Season Review: Rick and Morty Season 8

Not many shows are able to stay good by the eighth season. Heck, most shows don’t even MAKE IT to the eighth season. But thanks to that demonic contract Dan Harmon signed back over a decade ago, Rick and Morty has stayed standing and got there, and that’s without taking into account that it still has AT LEAST four more seasons contractually in production. As the ratings continue to tumble downward (across all of cable, not just this show specifically), it’s more than clear that we are well past the peak of Rick and Morty’s popularity. Thankfully, that has not given the current writing team on the show an excuse to half-ass it, with this eighth season actually having a lot of good to decent installments. In fact, it seems that the staff are getting a bit sick of the typical episode structure involving just Rick and Morty, and as a result, this season has a majority of episodes involving either one separately, or even neither, including the first episode where Morty is just not involved at all. What a world we live in, where Rick and Morty can still surprise us with how it can mix it up with the stories it tells. But also, at the same time, do exactly what was expected to the point that the show’s age has become VERY apparent.

Given that this is a mostly episodic show (with the occasional spritz of serialized elements), it would typically go without saying that a lot of the main cast don’t really have much in the way of character growth over this season. Everyone does, however, get an episode to really sit with themselves (sometimes literally) and grow a bit through that. Summer gets her moment out of the way early in the season premiere where she works through having an older mind and the difference between aging and maturing. Beth and Space Beth get to grow up together through the show’s usual sci-fi accidental therapy and come to better terms with their complicated feelings about Rick. Jerry meets more Jerrys and learns to appreciate being strong enough to stay with his family. Morty…seems to just be having fun being along for the ride, even in his episode that revisits his rapidly aging alien son. Interestingly, the one who shows the most growth by far in this season is Rick, who seems to be gradually getting more well adjusted and open with the Smiths, steadily rebuilding trust and love between his daughters, his grandkids, and even…Jerry, to an extent, all without losing the foibles that make him the Rickest Rick. It kinda makes me nervous that next season is going to be some big massive downpoint that’ll threaten to undo all of that, though we’ll have to wait and find out.

It would be understandable to think that Rick and Morty has been on too long or outstayed its welcome. Knowing there’s still AT LEAST four more seasons on the way when countless shows I enjoyed barely managed to get past two does make it hard for me to not have a bit of resentment about that. But if we’re judging the show purely by what it keeps putting out, I’m also glad to be getting some more time with these characters and to see what else Dan Harmon and those running things now can churn out while they have the chance. We could very well end up all entirely sick of this show once it meets its inevitable conclusion, but it’s also important to note that long running shows like this are becoming very rare these days. I’m not saying that to hold up Rick and Morty of all things up on a higher pedestal, but just to say that we could be doing much worse. To sum up, a surprisingly good season for this far into the run and I hope it’s a sign of more things to come.