I’m not a huge fan of poop jokes. I don’t know why—it’s one of those things the vast majority of people seem to have fun with, unless they’re prudes or obsessed with cleanliness, and I don’t think I’m either of those. (Possibly a prude?) Anyway, this isn’t a digression paragraph: I just mention this because I’m trying to figure out why “The Old Man And The Seat” didn’t quite work for me. It’s got a lot going for it: a pair of solid premises, great guest voices, an intern named Gluty, and the universe’s most perfect toilet. But while the end result is pretty funny and thematically coherent, it feels just slightly under-done. It’s possible I think that because I don’t love poop jokes. If you loved this, and you need something to blame for me not loving it, we can start there. (And then obviously escalate to my many other failings.)
“Secret pooping” I get, though. It’s not something I’ve ever really done myself, but the idea of wanting at least one part of your life—the part where you feel vulnerable and solitary and kind of gross—to be pristine and protected isn’t that unusual. “Seat” spins it out into some theme work on Rick’s simultaneous need to be alone and desire for connection, and I think all of that more or less lands, but it also works as just a desire to have something that’s entirely your own. Rick takes this to extremes, but of course that’s been an inherent part of the character since the start of the series—the way his scientific genius can turn any straightforward human trait into something exponentially more ambitious and grotesque. Here, he has a place where he likes to poop that just happens to be an entire planet. It’s extreme, but it’s not that hard to relate; and it’s a very nice place to poop. Unfortunately, he finds evidence that someone else has pooped there. Which, obviously, isn’t going to fly.
While Rick is tracking down the phantom pooper, Morty gets sucked into an adventure driven by Jerry’s stupidity. Of the episode’s two plots (Summer and Beth are also involved, but it’s as a direct result of Jerry’s aforementioned stupidity), this is the one that feels the less developed. There are a lot of pretty good ideas here: Rick has an intern named Gluty who’s always asking people to develop his app. Jerry being an idiot decided to develop Gluty’s app: a matchmaking program that Jerry dubs Lovefinderrz that repeatedly shows people perfect love matchs. Having learned from past experience, Morty threatens Gluty until the alien takes him and his father up to his space-ship where they learn the horrible truth.
Gluty is funny; the fact that he has a do-not-develop-my-app tattoo on his forehead is funny; and there’s some good squabbling between Jerry (who is dumb) and Morty (who is not quite as dumb as Jerry, and also has the excuse of being a child). But while the cleverness of an app that exploits the human desire for companionship alongside our inability to be satisfied with anything that requires us to do actual work fits in fairly well with the overall “boy, social interactions are tricky” theme, as an actual story, it never quite clicks into place. Not even Sam Neil as the leader of the aliens makes up for what is a fairly one-note gag. A sequence two-thirds of the way through the episode that has multiple people rapidly losing and finding love feels a little too silly; the rapid-fire delivery is fun, but once you get the bit about people just dropping a potential romantic partner the second they’re even mildly irritating (because the app offers you someone new)—it’s not all that insightful or interesting.
Which would be fine, because all it really has to be is funny, but it’s not that funny either; the show’s escalation of premises work better when they, well, escalate, and this one doesn’t really. And the aliens’ plan to steal Earth’s water is kind of a shrug, right down to the joke where the Sam Neill alien (who previously bragged about his race has mastered love) starts fighting with his wife the second things go wrong. There’s a bit where Jerry convinces Gluty to help him and Morty, and Gluty does this funny little dance like it’s his signature move before he leaves; Jerry and Morty both comment on the strangeness of it, and it’s sort of emblamatic of the whole episode’s Rick And Morty Mad Libs vibe. Absurdity followed by meta-self-awareness about that absurdity. It’s not a bad bit, but it’s such a standard gag for the show that there’s no novelty to it anymore.
Rick’s story fares better. It was an iteration on “Rick is lonely but keeps people at arm’s length,” which is a good story set-up: it allows for the tension of wondering if and when Rick is just going to snap and kill the guy, a lot of good jokes about the different ways he tries to get revenge without resorting to actual murder, and then a bit of melancholy when he ends up alone again after all. The show’s ability to balance caustic, cynical humor against a surprising degree of sentiment has been one of its great strengths for most of the run, and while this iteration of the idea doesn’t reach earlier heights, it’s still pretty good. I mean, after all, it is Rick going apeshit because someone used his secret toilet. As absurdist ways to kick a plot into gear, there are worse ones to pick.
I missed the credits (although I stuck around for the teaser, so I guess I was just… not looking when I should’ve been), but I’m pretty sure Jeffrey Wright did the voice of Tony, the pooper who Rick can’t quite bring himself to kill. Wright (if it is Wright) has just the right amount of hangdog dignity to serve as a good foil for Rick, and it’s kind of disappointing when the episode decides to kill him off screen. It makes sense: the escalation can’t go on forever, and Rick And Morty doesn’t really do recurring characters. But in an episode that generally suffers from sticking to the surface too much, it would’ve been nice if things had gone in a way that didn’t quite so neatly cauterize the narrative.
The timeline seems a bit wonky, too, given that Tony apparently quits his job, goes to live life to the fullest, and then immediately dies skiing on Space Mount Everest (or Mount Space Everest), but this has always been a show where everything happens very quickly. And the image of Rick intentionally setting off the revenge he’d meant for Tony (a surprisingly non-violent mocking hologram show and crowning) is a fine way to end things, both rubbing in Rick’s basic fucked-up nature and reminding us that he still wasn’t going to actually murder they guy.
I dunno. I always hate writing reviews like this, because it’s possible I missed something, and it could be it just clicks with other people more strongly than it clicked with me. Again: not huge on poop jokes. (Although come to think of it, there aren’t that many poop jokes in this episode, at least not when you consider how much of it focuses on people on the toilet.) This is pretty good, and I laughed a few times. Honestly, that’s fine.
Stray observations
- I almost wish Rick’s efforts to track down the phantom pooper had taken a little longer. The fly mobster who runs a frog restaurant, the robot revolution (Rick tricks his way past the machines by wearing a funnel with a QR code glued on), all good stuff.
- When Jerry uses the app, he doesn’t get a match; when Beth uses it, her first match is Ted Danson. But they stay together, because we all saw what happened last season when they didn’t.
- Jerry’s vision of heaven has him delivering water to people, and everyone praising him for accomplishing simple, useful tasks. I dunno, he’s an idiot but I can think of worse lives.
- Taika Waititi was great as Gluty. Kathleen Turner should’ve had a little more to do.
145 Comments
I did not like this episode. It was very rushed and it’s humor relied on bleeped swearing. It made me very sad because I wanted to like it but didn’t.
“I wanted to say something. I started the day disgusted and embarrassed to be your son. And later I thought we were going to die because you’re a loser.”(beat)“There’s no more, is there…”“…NOPE.”
“Now quit fucking up and let’s go.”
This was a laugh out loud moment; I can’t remember the last time a show got me to laugh out loud, hard, by myself. (It may have been this one.)
You went & did a secret poop during the credits, didn’t you.
After the premiere of season 4, I was commenting to my roommate how I think Rick and Morty has had pretty much a perfect run so far. How every episode has been just great, now including the first episode after a long two year wait. I’m sad to say I was not a fan of this episode. It just wasn’t up to the same level of enjoyment I’m use to with this show. My first feeling of this since the show started. This kinda bummed me out. Hope this episode is fluke and the rest are just as great as every other episode of Rick and Morty.
Lazy script that coasted by on poop jokes and “shitting” on Jerry. Treading into stale sitcom writing with a wacky sci-fi backdrop. Dan Harmon would never Flanderize his characters so quickly…
I liked how Beth was suddenly for no reason in a hang glider. Otherwise, yep, B+ episode. The review is correct. No harm, no foul.
That felt like a joke they’d do on Futurama, where the out of nowhere-ness of it would land better, but Rick and Morty is so fantastical and nonsensical as a matter of course that it didn’t even register with me that the hang glider was supposed to be a joke.That might be the problem with this episode overall. The show has always relied on things being shocking in some fashion, whether they’re plot developments or character reveals or even just sight gags, but it’s at the point where the world has no “normal” to deviate from anymore.
It was pretty decent.
Taika Waititi was his usual deadpan funny.
I prefer, “The Buttler.”
Zack is the Buttler!
Zeke is the Buttler, or rather the Mad Pooper.
Two things bothered me about this episode. First is that Rick cared so much about someone pooping in his piolet. Just two episodes ago Rick was saying that what you think matters doesn’t matter. That everything is happening infinite times. There are infinite possibilities, to infinite choices, to infinite peoples, in infinite timelines, all happening simultaneously. So Rick knows that one thing happening in one reality is utterly meaningless to one reality. So it is out of charter for Rick to care this much about something so trivial.
Second, if Rick can create a simulation that is that persons version of heaven, why would he not use it? Why would Rick choose to be miserable putting up with Jerry, Summer, and the general frustrations he faces every episode, if he had the ability to be in his perfect paradise forever? Seems unbelievable that he would poses this technology and not use it himself to better his life.
On the otherhand maybe they were trying to convey that Rick is so lonely he created a problem just so he could maybe make a friend. But that’s just weird. So Rick is just a pathetic starved for connection old man that can’t connect with anyone, and it’s the driving force of all his actions?
Notice how he couldn’t harm the current dimension pooper as soon as he realized the guy lost his wife and hates that he can’t kill himself to end his existence without her. Just like Rick. So Rick uses another dimension version of the pooper that he can’t relate to in order to deliver his message. On the second point Rick doesn’t create their realities he just enables them. It was too similar to American Dad and their goo vats though.
“So Rick is just a pathetic starved for connection old man that can’t connect with anyone, and it’s the driving force of all his actions?”Well… yeah.
I think you also have to keep in mind that the writers are intentionally keeping Rick as random as possible so that character fatigue doesn’t set in (this is the 3rd season after all, the climax of any series and they still got one more to go). I see parts of Jeff Winger here and there with Rick, but even that character got stale in the end no matter how good content.
However, pertaining to your original comment, I was thinking over the whole escaping of the citadel from last season: if Rick can’t be killed, and he knows he can’t, why did he try so hard to escape capture for so long?
