of forgets… like it buys into the critical hype. The show was funny and sometimes clever in certain ways that appealed to the zeitgeist of the current meta-aware comedy audience. As the Simpsons was in it’s heyday. But it’s like… people want the show to outdo itself. If you look back at most of the first two seasons episodes, they weren’t that different then this.
I enjoyed this and though it was funny. But I feel like I wasn’t expecting whatever some people are expecting. Like, I don’t expect to be blown away or anything. Look at something like Lawnmower Dog or the Jurrasic Park satire. Back then, people could get a kick out of that, because there expectations weren’t so high.
I feel like had those been more recent episodes, the AV club crowd would nitpick them to death relentlessly for not being more then they were intended to be.
Like, for me, this was funny and entertaining, but I was expecting whatever it is the reviewer (and I’m predicting others) are expecting. And what is that exactly? It kind of sounds like people want this show to be more then it is.
If you just appreciate it for what it is, a funny sometimes clever cartoon that will occassionally hit it out of the park and has some good characterization, it’s pretty good.
If you’re expecting something that’s going to somehow perpetually outdo itself in whatever ways you imagine, you’re going to be disappointed.
I don’t blame the critics really. I think part of it was the hype was built because of the long waiting periods, and Adult Swim wants to both have a lot more Rick and Morty but also tease it out. Which I think ultimately means people will expect too much. I kind of get that if you see a five episode release, it’s like you expect those 5 to be amazing instead of just average. Personally, the only one that was kind of a dud for me was the toilet episode.
But this isn’t so different from criticism of the season three finale. I remember some fans saying that couldn’t have been the real season 3 finale. Because they were comparing it to season 2’s cliffhanger. As opposed to just enjoying it for what it was.
This seems to be a general trend though for like the AV club in general. Like, always kind of thinking about the meta-narrative of entertainment instead of the way people sort of usually see it.
I would sort of imagine that if some classic literature was being reviewed today, people might think Dostoevsky’s The Idiot was garbage because it clearly wasn’t Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov. Then again, I’m someone who still legitimately enjoys the Simpsons. Like with that show, people compare the newer episodes to the way they perceived the older episodes at the time. If you go back and actually watch some early Simpsons absent the nostalgia lens, it’s different, and perhaps a little better, but you realize it seemed so incredible because of what it was at the time, when there was nothing like it on tv. Since then, so much of what the Simpsons did has become comedy standard…
I’m kind of rambling here, whatever. I was definitely cracking up when the mysterious old dragon came out and explained what had caused his long absence.
That’s a lot of words to say that it’s okay to settle for mediocrity.
I think these episodes are a little over stuffed, which the show has always been occasionally guilty of. I personally don’t think thats a bad thing, as a mid tier episode of rick and morty is still better than almost everything else on tv for my personal tastes. I think the key ingredient that’s been this season is the surprising heart of the show that cuts through the self aware cynicism when you least expect it. I’m holding out hope the last episode is just a really good episode and will be enough to change my opinion about this season (which I still really enjoy despite not operating at it’s highest level.)
I thought this episode was hilarious and really just bonkers. Also, I do agree that people are taking this shit way too seriously trying to find meaning in every little second. Sometimes, Rick and Morty just have a dumb adventure and we should be able to take a break from the existential dread to have a laugh at that one dragon with a dildo staff.
tl;dr
Well said.
i play a game on my phone called merge dragons. a couple of weeks ago, rick and morty appeared as a special quest and now i have dragon rick and morty’s flying around my camp. is this some kind of advertising/cross over/tie in? except that my 10 year old nephew plays merge dragons and i don’t reckon his parents would be super stoked with him looking up rick and morty
Not one of the series better concepts but I laughed a lot, so there’s that. I agree that having waited 2 years, the fact that there’s only 1 episode left leaves me feeling a little empty. This season hasn’t been bad but there hasn’t really been a standout episode and the fact that we are already about to go on another hiatus, is discouraging.
But there’s not only one episode left. It’s coming back after the Holidays. This is just the first half of the season.
