Warning: this text accommodates full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 8!
When Rick and Morty Season 8 first premiered, Grownup Swim made episodes 1-3 and 5 out there for critics. Because it occurs, they in all probability couldn’t have picked a worse choice of episodes to signify the most recent season of the animated sci-fi comedy. As reviewer Samantha Nelson wrote on the time, “Sadly, the 4 episodes of season 8 that I’ve seen lean on the basic Rick and Morty formulation, which is getting a bit drained.” However season 8 undoubtedly will get higher because it goes alongside. Sure, some episodes recommend the sequence is rising stale and lengthy within the tooth. However others show it may be simply as intelligent, insightful, and emotionally resonant as these basic early seasons.
Let’s take a deep dive into Rick and Morty Season 8, breaking it down episode by episode.
Episode 1 – “Summer time of All Fears”
Oddly, whereas Rick and Morty’s premiere episodes are sometimes among the many finest in any given season (“The Rickshank Rickdemption” and “Mort Dinner Rick Andre” being two notable examples), that’s not the case with season 8’s “Summer time of All Fears.” A part of the issue is that it feels too conceptually just like the season 7 finale, “Concern No Mort.” Each episodes take care of Morty (and on this case, Summer time) being trapped in a false actuality and struggling to return house. Right here, greater than anyplace else this season, the sequence struggles to flee the shadow solid by different, higher episodes.
It doesn’t assist that “Summer time of All Fears” captures Rick at his worst as a personality. He’s petty and needlessly merciless, all for the sake of a pilfered telephone charger. Current seasons have proven Rick a minimum of placing within the effort to turn into a barely higher and extra emotionally well-adjusted particular person, however episodes like this recommend he’s made completely zero progress.
Episode 2 – “Valkyrick”
The season’s sophomore episode, “Valkyrick,” a minimum of shifts in a extra novel course by specializing in the connection between Rick and House Beth. House Beth looks like an particularly underutilized character, regardless of her recurring function on the present, so it’s all the time good to get a deeper view into her intergalactic misadventures. Finally, although, “Valkyrick” is a fairly easy, action-oriented installment that doesn’t do a lot to really mine the dynamic between Rick and his presumably cloned daughter. That may come later within the season.
Episode 3 – “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly”
“The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly” arrives as a religious sequel to “The Ricklantis Mixup,” exploring the continued fallout of the destruction of the Citadel of Ricks. Homesteader Rick makes for an honest sufficient protagonist, and Boss Hogg Rick is definitely an entertaining villain. However, right here once more, the sequence feels as if it’s merely rehashing older, higher ideas reasonably than truly blazing new territory. There’s minimal emotional weight to this foolish little facet story.
Episode 4 – “The Final Temptation of Jerry”
Everybody loves a very good Jerry episode, and Season 8 picks up a bit with the appearance of “The Final Temptation of Jerry.” What begins as Jerry being ostracized by the household for his love of Easter rapidly devolves into an amusing Prometheus parody involving Christian area knights waging a holy warfare in opposition to pagan area gods. It’s all very bizarre and fairly entertaining, if just a little overly reliant on if just a little overly reliant on Rick and Morty’s tendency to thrill in Jerry’s distress. Happily, an excellent higher Jerry episode is simply across the nook.
Episode 5 – “Cryo Mort a Rickver”
Season 8 reaches its nadir with “Cryo Mort a Rickver,” the place Rick and Morty try to rob a cryosleep ship and wind up waking up the inhabitants. Whereas it’s mildly amusing to see Rick impersonate the spoiled baby of a very indulgent wealthy couple, this episode is a principally uninteresting affair that lacks the high-concept hook the sequence so typically delivers. It’s lucky that Grownup Swim didn’t comply with the normal launch schedule with season 8 by airing it in two discrete blocks. If this had been the final style followers got of Rick and Morty for just a few months, it could depart a really bitter style within the mouth.
Episode 6 – “The Curicksous Case of Bethjamin Button”
Happily, season 8 aired in a single lengthy, fell swoop, and issues begin to decide up within the again half. “The Curicksous Case of Bethjamin Button” shifts focus to each variations of Beth, as the 2 discover a approach to actually reclaim their childhood. It’s all the time enjoyable seeing the sequence discover their bizarre sisterly relationship (outdoors of the bizarre clone-cest afoot in “Bethic Twinstinct”), and much more so right here as we get a way of simply how unruly Beth was rising up with out Rick in her life. This episode additionally makes hilarious use of Gene in his ongoing function because the hapless, well-meaning man subsequent door. The theme park subplot doesn’t fairly measure up, sadly. Whereas it has its amusing moments, that storyline is finally diminished to the identical, drained Westworld parody we’ve seen numerous instances earlier than.
