Season Review: Rick and Morty Season 2

Spoilers Below (kind of):

When I look at the unimpressive cumulative score for Rick and Morty’s second season, I’m surprised, for two completely opposite reasons.

First, I’m shocked that the score isn’t higher. Not when I actually think about the episodes, but because following last season, I never thought this show could do worse than a 9.5 or a 9. Rick and Morty was always near perfection, and to say anything less seems like an insult to the show.

On the other hand, I’m also surprised that the show managed a decent score in the end. I feel like I was so disappointed week after week that it would end up failing when all was said and done. Looking back, only one of the episodes actually got a failing score, but compared to last season (I know, I know, I’m living in the past) they just seemed so much worse.

But the number is accurate, and it actually makes sense when one breaks the scores down. It was a rollercoaster ride overall, with some true gems and a few duds to balance things out.

The best episode of the year was week four’s “Total Rickall.” I have used this example time and time again over the last couple of months to illustrate that the show hasn’t lost it completely. Although I’m not using this to try to convince fans that the show is still capable of high quality episodes (like I do so often with The Simpsons), but instead to prove that I don’t actually hate season two. You see, last year when someone would ask me for a cartoon recommendation, or inquire about what I thought was the best current series, I would always reply, “Rick and Morty.” It was a solid go-to & a no-brainer, and it really was worthy of the accolades.

Now I’ve somehow switched sides, and need to convince fans of the show that I’m still one of them. “Total Rickall” is the first episode I point to, because it really was almost perfect. It was weird, it messed with the viewer’s mind, and most importantly: it was hilarious. And in signature Rick and Morty fashion, you could tell the writers put in that extra bit of work. In the past, exceptionally detailed writing examples could be seen almost every week. Creating strange characters like Scary Terry and dream world layers as seen in “Lawnmower Dog,” or a whole theme park inside a human body like “Anatomy Park,” or an entire universe worth of television shows as in “Rixty Minutes” took a hell of a lot of imagination and effort.

This is what I saw with “Total Rickall.” They introduced Mr. Poopybutthole, acted like he wasn’t new, even went as far as adding him to the opening credits for a single week, and then constantly twisted the audience’s brain as the plot progressed. This was classic Rick and Morty.

And it wasn’t the only strong effort. “Auto-Erotic Assimilation” and “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez” (“Yeah! Tiny Rick!”) we’re both very good, and “Interdimensional Cable 2” was even better. The latter was actually a reboot of a season one episode (the aforementioned “Rixty Minutes”) and version 2.0 makes me wonder whether or not this will become a yearly installment. Even “A Rickle in Time” and “The Ricks Must Be Crazy” were noteworthy.

On the flip side, there were some real disappointments too. I’ve already had words with a few folks about this one, but I did not care for “Look Who’s Purging Now.” If it was a unique idea (Rick and Morty land on a planet where one night every year there are no laws and people are free to maim and kill whomever they like) then this would probably have come off as a brilliant episode. But it was a spoof of The Purge (it was explicitly identified as such) and an unimaginative one at that. Rick and Morty was known for presenting ideas that one likely would not think of on one’s own, but this episode just appeared lazy. Funny enough, but still lazy.

“Mortynight Run” was also an average showing, and “Get Schwifty” barely passed. Basically other than the actual “Get Schwifty” song, it was a disappointment.

Again, none of these episodes were awful disgraces that I’d never watch again, but there were definitely things that annoyed me. Other than the plots falling a bit flat, these were (and the season as a whole was) a bit too self-aware. I liked the couple times last year when Rick and Morty broke the fourth wall and addressed the two protagonists’ teaming and even name-dropped the show itself, but that was novel because it was a premiere season and it really had nothing to lose. Plus it was a new feature. Now R&M is an established show, but not a veteran yet, and the mentions came off as too cocky and/or undeserved.

Also, did anyone else thing Rick was less of a dick this time around? I miss that.

But the biggest disappointments of the year were the times that the show tried to be too dramatic, with no offender worse than the finale, “The Wedding Squanchers.” I’ve been told by numerous people that this episode was amazing, and saw a few other outlets scoring their reviews as such, but I disagree. Rick and Morty has often gone for humor that’s a bit dark, a bit off-putting, and more than a bit weird – even disturbing sometimes – but other than a little moral or lesson here or there, it was never dramatic.

And so, I honestly ask: what in the name of King Flippy Nips was that garbage at the end of the episode? A sad, pseudo-cliffhanger complete with Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” playing in the background? You have got to be finger-fucking me. That’s not something Rick and Morty has done successfully before, and it’s not something they need to be trying. Shows like The Simpsons and South Park have tried to pull this before, but the former only used very brief and light situations, and the latter was usually making some social or political commentary. In both cases, the issue was remedied fairly quickly, and never bled from season to season.

I don’t want to generalize, but with the people I’ve encountered, the ones who said it was a good episode haven’t been fans since the beginning (some didn’t even pick it up until after the first season was already finished and critically acclaimed) and a lot of the outlets that worshipped the finale trashed the freshman year. I feel like they’re trying to make up for it now. Apologies to the readers who liked it but don’t fit into these categories, but I just calls it as I sees it.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a score that, after a lengthy analysis, actually fits the show quite well. There were some real strong episodes, several solid ones, and a handful of crap. We usually round our scores to the nearest half of a point, but in this case I’m going to give you an exact figure because I feel like it really matters.

Keeping in mind that a 7 is completely average, a 7.5 is just a bit above average, and an 8 is good but not great, I give you Rick and Morty season 2: