I’ve never made much of an effort to try and distinguish between Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s voices on this show. I’m not sure there’d be much point in it; more importantly, I don’t think I know Roiland’s work pre-Rick And Morty well enough to catch the differences. Roiland is into absurdist, cynical-bordering-on-nihilism humor mixed with improv shit and parody, while Harmon is mostly like that, except with a bit less improv and a bit more heart. Somehow, they make it work—”Rixty Minutes” remains a highwater mark for the series because it manages to balance both sensibilities in way that elevates them into something new. Sometimes, you just get random shit, and sometimes, you just get Dan Harmon raging against a genre he doesn’t like.
Which brings us to “One Crew Over The Crewcoo’s Morty,” where Harmon takes aim at heist movies. Admittedly, I don’t know the behind the scenes, and it’s possible Roiland or some other writer (yes, there is a writing staff, lovely people all) decided to go all in—it’s just, the basic structure of this is extremely similar to the Community episode where Harmon took aim at conspiracy movies. It’s a bit that show did a few times, actually, satirizing a convention while presenting a (usually) compelling version of it. In that respect, “Crew” works really well. Exhaustively well, honestly. By the end, the foolishness of never-ending double, triple, quadruple and so on crosses has been so thoroughly underlined that it’s a good thing there wasn’t any more episode left, because I might have thrown something through the screen.
I’m not sure why I’m sounding disappointed by any of this. I’m not. Even once it becomes clear that this was just going to be an endless series of scenes of Rick out-smarting someone, being out-smarted, out-smarting them in turn, and all building to a final reveal that pulls everything together—well, it still worked well. “Crew” is more cohesive than last week’s episode, and it doesn’t strain quite so hard to hit a familiar emotional pay-off. There’s not much in the way of sentiment, apart from the semi-regular reminder than Rick Sanchez is a horrible grandparent who will do everything in his power to keep his grandson under his thumb, but that just means the episode never really over-reaches itself. Sure, you know what’s coming on a basic level almost immediately, but that’s part of the point. There are fun heist movies, but the more it becomes a genre, the harder it is to surprise anyone—and just because you can’t do a script outline in the opening five minutes doesn’t mean you don’t already see what’s coming from a mile away.
Rick’s genre-savviness has been a staple of the show from early on, and while it can get tiresome, it works well here; there’s a decent amount of energy generated by the need to keep coming up with new characters to put throw the ringer, and the increasing scope of the gags stays funny right up until the point where you just want it to stop. Which is how it’s supposed to work. It wouldn’t really be good satire if it didn’t destroy the genre it was exemplifying, and while I don’t think I’ll never watch The Sting again, I’ll probably have to wait a couple of months before I give it a spin. (I’m lying, I’ve seen The Sting, like, once, it’s good but I have no desire to revisit.) Rick And Morty’s relentless self-awareness can sometimes feel like watching a movie with an asshole who can’t stop pointing how stupid everything is; but since most of us have been that asshole at one time other another, there’s a certain relief in watching a show that actually points out the dumb bits before you can. When it works (and obviously I think it works a lot of the time), it’s a kind of relief—oh, thank god, I’m not the only one who catches this bullshit.
But it’s weird when the show’s cynicism reveals its limits. Like, say, a guest voice performance from Elon Musk as “Elon Tusk,” a character who is exactly like Elon Musk, except he has tusks. I dunno, maybe the laziness of the joke is supposed to be saying something, because otherwise, Elon gets off way too easy. Rick makes a few cracks about how they didn’t go with non-tusk Elon because he’s too much of a “control freak” (because he cares too damn much, you know), and Elon Tusk is just kind of dorky and that’s about it. The performance’s main value is in its novelty, and if this was supposed to appeal to a certain part of the show’s fanbase, well, I hope they feel well-serviced. To me, it just seemed weak and indulgent.
Right, I haven’t really summarized the plot, have I. (Do we still do that?) Rick and Morty go to do some grave-robbing and find out some master thief got there first. Rick gets pissed off and things escalate from there, with a robot invention of Rick’s destroying planets in pursuit of increasingly massive heists. There’s some funny random shit, a bunch of different crews Rick pulls together, twist stacked on twists, until finally we learn that all of this went down (including that whole planet getting destroyed) because Rick wanted to stop Morty from successfully pitching a heist movie to Netflix. So Rick basically incepted him into getting sick of it all, thus blocking Morty from a career as a mildly successful screenwriter and ensuring that Rick and Morty would continue having adventures, and so on.
It’s a fun final reveal that has just enough misery in it (Morty is just seriously bummed out) to keep it from being entirely weightless. Back when Rick And Morty renewed until, what, the end of time or something, I couldn’t imagine the show sustaining itself for that long. Harmon and Roiland are a pair of talented artists whose instability drives their creative energy. As popular as it is, it was hard to see how the series could last more than a couple more years, and I still wouldn’t take huge bets on them reaching the hundred episode mark in one piece. But episodes like “Crew” give me a little more faith. It would be a stretch to call this conventional, but it feels conventional in the context of Rick And Morty, and if it can be that, and still funny, this thing could have legs.
Stray observations
- Seriously though, Elon Musk? I don’t get it.
- Mr. Poopybutthole is now Professor Poopybutthole. Or at least he was until Rick’s machinations got him fired.
- Has the show done that Doctor Strange joke before? Or did it just pop up in a trailer for the new season.
- Rick, dealing with a hostile crowd: “Your boos mean nothing, I see what makes you cheer!”
- Rick, dealing with a hostile crowd part 2: “Every breath I take without your permission increases my self-esteem!”