Episode 7 – “Ricker Than Fiction”
Subsequent up is the very odd, however not unfunny, “Ricker Than Fiction.” This episode might be most notable for that includes Superman director James Gunn in a significant visitor function, and even bringing in Gunn’s DC predecessor Zack Snyder for a cameo. Frankly, the massive Gunn/Snyder scene is a large letdown, counting on drained, predictable jabs at Snyder’s method to Superman filmmaking reasonably than something weirder and extra impressed. That complete scene can be extra at house in an episode of Household Man.
However outdoors of that missed comedic alternative, “Ricker Than Fiction” is an entertaining swipe on the Hollywood superhero film industrial advanced. Gunn himself is a fairly amusing foil to Rick and Morty as the 2 run amok by means of his misguided screenplay to “Most Velocitree 10.” And Jerry as soon as once more proves to be the MVP right here. Who knew an Adderall-addicted Jerry could possibly be so entertaining, or that Summer time writing velociraptor porn might result in such dire penalties?
Episode 8 – “Nomortland”
Jerry’s dominance continues in “Nomortland,” simply the strongest installment of season 8 as much as that time. Right here we meet Mooch, a vagabond model of Jerry who takes benefit of Rick’s interdimensional antics to ramble by means of the multiverse. Naturally, it’s not lengthy earlier than Mooch and our Jerry (or “Eagle Man”) discover themselves stranded removed from house. This episode actually makes the a lot of the Jerry-heavy format, permitting voice actor Chris Parnell to stretch his muscle tissue in enjoyable methods. It additionally hits that delicate stability of celebrating the truth that Jerry is a perpetual sad-sack loser with out dumping on him needlessly.
With the sequence clearly saving its extra character-driven Rick and Morty storylines for key episodes (as we’ll quickly see), it’s good that Jerry and the Beths are increasingly more incessantly being thrust into the highlight. They’re nonetheless comparatively clean canvases. This does spotlight how little season 8 accomplishes with Summer time, although. Exterior of “Summer time of All Fears,” she doesn’t get many standout scenes. And even that episode stops wanting attaining any actual, lasting progress for the character. Summer time appears to be essentially the most stagnant of the Smith household at this level, and hopefully, that’s one thing the sequence can handle in season 9.
Episode 9 – “Morty Daddy”
Season 8’s penultimate episode, “Morty Daddy,” is an underwhelming return to unhealthy habits. Was anybody actually clamoring for Morty Jr. to make a return look? His romp by means of the rubbish portal along with his father doesn’t end in many memorable moments or humorous gags. Rick and Summer time’s antics with the pre-cogs makes for a barely higher B-storyline. However even right here, it comes throughout as a brief gag that’s stretched far too skinny. As soon as once more, the sequence can’t appear to search out its footing with Summer time.
Episode 10 – “Scorching Rick”
Season 8 might not begin particularly robust, but it surely undoubtedly finishes on a excessive observe with “Scorching Rick.” Let’s simply say you possibly can in all probability count on the finale to make an look on our High 20 Rick and Morty Episodes listing when that’s up to date subsequent.
“Scorching Rick” is an intriguing case research of what occurs when Rick and Morty abandons its typical standalone, procedural format and actually embraces the oddly labyrinthine continuity it’s established over the previous decade. Right here we have now an journey that builds very immediately on free ends left from episodes like “Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort” and “Unmortricken,” as Reminiscence Rick escapes the confines of Phoenixperson Birdperson’s thoughts and makes a play for reuniting with the one reminiscence fragment of Diane Smith that also exists inside Rick C-137.
What follows is a really mind-bending and emotionally haunting take a look at Rick’s relationship along with his lifeless spouse and his sincere try at shifting ahead. The sequence maintains an considerable degree of nuance the place Diane is anxious. It’s not a lot that Rick himself is motivated by a need to be reunited with Diane. We noticed what that may seem like again in “Concern No Mort,” however even then, it was solely Morty’s notion of what his grandfather would possibly do. Rick really simply needs to maneuver ahead and eventually rebuild a life that was shattered by Rick Prime, however his damaging recollections received’t enable it.
Some followers is perhaps disenchanted that the finale doesn’t additional the Evil Morty storyline or introduce some new overarching villain for Rick to deal with. However does it actually need to? What this episode does accomplish is discovering new emotional layers within the advanced onion that’s Rick Sanchez, whereas additionally exploring how his actions and errors proceed to poison his relationship along with his household in unexpected methods. It’s an episode as emotionally wealthy as something we’ve seen from Rick and Morty thus far, and it’s an excellent endcap to what’s in any other case a reasonably uneven season.