[citation needed]
I think the problem was that this episode actually had too many good concepts but didn’t explore any of them with enough depth. Rick vs a wizard? Great concept!Rick trapped in a world where his science doesn’t work? Great concept!Morty, for once, having extensive knowledge of a topic that Rick has to rely on? Great concept!All of those concepts at the same time fighting for attention with copious amounts of dragon sex jokes and a sub plot about a talking cat? Not a great concept.
That’s been my problem with this season as a whole. It’s a little too over stuffed with ideas. I wouldve loved to see Rick’s toilet friendship play out over the whole episode, but they just had too many other concepts to cover.
Rick is such a genius that he should have figured out how to manipulate the laws of the magic universe so as to be able to intuit the necessary magical actions. I’m all for him being defeated quite often but it should be due to his actual weakness of being a dick, not a contrived weakness of being in a world with different laws of physics.
No, Rick is such a dick that he shouldn’t have figured out how to manipulate the laws of the magic universe as to be able to intuit the necessary magical actions. Because that’s more interesting. That creates a story we haven’t seen before. And besides they already did that. Rick invented a device out of garbage between commercial breaks that sucked the magic out of the wizard’s golem and transferred it into a handheld gun that Rick used to cast magic spells at whim rendering Morty’s spell book useless. And even then they did almost nothing with it in terms of storytelling or jokes and the wizard just zapped it away without a second thought in the end.
Yeah honestly any one of these would have made a good concept in and of itself or in combination with one other element. Taken together it just feels really rushed and nothing is examined with the detail it deserves.
I was good with this episode. It seemed to be built upon annoyance with both “Tne Neverending Story” (or some more recent iteration) and “A Talking Cat!?!” but added in some thoughts about soul-bonds and how concepts like “soul mates” are kind of controlling. They ran with it, I was happy, but I’m just a simple caveman.
… I do want to comment on this. I was just watching the first part of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” earlier, and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as this R&M. The big difference? On R&M, I had a sense that the writers were trying to surprise me, like they started out with a concept and bothered to ask, “okay, what can we do with what we’ve established so far, and go in an unexpected direction?” The episode managed to do that at least a couple times for both the A and B plots.
Usesless fact but that was Liam Cunningham ( Davos from GoT) as the dragon.
And no one has mentioned, Mathew Broderick as the cat.
Rick and Jerry freaking out over that cat’s fucked-up history was the hardest I’ve laughed all season. Other than that, it was a fine episode. Nothing amazing by this show’s standards, but I got a kick out of the soul-bonding sequences and Tom Kenny voicing two of the slut dragons. A B+ is about right.Also nice of this show to acknowledge the existence of ‘Small Soldiers’ and Spin Pops. What a confusing time the late 90s were.
So like is the slutdragons a reference to how like all dragons are sex toys nowadays or what?
It’s a deep cut reference to Anne McAffery’s Dragonriders Of Pern series, where human/dragon soulbonding is key.And also a reference……..OF DRAGON COCK
I had to read the one of the books for a middle school summer reading project. For 12 year old me when they got to the point where the dragons were having sex which made the people they bonded to feel like they were having sex, I was like “I’m out”. It’s so stupid and even 12 year old me was like “was that really necessary”.
Oh much thanks, like all I know about Dragons and like Orgies is the fact that women allegedly buy like Dragon Vibrators and stuff? Right?
There’s very definitely a resemblance between a particular dragon’s staff and the Bad Dragon products.
Balthromaw
played by Liam Cunningham.
Both this and the main plot were clever, but the talking cat (!?!) benefited from being short enough to not need to be anything more than that.Other than the iceberg, how was the cruise? Is it me, or is it the fact that Rick routinely scrubs world shattering horrors from the memories of the Morty and Jerry one of the scariest parts of the series?All of the talk of parenting and Rick letting the family develop without toxic disruption just went sideways if Rick is still routinely playing with their memories and ultimately their personalities without them know it.The final part has a blasé dismissal of a cosmic horror event like it’s nothing more than Rick having to dump the trash, instead of you know, memory wiping family memories without their consent.Just like Rick smugly and covertly stamping Morty’s dreams of a Netflix screenwriting.That’s essentially two episodes in a row where Rick covertly and devastatingly tampers with the minds of the other family members; notably Morty and Jerry, whom he had routinely hacked their memories.