- “It appears the only perfect heist is one that was never written.” Nice War Games nod.
169 Comments
Like, say, a guest voice performance from Elon Musk as “Elon Tusk,” a character who is exactly like Elon Musk, except he has tusks. I dunno, maybe the laziness of the joke is supposed to be saying something, because otherwise, Elon gets off way too easy.I mean there are a ton of ways they could have made fun of Elon Musk. He’s the guy who’s in the middle of a lawsuit for calling a guy a “child molestor” for calling his rescue submarine stupid for god’s sake.
This tells me that Musk likely had a lot of control over how his guest appearance would be used. Which begs the question of why they used him in the first place and just did a parody version? Do Harmon and Roiland like Musk?
I’m pretty sure Justin Roiland is friends with Elon Musk.
I think it’s more likely that Elon likes R&M and when they thought of a dumb joke involving him he agreed. And it wasn’t some hard hitting joke because you play nice with your celebrity guests.
I honestly wish they hadn’t brought him in since he’s scum. But oh well you can’t help who the creators of a show you like are chummy with.
Scum seems a bit strong. Flawed? Sure. Crazy? Probably. I’ve read stuff that points to him quashing unionization at Tesla but I’m genuinely asking: what earns him such loathing from you?
Oh, he’s just a flaw, crazy guy *waves away
Gee, quashing unionization at Tesla and calling a guy who risks his life a child molester because the guy had the audacity to suggest that idiotic submarine wasn’t workable aren’t sufficient reasons to think Musk is a jackass?
‘Jackass’ I can understand even if I don’t fully agree. But ‘scum’ implies much darker shit. A jackass calls someone a child molester. Scum would Photoshop a pic (or deep fake a video) to look like someone is molesting a kid —- and leak it to the tabloids.
So where in your spectrum of jackass-to-scum does it fall to pay someone $50,000 for the purposes of smearing a guy as a child molester?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/09/16/elon-musk-paid-private-investigator-50000-look-british-cave/
Not to mention that Musk has a pretty big megaphone and accusing someone of CHILD MOLESTATION is pretty serious. Musk went way over the line on that one. He accused a rescue diver of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable with no evidence using the power of his million-follower twitter account. Here’s hoping he’s getting sued into another dimension.
I honestly didn’t think it was him until I saw his name in the credits, and then I was just kinda pissed off. Like why bother besides jerking off a section of your fanbase? Could’ve been literally any dude for what it amounted to in the episode.
Harmon is a fan of Elon Musk. He’s talked about him a lot on Harmontown.
Well, no one’s perfect
That sucks
So basically, neither of the R&M creators come out of this well, because they’re buddies with that ridiculous asshole, and gave him a softball guest appearance which adds nothing.
They appeared together in a meme review a few months back and are friends.
Here comes the political purity test
Musk is working on an e-Plumbus.
Yeah, the use of Elon Musk here is pure Simpsons late era’s “we make fun of them, but actually not, they’re cool, isn’t so cool that these great people agreed to voice themselves in our show?”.
Didn’t Elon Musk really do that? Play himself on The Simpsons?
Oh yeah. And South Park. He did them all.
Rick, dealing with a hostile crowd: “Your boos mean nothing, I see what makes you cheer!”
This was my favourite line of the episode. Rick’s contempt for the heist-con crowd was great, especially considering they were under his control.And that was Claudia Black making her return as the Mummy, right?“Who disturbs my slumber? Also, who rigs a tomb to crush a buried person?”
And also as “Ventriloquiver”?
To think, The Good Place had more bite with their Elon jokes. The Good Place!
Hell, even The Big Bang Theory had some funnier jokes from that one Thanksgiving episode he cameoed in, with Howard asking him “Will you adopt me?”
And you’re saying that like The Good Place is some piece of shit and not one of the top 3 comedies on TV right now?
I think the point is that the Good Place is a much gentler show but had more stinging barbs, while R&M usually goes for the throat but totally softballed Elon.
Yup, exactly. The Good Place is a very kindhearted and soft-edged show, and Rick and Morty is often deliberately ugly and uncomfortable and furthermore seems to pride itself on not holding its punches. And yet in this case the contrast goes very much the other way.
[[And you’re saying that like The Good Place is some piece of shit and not one of the top 3 comedies on TV right now?]]Heh.
No, he isn’t, but it is wildly overrated by this site, just like Rick and Morty was last season (yes, it’s a good comedy, but those aren’t the grades it’s receiving). I don’t see Rick and Morty getting all As this time though-so it seems to have evened out.His larger point was that TGP isn’t that cutting or sharp when it comes to satire (see Brent), but they were still much rougher than this show when it comes to Elon Musk. Which I’d say he’s right about.
No, he isn’t, but it is wildly overrated by this site, just like Rick and Morty was last season. I don’t see Rick and Morty getting all As this time though-so it seems to have evened out.
I generally don’t like these kind of episodes because I feel that they cross the line from light ribbing of a silly genre to “Hey don’t you feel stupid for having the audacity to like things?” And maybe that’s just the writers writing Rick to be an asshole because he has to be an asshole because he’s Rick, but in this case at least, it sure feels like Harmon and/or Roiland just straight dissing the audience. But that aside, I can’t help but admit that this episode had some great laughs. Although I feel like a better/funnier end for Rick and Heistotron getting caught in an infinite “that’s what I wanted you to think” loop would come from another character interfering rather than Heistotron just giving up. (I got the WarGames nod after the end but it should’ve been paced better, there was too much of a gap between Poopy Butthole’s “It’s learning” and the end, imo. Or maybe I just wanted a “Learn, goddamn it!” thrown into the mix.)
