No prisoners were taken in this episode of Rick and Morty.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
You’d be forgiven to say you missed this episode. After all, this episode aired on April Fools Day. Although, you’d be not a good Adult Swim fan if at least you didn’t think that AS would have something up their sleeve. While we’ve been used to the visual gags and track replacements, AS had something different. Like when they brought back Toonami, they decided to prank us with something unexpected: Rick and Morty Season 3 Episode 1.
To give a bit of background, it’s been about three years since Season 2. Dan Harmon has had constant barrages from fans alike asking when is Season 3 going to drop. Harmond even came out to say that Season 3 delays was because of him. Justin Roiland dropped hints that left people salivating. People that are fans and even casual observers ask themselves if it was worth the wait.
Yes it was.
It starts off with a bang where Rick is as a family diner (akin to Denny’s) talking with the family. When his reality starts to break with an agent telling him that he’s still in the prison trapped and now. To get out of the prison, just show him how he obtained the portal gun. Rick, feeling unusually defeated, agrees to show the agent under his rules.
Meanwhile, the family is not in the best of moods. Jerry Smith, contra to the family, is enjoying the holds of the new galactic empire in the world, getting multiple promotions over the past week. Everyone else is sick of it. Beth feels empty as her job and meaning doesn’t seem to hold. Morty is coping in his own way trying to adjust to the rules.
Summer is sick of this whole shenanigans and wants out by rescuing Rick.
To be honest, the plot is straightforward: see if Rick gives out the secrets and see if he gets out of jail. As such with Rick and Morty, we see an extend down to more chaos as we see whether this point gets resolved. It results in a more extreme version of a Rick and Morty climatic ending that will truly make you giddy with macabre pleasure and hope.
Summer in this episode was arguably the biggest highlight. Unlike with Morty coming off as skeptical of saving Rick, it was nice to see that someone still has faith in Rick, and coming from Summer made it all the better. She plays doing whatever it takes to get her grandpa back. Her heroics in this episode makes you want to applaud and cheer as it truly reveals her character in a way that feels genuine and benevolent. This highlight doesn’t happen without the absolute necessity of Morty’s sanity check.
Morty reluctance seems as first to the audience as unfair. We end up siding with Summer with a lot of her reasoning. Yet, Harmond does more to humanize the world than most. Making Morty show the negative consequences of the adventures and having this reluctance emphasizes that what Morty goes through is not normal. It was cute and crazy with a couple of first season episodes when they got away with it, but as the episodes got longer, more crazinesses and lasting consequences do happen. Morty was there when thousands of lives were destroyed. Morty was there when Rick constantly abandoned people for selfish gain. Morty was there when he lost his home, is in a new world and now has to live with the guilt that no person should bare. Morty, being a sane human being, pushed to the limits, could easily walk away. We can’t help but think in the back of our minds, “This might be us”. Morty constantly pushing the realities of Rick’s toll on a person makes for great drama and also confirms some of the inklings we have seen in previous episodes.
To err on not spoiling, there are points where you connect with Rick and truly feel for them. However, you never know Rick’s disposition which makes certain points hurt all the more. The audience may figure out these feelings and ideas, and may actually be right.
In Summary:
The ending though gets dark, darker than any episode given so far. Rick confirms this at the tail end of this episode himself in the most Rick way possible: with nihilistic dark smile humor. Harmond and Roliand told us to prepare for more craziness with humor, cynicism and a sense of dark hope as we have entered the darkest timeline.
For 2017, we can only nod our head and brace ourselves as we continue this season.
Grade: A+