Also, the dragon hotboxing zoo animals is the funniest small thing I have seen in a while.
Yeah, I went into this having heard this is the weakest episode of the 5. I think I would modify that to say: The last ten minutes are regrettable and terrible. More than the first half? Totally fine and funny. The whole Rick-hangs-with-the-dragon sequence is so great. The glowing collectibles, the sarcasm, the zoo… it was all character-based and fun and relatable and great.And I’m okay with the soul bonding as sex thing, but it gets intentionally (as someone else pointed out) South Park levels of ugh. And what’s worse, there’s just no real plot after a while. Like someone bet someone they could make a good finish to any good R&M script, and lost. Or like, some guy from the Porlock dimension came by and interrupted the creative process. Or someone’s drugs ran out.
You are right the over done soul bonding joke was Family Guy-levels of ugh.
Is it me, or is it the fact that Rick routinely scrubs world shattering horrors from the memories of the Morty and Jerry one of the scariest parts of the series? It absolutely is. It’s always been a prominent aspect of the series that Rick traumatizes his closed ones for his own benefit with impunity – he’s every asshole, abusive father figure, only he is also God. What he did to Beth at the end of season 3 is just horrific. It’s just that it’s easier to ignore for most people because there’s jokes. This “problem” reminds me of Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street which were accused of glorifying their subject matter because there are funny lines.
It’s just that it’s easier to ignore for most people because there’s jokes. Jokes, yes; also dragons, magic, Tolkienesque parodies, and the half baked linkage of modern fantasy and the umbrella of repression disguised as Christian dogma.That said, it’s no wonder Jerry is a drifting, self-hating mess if Rick wipes his memories every time sometime horrifying pops up.
I am not sure if Jerry isn’t just that normally, but I’d imagine Rick wouldn’t be too interested in Jerry asserting himself and growing as a person, since that would loosen his grasp on the family. It’s terrifying that Rick didn’t mellow out after he “lost” to Jerry, he just became more radicalized.
I see him less radicalized, and more like elusive, secretive, and absentmindedly destroying the intellectual and emotional growth of the family members.It’s like a cheating spouse with a burner phone or an alcoholic hiding piles of empty bottles whenever guests drop in. Except that the world-destroying addict literally erases the memories and sabotages the personal growth of those around him instead of hiding drug gear under the bed.
While I agree with this take, in this one episode at least, it actually did feel like Rick and Jerry were on the same page for the first time in the entire series. And when Rick wiped Jerry’s mind, he seemed almost genuinely sympathetic to Jerry, also for the first time in the seres. This brings up the possibility that Rick has been subjecting his family to horrific treatment for so long, he literally doesn’t know any other way to treat them, and so resorts to it even when he’s genuinely trying to do something nice for them and not just for his own selfish reasons.
Yeah, I got the impression that the truth Rick erased from Jerry was truly too horrible to know, and for once, he was doing it as an act of kindness.
If this were explicitly due to Rick acting out due to his loss of power within the family dynamic, it’d be better. Morty should have pitched the show anyway and Jerry should have pleaded with Rick to spare his memory. That would have shown that Rick’s sense of family morality is disintegrating, which could lead into a great finale in which, I don’t know, Evil Morty has him abducted and taken to a secret undercover section of the Citadel which is comprised of displaced Summers, Beths and Jerrys that have banded together to confront him.
“The final part has a blasé dismissal of a cosmic horror event like it’s
nothing more than Rick having to dump the trash, instead of you know,
memory wiping family memories without their consent.”To be fair, it wasn’t a cosmic horror that Jerry himself witnessed first hand. It was something from the scan of the cat. Kind of like a library patron being traumatized by photos of abuse left on the screen of a computer by a person who has left the building.
From the description and their reactions, there seems to be no conceivable benefit or lesson for Jerry to draw from what he witnessed, just immense trauma.I mean, Rick apparently came close to doing himself in. So it must have been pretty extreme.Other mind wipes might be done for Rick’s convenience, but this seems to have been truly an act of mercy.
Let me reply directly to what we perceive as an act of compassion by Rick:Jerry with Rick’s constant and routine mind wipes is jobless and functionally incompetent on most levels.Jerry that Rick left behind on Kroenenburg Dimension is Conan the Barbarian.I agree it’s an act of mercy, but playing with Jerry’s memories has made him a bumbling, self-loathing mess if we take all evidence at its face.