Based on the Inside the Episode, it’s pretty clear that Harmon and Roiland were the only ones with an unreasonable hatred of heist movies.
Shouldn’t make episodes based on your hatred for something? South Park has done that for 20 years!
I love the shows he makes but man does Dan Harmon seem like a real asshole in real life.
You have to wonder how someone like that made a show with as much lighthearted sincerity as Community.It’s like Community is what he poured all his positive emotions into, while Rick and Morty is what he pours all his negative emotions into (Both great shows, but one is faaar more cynical than the other. Community is about people bringing out the best in each other, while Rick and Morty is kinda the opposite).
In the above clip, Harmon seems like a happy, almost gleeful person when he describes his hatred of the heist genre. His podcast is very entertaining as well. I feel like his whole take on life is joyfully pointing out the weird parts of life, because of his unique perspective on everyday things.
I would choose him over Charlie Sheen if we are picking assholes.
You have to keep in mind that they enjoy making fun of tropes in a post modern sense. Just like in Community, when he made fun of clip shows episodes that usually occurs in the 5th or 6th season of a series and put them in the 2nd season with made up clips.
It’s going to come off as cynical no matter, but i like how they have fun with it with an entire planet sized spaceship continuing to disguise itself after already devastating a planet.
“Well. if. that’s. how. you. feel, I. guess. I. should. take. the. pizza. back.”
*stuffs molten core of planet into itself*
I’ve taken to watching the show like I’m hanging out with a smart, funny friend who also suffers from clinical depression. I can enjoy our time together while understanding that his worldview is drenched in a level of negativity that is both irrational and unhealthy. The fact that so many of the creators’ views are expressed through a character that show has explicitly told us hates himself nutshells the issue for me.
(I also don’t think Heistotron “gave up.” The joke is that he programmed like 5863 levels of “I wanted you to know that I knew that you knew that I knew that..” and Rick did 5864.)
Doobie, I agree one hundred percent it is absolutely like a having a very smart and very funny friend who is clinically depressed
See, I think it did, given the explicit War Games nod. It realizes that the only way to win is not to heist and then explodes since its sole purpose is gone. Rick knew that from the start because of his inherent hatred of the genre (and didn’t explode because he’s not a robot devoted to one purpose). …Or (more entertainingly for me) Rick’s one-upmanship actually keeps him from learning like Heistotron does.
In the first two seasons, Rick was an asshole, but he was such a ridiculous character that you couldn’t help but laugh. Like, he was super smart but also kind of a dumb ass at the same time.In recent seasons, he’s still entertaining but kind of insufferable, and it feels like he’s supposed to be right. As if the show itself has bought into his hype.Granted I like the season premiere. I thought it was a really great start. And I liked last weeks episode too (just not as much as the season premiere). But I thought this episode was weak.
Yes, that was the joke which was actually really funny.
hey, don’t put this sort of arrogant asshole-ry on the clinically depressed. we’re not all pricks in our despondency.
Or, Harmon and Roiland and realize there isn’t much crossover between their audience and the audience for shitty heist movies.
I think the key thing stopping it from being full on“haha you like this thing, what an IDIOT” is the fact that Rick is not someone to idolize. Rick’s cynicism and aggression towards stuff is abnormal. So while Harmon/Roiland are using Rick as a sort-of mouthpiece to voice their issues with the genre, it’s a mouthpiece with a voice changer attached. Through Rick, they do raise valid points about the issues with the genre, but it’s still *through Rick*. So it comes out in the most aggressive, blunt way possible, but it’s not a way you’d ever want to engage with or really take seriously. Because it’s coming from Rick Sanchez, who is a total s***head. I don’t feel like an idiot because my opinion is different to Rick’s, because I don’t want to share his opinions that are, in his case, rooted in extreme cynicism and depression.tl;dr: Rick has been presented as completely toxic, so if he thinks you’re an idiot for liking something that’s par for the course. I don’t think that means Harmon and Roiland do.
I understand what you’re saying but I thought Rick’s over-the-top deranged unreasonable hatred of heist films was just hilarious to observe and I didn’t see it as being a serious indictment of the genre. I mean if you like heist (and I don’t hate it) I can see how you might feel attacked, but I’m not sure too many people identify personally with hesit films? That’s part of what made it funny. Heist typically isn’t a genre which people identify with strongly or base their personalities around. It’s not like Sci-fi or superhero or vampire
I agree. There’s something that seems sort of arbitrary about a hatred of heist films, kind of like a love of Szechuan sauce. At most, it seems like a genre that Rick would dislike because it relies on “putting one over” on the audience, and Rick is pretty allergic to having anything put over on him.Perhaps there’s even a “meta” element to this in terms of Harmon and Moiland trolling their own fanbase — That if you feel “triggered” by the show mocking something you like to the point of absurdity, perhaps you’re taking it to seriously.
Exactly. It’s arbitrary, petty, and trivial which makes it hilarious to watch Rick go to such lengths for it. But also, going to crazy lengths to defend heist films is ridiculous as well
Exactly. It’s arbitrary, petty, and trivial which makes it hilarious to watch Rick go to such lengths for it. But also, going to crazy lengths to defend heist films is ridiculous as well
I agree, and that’s what I find off-putting in any medium where the author uses a character as a mouthpiece to call you, the audience (or a character thereof) an asshole for liking the thing it’s satirizing, or for having a different opinion than them. I call it the “Spec Ops: The Line” effect. I don’t expect to be pandered to by what I watch/read/play, but I also don’t like being lectured or called a douchebag for it.
