Review: Rick and Morty ‘Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate’

Spoilers Below:

Copying the formula for a previously successful episode of a TV show into another successful episode is tricky business. You have to respect the past while not trying too hard to one-up it. On the other hand, you can’t fail so badly with the reboot that you sully the name of the original. That being said, I give you an episode that might as well have been called, “Rixty Minutes 2.” (And really, shouldn’t it have?)

Jerry was rushed to an alien hospital to cure him of an illness caused by bacteria stored in a pint of Cherry Garcia. During his stay, Jerry was asked to donate his dong in order to save some important alien dude. At first he agreed, but later changed his mind. He attempted to use Beth to get out of the procedure, but she became intrigued by the prosthetic replacement options. Jerry ended up getting off the hook, but became bothered that no one needed him anymore, and threatened violence if his junk wasn’t sliced off and used. He was then shot a whole bunch, but being in a sophisticated space hospital, was soon fixed up and released.

Meanwhile, Rick, Morty, Beth, and Summer watched TV in the waiting room, as the show itself hopped between programs showing all of their highlights.

In Case You Missed It:

1) One of the hospital signs read: gloopy noops. Your guess is as good as mine.

2) Eyeholes cereal is available at Ikea, Target, CVS, and Rite Aid.

3) The host of How Did I Get Here? watched Rick, Morty, Beth, and Summer when they discussed whether or not people from the waiting room were being sucked into the TV.

4) What the fuck is a plumbus?

5) How the hell did Rick and Morty get Warner Herzog to voice a character, let alone one named Shrimply Pibbles?

I feel like most successful sequels attempts end up landing somewhere almost as good as their original, but not quite. They rarely blow the first out of the water (unless it’s Bad Boys II, Terminator 2, or The Dark Knight) but they’re usually not complete garbage (unless it’s Speed 2, Dumb and Dumberer, or either of the Hangover sequels.) This was one of those almost-as-good instances.

Don’t get me wrong, this was a great episode – in fact, it was one of the best of the season (save for “Total Rickall.) But it wasn’t as good as its predecessor.

“Rixty Minutes” was funny because of how unique it was. It was mostly made up of Justin Roiland voicing an enormous amount of characters and seeming almost as if he’s making up the dialogue on the fly. (He might be.) It was random, it was imperfect, and it was hilarious in a very far out and refreshing way.

It was also hilarious because the writing coupled with Justin’s rambling lines that bounced all over the place were fantastically funny in the way that absolutely needs to be seen to even be slightly appreciated. In a show where it’s next-to-impossible to properly describe how the humor works so well without seeing it, this is an even more difficult to articulate aspect. Justin simply has a gift, in addition to the gift of having good writers.

To put it simply – and actually address last night’s episode – “Interdimensional Cable” was everything “Rixty Minutes” was, without the freshness. It had authentic-seeming improv moments (like one of Justin’s characters laughing) or side comments like, “Wouldn’t the cars always win?” and there were obviously plenty of unique and interesting TV show ideas, but it just lost a little luster the second time around. However, I want to mention that this plot tied in nicely with Jerry’s – they were totally unrelated, but still found a nice balance.

And the more traditionally scripted (again, I’m assuming here) segment, Jerry’s, was humorous by itself as well. Not to say it could actually carry a full episode, but as far as Beth-Jerry storylines go, it was quite entertaining. I also enjoyed the running gag with the use of the word “alien.” Props to Gary Cole for giving another great voice acting performance there.

And not that this is a serious show, but I was more impressed by the slightly-heavy emotional moment in the first one. This moral was still valid though.

In the end, as I said previously, this episode was almost as good as the original. But, since I didn’t rate the original and would have given it a higher score than Mr. Blabber did, the two end up actually being the same.

Nothing like some late night math, right?