The Third Season Of Rick And Morty Fizzles

The Good: Moments of humor, Good voice performances, Attempts to develop the characters
The Bad: Short, Not very funny, Fewer allusions and clever bits
The Basics: Rick And Morty Season 3 takes a risk on a season that finds the Smith family deeply divided and the adventures Rick Sanchez goes on far darker.


When a show reaches its third season, it often hits a stride that the experimental nature of the earlier seasons might not quite measure up to. Third seasons are usually a place where the characters are established-enough to have traits the viewers instantly recognize and the viewers are invested in the characters and their conflicts. The third season can also be a place where a show manages to course-correct. In the case of Rick And Morty, the long-awaited third season tries to make the show less-repetitive than it was in the prior seasons, but in the process it makes for a darker season and one that is far less funny than the prior two seasons.

The third season of Rick And Morty picks up after Season 2 (reviewed here!) and given where that season ended, it has the immediate burden of rectifying the world-changing aspects of the second season finale. After all, the second season ended with the Earth being taken over by the galactic federation and Rick was imprisoned by them.

Opening with Rick in intergalactic prison, Rick manages to trick his captors into an escape from their version of The Matrix. Slaughtering his way through the government and the Council Of Ricks, Rick manages to thwart the government and liberate Earth and in the process, his daughter and grandchildren side with him over Jerry. In the wake of the family being splintered, Rick takes Morty and Summer on an adventure to a post-apocalyptic style world where Rick robs the people there. Rick turns himself into a pickle to get out of family therapy and joins Morty on an adventure with an Avengers-style super hero group.

Rick takes Jerry on an adventure to the safest place in the galaxy and then he and Morty attempt to detoxify themselves and their toxic incarnations attempt to permanently poison the world. The Citadel Of Ricks is rebuilt, putting a new leader in power based on an election that has a fairly obvious outcome. Rick reveals that he has erased a vast number of traumatic memories from Morty's mind. Rick attempts to bond with Beth in a world he once created for her. And, in the season finale, Rick and Morty confront the President Of The United States over their role in saving the world from various alien threats.

The third season of Rick And Morty features far fewer science fiction concept episodes and a lot more character-based angst. Episodes like "The Ricklantis Mixup" references cop films more than science fiction works. Sure, genre fans might love Stand By Me, but the show's attempt to develop the characters pushes it in both a less-funny direction and one that mortgages its science fiction-loving audience. The real weakness of changing the direction into a more character-based show is that the conceptual change fails based on the season's ten episode duration. In other words, with only ten episodes, none of the characters are given ample time to truly grow and develop. Instead, Rick And Morty Season 3 gets a good start, then works to restore the familiar homeostasis of the series. And doing that with less humor than the prior two seasons feels very unsatisfying.

For those not familiar with the show, it helps to know who the key characters are. In the third season of Rick And Morty the primary characters are:

Morty Smith - The grandson of Rick Sanchez and his sidekick in interdimensional adventures, he is jaded by Rick's actions and indifference. Following his parents' separating, he starts urinating in class. When he uses his adventure coupon, he and Rick end up in deep space with the Vindicators, where his expertise in Rick allows him to save the universe. He has had numerous memories erased by Rick and it horrified when he learns some of the things he has lost,

Summer Smith - After initially believing that Rick is the key to saving Earth, she learns of the world where she was left to die by Morty, who just wants to prove how terrible Rick is. She starts huffing enamel, which results in mandated family counseling. She is irked by how a boy she is interested in chooses a girl with bigger breasts, so she uses one of Rick's devices to get bigger breasts, with horrific results. She is responsible for restoring the mind-wiped Rick and Morty,

Jerry Smith - After adapting to having the world taken over by aliens, he is ditched by his family. While his divorce is pending, he is taken on an adventure with Rick to the safest place in the galaxy. He is willing to set up Rick for murder, but changes his mind. He briefly dates a powerful alien woman. Beth turns to him for the truth about who she is,

Beth Smith - Rick's daughter, she is a horse surgeon who decides to leave her husband instead of exiling her father. She returns to a world Rick once created for her and spends most of her family counseling session doubting Rick is as horrible as Morty and Summer claim he is. She has a crisis of conscience when she believes that Rick may have made a duplicate of her in order to allow the real Beth to go on a journey of self discovery,

and Rick Sanchez - Quickly recognizing that his captors have him in, essentially, The Matrix, in order to get the secret of his portal gun. To escape family therapy, he turns himself into a pickle, which goes on a murderous rampage. He is ostracized by the Vindicators and does more drunk than most people do conscious. He encounters a purely toxic version of himself and fights to get Morty a selfie with the President.