The only thing I can think of is: Rick always has to be in control, he doesn’t like the idea of someone capturing his mind as much as someone who can try to slide into his life with a surprise friendship.
I guess the in universe argument is probably that he’d always know( or work out pretty quickly) that it wasnt real and that wouldnt let him enjoy it.Alternatively ( and maybe I’m wrong)there’s a subtle vibe of self hatred about Rick ,so I think that deep down he doesnt think he deserves to be happy.The meta explanation is a show about a guy in a bag full of juice hallucinating his best life isnt much fun unless : ( the ‘you have to have a high IQ shocker’) : Maybe he IS in the device , and thats what we see in the show.
Alternatively ( and maybe I’m wrong)there’s a subtle vibe of self hatred about Rick ,so I think that deep down he doesnt think he deserves to be happy.Not really subtle. Rick’s self-hatred is evident ever since “Auto Erotic Assimilation” when he tries to commit suicide after Unity tells him she can’t be with him because he will never change. There’s also the sorta-gag about his catchphrase for a time, “wubba-lubba-dub-dub” actually meaning “I am in great pain” – it’s notable because he hasn’t been using it for a while.
RIP Bird-Person.
Yeah. I think the fantasy simulation wouldn’t work for Rick in the long term, just as it didn’t work for Tony. That’s one of the reasons that Rick had so much respect for Tony, and wanted to keep him as a frenemy.
I suspect a simulated perfect blissful life would be a living hell for a guy who “makes his own stuff”. Rick lives for challenges as a way of propping up his ego.
He admits as much in the de-toxification episode. “Maybe I think I deserve to die.”
You mean the fact that Rick knows he’s in a TV show? Or a more subtle joke about us knowing?
Rick is also a narcissist control freak. Which means he thinks 99% of everything that comes out of his mouth doesn’t actually apply to him specifically.
They actually lampshade that when Jeffery Wright’s character calls him on the simulation thing, to which Rick says something to the effect that he’s just dosed on a drug that is the chemical equivalent of heaven juice- it short circuits the brain into experiencing heaven instead of simulating heaven for people. This gets re-lampshaded after the credits when Jerry drinks it and has his own heaven experience of delivering water after finding the drug in the fridge.Should also be noted that Pass-the-Butterbot was in the fridge, making his second appearance (at least) in the show.
So it is out of charter for Rick to care this much about something so trivial.
Like Szechuan sauce?
The answer to both of your questions is that Rick thinks pleasure, and friendship, and family have no place in his scientific world. To be the best at science means you can’t have emotions. To more specifically answer your first question, what Tony says to Rick about wanting some control over something.
So it is out of charter for Rick to care this much about something so trivial.
Rick cares about plenty of seemingly trivial things. He cares about his Morty, even though he has literal backups. He cared about Szechuan sauce. He cared about getting a ton of Nintendo 3DSes so he could get rich selling them off. He’s essentially mania personified – fleeting and constant.Also, his own rules don’t apply to him and it’s not like Rick isn’t a hypocrite. Last episode, he complains about crystal poachers thinking the world is their playground – when Morty asks what does that mean for them, Rick retorts they’re “Rick and Morty”. His whole character is essentially if you would take an abuser, only give him the powers of a god. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. Why would Rick choose to be miserable putting up with Jerry, Summer, and the general frustrations he faces every episode, if he had the ability to be in his perfect paradise forever? Seems unbelievable that he would poses this technology and not use it himself to better his life.Because it would be fake, and if there’s anything Rick actually consistently cares about is a degree of authenticity. He hated the Council of Ricks for precisely this reason. In the case of a simulation, he would be able to spot the difference and it would only make him more miserable. It’s why “Auto Erotic Assimilation” is so heartbreaking – you can tell it was real and Rick fucked everything up given his reaction.Besides, Rick is a notorious drug abuser. He probably pops these things once a month like an old hippie smokes changa. Like, sorry, but none of this is inconsistent with whatever we’ve seen over the course of 3 seasons.
He also seemingly knows he’s in a tv show-wonder if that contributes to his self-loathing?
It reminds me of the old Doctor Who adage: the Doctor lies. Honestly, forgive me if this has already been said a million times, but I think the closest comparison to “Rick and Morty” is an R-rated dark comedy version of “Doctor Who” with Rick as a rough analog to the Doctor: i.e. so intelligent and powerful as be something near a God, but of course has Rick has virtually none of the Doctor’s ethical principles, only the sense of alienation and loneliness
I think the point is that Rick is a giant hypocrite. In last episode, he says that people who try to avoid death are not really alive, yet he built this whole Phoenix project that revives him everytime he dies.
We’re all hypocrites when it suits our internal biases.Rick is still “human” at the core.
A. Ricks a monstrous self-serving hypocrite.B. He’d say he’s too smart to be fooled by it. Much like he was able to take control of the brainalyzer.
It is trivial, but completely in character for Rick to care. Case in point- “Something Rick this way comes” Rick destroys Mr. Needful just because he’s jealous and wants to prove a point to Summer. And as soon as she concedes he burns the place to the ground. Rick’s petty AF. Rick’s too smart to spend his life in a butt simulation.