Agreed. I feel like this episode is probably the most obvious recollection of Community (as Zach mentioned) but in a really off-putting way. As Abed would repeatedly note, what they did were homages, not “spoofs.” Humor was mined from poking fun at genre conceits, of course. But it didn’t make you feel like an idiot for liking things. Fuck, even with Harmon’s public contempt for Glee, “Regional Holiday Music” was still fun. It was fairly brutal and obvious in its criticism, but i don’t know… it still felt like in the joyful takedown, it acknowledged that, yeah. sometimes shit is just fun and appealing, even when it’s also kind of dumb. I dunno, maybe if there were more jokes in the episode this would have left a better impression but frankly it felt like the episode dragged the fuck on, which is definitely not the norm for an ep of R&M.
Wow I much more enjoyed that episode than the last one. The last one made me think that Rick and Morty had devolved into a try to hard lean on profanity jumble. This one brought my faith back in full swing.Which was the real heist all along.
The real heist was the friends we made along the way.By stealing them.
I don’t really care enough to get into it, but I feel the need to see the following opinion expressed somewhere:
This was not a good episode. It was boring and not funny. The show can do far, far better than this. I cannot understand where an A- is coming from. I know it’s lame to quibble over grades, but I’m feeling maybe a C with a long yawn, so I am pretty confused.
I thought it was graded a bit too highly as well, but it’s just like any episode reviewed: some click better than others with the reviewer, and not always the ones you want.
There’s no denying Pickle Rick deserved its Emmy, but we haven’t had “that” episode just yet in this series that’s a clean cut winner.
However, that scene with the giant spaceship disguising itself in front of the planet it was robbing, while an incredible scene of devastation mirroring Unicorn level destruction was shown…that was funny as hell, and there is something wrong with you if you didn’t laugh.
I’ll never understand this fanbase, I thought Pickle Rick was one of the worst episodes ever. Gimmicky, cheap catchphrases, very little actual plot beyond the therapist stuff. To me that was the signal that the show was pandering to the McDonald’s sauce losers rather than making fun of them.
If they decide to make fun of the toxic fan base (although technically they have….multiple times…including this episode), it’s going to be as intricate as the Vindicators episode. They even did it in Community, I think Harmon just has it in his back pocket.As far as the Pickle Rick episode goes, that episode was so amazing that even one of the head writers is getting her own show. There wasn’t a single frame that wasn’t looked over 10 times (even the rats were changed so that they wouldn’t offend PETA), if it didn’t click with you….oh well.
I would love that. I thought this episode was great and I love the Vindicators episode so a similar styled one that makes fun of the fans of the show would be incredible to me. As for Pickle Rick, I just have a hard time enjoying anything that seems explicitly created with merchandise in mind, especially since I consider the rampant consumerism so prevalent in the nerd community to be one of the worst things about it (and there are so many terrible things about the nerd community). I loved Susan Sarandon’s parts tho.
If R&P finally took on its own toxic fans, then they’d quit watching, and the show would be cancelled. They’re gonna save the toxic fan takedown for the SERIES finale.
They wouldn’t waste an episode like that, even a finale.Dan knows about the toxic fan base, and also knows that acknowledging them, even as an insult, would only fuel and stir them up more because it validates their existence.Dan has made fun of toxic culture so many times already, he may just be sick and tired of it and just focus on making better episodes.
The heisting of the entire planet was the highlight of the episode for me too, but I laughed the whole way through and greatly enjoyed it. This was my favourite episode of the 3 so far and I’ve really enjoyed each one. At the moment it’s batting at a higher average than Season 3.
It’s weird to read your comment and know that no matter what I watch each episode at least 3 times on its first day.So even if it wasn’t one of my favorites, I’m still going back now to over analyze it lol. Great show.
I’m with you on that. Honestly, so far, I’m not into this tiny, first half of a new season. It feels like autopilot that comes with two creatives finally become multi-millionaires, along with whatever ancillaries they… Roiland and Harmon are checked out. They don’t really want to be doing this. Or, at least, they don’t care about the characters anymore. There are plenty reasons that others, better suited for that kind of thing, that I think leads one to believe it.
Ok Nazi Morty
I haven’t seen this episode but last week was dreadful. Like I don’t even remember enough to say why it was so bad other than I never laughed and never cared.
If that was a satirical bit (in the vein of the plot) I’m really impressed. You took “I don’t like this show that I didn’t watch” to multiple levels on that one.When we get to something like “I roofie’d myself while watching the entire series and I hate every episode even though I can’t remember any of this toxic show” we’ll have reached peak-negative-AVC-comment.I give it 3 more episodes.
I saw the episode and it was awful. Also I didn’t say i didn’t like the show, I said last week’s episode was bad.
Never said so. I’m predicting a future comment, not necessarily from you, based upon trends.With funding from Andrew Yang, I’m using my spreadsheets and collected data to form an A.I. that will automate internet commentating. It’s the only way to beat the Chineeeeese.
You replied directed to me and you specifically said “you” when you said “You took “I don’t like this show that I didn’t watch” to multiple levels on that one.” But that was almost a nice save, if like it made any sense.