Much of the third season of Rick And Morty is gross and unsettling, as opposed to funny or edgy. The voice acting is fine, but things like the rape and cannibalism in "The ABC's Of Beth" take the show to a gross level.

Ultimately, the third season of Rick And Morty is a disappointing new direction for the once funny and clever science fiction-driven animated comedy.

For other works from the 2017 - 2018 television season, please check out my reviews of:
"Aruba-Con" - Legends Of Tomorrow
"The Flash Reborn" - The Flash
"Girl Of Steel" - Supergirl
"The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For The Lamb's Cry" - Star Trek: Discovery
"Divide And Conquer" - Inhumans
Twin Peaks - Season 3 ("The Return")
Game Of Thrones - Season 7
The Defenders - Season 1
Friends From College - Season 1

4/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Get Schwifty For Rick And Morty Season Two!

The Good: Hilarious references to science fiction works, Good voice performances, Animation quality
The Bad: Starts recycling some of its good ideas, Short!
The Basics: Rick And Morty Season 2 is quirky, fun, and progresses the story of Rick Sanchez and the Smith family on their science fiction adventures.


I am very rarely moments ahead of a trend, but with Rick And Morty, I actually was. I discovered Rick And Morty days ahead of the Season Two premiere from an advertisement at a movie theater that aired before the film I went to see. Based on the strength of the clips, I got into Rick And Morty and it was one of the few television shows I watched as it aired last year. Rick And Morty Season 2 progresses past where the show was in Season 1 (reviewed here!) and it was more of a collaborative work by the show's creators. Despite the reluctance articulated by the creators of the show to work with other people, the result is that Rick And Morty Season 2 is a strong body of work.

I suspect that Rick And Morty is like music; people tend to be most attached to the music they grew up on. While I watched Rick And Morty Season 1 later on, I experienced clips and episodes of Season 2 (repeatedly!) before that. As a result, I found myself much more attached to season two of Rick And Morty than season one. Rick And Morty Season Two is a collection of ten half-hour animated episodes of television that follow the exploits of the Smith family and Rick Sanchez, Beth Smith's father. Rick Sanchez is an irresponsible mad scientist who dragoons his grandson, Morty, and his granddaughter, Summer, into his frequent adventures through space and against aliens. Jerry, Morty's idiotic father, continues to loathe his father-in-law.

Adventures in the second season of Rick And Morty include Rick, Morty and Summer accidentally splintering into the multiverse after freezing time. Saved by an alien from the fourth dimension, Rick is threatened with jail for stealing time crystals. In righting broken time, the trio kills the alien and ends up purposely fracturing existence again! Morty tries to use compassion to save a life form that an intergalactic assassin wants dead with horrible results, while Jerry is stuck in a Jerry-themed daycare used by alternate Ricks. Making a fortune off selling guns to an alien assassin, Rick and Morty spend the day at an intergalactic arcade. While Rick gets laid by a planet of mind-controlled aliens, Jerry and Beth go to alien couple's counseling. The family is invaded by a parasite that effects their memories before Rick and Morty have to defend the Earth from an interstellar music competition that results in planetary destruction for those who fail to win. Rick has to fix his car by entering microscopic worlds within the car battery and Rick puts his consciousness in a younger body to bond with Summer and Morty. Rick and Morty visit a planet with qualities like The Purge and Rick's past as a Rebel comes back to haunt him as he and his friends are hunted.

What is surprising about the second season of Rick And Morty is how well-assembled it is. From the very first episode of the season, Rick is threatened with intergalactic prison and the implication that he is an interstellar criminal plays through the entire second season. For sure, the concept of Rick being a wanted intergalactic criminal pretty much flies in the face of the Intergalactic Council Of Ricks from the first season, but within the second season, the idea of Rick's turbulent backstory plays out well.

Rick And Morty Season Two recycles one of its best first season ideas for "Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate," which is admittedly a low point for the season. Beyond that, though, the second season of Rick And Morty manages to feel fresh and fun while being clever like the first season. There are some wonderful allusions in Rick And Morty Season 2, much like in the first. Those who love science fiction and pop culture works like The Purge, Star Trek The Next Generation, Aliens and stupid reality contest shows will find Rick And Morty Season Two clever and hilarious. Even the high-concept episode "Total Rickall," which is predictable in many ways, is hilarious and well-constructed.

The second season of Rick And Morty looks great. Episodes like "Mortynight Run" feature surprisingly ambitious animation to create musical numbers and pretty impressive location designs. Sure, there are a lot of asses animated in the video and the perversions of Rick ripping "Gearhead's" gears out of his crotch and sticking them on his face are hilarious.