Waiting two years for this is kind of a bummer.Truer words have never been spoken about Rick & Morty. I fell asleep somewhere around the point where the dragon pimp was whipping Balthromaw. This whole mini-season has been underwhelming.
Again. NOT a mini-season. There are 10 episodes scheduled for season 4. Holidays start in 2 weeks. Almost all shows break for the holidays. Especially popular ones. Next 5 will start up shortly after the new year I would almost guarantee it.
The show announced a five-episode miniseries. Until proven otherwise I will trust the producers of the show over Wikipedia.
https://ew.com/comic-con/2019/07/17/rick-and-morty-season-4-interview/
How many episodes are you doing for the new season?
ROILAND: This new season will be 10.
Congratulations for winning this round of I’m A Bigger Stan Than You. Here’s your trophy…¯\_(ツ)_/¯The Cartoon Network promos said five episodes. I didn’t get that nugget out of thin air.
Well, this interview definitely came out of thin air. I hacked ew.com and put words in the producers mouth so you’d trust it. You are definitely right to act this butt hurt about it.It’s my fault really. I forgot what show I was commenting under. Measured responses are definitely not expected around here.
My original comment was about the quality of the season so far, but instead of discussing that, this whole thread has focused on my choice of the phrase “mini season”, which is 1) irrelevant to the critique and 2) the most internet thing to do. The promo said five “all-new episodes”, and “half the season you deserve, all the season we could handle”. I don’t read Entertainment Weekly, so I went with the promo.
That is the reason for my saltiness this morning.
I didn’t respond to your original comment and at this point don’t give a shit about your opinion in the quality of the show. Especially when that opinion amounts to “I fell asleep.” I also don’t care that you don’t read Entertainment Weekly. I didn’t assume you did. I posted the link without commentary. Whatever offensiveness you extrapolated from it is your own devising.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯I don’t know what to tell you then.
Nothing. Nothing has to be told. You said you trusted the producer so I simply showed you what one of the producers said. Didn’t expect you to be so dramatic.
Definitely seems like an important point to keep doubling down on even after having been proven wrong!
That was essentially a 30 minute episode of Harmontown.
I felt like the talking cat subplot was really a commentary on how some people deflect any criticism of what they like with “stop asking questions and just have fun”. People like that want you to enjoy what they enjoy at the same level they do without you asking about it and making them think too hard about it. When they interact with people who have other interests than theirs, they get upset that no one is asking them questions about what they like. Further, I think the point about the cat having a disturbing backstory is a commentary that the people who have these views might have abhorrent politics or philosophies. They don’t like people analyzing their interests for fear of being called out. This happened when the cat questioned the bros about their stupid and awful sexual position discussions.With this as the B-plot, I think it gives more weight to the A-plot, in that some fantasy novels (sci-fi as well) tend to have strange, abhorrent subtext to them and fans of the genre tend to defend it as “just fun” and reject any attempt at analyzing them. If you question the logic of magic (as Rick and Summer do), you’re ruining the fun. If you realize that the moral values extolled by the protagonists are regressive and oppressive, you’re just not having enough fun! If you see the link between dragon and rider as a weird sexual thing, then you’re just imposing your sick views on my (closeted Christian) nerd fun!
Good spot, think you nailed it.
Or maybe it’s just a talking cat! Hmm?!?
More so if the cat was Matthew Broderick, who played the ultimate totem of “don’t question it, just do” – for as awesome as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was, there was some shit underneath.
Or it could be about how people demand deeper and deeper lore on their favorite shows, but the answer is never as good as they were hoping. What answer to why Bill Murry kept repeating the same day in Groundhog Day would have been satisfying? Did you LIKE the answer you got in The Legend of Korra when they explained the origin of the Avatar and element bending? I shall conclude my argument with one word: MIDICHLORIANS!!
The “nerds who refuse to admit they’re Christian” joke is a dig at Imagine Dragons lol.
It’s also a reference to the fact that the twin pillars of 20th century fantasy lit, Lewis and Tolkien, were both deeply religious men writing thinly-veiled Christian allegory into their epics.