I felt the same way about episode 2 but I felt like this episode was back up to par
As a Harmon fan, and an avid listener of his almost over podcast, it’s really apparent that he wants to retire. Unlike other creators who seem to have cultivated their accessible personalities for sake of creating more things, he seems to wanted to be at the center of the attention, not necessarily his work, and that’s okay! I’m glad I got to know the guy he put out there. And I love what Community was, especially when the writing was on. But, both Roiland, and Harmon have made “jokes” about their “product” of Rick and Morty. It’s a cash cow, and they’re happy to have it. Roiland seems more interested in making games, which I can’t wait to play more of, and Harmon seems to want to finish out the 70 ep order, and be done with being a creative entirely. He’s left Starburns. He’s shutting down the podcast. He’s retreating, and he’s earned it.
But man, the new season of episodes seem so petty, angry, and honestly lazy in the metahumor department that would’ve worked 4 years ago, but not now.
Yeah I finally saw it and it seemed to be talking down to itself. It was really bad and almost insulting, I don’t get it.
I mean any opinion about how much people working on a show care or don’t care is just gonna be an opinion pulled out of someone’s ass but if anything I get the feeling that things get increasingly stiff when Harmon cares too much. It always seems to lead to him losing spontaneity because he gets too stressed out and rigid, sort of like a muscle tensing up until you can barely move. Based on how badly production on this show gets slowed down by the writing, and the fact that both the creators seemed to have echoed this sentiment before, I think it’s somewhat safe to say that of Harmon and Roiland (or as safe as these sorts of assumptions can be).
The main thing that leads me to agree with you is when I ask myself “Is this an episode that was worth waiting two years for?” I haven’t seen one of those yet in this new season. If they needed two years worth of polish to feel like the product we’ve seen so far was ready to go out into the world, I can’t imagine this is a task they are approaching with a whole lot of enthusiasm.Maybe the season is front-loaded with duds and I will be awestruck by the riches further on down the line… and to be honest, Dan Harmon shows have always felt very hit or miss for me, including the much-hallowed Community. But when, say, Venture Bros. comes back after two years off, you get eight great episodes, not a 14 minute script padded out to 22 by introducing and rapidly escalating a rather petty gripe to cosmic proportions.
AV Club has always been way too generous with this show. This is the first low grade on a Rick and Morty episode in a very long time. They always usually and undeservedly give this show A – A-’s.
They do this with The Good Place also. Not that i dislike it… its just that not every episode needs an A. Especially the latest season.
Yeah, completely agree. I guess it’s just like that sometimes. Some shows struggle to get decent grades even when they deserve them, and others get As no matter what they do.
Yeah, completely agree. I guess it’s just like that sometimes. Some shows struggle to get decent grades even when they deserve them, and others get As no matter what they do.
What are you talking about? Last week got a lower grade!
I remember the curve went way out of whack when that mediocre Mad Max episode got full marks.
I think it was one their funniest episodes. I loved all the heist jokes.
I think that with the season being only five episodes long that having a less than great episode feels the more like having a really bad episode in a regular length season.
Agreed. I didn’t come away wanting to watch again to see what I missed. Perhaps it is because heist movies aren’t a big part of my repertoire, so I just don’t care.
I liked it.
Completely agree, this was my least favorite episode of the entire series. And it would have been even with the lame Elon Musk joke. Couple of laughs but all in all just annoying
I thought the idea of making of fun of heist as a genre was really fun and creative. Heist is such a narrow and tiny genre that viewing it this way is just funny to me, even moreso the idea that there would be a whole sublculture built around it that has conventions etc. I think Handlen is right that it’s a very “Community” like idea, and I”m not a huge “Community” fan, but I really liked it done with these characters. I thought this main idea was so funny that I cut the episode a lot of slack
I feel you, even though I personally feel the grade was somewhat earned-it was better than last week’s for sure. But ever since Season 3, episode 2, there’s been a large amount of people in the comments saying how this particular episode sucked, etc. Guess it’s just that type of show.
Disagree, this was the best episode they’ve done so far this season. Although, in fairness, I thought the premier ep was a bit too self-indulgent and last week’s one about the toilets was just scattered.
The only ‘heist movies’ I’ve seen are the ones that are already to some extent parodies (Johnny English, The Parole Officer, the TV show Hustle), so I came away feeling that Rick was just stating the obvious.It was a nice final reveal, but a better one would have been showing a universe where Morty overcame his disillusionment, successfully pitched the movie, and then carried on adventuring with Rick anyway, showing that Rick’s whole machinations here were a pointlessly egotistical waste of time. Now *that* would have been a great metacommentary (sorry, Fascist Morty, you Nazi prick) on this episode.
This season has been just meta-bitching. Write some jokes. Props to the animation team. Get your shit together Harmon and Roiland.
I give this episode an F!!! For Rick! Because goddamn Rick is evil.
Yes, I understand the whole sympathetic take on “oh, it’s just an old grandpa wanting to be his with grandchild.”
But he took away his dreams, he disillusioned him from his own goals, he just did an INCEPTION ON HIS OWN GRANDKID!
Damn, now I feel like I’m stuck in the heist theme loop.
Great episode, well done, but that damn Rick…
No wonder Evil Morty is so loved…
One thing that sorta still bugs me about the premiere: Rick’s ship has proven itself to be pretty advanced (See – The Ricks Must Be Crazy, “Keep Summer safe…”) so you’d think it would have some way of eliminating unwanted passengers like Nazi Morty.
That wasn’t Rick’s ship. That was Nazi Rick’s ship.
Maybe his ship is programmed not to harm Mortys?
