Rick and Morty

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diamonds
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Re: Rick and Morty

#101 Post by diamonds » Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:49 pm

I don't think I'd agree with that assessment. There was a period in Season 3 around the Mad Max episode where I considered dropping the show because of how stale it felt, but some of the episodes from this season are among the best they've ever done (I'd count the snake episode, the vat of acid episode, and especially the finale).

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#102 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:06 pm

The vat is great, and I haven't seen the finale. Don't get me wrong, the show is still very good, but comparing it to itself in consistency (between, and even within, episodes) is disheartening. That doesn't mean it's bad. The returning character in the heist ep and especially the postcredits scene there are series highlights.

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#103 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:13 am

Maybe the break caused a bit of a rupture, but I really felt that the second half of season 4 came back stronger than ever. I think things are getting more complex too as now the series has its own history and mythology to comment on (and destroy the significance of at a whim!) than just lashing out at the conventions of pop culture around it now. And whilst there are amusing digs at Beth being sidelined for the first couple of the latest batch of episodes, that seemed to have been for the purpose of putting her front and centre for the great final episode. I really liked that in the finale Morty and Summer had their own arc of going from antagonism to working together! And Jerry even saved the day with his puppeting skills!

But the main theme of this series, from Rick punching Morty to Morty flat out refusing to participate in some of his grandpa's shenanigans this time around, is the fractious nature of the central relationship. Maybe Morty is outgrowing Rick and wanting to lead his own life? Maybe Rick is growing disillusioned by even the younger kid of the family not being as readily available to blithely use and abuse any more? And maybe Rick and Morty will end up battling one day, although right at this moment I do not really know who I would side with in any such situation (I will always side with Summer in any dispute, I think!)

(And I think describing Ocean's Twelve as "the worst one" was part of the joke there! It is definitely a "Rick" thing to say, picking up on received knowledge and parroting it back as gospel in the form of a zinger in order to bring someone down!)

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#104 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:50 am

colinr0380 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:13 am
(And I think describing Ocean's Twelve as "the worst one" was part of the joke there! It is definitely a "Rick" thing to say, picking up on received knowledge and parroting it back as gospel in the form of a zinger in order to bring someone down!)
Oh of course, that's a great point, and nice thoughts in general. I agree that there is a lot of potential in fleshing out the complexities of family dynamics concurrently with adventures across all the seasons to come, and your reading of this season as a stage in that context makes me appreciate it more. Granted, I need to see the last two still, so I can't comment, but it reminds me of reading the fifth Harry Potter book and hating it because they were whining and I was going through that stage myself - and didn't need a mirror for over a thousand pages - but in hindsight I see it as one of the most important chapters for the characters in their development, and a great one upon revisits.

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#105 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:02 am

There is also that ever present issue of 'nothing mattering' which the show is playing with, so nothing means anything outside of an individual episode (kind of a comment on episodic television and animated comedy in particular?), but at the same time there are call backs and returning characters and even character arcs that suggest that the creators do care in some way about the world they have created even if they have to blithely handwave it away as unimportant, or actively destroy or undermine elements or characters that get called back to as well.

It is really present in the final episode when Rick tells Morty and Summer to try and fight to save the planet but not to the extent of putting their own lives in danger ("Because, you know, infinite worlds"). Even Tammy gives Rick a get out clause (a bit like the President did at the end of the last season) to just leave the universe and never come back, leaving this one to her control. Especially considering that Rick has wrecked numerous iterations of the Earth just to teach Morty a lesson with that vat of acid episode it kind of makes Tammy wanting a universe to rule over for her very own seem a little less extreme of a demand perhaps! But even that appears to be unacceptable to Rick.

I kind of like that aspect but it does mean that literally nothing is sacred at all. I remember back in the first season wondering whether we would see the 'real' Earth again and saying in a post that Beth was one of the last 'untampered with' characters. Things have gone so far now that none of those questions really seem to matter any more and are pretty absurd to ask now that dozens of iterations of the main characters have died multiple times over (except Summer, which is why I am getting increasingly concerned about her safety!), but I think deep down the show knows it does otherwise it would not keep trying to hurt its characters and audience by destroying their moments of connection over and over. Even when someone is as callous and anti-social as Rick, he still has all of these characters surrounding him, and keeping the remains of Phoenix Person somewhat alive (when it would have been better to have put him out of his misery a couple of modifications before!) underlines that. He has (albeit with justification!) killed his best friend's wife to get his best friend back, even though the friend now hates him for it. It also makes him more similar to Tammy than I think he would like to acknowledge.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#106 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Mar 30, 2021 12:31 pm


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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#107 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:58 pm

I also see that they recently did an Animal Crossing skit too.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#108 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:48 am

The new season is pretty great so far, much better than season 4 -which was fine but inconsistent, and a bit muted in its audacity most of the time it was hitting its targets. Tonight's episode was a particularly clever irony on Mother Nature oppressed by her children through an ethos of corporate capitalism, but without her appearing physically 'old' I sensed an acidic jab at the prevalence of elder abuse as well, and even further using this as a microcosm for the nakedly open kinds of abuse we fail to recognize in everyday life. Of course the ferocity of behavior is eventually reciprocated as a punchline, in what may be the best scalding of progressive liberals yet. Fighting fire with fire is "the only way!"

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Mr Sausage
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Rick and Morty

#109 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:00 pm

I’m loving the new season, last week’s episode especially, but wasn’t fond of the most recent episode. The B story-line was perfunctory and didn’t so much end as stop. The A story line was fine, but Captain Planet is a pretty old property to be bringing out for satire (would this show’s main audience even know it?) and where they took the satire was predictable. They didn’t even follow up on Morty’s lack of ethical high ground to be criticizing Planetina, given both what he’s done and his nakedly selfish reasons for doing it. Morty just brushes off Planetina’s rejoinder. It’s disappointing for a show usually willing to follow certain logical chains to their most uncomfortable conclusions. The best parts of the episode ended up being small stuff like the daft yet persuasive board game at the beginning, or Beth’s startled reaction to Morty’s very real and adult rage stemming from a lifetime of dismissal and invalidation (too bad it’s only there to set up a standard reconciliation. I wouldn’t mind some episodes of Beth coming to grips with the wounds caused by her own poor parenting).

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Re: Rick and Morty

#110 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:07 pm

Judging by how previous seasons have functioned, I suspect that the Beth/Morty conflict is only temporarily connected to that "standard reconciliation" and actually there to set up a deeper existentialist confrontation down the road

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#111 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Jul 05, 2021 6:01 pm

I took the Planetina episode as being about the Britney Spears #FreeBritney situation for the first half and then becomes about positive activism going out of control in the second, with the neat twist that once all of the 'evil' restraining influences have been disposed of (with the suggestion that the brutal and cynical band of now adult kids have been drained of all of their youthful wide-eyed dreams of making a difference in order to keep the perky superheroine going in her usual untroubled manner) that Planetina instead of just being a passive object being ordered around suddenly has to take the weight of the world on her shoulders, which destroys her superficially sunny demeanour as she needs to make people permanently pay for their crimes rather than just happily fixing their current wrongdoings and then going off on her merry way again until the inevitable next time.

And then Planetina has to face rejection and not being able to fix things for the first time when Morty breaks their relationship off, and gives her someone specific to vent her anger at rather than lashing out at random strangers. It will be interesting to see if she will just be a one-off character or reappear every so often in the same way that Tammy does.

That perhaps ties in the more flippantly orgiastic Rick and Summer side of the episode as you can try to live without ties but still end up leaving a string of awkward relationships in your wake. This may be Morty's first big one that follows him for the rest of his life.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:42 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Rick and Morty

#112 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Jul 12, 2021 8:41 am

"Hand Job Solo" is maybe the hardest I've laughed at Rick and Morty since season 2.

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#113 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Jul 12, 2021 5:34 pm

5:4 Rickdependence Spray

"Where did you get all that?" "It's Vegas"

I just loved how long they kept the 'mystery' of Morty's shamefully central role in creating the situation going for over half of the episode, revelling in all of the double entendres and danger of being uncovered! That whole situation beginning as just a crazily silly tossed off joke only to have spectacularly unforeseen consequences is something which happens all over again in the post-credit 2001-esque coda too!

I particularly liked how Morty's somewhat selfish pursuit of personal pleasure actually inadvertently diverts Rick from his much more potentially world devastating plans to create an army of horsemen to fight his own battles for him, forcing Rick to have to face up to and admit his own actions having consequences! In a way Morty did end up covering up for him due to his own sticky situation!

