Review: Rick and Morty “Fear No Mort”

On the hunt for a good old-fashioned scare, Rick and Morty head for the scariest place in the galaxy, Earth.

With ‘Fear No Mort’ Season Seven of Rick and Morty has finished strong. This is only the third episode written by Heather Anne Campbell, but her output so far has been so top notch – (she’s also responsible for this season’s That’s Amorte and Final DeSmithation from season 6.) that I already have unreasonably high expectations for her next outing.

‘Fear No Mort’ is also reminiscent of one of the all time great episodes of Adventure Time – ‘Hall of Egress.’ Finn finds himself trapped in a place he can’t leave unless his eyes are closed – opening his eyes lands him back in the hall. They hit very similar story beats, but in service of two very different narratives.

This episode is funny, smart, and successfully completes Rick’s long transition from Anti Hero to Orphic Hero. The man who once appeared to be a lone wolf badass playing by his own rules has revealed his true self – a sad man with a dead wife going through the mad scientist version of The Five Stages of Grief as laid out by Swiss psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her seminal 1969 book “On Death and Dying.” In the denial stage, Rick goes to great lengths in the field of fucked up science shit in a series of futile attempts to undo what can’t be undone. He masters cloning, but doesn’t have any Diane DNA. He can go to every conceivable universe, but Rick Prime has used the Omega Weapon to eliminate her from all worlds. He can bring the dead back to life but they come back evil, and sometimes delicious. He can make a ghost, but only a robot ghost. If he believed in heaven, he could go find her there, but he’s too much of an atheist and an asshole to manifest a heaven. In his anger stage, he hunts Rick Prime, and probably fights in that war with Bird Person. When he moves on to bargaining, that’s when he shows up at the Smith house, looking for something that can pass as good enough to buy him an modicum of peace. When being around this new family proves painful, he falls into a deep depression full of drunken cruelty, Pickle Ricking, diarrhea, and occasional murder. Meeting Dr Wong starts him down the road to acceptance, and his decision not to jump into The Fear Hole shows us that he’s all the way there.

There are so many good fears discussed in this episode. Getting a second chance and blowing it, being terrified of happiness, the fear of uncertainty, the fear of not being accepted – all classic everyday terrors that have twisted many a mind over the years. It’s interesting to see an episode where Rick finally deals with Diane directly, and even more interesting to learn that that Rick and Diane are just manifestations coming from Morty’s mind.

I can’t decide on my favourite side silliness in this episode, so it’s going to be a tie between Summer saying “ok, sluts” and the Waffle Delivery robot remembering being a human child. Honourable mention goes to the plausible dialogue of jerky ducks.

It’s also a perfect ending to have Mr Poopy Butthole easily get his wife back using Rick-tech. It’s all about having a goal and stopping at nothing to achieve it.

See you next season!