I’d imagine that it has had many different Morty’s before, and they exist primarily as tools in Rick’s schemes, so the possibility of Rick bringing a fascist Morty along for some possible use is non-zero. If the show were primarily about how smart Rick is then he would have had some easy keyword, button, or AI filter to hit that would eject an unwanted passenger, but the show’s primarily about comedy, so they will compromise Rick’s intelligence in service of a laugh.
Keeping stuff like that in continuity would kill the show. Rick has as much enhancements and tech as the plot demands.
Unbearable nit-picking on my part here, but wouldn’t that ship have been Nazi-Rick’s, thus making it view Regular-Rick as the intruder?
There was a blink-or-you’ll miss it Arby’s product placement, which I thought they might do a “Shoney’s” with. Instead it was just the wrapper blowing away in the wind. I get the need to do product placements, I guess. My favorite this year was God on “Preacher” claiming Diet Dr Pepper was His greatest creation. Elon Musk, Maya Angelou, Arby’s, Rubik’s Cube. Maybe this was a name-dropping/product placement episode. It was pretty clear what lollypop Rick kept unwrapping. Idk. Maybe reading too much into it. Last week’s was better on the rewatch. This one might be too.
Okay, I rewatched it three times. It does indeed improve on repeated viewings. They snark on Elon Musk a descent amount. I’ll never not laugh at the random sequence – fly a helicopter to a waterfall ledge, then jump out and run around in a circle – put a sock on one hand, run outside and flail in the street – cook the contents of your refrigerator in the oven at 500 degrees – host a cattle auction. Rick Sanchez, you son of a bitch. I’m in.
That heist of the planet’s molten core was brilliant because it was the absolute worst job ever done.
Made me laugh out loud of how absurd it was and then felt defeated because I told myself:
“Have you ever pulled a heist that big?”
LOL
Like, say, a guest voice performance from Elon MuskEw!
Speaking of Netflix, did anyone else decide not to watch Weirder Stuff season 3? I enjoyed Season 1, but I just felt like after season 2 having the kids revisit the Different Zone just seemed like more of the same. I was kinda done with the show after that.
Possible future indicator if Rick swaps Earths again in the future: This episode’s Earth no longer has a Mars in orbit since he left that behind in the exploding Heist ship.I suppose we can also be on the lookout for any Dimension switching if we see a new Spikky Renis, Krumpf, Biggum, or Big Pluto during their adventures, as those planets were lost as well.Otherwise, I hope the writers are prepared to account for the obviously monumental effect that the destruction of Spikky Renis will have on the entire galaxy.
1.) I feel like Musk had more lines than Sam Neill and Kathleen Turner combined and that’s a travesty.
2.) The Lynchbot or whatever it was called fell flat because nothing it wrote (aside from Rick swallowing the bird and spitting out an egg) felt like they were from a David Lynch film. But maybe I just want to watch Mr. Poopy Butthole sweep a floor for nine minutes.
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I liked this one. I felt it’s a mockery of the concept “you must really love something to criticize it” and “the loving parody”. Like, no, Harmon and Roiland hate heist movies which is why they scrutinized and made fun of every layer in a way that is often spot on when emulating.And I think it helps that Rick, the poster grandpa of loudly proclaiming how much you don’t give a fuck about something, is the mouthpiece for all that hate. Him shitting with such vitriol on Lynch and heist movies (especially when he admits he barely watched either) makes it less about them being shit and Rick being really far up his ass. Lynch isn’t really “random” so Rick missing the point entirely like an internet idiot sold the joke for me.The Elon stuff I can forgive for the simple fact that they are friends. Like, yeah, they should maybe get better friends – I thought Musk was cool early on and then he seemed hard at work to change that reputation into “massive tool” – but eh, I’ll live. I find this particular friendship much less off-putting than the comedy circuit’s cowardly fence-sitting about Louie CK.
With Claudia Black only having a single line in the 1st act that’s two weeks in a row that they’ve wasted talented actors on pretty trivial material.
Was she not Veltriloquiver as well?
I think that was Pam Adlon
they had to save time for Elon
Also the master heist guy that was hosting the convention was Justin Theroux, he got more than others… but it’s sad that the most guest actor screen time has been given to Musk and he wasn’t even a driving part of the plot.Taika Waititi got to be in most of last week’s episode, but his unique humor and line delivery was mostly wasted on just repeatedly asking “do you want to develop an app?”
As soon as I realized this was a heist movie parody, my mind went to the Grifting 101 episode of Community. Both were pretty hilarious, I thought.
You mention THE STING, but this seems clearly fashioned after the OCEAN’S X films. I’d argue those are two different animals, and you should watch THE STING again.
Sting one of my favs … not sure where the hate comes from
I never saw those movies, but Magicians 1 and 2 came to mind
Or the Italian Job. Or the Fast and the furious movies,to some extent
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I’m in!
‘The Simpsons,’ ‘South Park,’ and now ‘Rick and Morty.’ Pretty soon, Elon’s gonna have a painfully forced and lifelessly voiced cameo in every goddamn adult animated series on TV. Ugh.Other than that, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. As someone who’s hated the ‘Ocean’s’ franchise for years, this was a fun (if somewhat overdone) takedown of the whole heist genre. Not sure how I feel about an alien closely resembling Freddie Mercury getting brutally dismembered, though.
Somewhere in the middle of this episode, it went full Simpsons rake on me where I thought the bit was getting old but I came back around to it again.
