Review: Rick and Morty “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As our regular Rick and Morty do a fly over of the remnants of the Citadel of Ricks’ remaining Ricks and Mortys, a plan is put into motion to rebuild a structure that should have stayed broken.

OUR TAKE

And coming off last week doing some follow up to third season episode plots, this week brings us what is effectively a sequel to “The Ricklantis Mixup”, more accurately known as “Tales from the Citadel”, another episode I covered and incidentally gave a 10/10. That episode dstilled the dynamic between Rick and Morty, Ricks being the upper crust who still all hated each other while Mortys were second class citizens looking for a chance to rise up, and extrapolated it across an entire society into a bunch of interconnected but distinct plotlines that all came together at the end very impressively. Longtime viewers will know that this all got wrapped up in Evil Morty’s plans to take over the Citadel and escape the Central Finite Curve, but while many Ricks and Mortys when the Citadel went down, apparently a few survived and tried to start again somewhere else. And naturally, some of those Ricks have been trying to rebuild that power dynamic and reclaim that hold they once had, but one Rick, who turns out to be the one who clones Mortys, is willing to do something about it. One way to look at this is the dynamic of some Ricks trying to take charge while one Rick asserts himself as the Rickiest Rick, but I think it may have further layers.

See, as we’ve already been shown a bit of last episode, Rick is making attempts to grow from his previously standard Rick behavior, such as being there for his family more and steering away from his usual cynical attitude. The Citadel of Ricks is gone, mainly because they couldn’t look past their desire for control and power, but what rises from what’s left are those who had the boot under them but want to put it on others. To apply this to the main Rick, while he may not be exactly the same as he was and has shown signs of growth, he could very well have impulses in him that wish to slide back, as many do even after moving on from bad behaviors. The cloning farmer Rick, then, could be the impulse to keep the change going, if not for his own sake, but for the sake of his Morty, and all Mortys. This episode ends with the remaining Mortys free to try and start new lives on their own, free from being defined by Rick, as hopefully the main Morty will too someday. And if this were the last we saw of anything Citadel related, it would be a fine end to that plotline, but considering we have at least four more seasons coming, I have a feeling we may see more of this at some point. Either way, fantastic episode, and I have no qualms giving it the same score as the last Citadel focused episode.