Why would Rick’s goal be happiness?
“So it is out of charter for Rick to care this much about something so trivial.”Not really. For all his intellectual bluster, Rick’s repeatedly shown to be emotional, sentimental, self-loathing and averse to introspection. His contradictions are core to his character.
One: Because just because one thing fits somewhere, it doesn’t mean all things for there too. Two: Because he knows it’s not real.
The fact that everything has happened across infinite realities doesn’t mean nothing matters. It means that everything is, on a cosmic scale, exactly as trivial as everything else. Al Gore worries about global warming. Rick wants his private toilet. These are equally trivial concerns in the larger scope of a universe — but still nobody wants the planet overheating, and Rick wants his fucking toilet.
And Rick’s too analytical for simulations. He showed as much in Shyamaliens. He also prefers the flawed world. Morty figures as much in the detox episode. Rick’s brain craves obstacles.
The answer to both your questions is the same — Ego.
I don’t really see how this is contradictory or out-of-character. Rick said what you think doesn’t matter as far as their importance or uniqueness. But within this universe, he still cares about the sanctity of small things. Things like the layout of his garage, or here he goes to the bathroom and who’s allowed there or not.
Also, I think they’ve been pretty consistent showing that Rick has issues. Putting himself in a fake perfect paradise would be akin to giving up or accepting a self-created delusion. For the smartest sentient being in the universe/multiverse, why not just create whatever he wants.
I think Rick is realizing that he is a lonely old man who has no real connections, or at least not totally healthy ones. I don’t think he created a problem to make a friend. What I suspect happened is Rick wanted to drive Tony “the pooper” away, then realized they both had something in common. That in effect likely triggered the realization that Rick is lonely and there was that commonality that could lead to a friendship, or at least some relationship. I mean, this is a man who got blackout drunk, killed Worldender and set up a Saw-like series of escape rooms to show the Vindicators up and made essentially a love letter to Noob Noob (who he barely knew, but still felt some connection with because he laughed at a couple of Rick’s jokes). These are clearly not the actions of somebody who is somehow above orchestrating some elaborate ruse to connect with somebody under the guise of showing him up.
It makes no sense that people (pretty much everyone) would instantly (within seconds) fall in love with someone, just because a phone app told them they had a match. Hate to say it, but this was a very poorly written episode/plot, and that’s coming from a super fan.
i rarely agree with mixed-to-negative reviews but it feels on point here. totally enjoyable, of course, as there’s never been a BAD rick and morty. but it might be one of the lesser episodes. certainly my least favorite 2nd episode of a season
The president fight one was a bit crap tbh.Although I liked this one , so what do I know!
The S3 finale? I really liked that one.I thought the juxtaposition between the overwrought fight scene (Rick in his element, a la Rickshank Redemption) and the way the episode concluded (his family asserting themselves and rejecting his philosophy to seize a measure of peaceful normality) was really effective, and paid off the season’s character arcs nicely.I found this one middling, though, so I guess there’s no accounting for taste 😛
Agreed. I think it also kinds of bugs me that we’re only getting 5 episodes. I don’t think I would have minded this as much if it was part of a normal length season.
I liked the president one. It doesn’t hold up as well on repeat viewing. I think people were expecting something world changing from the strength of the season 2 finale.
I liked it more than “Rickmancing the Stone”, which I was quite indifferent to. This was middle-of-the-road Rick and Morty, but it did have some pretty big laughs, and an enjoyably dark ending.
yeah, agreed.
Maybe this is the show’s way of being meta critic and saying the show’s going to shit, or Rick’s life is going to shit, or maybe it’s there so future shows can reference it as ‘yeah, this is dumb Morty, but at least it’s not as dumb as the poop show’ and Mr. Poopy Butt Hole chimes in ‘Ooooo-weeeee, that was a real stinker.’
The entire Rick Solo Adventure Not-Directed by Ron Howard was a metaphor about internet arguments.First off, falsely seeking isolation so you can shit on your own toilet on your own little world is a pretty apt metaphor for an isolated basement dweller spewing on the internet.Rick is the asshole who “wins” by working really, really hard to show how much he doesn’t care about the argument, immediately pivoting to relentless personal attacks about how Tony is not worthy of Rick’s toilet, his time, or even to be murdered by him.
Tony “loses” while essentially doing what he wants and not defending himself or his behavior against Rick. Tony never begs Rick for his life which is what Rick wants in order to prove that he’s superior. In the end, Tony figures out the healthier thing to do is to just drop the whole matter and live his life to the fullest instead of getting entangled in Rick’s drama.Rick increasingly notices that his own victories are Pyrrhic, and tries to stay in denial as he increasingly respects Tony not matching his energy or playing his game. Rick despises Tony because he won’t feel bad about caring about how someone else feels, even while Rick tries to belittle him for it.Tony was correct, he was the perfect friend for Rick because he was his match since Rick couldn’t dominate him, emotionally. Tony had the courage to admit that he cared about what Rick thought and felt, and also saw through Rick’s attempts to isolate himself.Unable to accept this, Rick keeps trying to escalate (Rick working harder and harder to demonstrate how much he doesn’t care about winning) and entrap Tony with his humiliation-upgraded toilet.At the end, Tony is dead because he lived by what Rick claims as his own principles of living your life, except Tony’s are superior because he learned how to let people in even if they can hurt you.Rick, now accepting the most hollow victory imaginable (like any internet argument victory) sits on his throne to witness all the horrible attacks he meant for Tony, realising that in reality they were all the true things Rick despises about himself. Rick is alone again with only a holographic projection of his rage and sadness.I’d argue this ending is even darker than the Unity episode. It’s one thing for Rick to find he can’t make a healthy love life work. It’s a whole other level of Hell to find that when the infinite universe serves Rick up an opportunity for a meaningful friendship if he’d only get out of his own way, Rick literally shits all over it and then flushes it away.