Lumping The Sting in with the kind of slick, empty-headed stuff like the Ocean’s flicks doesn’t really scan with me. (And I think the fact this episode aims all its barbs at the latter while completely ignoring the former bolsters this view.) I wouldn’t even really call The Sting a “heist movie” — it’s a “con movie”, which isn’t exactly the same thing; it’s really about what makes Redford’s Johnny Hooker tick, I’d argue. As another example, House of Games doesn’t really care about the actual con, it cares about the psychology of the conners and the conned (and, I’d also note, doesn’t employ most of the conventions this R&M ep. mocked.) There are movies which straddle this line — Rififi springs immediately to mind — but I think there’s a reasonable distinction to be made.
Rififi is a good movie. Just be careful if a hot-but-nerdy woman who looks suspiciously like Keri Russell in a wig and glasses tries to pick you up after a showing. She’s not into you, she’s trying to use you.
I think that goes without saying, regardless of whether I’ve seen the movie or not. 😉
Oh my god your the only other person who has seen House of Games. Impressive.
I watch it on BBC2 all the time. Love Richard Osman…
Me as well.
I’d say House of Games has a big stupid part at the end where double crosses are revealed, but to be fair I have a complicated relationship with David Mamet so I haven’t watched it in a long time. Mostly when I watch his stuff I can’t stop thinking about how every character is an upper middle class white guy who hates women.
I feel like this season’s been a little meh the past two episodes.
The “Old Man and the Seat” episode was a little weak at times, but it still ended up having that same kind of surprising layer of depth at the end that tied the humor together with a purpose. And there were subplots that tied in and were enjoyable. This last episode lacked that for me. It was just a “filler” that relied on sight gags and on-the-spot dialogue/references to fill out a single 30min bit. Don’t get me wrong, the sight gags and dialogue were hilarious, but more as “one-and-done” jokes than anything.
I know they’re cranking episodes out now compared to the previous few seasons, but I’m hoping this was just one instance where they had a funny idea and decided to stretch it out over 30mins rather than doing more with it.
Ah, a rare episode I have no interest in ever rewatching.
I agree with you, but there is always a crossover point between episodes I no longer like and episodes I now appreciated. And with enough time for Poopy Butthole’s grandkids to get their own G-E-E-E-Ds…
“Every breath I take without your permission increases my self-esteem!”Nice, been my way of life since… kindergarten probably. :DCheers
I still thoroughly enjoyed the episode, not necessarily an A for me, but a solid B or so. Will have to rewatch tonight, I always rewatch every episode the next day to make sure I took it all in. Heist bot was pretty funny, and the ending back and forth with Rick and heist bot was hilarious, discussing/arguing over who truly setup who.
I came away feeling similar, in that I laughed quite a few times and thought a lot of it was cleverly done, but this isn’t going to make my top 20 episodes of R&M.The Elon Musk thing doesn’t bother me at all. First, considering the nature of the relationship between him and Dan/Justin. Second, and I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m fine with Elon currently. He’s a flawed human being that makes mistakes to be sure, but he supports plenty of good causes and tries to innovate mostly positive things for mankind as far as I know. He can be eccentric and weird, but sometimes we need to take the good with the bad, which is how I feel about this episode in general.
His company probably tried to swat an employee who went to the press with information about environmental and safety problems associated with their products that they were trying to cover up but okay
I saw this episode more as another “WorldEnder” where they skewer a movie trope just because Rick wants to kill something inside of Morty that’s non-Rick-centric.
Opening credits: “Written by: Caitie Delaney” but go off, king
The Sting is a great, fun movie — not for nothing is its signature piece of music called “The Entertainer”. Sometimes, it’s good to enjoy something on the internal merits of the acting, pacing and chemistry of the leads.
On the one hand, this also gave me heavy vibes of the conspiracy theories Community episode, AKA the episode I’ve rewatched so many times the hypothetical VHS that Hulu stores it on has worn out. They kept on finding new gags to put into each montage that kept it pretty fresh for me throughout the whole running time despite it being basically the same joke over and over again. While this whole season has been treading water a bit, at least this episode felt like that in a good way. On the other hand, that Elon Musk cameo is a big turd in the middle of the episode that doesn’t even bring any jokes with it. Like even if you’re an Tesla superfan there’s not much to be excited about other than the mere fact the guy is on the show. At the very least it would have been very in character for Elon and Rick to have a deep mutual resentment which could give people of all types of Elon Musk opinions something to laugh about. As it is it just feels like Elon Musk and Justin Roiland got high together one time and though it would be a hilarious and memey crossover to do.
I like Rick and Morty but I never saw Community. I was a bit turned off from the show by how fans would threadjack random AV club threads into Community discussion threads, which perhaos wasn’t fair.
Is it something that fans of Rick and Morty would probably enjoy?
Well to be fair, Rick and Morty fans have a similar reputation at this point ;)Anyways, the main commonality between the two shows is Dan Harmon’s writing. If you like Rick and Morty’s love-hate relationship with pop culture and depressing but touching character dynamics, you’ll find a lot of similar stuff on Community. Otherwise, they’re pretty different.What I like more about Community is that it’s much more of an ensemble show whereas a lot of the ensemble on Rick and Morty is just more Justin Roiland. On the other hand, most of Community takes place in the same 6 or 7 network TV sets, while Rick and Morty generally has some new and crazy setting every week.
I really liked “Conspiracy theories and interior design”, but I didn’t like this one at all.And I think it’s because while the former one was pretty much in character (Jeff made something up so he can get credit for something he didn’t do), this R&M episode felt out of character for Rick, at least for me.
To me, there’s nothing more in character for Rick than “I’m afraid of losing Morty but can only show it by engaging in complicated schemes that prevent him from even thinking about leaving me”. That’s pretty much his core character trait that traps them in their toxic dynamic.