Also Professor Shabooboo, the crustily disheveled, unfortunately stained "noted Sperm Professor" was a fun character! I did like that Beth and Summer end up being more adept dab hands at effectively combating an oncoming wave of sperm (a not unfamiliar situation to them?) than all of the men sidelining them are in their own spermicidal efforts! And that brief allusion to abortion only to get around any moral questions by blasting the newly impregnated egg into space was amusing! (Just how many different mutant children has Morty fathered in his scattershot haphazard fashion by this point in the series?) As was Kathy Ireland coming in to underline the 'touching moral lesson' of the episode, before immediately going against her own teachings!

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#114 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:57 am

Episode 7 apparently aired early in Canada- It’s okay, not great, but a fleeting narrative strand from episode 4 comes back, which makes me wonder if the next two in between offer more info on this idea or if the last ones will..

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#115 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:45 am

5:6 Rick & Morty's Thanksploitation Spectacular

I really liked the utter insanity of episode 6 in which after Morty accidentally destroys a number of priceless historical artefacts (and unfortunately unleashes the robot monster that the French had hidden Trojan Horse-style inside the Statue of Liberty in order to devastate New York and claim it for the Francophone peoples) the (sexual) tension between Rick and the President of the United States escalates to such an extent that they begin a Thanksgiving conflict against each other that involves people getting transformed in gruesomely painful-looking fashion into turkeys. Unfortunately this does not go to plan when, because humans are 'face blind' to turkeys an actual turkey is reinjected with the President's DNA and takes power instead, causing things go from bad to worse! The congress unfortunately likes being 'talked turkey' to, especially after their "third raise in an hour" and fully approves the turkey President's gobbledegook about the necessity of creating turkey-human hybrid supersoldiers.

It all falls to Rick and Morty, once they have turned the actual President back to his non-feathered self after fighting off a DNA-fused, inexplicably suddenly evil clone of FDR's DNA fused with a giant spider ("How about this for a fireside chat?"), to go around the local bars gathering together a band of low paid but incredibly loyal (and expendable) Navy SEALS (all with seven month pregnant girlfriends) to go on the offensive through the Lincoln memorial in order to bring the mayhem to an end. Though not without Morty accidentally lasering a giant chunk from the Moon as a bit of collateral damage.

A very quotable episode that is also full of rampant Presidential nudity! And there is a fantastic brief, completely unmotivated slight against the random nature of Charlie Kaufman films in there too!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Fri Aug 13, 2021 1:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#116 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:39 am

I just want to call everybody who expresses counterculture views with unbridled conviction “Fight Club” now

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Rick and Morty

#117 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:46 am

Am I forgetting a past episode, or did this week's episode just casually drop that
SpoilerShow
Beth died as a kid and Rick took up with an abandoned adult Beth from another dimension?

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#118 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:26 am

I'm not sure, though it certainly contrasts with Rick's dismissal of his sentient AI garage's (don't ask!) suggestion that he just go to an alternate dimension to get another, unsullied version of Bird Person as a friend rather than doing a deep dive into Phoenix Person's shattered remains to drag his friend back to some form of life.

After the casual slamming of Charlie Kaufman in an earlier episode (which happens again here!) we get shown that Rick probably feels more affinity to Kaufman as filtered through Michel Gondry, as Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort dismisses the rest of the family to focus on Rick taking a journey through Bird Person's memories of him, teaming up with a younger (better?) version of himself as seen through Bird Person's point of view to try and get his friend past that tiny issue of having murdered his wife Tammy at their wedding reception that time.

I really like that it comes down to a memory of a massive past battle (that the wide-eyed and naïve, eventually self-sacrificial 'mind's eye' Rick was excitedly looking forward to as being the cool, mentally scarring equivalent of "our Vietnam") that actually works out really well, but the real trauma comes in Rick's post-battle glow declaration of love for Bird Person being rebuffed, with Rick never being able to accept that and letting the rejection fester until it came out in the slightly inappropriate way of blowing the (albeit traitorous) newlywed wife's brains out!

I presume that this is the reason why Rick is so attached to this particular iteration of Bird Person, like a child hanging on to an ever more ragged and fraying around the edges comfort blanket. Despite the rejection this seems to be the closest Rick has gotten to another person (even Beth, especially after all the swapping and changing around that has occurred, and general disapproval of her life choices which have led to a distance between them, whilst also strangely confirming how alike they are at the same time), and he will probably keep reanimating the scraps of Bird/Phoenix Person over and over again, only to have the remaining free will still reject him in ever more devastating ways.

Also, I kind of love the parallel subplot with the A.I. controlled garage awkwardly and sultrily trying to 'do a Ghislaine Maxwell' at one point with the next door neighbour to try and preserve her ongoing existence just in case Rick dies!