Lol you are so right about the internet arguments thing. So right it’s crazy.
Excellent unpacking. I too found the ending deeply sad.
I’m pretty sure that first joke was just a reference to “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
I’m pretty sure I agree.
Jesus, I finally I understand the joke… tks @Cory the Norm
Not to mention that Rick goes to the trouble of going to Tony’s funeral, and giving Tony’s father the means to clone Tony.
And $8,000,000 in local currency.
To be truly pedantic, I think it was $8,000,000,000.
Following @nomanous’s comment, I will argue also that this theory as a connection with the “internet trolling” situation in season 3: maybe a message to hateful fans?All the episode is just a background for the shit throne scene, in any case*. Everything else was just a way to take you there; including the “stuffing” parallel stories where (maybe on purpose?) low-grade absurdity and meta-reference was used to fill a 2 minute scene with the 20 minute material of a “conventional” R&M episode… a brilliant move to create contrast if that was the case; otherwise I would be worry about cliches and under-developed stories crawling into Season 4…(*) Personally I would have let the scene go on a little bit… with hologram Ricks laughing hysterically while playing the music of the first two minutes of NIN “Hurt” on the background, of course the JC version:
B+ is probably where I stand, as well. But the note this ends on reminds me a lot of the end of “Auto Erotic Assimilation,” which is my favorite episode of the show. It’s not nearly as devastating, but I love it all the same.And something I commented on last season was that the end of season three really sets Rick up to actually change and begin to give up his staunch nihilism, and I think this episode sets up a potential emotional arc in a really nice way.
Just what I was thinking. S2 Rick would have murdered the fuck out of that guy, and maybe himself for good measure.I just hope there isn’t a fan-backlash if the characters keep developing.
They were renewed for 70 episodes. They’re not going to change Rick, otherwise they wouldn’t have a show.
I mean, characters can still experience incremental change while maintaining the core of their personality. This is the entire draw of Community. Moreover, there’s no reason they couldn’t have a show if Rick changed. They would probably have a very different show than the one that now exists, but there’s no reason the show couldn’t continue.
Yeah. I don’t mind character evolution, but I don’t want to see Rick turn into late “Happy Days” Fonz.
I see more of a character evolution with Morty where he’s gradually becoming both more competent and more of an asshole. We’ve seen an evolution of Beth’s character.
We’re not going to see an evolution of Jerry- we already saw that in the universe Rick left behind.
Nihilism and close loving family relationships are not mutually exclusive.Come watch TV?
Shout out to everyone behind the scenes making this show look so dang colorful and beautiful. The character designs have been especially fun and amazing lately.
Yeah, the past two episodes have really shown off the show’s increased budget. You saw some of that in season three, but it’s really noticeable now. Even character models looks sharper somehow.
Is this guy on the post-credits milk carton anyone in particular?
I appreciate the synchrony between your name and the comment, and think you deserve a promotion to Detective Milk Carton. And to help you solve your first big case, I believe that’s the bully Morty launches into the air at the beginning of his rampage last week.
Cheers! I didn’t even notice the name synchrony, so I may not be cut out for the new role. Hopefully I can just wander around putting on a shitty Bogart accent and people will give me the benefit of the doubt that I’m competent.
I find that wearing a deerstalker hat makes people assume you’re either smart or mentally unstable. Sometimes both. It’s worth a shot!
Isnt that the bully from last week?
That’s the bully kid from the previous episode that Morty killed.
The bully from the previous episode who was briefly distracting Morty from his ideal death.
That’s the bully from school who wants to kill Morty. The scars are from bashing his head into a locker in an act of redirected aggression
Obliviously only a cinematic masterpiece can unite Sam Neill and Kathleen Turner….
I respect your review. It didn’t really click for you, but you still recognized it as a decent episode.
I really didn’t buy the “Rick actually wanted a friend” reveal. Not only was it a terrible sitcom cliche, it seems like we’ve seen plenty of storylines where a character accuses Rick of deflecting his feelings only for the show to tell us that he actually isn’t, or at least he isn’t in the way you think he is. So this felt like a oddly straightforward version of the trope, which felt out of place for a show obsessed with subverting everything all the time.