For those not familiar with the show, it helps to know who the key characters are. In the second season of Rick And Morty the primary characters are:

Morty Smith - A fourteen year-old boy, who is pretty much an idiot, he accompanies his Grandpa Rick on adventures, including learning to fly the ship. Rick teaches him how to fly the space ship. His compassion leads him to take a stand against the hired assassin to whom Rick sells weapons, which puts the universe in danger from a gas-based entity. In playing Roy, he goes back to the carpet store! Against all odds, he figures out how to thwart the memory parasite! He abandons Rick during the Cromulon incident and discovers from Bird Person that Rick once saved his life. He rejects Rick's attempt to be a god within the car battery and tries to save a young woman from the Red Hour in his own attempt to get laid,

Summer Smith - Morty's older sister, she travels with Rick and Morty much more frequently now. Despite dropping the ball on putting a mattress under a falling neighbor when time was frozen, she spars with Morty over who is a more competent at traveling with Rick. She tries to free a planet of a parasitic entity, in the process making the situation there vastly worse and is horrified at how the car keeps her safe while visiting another universe. She becomes an ideal daughter when a religion is formed around the Cromulons in the sky. She sees how miserable Tiny Rick truly is and finds her relationship with her father very strained,

Jerry Smith - The dimwitted father of Morty and Summer, he is not fond of Rick, largely because Rick does not respect him. He and his counterparts from the multiverse are kept in a specialized daycare rather than being allowed to accompany Rick and Morty on their adventures. He is pissed to discover Rick has a whole bunker under the garage and uses it to prove to Beth just how horrible Rick is. He discovers that his relationship with Beth is entirely parasitic, but works. He faces his biggest moral dilemma when he has the chance to save an intergalactic hero by giving up his genitals,

Beth Smith - Rick's daughter, she spends most of the season simply reacting to her lack of feelings for Jerry. When Jerry hits a deer on the way home from getting ice cream, she becomes to determined to prove her competence as a surgeon. She is able to help defeat the family's parasite by recognizing how miserable Jerry makes her,

and Rick Sanchez - A mad scientist and grandfather to Morty and Summer. After Morty and Summer break time, he gets into a gunfight with different temporal versions of himself and nearly destroys existence over choosing between a flathead and philipshead screwdriver. He teaches Morty to drive the space ship and refuses to let Jerry travel with him while in space. He disregards interstellar and interdimensional laws in order to do what he wants, even taking Roy completely off the grid, which comes back to haunt him. After breaking up with the hive mind Unity, he becomes despondent. He puts his mind in a young body in order to hand out with his grandkids at high school and that nearly kills him. He plays god to people living inside the car battery and makes an awesome jam to save the world.

Rick And Morty relies upon the voice talents of Justin Roiland, who voices both Rick and Morty, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, and Sarah Chalke. They are all wonderful and able to emote perfectly for their characters. Parnell is familiar to fans of works like Archer and the rest of the cast has voice talents that are on par with him. Justin Roiland continues to impress by voicing both Rick and Morty and his ability voice act is stunning in the second season of Rick And Morty. The second season features awesome guest vocals from Keith David, Patton Oswalt and Stephen Colbert. And Jemaine Clements performs "Good Bye Moonman" in a style so like David Bowie is it eerie!

Rick And Morty Season 2 has memorable supporting characters, a hypnotic jam and a lot of laughs that hold up a lot better than most animated comedies being produced these days!

For other works from the 2015 – 2016 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Orange Is The New Black - Season 4
The Flash - Season 2
Game Of Thrones - Season 6
Grace And Frankie - Season 2
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 6
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 1
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 2
House Of Cards - Season 4
Doctor Who - Season 9

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Humor That Holds Up: Rick And Morty Season 1 Is Not Just For Stoners!

The Good: Very funny, Cute concepts, Good voice performances, Animation quality
The Bad: Plot structures are very predictable, Lighter on theme/character development
The Basics: Rick And Morty Season 1 manages to provide fresh science fiction humor in the already packed animated comedy market.


There are few markets that have been as glutted in recent years as the half-hour animated comedy. The Simpsons has long outstayed its welcome and humor and Seth MacFarlane has personally contributed to reducing the relative freshness of animated comedy by over-franchising his works. So, it is always a surprise for me when I find an animated comedy that actually manages to make me laugh, especially over multiple viewings. The first season of Rick And Morty is one of the few new entries into the animated television comedy market that effectively argues that there is still room for something fresh in the genre.

Rick And Morty Season 1 is a collection of eleven half-hour animated episodes of television that follow the exploits of the Smith family and Rick Sanchez, Beth Smith's father. Rick Sanchez is an irresponsible mad scientist who dragoons his grandson, Morty, into his adventures. Jerry, Morty's father, is irked by both Rick's presence in his house and Morty's befriending him.

