![]() ![]() When Morty grumbles, "Drunk," it speaks to how Rick's insecurities are affecting him. ![]() It reminds us of Rick's self-loathing, hidden by his cocky refusal to admit that he's thrown off his game. To save them, Rick must find a way to synchronize every single timeline - but, in his paranoia, Rick also suspects that his parallel counterparts plan to assassinate him.Īs a season premiere, "A Rickle in Time" nails all the character development. ![]() ![]() Grandpa and grandkids are in a suspended Schrodinger's state (yes, Schrodinger's cats make an appearance), and the more they desync, the more timelines they create - which means more identical screens. The season 2 premiere sees Rick, Morty, and Summer trying to undo the time freeze from the season 1 finale, but they end up ripping their realities apart, represented by split screens that show each parallel universe. This episode has to be seen to be described (see picture above to get a hint of what's in store). Eventually, Morty confesses to his new Summer that he eats within yards of his buried corpse, and at one point Morty returns to his original dimension to prove a point to his sister, reminding us all of what Morty left behind in order to survive. The consequences of "Rick Potion #9" reverberate throughout the rest of the series' run, too. It's also a perfect example of the series' existentialism, epitomized by Morty's thousand-yard stare as he returns to a status quo - or a faux-status quo - that he doesn't belong in. The ending of "Rick Potion #9" is jaw-dropping, particularly for an episode that dropped around the midpoint of the show's very first season, and shows just how far Harmon and Roiland are willing to chuck regular TV conventions out the window. So, Rick builds an antidote, only to see it create mutants and, in the end, annihilate the planet. In a bid to win the affection of his crush, Morty uses an oxytocin-infused love serum created by Rick, but his plan goes awry when everyone at the school dance wants to mate with Morty. "Rick Potion #9" begins with a love potion storyline, and ends with Armageddon. And yet, Morty still thinks that this life is worth living, and that time-wasters like watching Interdimensional Cable with his new family are a meaningful way to pass the time. In a bold creative decision, this is the first time that Morty acknowledges, both to himself and his "new" sister, Summer, that he really isn't living in his original universe (for more on that, see "Rick Potion #9"). The Smiths also face a family crisis when Beth and Jerry discover that their lives may have gone better if they hadn't married.īut for all the frivolity, there is a point to the pointlessness. There are commercials about fake doors, a loquacious trailer for an action movie, a bloody riff on a Lucky Charms commercial, and an alien version of "Garfield." It's an excuse for the animators, as well as Roiland, to flaunt their nonsensical imaginations, and Roiland is clearly having a ball with the improvisatory freedom. In "Rixty Minutes," Rick introduces the Smiths to Interdimensional Cable, allowing them to view zany shows that defy the normalcy of typical Earth programming. The best decoys, though, are the ones who dress as Muppet-styled Smiths in order to make themselves "too cute" to kill off. Many of the decoys differ from the others by a few degrees, and they have a variety of entertaining reactions, including fleeing from their fates, finding peace in death, and unifying other decoys into a rebel cult. Obviously, the writers won't kill the real Rick and Morty, and the episode is weaker for it, especially in comparison to status-quo defying installments like "Rick Potion #9." Still, there's some wicked fun to be had in watching all the decoys scramble for survival. As you can guess, it's a tangled web, especially since each manufactured family only has a vague understanding of what's happening with the other units. Everything is complicated by the fact that each decoy thinks it's the real person, too. Anyway, all these different groups of decoys are now at war, and this chaotic scenario quickly becomes less about figuring out which Smith family is the "real" one and more about witnessing the bloodbaths that ensue. ![]()
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