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Re: Rick and Morty

#119 Post by jindianajonz » Tue Aug 10, 2021 4:33 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:46 am
Am I forgetting a past episode, or did this week's episode just casually drop that
SpoilerShow
Beth died as a kid and Rick took up with an abandoned adult Beth from another dimension?
SpoilerShow
That came out of nowhere for me too, but at this point we can't even be sure if the Rick shown is the same Rick we started the series with.

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#120 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:05 pm

5:9 - Forgetting Sarick Mortshall
"After the smartest guy in the world is done with you, its hard to find your footing again"

Rick and Morty split up and whilst Morty finds that his substitute partner is just a damaged reflection of himself and ends up having to cut that part out of himself to go on living without hatred (similar to the toxic goo episode of a couple of seasons ago), Rick finds out that his substitute for Morty whilst starting out as a joke about a more suitable replacement for his grandson actually teaches him that he has been just using Morty and should stop and go off for new adventures with new partners. Whilst Jerry is turned into, and apparently remains, a wet puddle of insubstantial nothingness...

5:10 - Rickmaurai Jack
"The quality of your disapproval no longer matters. Tonight I do that thing I want to do, with the curve thing"
"That's what makes me evil, being sick of him. If you've ever been sick of him, you're evil too"

Rick becomes the "Crow Man" with his two crow companions and associated anime theme tune, until the rebound partnership loses its lustre and he returns to Morty. On taking Morty back to the Citadel to get him de-aged from a very relatable-looking 40 back to 14 (long story involving breaking bones and cutting Morty into two forms aged 14 and 26. The 26 year old immediately trying to social justice his way to immortality and getting shot down by the cops), they run into the new President Morty and we finally after a number of seasons get the long threatened face off between Evil Morty and Rick, as Evil Morty gets the full brain scan of Rick that will enable him to set his plans for escaping the Rick-centric multiverse into motion. And incidentally get the backstory of why Rick C-137 is the ultimate Rick across all the timelines.

As if to show how bad things have gotten, it all falls to Mr Poopy Butthole to do the final wrap up moral lesson for the entire series.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Rick and Morty

#121 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:15 pm

Turns out that fake-out memory of Rick’s whole family dying from the mind-heist episode a few seasons back was a real memory, and confirms that casual drop a few episodes back that Beth died and Rick went to live with another, adult version of her in another timeline. So while he’s still an enormous piece of shit he’s not really the absent father Beth painted him as. A hell of a lot of backstory got filled in by-the-by. I think I’ll have to rewatch the finale just to get it all straight. I don’t know that I laughed much during the finale, but it hardly mattered there was so much imagination and emotional vulnerability on display.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Rick and Morty

#122 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:58 pm

This show has always had some great music otherwise unknown to me playing during the end credits, but this season really stood out. I forget what episode, but Kishi Bashi's I Am the Antichrist to You has been replaying on my YT account for weeks now, and it's some kind of masterpiece.

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denti alligator
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Re: Rick and Morty

#123 Post by denti alligator » Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:36 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:58 pm
This show has always had some great music otherwise unknown to me playing during the end credits, but this season really stood out. I forget what episode, but Kishi Bashi's I Am the Antichrist to You has been replaying on my YT account for weeks now, and it's some kind of masterpiece.
One of my all-time favorite songs!

So I never got past the first episode of the this show. The boob-grabbing/ogling and infantile jokes were too much. I’m assuming it improves?

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#124 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:13 pm

It stays at that level but the boob grabbing and ogling (and orgies of all shapes and forms) keep having consequences, and the infantile jokes (mostly) cover up for broken hearts, and shattered worlds. The relationships in this series keep reminding me of that old Bob Monkhouse joke: "When I die, I want to go the way my grandad did: in his sleep. Not the way my grandma went: in the passenger seat"

(Incidentally I'll take the opportunity to do another plug for We Bare Bears and Summer Camp Island as shows ostensibly 'aimed at children' but which are just as worthwhile for adults to see. They might be better to try out denti)

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colinr0380
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Re: Rick and Morty

#125 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Sep 26, 2021 5:54 pm

denti alligator wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:36 am
So I never got past the first episode of the this show. The boob-grabbing/ogling and infantile jokes were too much. I’m assuming it improves?
Here's a fun video that can probably give an idea of whether Rick & Morty might be of interest. Although I do not really see the show in season 3 and 4 as quite as rocky as that video appears to.

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