Adventures in the first season of Rick And Morty include Rick using Morty to smuggle a powerful fruit's pit through intergalactic customs, Rick and Morty trying to incept the idea of Morty passing math class into Morty's teacher's dreams, and Morty being guided through the body of a bum Rick is experimenting upon as part of his attempt to market Anatomy Park inside the bum. The pair watches interdimensional television, escapes aliens trying to trick Rick into giving them the formula for dark matter, and deals with the consequences of Rick giving Morty a genetically-modified virus that acts, essentially, like a love potion. Rick goes on a couple of adventures with Summer, Morty's sister, and has to elude his interdimensional doppelgangers when murders in the multiverse are pinned on Rick.

Rick And Morty is very formulaic in its first season. While Rick and Morty are off on their intergalactic adventures, Jerry and Beth try to deal with their collapsing marriage. The rest of the family struggles to overthrow rapidly-evolving, super-intelligent dogs, have a gadget-free Christmas, and deal with one of Rick's creations trying to improve their lives . . . with frequently disastrous results. Jerry becomes a hero to the Plutonians by declaring that Pluto is a planet, Summer goes to work for the devil, and Jerry and Beth try desperately to save their marriage by going to a Titanic-themed amusement park.

The adventures in Rick And Morty create comedy frequently based on allusions to other works. Those who love science fiction and pop culture works like Inception, Cloud Atlas, Friday The Thirteenth: The Series and the works of David Cronenberg will catch all of the intended humor of Rick And Morty. The first season of Rick And Morty is one of the most well-developed science fiction comedy works ever created.

As well, Rick And Morty bursts onto DVD and Blu-Ray incredibly well-developed from an animation perspective. Unlike most early-season animated works, the first season of Rick And Morty looks developed, clean and consistent. From the pilot episode to the season finale, the characters, aliens, timing and settings in Rick And Morty have a decent sense of visual continuity. The team makes the show look professional throughout the entire season.

For those not familiar with the show, it helps to know who the key characters are. In the first season of Rick And Morty the primary characters are:

Morty Smith - A fourteen year-old boy, who is terrible at math, he is not overly bright. He acts as a patsy for his grandfather Rick while they go on various adventures in space and between dimensions. His desire for adventure leads him to take the lead on a fantasy adventure that takes a turn for the dark. His dog becomes super-intelligent and he is fairly traumatized when his affection for Jessica pretty much ruins the world. He is also shocked when he learns that Ricks throughout the multiverse use Mortys to avoid detection as his brainwave acts as something of a sensor shield,

Summer Smith - Morty's older sister, she is envious of Morty's position in Rick's life. When Rick is sidetracked by his half-alien offspring, she gets to go on an adventure with Rick to a planet run by women. She discovers that her parents having her entirely ruined their lives and changed their directions when she is able to compare their existences throughout the multiverse in universes where she does and does not exist,

Jerry Smith - The dimwitted father of Morty and Summer, he is not fond of Rick, largely because Rick does not respect him. He has a collection of R2-D2 quarters, becomes a hero to the Plutonians, and is protective of his son. He is alarmed when he learns his mother and father are involved in an open marriage with another man,

Beth Smith - Rick's daughter, she is a horse surgeon who disappointed her father by marrying Jerry when he got her pregnant. When she gets a Meeseeks to try to help her have a more fulfilling life, she instantly leaps to the idea of splitting with Jerry. She only truly bonds with Jerry when the world is destroyed by one of Rick's experiments,

and Rick Sanchez - a mad scientist and grandfather to Morty. He disregards interstellar and interdimensional laws in order to do what he wants, which is usually getting high. He drinks excessively and drags Morty along to stay off the radar of the Ricks across the multiverse who have conformed. He is friends with a wide variety of creatures and is protective of keeping some of his creations from falling into the wrong hands.

Rick And Morty relies upon the voice talents of Justin Roiland, who voices both Rick and Morty, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, and Sarah Chalke. They are all wonderful and able to emote perfectly for their characters. Parnell is familiar to fans of works like Archer and the rest of the cast matches him well. Rick And Morty has a spontaneous sound and feel to many of the lines and Roiland, especially, manages to keep the show feeling fresh and different in the way it sounds.

Ultimately, the first season of Rick And Morty is funny and it is one of the rare animated comedies that holds up better over multiple viewings.

For other shows from the 2013 – 2014 television season, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Modern Family - Season 5
The Big Bang Theory - Season 7
Game Of Thrones - Season 4
New Girl - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 4
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 2
Breaking Bad - Season 5
The Clone Wars - Season 6
Orange Is The New Black - Season 2
Parenthood - Season 5

6/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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