Worst of the three new ones so far in my book. Last weeks was ok and the premiere just seemed like a reboot of S1E1 . I’m not saying they’re bad but after a 2 year hiatus and a paltry 4 episodes I was hoping they would at least be great ones not forgettable ones.
I would have given this episode a D-. The episodes have gone from mediocre to bad to terrible thus far this season. This was the first one that couldn’t even illicit a chuckle.
This was definitely a “pizza episode”.
pizza episode?
In an interview with the AVC, Dan Harmon noted that when you’re making a TV comedy, you’re making pizza. Pizza is good, even when it’s not great. So long as you’re feeding the audience pizza instead of shit, you’re doing alright. The idea is that not every episode has to break new ground. It’s alright to do an episode that is “just” another episode. So a “pizza episode” is an episode of TV that isn’t especially remarkable, but is still enjoyable.
I’m not going to watch it again to actually learn what I’m talking about, but there’s a well-known rant from Dan Harmon available on YouTube where he’s pissed off about the title “Now You See It II”, which builds until he screams “HOW IT NOT CALLED ‘NOW YOU DON’T’!!!!!?!?!?!?!?” Seems relevant.
“Rick And Morty’s relentless self-awareness can sometimes feel like watching a movie with an asshole who can’t stop pointing how stupid everything is; but since most of us have been that asshole at one time other another, there’s a certain relief in watching a show that actually points out the dumb bits before you can.”I disagree. I always find it annoying. This need to be smarter/quicker than your audience.
Son of a bitch, I’m in!
Yes Dr Strange gag was from trailer. made me laugh then and made me laugh just now.
I thought this episode was weak honestly.
Dan Harmon and Elon Musk are friends IRL, at least according to what Harmon says on Harmontown.
I just wanted to let you know, since you open with talking about efforts in distinguishing Dan Harmon’s voice acting from Justin Roiland’s – that FYI it is not even close to an even split (e.g. in the vein of Trey Parker & Matt Stone on South Park). Roiland does Rick AND Morty’s voices as well as about 30 others throughout the series, whereas Harmon has done about 7 voice roles total – most prolifically as Bird Person.
In fact that is why at the end of episodes where Harmon provides voiceover it actually lists him in the end credits under “Starring” (with the other non-regulars) whereas Roiland – who is a regular voice – is credited for this in the opening sequence.
The show was always more clever than funny, and this episode was too clever for its own good.Just like the audience it is making fun of.
Yea, This was pure Harmon. If you listen to his podcast “Harmontown”, you know he is prone to long, complicated rants about very specific topics. So, i wouldn’t bet against his stamina for creating content similar to this episode. He is a prolific complainer.In particular, even though Oceans 12 was the most referenced (probably since the series is the most popular of the heist genre as of 2019), his anger is mostly directed towards the heist film “Now you see me”, staring Jessie Eisenberg and Mark Ruffalo. Its about a heist crew composed of magicians. And also its sequel. I enjoyed how it depicts “high intelligence” in such a stupid and childish way. It reminded me of the social media posts about how only people of a high IQ could appreciate Rick and Morty. A dumb person’s idea of what high IQ is supposed to look like.
Does Harmon voice Rick? It would make sense for one grumpy asshole to voice another grumpy asshole.And I think of it this way: “Rick & Morty” is a dumb show pretending to be smart, and “The Venture Brothers” is a smart show pretending to be dumb.
I’m kind of glad this is a short season, it feels like a B-side set of stories that they’re burning off. They’re fine, but just sort of okay episode of Rick and Morty.
Rip off Doctor Strange lol. And the son of a bitch lines were hilarious. Oooooweee
The minute I realised Musk was voicing himself, it crashed down to a D rating for me. This wasn’t particularly fun to watch. I did like the return of Professor Poopybutthole, and was wondering early on if Supernova might show up. And yes, that’s take 2 on the Dr Strange joke. I also did like those two Rick quotes you mentioned, they made me chuckle. But yeah, not one I’ll ever watch or acknowledge again.
You mention The Sting. That’s not a heist movie. That’s a grifter movie. Genre adjacent but not the same. Other examples include Matchstick Men and 9 Queens.Harmon did his big grift movie riff in Community in the rpisode featuring Matt Berry, in which they watch The Sting.
A little late for this, but I was just reminded of The Great Chang Dynasty episode of Community which was an homage to Ocean’s Eleven among other things. One of the last of the Harmon run episodes before the gas leak year… and while Jeff voiced his disdain for heists, they still did one. I don’t recall Dan being vocal about the heist genre back then, yet this entire episode is an giant middle finger to them as is the interviews with Dan and Justin.
Highlight of the episode for me was Morty being un-recruited from the heist “I’m out, I’m out”
Heists are 60% putting a crew together, 40% revealing that the heist has already taken place’. That was the episode right there, funny, barbed and succinct. You don’t need to then painfully illustrate that joke for 20 increasingly tedious minutes.Poor episode all around I thought, although Rick at the Convention (should have been CONCon, surely?) was funny. Both with the ‘Netflix commissions everything’ joke and the bewilderingly unfunny Elon Musk guest appearance they’re hanging onto South Park’s coat tails.
Wow, I’m finally catching up on season 4 and just saw this one. It was absolutely hilarious, I couldn’t stop laughing. Def enjoyed it more than the first 2 of this season. Loved it when he put together that first crew before we we’re in on the job. So what’s this job, and Rick is all like…its done, thx….Good shit this episode, yes I watch this on the toilet.