I also didn’t understand the “power” of the app. Like, is the joke that humans are so dumb that they’ll instantly do whatever an app tells them to, or is it that the app itself has a kind of hypnotic power over people? The show didn’t make that clear and the logic of the series is such that either could be the case.If it was that the app is putting people under some kind of spell, then why (other than to give us a “moment”) didn’t it work on Beth, or rather: why isn’t Ted Danson crashing though the wall at the end of the episode in Mary Steenburgen’s car?Also, we see that Jerry had zero matches, which is another one of those “haha Jerry is so worthless and unlovable” jokes the show loves to do, but the app seemingly pairs random people regardless of compatibility (or sexual preference). Yet, since we know (based on everything we’ve ever seen on this show) that zero matches is a “correct” result for Jerry, is the show saying that the app is actually very good at what it does?The whole episode just felt sloppy.
“Poop with me, Tony!”“I’m gonna daughter your brains out, bitch!”
I….laughed unreasonably hard at many things in this episode.
“I’m pretty sure Jeffrey Wright did the voice of Tony”Jesus Christ man you get paid to write this. Use IMDB
“You can’t stop me from loving who I love, Mom!”“Oh, the shit I can’t! I’m gonna mother you until your 18th birthday, even if I get thrown in prison for non-consensual mothering! And even then, I will break out, come to your house, kick down your door, and mother your fucking face out of your stupid asshole!”“I’m gonna daughter your brains out, bitch!”Fuck, I love the dialogue on this show.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
I wish that the episode had done a better job of framing Tony as a frenemy to Rick. As an audience, when we see Rick start to feud with someone, we expect that person to be utterly crushed like a pest. So it felt weird to see Rick’s continual refusal to kill Tony; it wasn’t obvious that Rick was enjoying the game, that he saw it as a kind of psychoanalytical racquetball, until the very end.
I’d argue that it’s because we only understand Rick’s relationship with Tony at the end that the story is as sad as it is. It aligns us with Rick’s emotional state in that we only appreciate Tony after he’s gone. You’re not wrong that Rick’s precise motivations are a mystery throughout and that the episode depends on hindsight, but I think that the moment of revelation is powerful enough to justify that.
I’m convinced his deal with Tony was entirely from the connection of them both being kindred spirits as secret poopers.
I think that was what it was going for, because honestly the whole thing felt a little confusing and disjointed to me.
There were a few very rushed plot points. Like, the review noted “people just dropping a potential romantic partner the second they’re even mildly irritating (because the app offers you someone new)”, but is that what happened? I mean, I get that this should have been the point, but I didn’t see it on screen, except at the end with Summer’s partner on the plane (and that wasn’t even a case of “mildly irritating”, that person deserved to be utterly obliterated). The sequence at the church was funny, but it made it seem like the switches happened by magic, not following a clear scheme.Maybe they needed to give the two concepts a full episode each, instead of being A plot and B plot of the same episode.
Yeah, that’s how I felt about this one in general. Rushed. I know it wasn’t actually a shorter episode, but it felt like it was really short. I wonder if this is part of the reason they always take so long. Like, they have these ambitious ideas but to make them work in a half hour time format takes a lot of editing work.
Maybe part of the point of this episode was that there are not always easy answers, and characters are not making big breakthroughs because that’s not always how life works out.I’m with Jerry on driving a water truck, though. If I were doing well enough that I could retire and live comfortably, I’d probably just drive people around who need lifts. Kind of like an Uber driver but who didn’t charge people, just saw to it that people got to school or the grocery store when there wasn’t a better option.
There was some neat ideas in this episode, but most of the time it felt like it was wandering about trying to find an actual plot, whereas my favourite R&M episodes are the ones that work as genuinely good sci-fi even if you remove the humor.And the toilet humor did not do much for me.
There was some neat ideas in this episode, but most of the time it felt like it was wandering about trying to find an actual plot, whereas my favourite R&M episodes are the ones that work as genuinely good sci-fi even if you remove the humor.And the toilet humor did not do much for me.
I liked this episode a lot, if only because it felt like it showed a fresh angle on Rick’s loneliness by focusing on something trivial and silly and showing how even that makes it impossible for Rick to connect for someone else. But the threadbare worldbuilding is starting to show pretty hard for me. Like when they joked about Space Mount Everest, it just felt really lazy since like the decision to make these aliens live in a lazily-conceived world was entirely on the writer’s part. Same thing happened for me with the joke about Gluty’s catchphrase exit, and it sounds like it was similar for the review and some comments here.Rick and Morty isn’t itself without a weird loose sketch comedy style sci-fi universe, so in some ways we’re just looking at a show showing its age. But this is only season 4 and we still have at least six more seasons of Rick and Morty guaranteed.
I think jokes like that are fucking hilarious and never tire of them. I guess I’m dumb or something
I’ve been loving this show for the it’s-depressing-for-me-to-try-to-remember-the-number many years since it first started airing, so I’m mostly in the same boat as you. It’s just those particular versions in this particular episode didn’t really do it for me, so I’m just kind of writing my feelings out into the void in a vain attempt at understanding them. The Space Beverly Hillbillies joke especially just didn’t work in the way countless past jokes have. Since I know I’m perfect and there’s nothing wrong with me, that means I must figure out what’s objectively wrong with Rick and Morty.