Excellent point, that too (and probably moreso).
So does this show have anything to offer anymore beyond genre parodies?
I kind of shudder at the thought of what this show will look like by Episode 100.
Part of what made Season 3 so great was that it all flowed naturally from Beth and Jerry’s divorce. This season would be much better if it all flowed naturally from Rick’s subjugation to their reunification.I would want to see episodes that focus on Rick trying to do something productive with his life outside the family, Summer travelling our dimension doing her learned badass nonchalance, Morty forcibly taking over from Rick a few times with adventure decisions, Jerry exploring a rising sense of personal confidence (which tonight kind of was; I rather wish he hadn’t actually vomited but just made a face), Beth taking a more active role in organising her family life, thereby merging her sociopathic and matriarchal sides, and a gradual infiltration of the C137 characters’ lives by Citadel agents, suggesting that Evil Morty’s plan to purge the multiverse of abusive Rick and Morty tendencies is advancing. That’s 6 episodes; repeat for the non-Jerry characters with progressing character development and you have a series 4 that’s as compelling as season 3.Where’s my portal gun so I can go to that universe?
If it’s a choice between half-clever but somewhat empty genre parodies or Dan Harmon working through all the insights his many (and clearly desperately needed) therapy sessions have bestowed upon him, I eagerly await Rick & Morty’s take on cowboy movies and/or sparkly vampire teens.
There are episodes which aren’t genre parodies but that’s a big part of what the show does yes
That whole episode had a weird feel to it. Fun, silly episodes are great too, but if you’re going to get into sex and gender politics, I think you need to take it a little more seriously.Oh well, lesser Rick and Morty episodes are still better than most of what else is out there. Just like with every Community episode, in a few years I’ll likely find myself having watched this one half a dozen times.
*Than* is the comparative—Otherwise, great review!
This review seems a little harsh coming from a grown man who watches cartoons. I thought it was great.
The cat is elusive about why he can talk with Jerry but then when he gets to Florida he keeps prodding people about it? Huh? I think something went over my head there.
This read makes sense to me (if I linked it right):
https://tv.avclub.com/1840313284
rogueindy’s cite is on-point with regard to the cat generally. With regard to people asking about why he can talk, though, I think it’s more a matter of the cat’s being used to engaging with others on the basis of his “mystery”. Without that, there’s really no reason for anyone to particularly care what a cat has to say, and he’s kind of a loss for how to proceed socially.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUYZEkSoc8
I’ll just leave this here… https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110166
B+!?! That was the worst episode of the show, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. Really not loving every episode making fun of some trope. That’s fun ocassionally, but this show should be more than that. Hopeful it improves.
It’s weird that this batch of episodes is almost over. Waiting two years for this is kind of a bummer.Always the same misinformed complaints…This “batch of episodes” is simply half of season 4, the second half will air in January after the Holidays break.It’s a common situation in TV programming and, actually, that’s exactly how they proceeded with the first season.I get that some fans are frustrated by the two years wait but complaining for no good reasons doesn’t help boosting the show’s fans public image…
Finally, an episode that doesn’t try too hard to be clever and instead decides to just be funny!
I admit the premise wasn’t that funny and 50% of the jokes didn’t land for me which is super fucking odd for a rick and morty episode but I’ll be a Republicans purple monkey if I didn’t laugh at Shadow Jacker coming out of his Masturbation Cave
Yeah, I knew as soon as the sexual humor got heavy I’d see a wave of fellow Americans complaining about the episode.Here we are, stuck up.
I made an account specifically for this: the title should say “than,” not “then.”
The first episode of this season was a strong start, but I feel it’s been slowly going downhill since then, with each episode being a little weaker than the last. The heist episode wasn’t all that good, and this episode felt like such a nothing episode.I hate being so negative, but this seasons been pretty mediocre so far. It doesn’t have the same wild energy and charm as the first three and feels kinda like the show is on auto-pilot. It doesn’t bode well for the remainder of the 70 episode order. Again, this season started off with a strong premiere (Edge of Tomorty was fucking awesome). I just hope there’s a turnaround soon, cause the episodes since then have been kinda boring.
