Review: Rick and Morty “Wet Kuat American Summer”

Overview

“Wet Kuat American Summer” is, at its heart, an action packed cautionary tale. Desire for one of Rick’s gadgets sets off some serious squabbling between the Smith siblings at the frolf party. Things escalate, causing an accident that leaves the two merged together in a Total Recall-style Kuato situation. If you’re not familiar with Total Recall – Summer basically looks normal, but with a misshapen, psychic version of Morty protruding from her abdomen.

Summer’s  high school social life suffers after the accident, and she sets off, spinally-fused Morty in tow, in search of a more Kuato-positive friend group. Her new crowd seems cool at first, but it turns out they are just a bunch of low-down, dirty, black market Kuato harvesters. Summer is able to save herself from certain death with the help of her new ponytail upgrades, but Morty has already been… taken! Rick and Summer go full Liam Neeson in their efforts to retrieve him, and learn a little bit about themselves in the process.

Our Take

A lot of Rick’s day to day chicanery is made possible through his clever use of robotics. The house has an automatic defensive system, and the garage AI does everything from advanced janitorial work, to unscrambling loose bits of brain. And let’s not forget the little butter fetching robot! But there are some menial tasks that require a human touch, like tending the carnivorous plants, sorting the amulets, or chopping up the alien carcasses for disposal. For these chores, Rick puts his trust in Summer. It may not seem like a big deal, but Summer is basically the only member of Rick’s inner circle. He grants her full access to all the levels of his lab, which is the ultimate act of trust for Rick. In the likely event that Rick dies suddenly, Summer would be the only one qualified to take over his lab. Even if she isn’t interested in furthering his research, she would be instrumental in preventing the lab’s various deadly hazards from killing the whole family. Perhaps the whole Summer-doing-chores premise is just Rick’s way of training her up for the job, Karate Kid style. The fact that he hasn’t filled Summer in on the status of the Rick Prime situation doesn’t undercut the quiet strength of their relationship, it highlights it.

The Rick gadget that starts all the fighting is an attribute slider – both kids want to alter their physical and mental stats in order to impress at the frolf party. The attribute slider is an extremely Philip K Dick kind of device – that dude was obsessed with the idea of appearance altering tech. It makes perfect sense that said tech would have Kuato generating applications – after all, Total Recall is (loosely) based on the PKD story “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale.”

Going all in on a story that hinges on a semi-niche 80s reference like Kuato can be a risk, but knowing the source material isn’t essential to enjoying this extended bit – it’s a funny enough visual gag to work on its own. Kuatos upon Kuatos revealing themselves is maybe a bit to be expected, but even more Kuato reveals after that? Groundbreaking.

This episode is a spiritual successor to season 6’s “Rick: A Mort Well Lived,” in that Rick and Summer have an action movie-themed adventure versus some aliens that makes them gain a deeper appreciation for each other. Liam Neeson’s actual character in Taken is a bit less nuanced than Bruce Willis in Die Hard, but both Rick and Summer punch whoever they have to until they’ve reunited, unlocked Summer’s psychic powers, and saved Morty. Will Morty still be Kuato’ed in the next episode? Probably not, but the premise could convert easily into a pretty entertaining six issue comic run.

On the personal growth side of things, Rick manages to have a brief, semi-regular conversation with Summer about her grandmother – now that’s progress!