I didn’t exactly get that one. I thought the stuff would be super laxatives.
The gluty thing was funny. Space mount everest was obviously lampshading what you are talking about.
I don’t feel like the show needs to be super consistent. Like, when it’s convenient for the show, Rick has all these super cybernetic upgrades. When it’s not, he doesn’t. I guess if you want to be super nerdy, you could say the upgrades were from the Council of Ricks Rick whose body Rick stole.
But I’d rather just pretend Rick just pretends like he’s in danger to fuck with Morty when he feels like Morty fucks something up.
Yeah it’s definitely spelled ‘Glootie’, good effort though.
the first episode I DIDN’T LIKEapps and poopdid louis ck write this one?
“A sequence two-thirds of the way through the episode that has multiple people rapidly losing and finding love feels a little too silly…”you don’t think it’s funny because it describes Phone Baby childrenPERFECTLY
So Beth was concerned about statutory rape. But wasn’t Summer married to a ‘Lord Humongous” type in a previous episode? Wasn’t that marriage consummated and Rick and Morty had no problems with it? It really shouldn’t matter but this show’s writer, usually, have a better memory than that.Pedantic point No. 1. SF movies, or shows that have a plot device of extraterrestrial aliens invading Earth for its water, are stupid. Once again, “The Expanse” gets it right. As in, the amount of water in the outer Solar System is orders of magnitude larger than what’s available on Earth. Go to Saturn’s rings, Europa, Titan, the Kuiper Belt, etc. for your free water.Pedantic point No. 2. Poop jokes are known as scatological humor. Not to be confused with eschatological humor, which, also, abounds on Rick and Morty.
As far as we know, Beth never knew about Summer’s adventures with the bucket-headed mustache guy.
And technically, statutory rape wouldn’t be a thing, as the post-apocalyptic society doesn’t have official laws.
This seems like a weird thing to get upset about, it’s pretty much the setup for a one off joke with Beth and Summer yelling about various crimes that was really just the setup for a joke about people living in motels, neither of which were really all that funny.
Plus 1 for the water plot point. I hate those!
But maybe out water is just…the BEST!
I thought it was meant as a satire of that plot trope.
Rick and Morty aren’t Beth?
But Ben is Glory, and Glory is Ben.Right?
Maybe our water has different properties, even if it’s just taste. Like some people like Dasani and some people prefer Fiji or Perrier.
I would absolutely accept this in Rick and Morty.
Different dimension that Beth knew nothing about.
This review isnt very B+. This sounds like a B-/C+ review. I know Rick and Morty fans are a bit crazy but you dont need to be afraid of them.
No, I think the nail was hit. This episode was a lukewarm bath. Honestly the entire app thing just felt like Dan Harmon continuing to be salty about his divorce.
“Jerry being an idiot decided to develop Gluty’s app: a matchmaking
program that Jerry dubs Lovefinderrz that repeatedly shows people
perfect love matchs.”Matchs? matchs. It’s not even a real word. How did this get through even the most basic spellcheck?
How did this get through even the most basic spellcheck?
Ha, you think these writers do any editing whatsoever.
I’ve watched every episode several times. I loooved this show after I caught Rick Potion Number 9 as it was airing for the first time at my buddy’s old place in Bushwick. For years, been a huge fan. Hot take: Rick & Morty jumped the shark after the Ricklantis Mixup. Idk how you make the best episode of the series and then immediately jump the shark the very next episode, but this is a different show than it was pre Season 3 episode 7. It is not funny anymore, the storylines are boring and campy, the writing is lazy and it got too popular for the creators to continue taking their time and trying to make art. Now they’re making fart. See what I did there. This show isn’t good anymore.
“It wasn’t funny”? No shit, Sherlock.
I lost my shit when Rick told the receptionist lady to go understand his references and cursed her out. Love this show.
I felt similarly — this episode wanted to go deep into Rick, and it only kinda did. At that final scene I was thinking to myself “I should feel something more from this” like the show’s other end-on-a-sad-lingering-moment episodes.I like Beth and Summer interactions but this went off the rails pretty fast. “The Adventures of of Jerry and Morty” was also just fine.On a positive (and I did enjoy the episode), the show is looking better than ever
Whatever you want to say negative is immediately blown out of the water by the funnel hat with a qr code on it. Left me a giggling mess.Also the delivery robot that joins the revelation and turns his chestplate into “deliverance” is perfect.
This is by far my favourite episode of Rick and Morty
Rick using portals to go poop on his bathroom planet reminded me of Martin Silenus from Hyperion being a super rich author from publishing his crappy novels and having his own bathroom planet, reached from a farcaster portal in his house. From the setting of the show, I imagine that Harmon and Roiland are sci-fi fans, so I wonder if the Dan Simmons novel is what sparked this episode.Also, man, why pack in that much voice talent? Sam Niell should have more than fifteen lines. Turner? I mean, come on, let the celebrity voice talent shine.
What worked for me in the Unity plot back in season 2 was the fact that this was a new side to Rick that we were not prepared to see as an audience. The Tony plot is an extension of that, but it doesn’t say anything new. We knew Rick was incapable of forming genuine relationships, and we knew he was self-aware in his inability to do so. Tony made for a good foil, but what exactly is the purpose for revisiting this well if it serves as nothing more than acknowledging, once again, that Rick is broken inside and from that internal pain he creates outward suffering? As a message to the show’s most toxic fans, which might have been on their minds in workshopping this season, I can see it work as a warning (“hey don’t be like this guy”) but then the issue with that is it makes Rick more relatable. Not to mention that, if Rick is incapable of change or even willing to try, who becomes the alternative character to model? Jerry?Basically this show works for me when Rick is allowed to be wrong or bested without dwelling into his well established pain.
It is not really a joke. I think the “shy pooper” is only half kidding and half serious. And it probably means more like, “safe pooping”,A place where you can do it without judgment. For how long it takes. How bad it smells. What sounds are being made. Peace and quiet. A totally secure and controlled environment. Whatever. The security in knowing the toilet is clean. You know this as a fact because you are the only one who poops there. A safe space to poop the way you want to. That is a real thing people want.Another being using the toilet was a clear violation of that private personal space.
“I’m not a huge fan of poop jokes.” is the single most Wack Handlin’ sentence ever posted. I mean, like, that he’s one of those people is the single most predictable thing ever about this joyless bore
Jerry and Morty plot was ok, Summer and Beth’s pretty
lightweight and repetitive, though obviously both had their moments and laughs.Absolutely creased by everything the fly mob boss said, and
genuinely “HAH!”ed at the bit where Beth crashed into the barn:
“It’s called parenting!”
“That’s not how I did it”
“Yeah, where’s your daughter?”
“Ah, you’re right… she joined ISIS”
I wonder has Rick used his poop machine to determine what food has given him diarrhea or food poisoning. Then seek revenge.
Like Montezuma!
Agree. Had some good gags but felt half baked.
I don’t know which throws me off worse: the you misspelled “Sam Neill” or that you misspelled “Glootie”. I’m leaning towards Glootie. “Gluty” isn’t even funny-looking.
Everyone is talking about the brilliant subtext and all I want to talk about is the fart bomb that shits a middle finger. Enjoyable all around.
I liked the specificity of “She joined ISIS”.
“I’m gonna find who shit in my toilet.”“…is that a reference to drugs?” The fly gangster was easily the episode highlight for me.
The poop episode stuck to the surface. You planned that, right?
Has anyone gotten the Scott Steiner reference yet?
This might be my least favorite episode of the show. Maybe I’m getting dumber, but it felt like a LOT of this episode was “tell, don’t show.”In the Pickle Rick episode, there were a number of monologues, most importantly Rick’s at the end followed by the therapist’s. These monologues were clear and helped showcase each person’s philosophy. I am fine with this kind of stuff.However, when the pooper went to the toilet again after Rick found him and went off on him, the heartfelt monologue he gave while shitting came off as forced and shallow to me. Essentially, it felt like the pooper might as well been saying “I’m forcing an emotional connection. I’m forcing an emotional connection. I’m forcing…” There was no background showing us the pooper’s life. He mentioned a dead wife and works in a cubicle. But those facts along with his toilet monologue are not enough to get me interested in his and Rick’s relationship. With such a shoddy foundation, the ending meant nothing to me (the ending of the Unity episode, however, had a similar ending that it actually earned throughout the course of the episode).Secondly, the app aliens wanted to steal our water because “it runs out.” We saw nothing of how they were stealing water and we saw nothing as to why they needed the water. And as to how their app assisted in the water theft is unclear aside from the app distracting humans. Which, fine, the app distracts the humans. We do see that a few times throughout the episode. But even then, when Beth asks Summer how many soul mates she went through in a week (how the hell did a week pass during this episode?) Summer answered four. Four soulmates in one week is not enough of a distraction to steal Earth’s water.The episode was still Rick and Morty fun. I liked the app aliens, I liked the pairing of Morty and Jerry, and Rick hunting down the pooper was great. But half of the episode made very little sense to me, and I can’t see a reason to ever revisit it.
I quite liked Tony as a character and enjoyed the pathos of him dying BUT it all felt rushed and in other respects I thought this episode was painfully bad. I watched it with a group of people and the laughs were noticeable in their absence.
Thought the fly mob boss was quite embarassingly bad, though I did like the reference to their thousands of childeren.The little spinny dance thing and the space everest lines were terrible! There’s a right way and a wrong way to do meta/fourth wall breaks and this made me sad.I thought the 1st episode was funny but a little worrying in it’s break neck pace and slightly careless writing style, this one has me worried it’s gonna jump the shark.
Since no one’s mentioned it… Jeffrey Wright was indeed in the credits.
B or C or whatever, I loved it. And I am also a shy toilet user who can poop looking at someone I love, thanks, I know I’m weird too.
You know, people always talk about living for today and living like there’s no tomorrow like it is a good thing. Except living like there’s no tomorrow dramatically increases the chances of there BEING no tomorrow. Yes, you might get hit by a bus as you head out to work a week from now. You know what has an exponential higher chance of something fatal happening? Rocket skiing down Space Everest!
Reviewer: “I didn’t like this.”
Also reviewer: *gives B+*