I was nearly alone in liking the heist episode. I thought it was a really funny exploration of Rick getting obsessed with something trivial and then with the dark way it ended Morty’s story it felt more like season 2 or 3
The Heist episode in my opinion was the one that benefited the most from a rewatch
My random takeaway was Rick poring over Balthromaw’s hoard and pointing out random momentary pop-culture phenomena from the 80s and 90s, in a manner that I took as goading/taunting the herd of cretins who lost their minds because McDonald’s didn’t have enough Szechuan Dipping Sauce for them.Prepare to see unopened Ecto Cooler juice boxes going for $1000 on eBay.
The whole of Season 3 (almost) feels serialised and character-driven, with the big initial event being Beth and Jerry’s divorce and everything leading from that: Rick taking over the family, Summer and Morty seeking independence, Rick (and Beth) going to great lengths to avoid therapy while Summer and Morty open themselves up to it, Jerry trying to kill Rick, Rick and Morty taking a vacation due to stress and realising they’re better off accepting themselves, various Ricks and Mortys trying to construct a society together while the C137 versions bond hubristically, Rick and Morty temporarily resolving several of their past conflicts and Summer learning to deal nonchalantly and competently with their shenanigans, Beth reconnecting with her inner intelligence, psychopathy and her inner loving matriarch all at once, and Rick and Morty putting their own family above adventure before submitting to the family unit. It was a great season with the only weak spot being the Vindicators episode, and even that could be seen as an example of Morty expanding his horizons and Rick trying and failing to cope with a perceived relative lack of his grandson’s affection.This season, by contrast, has been largely bland, forgettable and character-static so far, with the exception of the conclusion to the Rick toilet thief story. I did like Jerry and the cat, though. It’s nice to see Jerry doing something not reprehensible.
It seemed entertaining and not too lazy to me as I saw it from the perspective of cultural judgements relating to slutiness, not just about metaphorical fucking. The dragon as a metaphor of our sexual desires and the fight between that and the cultural and religious norms that in some ways are repressive.For me it was a win 🙂
I enjoyed it.
Well, on the plus side, Rick did not destroy an entire planet in order to stop his grandson from successfully pitching a Netflix series.Given that we only see Rick’s robot destroy one planet and just lock others away in a big cabinet, I’m not entirely convinced that the planet’s destruction wasn’t staged somehow. Maybe Rick begged a favor out of Unity and got her to give up another world of horrible people.“You know who’s into dragons, Morty? Nerds who refuse to admit they’re Christian.” -Rick (This has the cadence of a cutting joke but it doesn’t really land. Personal taste, really, but Rick being dismissive works better when it feels like it’s based on something that’s kind of true, and this just seems like the cadence of an insult without the insight to make it effective.)Yeah, this felt like one of the writers is referencing something from personal experience or some sort of private joke that they expected to be a more universal thing.
I think the consensus on here is right: this was a very disappointing episode despite being extremely funny in a few places (notably the zoo and shadow jacker)…the incest-soul bonding does make me uncomfortable (not unlike whenever you show anybody the first episode of this show and it immediately starts with a grandfather having his young grandson put something where the sun don’t shine)…we have had two episodes of Rick being nice (to his “friend” in the toilet episode and here actually nice by wiping Jerry’s memory) but neither has resulted in anything, I guess you have to hit reset but I hope they explore more of Rick’s past-friendship with Bird Person eventually. Summer was great in this episode because it’s the obvious joke but still lands every time: they say “hey this is really complicated there’s soul-bonding and mystical magi—” and she’s like “No, that’s just cheating on your boyfriend.” OF course the writers wrote it like cheating on your boyfriend but still.I’d give this a C, honestly one of the less impressive episodes of the series despite the few killer jokes, plus I know the cat story was supposed to be random but it could have used some kind of thematic tie to the A story.
this seems like an episode that started as one of those dumb random post-it note gags schrab and harmon did and worked its way backwards into justifying harmon shouting the word slut over and over
‘…dragons are more trouble then they’re worth’. Then they’re worth what?Yeah – this episode was awful.
Woooof. I pretty much agree with the words of this review, but I give it a D+. The pre-credits stinger was great. Everything else was… not great.