Not the worst thing you'll see all week: Rick and Morty

I don’t understand what’s funny about a vulgar, drunken, uncaring Doc Brown. Christopher Lloyd’s character is already funny without dialing his eccentricities up to an R-rated 11. It’s like making a parody of Silicon Valley where everyone pees on the floor and is mean to baby animals. Why would that even be a thing?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/03/23/not-worst-thing-youll-see-week-rick-morty/

I’m a Patreon backer but I rarely check the site to see the results of what people choose for you to review. I just want to say “You’re shwifty!” to the person who picked Rick and Morty as a review target. Brilliant.

And a great write up, Tom. I hope you’ll update us on how you find Season 2.

I’m so happy you wound up sticking it out, Tom! I totally get that Harmon’s brand of schmaltz, layered thick over a wrought iron lampshade of guilt-ridden introspection hung haphazardly on the tropes of cinema and television, isn’t for everyone, but it really, really speaks to me. Like you, I bounced off Community initially, feeling like I’d missed an essential joke somewhere along the lines. But about four episodes in, he cracks into a surprisingly touching, albeit heavy handed, examination of the inner torments of the probably-on-the-spectrum Abed and his family, and suddenly the show opened up for me and I started giving a shit about the terrible people it stars. The Harmon-helmed seasons of Community are some of my favorite TV now.

R&M ranks up there, despite my similarly finding Roiland’s juvenile meandering tiresome. But as the show layered on more and more complexity and emotional heft into its core of sideways-tilted scifi television, I really, really fell for it. “Rick Potion #9” hit hard and strong, and that scene you relate between Morty and his almost sister really got to me a lot more than I figured when I walked into what I assumed would be a gross out fest in the vein of Ren and Stimpy.

I kind of love this show. I hope you do continue and enjoy S2 :-)

Season 2 does indeed bring the ideas from the first season forward in deeper and more interesting ways. While still cursing and making a lot of dumb jokes. Hope you find it more than merely tolerable. : )

The ending of the episode with Unity in it in S2 is still hard for me to watch to this day. I know I keep sticking conditionals onto my love for Harmon’s writing style, because I totally get it’s not the highest craft in the land, but damn does he know how to put together a storyline and emotional payload that just detonates in my brain in a way I can just barely stand (as you all may have seen in the Logan thread, I don’t handle sad stories well at all. R&M is often sad and tragic and woeful and hopeless, but there’s just enough hope or love or maybe just some twisted biochemical reaction that’s a mockery of it for me to hang onto!

Which season was Mr Meeseeks? That was a great episode.

I can’t believe you made a The Big Lebowski joke. Tom Chick - The Big Lebowski. /shakes head

That was the first season.

This is what I was going to say. Make sure you watch all the way to the end for the extra clips!

Season one—look at meeeeeeeee!

“Hey, remember that time Tom told us all about how much he loved Rick & Morty? Yeah, that was a great story.”

Mr. Poopy Butthole

This Patreon thing is really working! It works!!

I have watched most of the series on Netflix after seeing it mentionned on the Patreon campaign, and while I was annoyed by the incessant burping at first, I was finding the uncaring general behaviour of the family much more moving for some reasons (maybe because, most of the time, we take our families for granted?), and the incessant mortying of Rick quite funny and endearing. Then it became too quickly a sort of “typical dysfunctional family”, and that aspect made all the characters much less appealing to me.
I still stayed for the wacky sci-fi, because I just love crazy ideas quickly dealt with and left to linger in the brain of the audience.

Wonderful article Tom. I had considered watching this but now I am going to defiantly give it a try. Even if I don’t end up likely the show this was a good read.

Good write-up. I had a similar journey with R&M – I saw a YouTube video talking about the causality/correlation theme in the episode “Get Shwifty” and convinced myself I needed to see the show… but man, the first two or three episodes were pretty rough.

Season 2 is really a very different thing, kind of like how Venture Brothers really started to become a different thing after season 2. A lot more character-building and “arcs” and less social commentary and high-concept sci-fi. It also ends on a really dark note.

I found season 2 to be a bit of a step backwards at first, and some of the episodes are a bit less inventive, and we already know the format quite well. But Season 2 has even more of the emotional development and high points in story telling that season 1 does not.

Total Rickall, The Ricks Must Be Crazy, and Mortynight Run are spectacular. (With Total Rickall probably being my favorite episode of the show in general).

The season 2 finale is incredible as well.

I’m glad you liked it, Tom.

Tom, thanks for reviewing R&M - it’s not clever cinema, but I enjoyed looking for the deeper message behind the incredibly juvenile pastiche of each episode. Season 2, having sorted out the characters and motivations, is the better of the two, but I have found rewatching Season 1 episodes to be rewarding as well.

I do like the show, but the whole lazy Ren & Stimpy style body grossouts could be entirely done away with to make a better product. Rick is funny without the constant belching and spittle. It adds nothing at best and detracts most of the time.

(Ren & Stimpy was also one of those shows I tried watching only because everyone else said it was great, only I never reached a “this is pretty good” moment. It was like watching Andy Kaufman eat his boogers for half an hour.)

Correction: Did you mean Fantastic Voyage when wowing us under 40 somethings with the knowledge of Innerspace’s predecessor?

Ah, you’re right on both counts. Incredible Voyage isn’t even a thing. There’s an Incredible Journey with baby animals or something. And it’s spelled Innerspace, not Inner Space. Thanks, Mr. Terrain!

-Tom