Review: Rick and Morty “Erickerhead”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
When a portal mishap leads Rick to literally lose his head, a separated Morty and Summer must try to get the two sentient but differing parts of Rick’s body to reunite.
OUR TAKE
Turns out Rick doesn’t just get in fights with alternate universe versions of himself, he also fights…just himself when he gets a chance. Hey wait, doesn’t this sound familiar? Well, you’re right, hypothetical person I just invented, as this bears some resemblance to third season episode wherein Rick and Morty separate their “toxic” attributes from themselves, creating whole beings made up of those traits that swear vengeance. This time though, it’s just Rick, and it’s his head and body going at it as separate beings, with the head feeling himself cleared of all bodily impulses, while the body is no longer in his own head about decisions and just follows his heart, or gut, or any of the body parts that isn’t the head that he no longer has. Also, the head makes an interesting comment about not being Morty’s grandpa, but his grandpa’s head, a sentiment that the body similarly feels as both wish to remain separate, and even plan to kill the other to assure that. It seems that Rick, or at least the Rick we know, values his individuality so much that when he is split into two, he feels the need to be the Rick-est Rick and eliminate the other. Now I’m waiting for them to take this to its absolute zenith and turn Rick into trillions of single cell organisms that then have a battle royale (battle rick-ale?) to see who survives.
The choice of which of the grandchildren gets which half is also interesting, with Morty dealing with a wholly intellectual Rick while Summer works with the id-driven body, and both dynamics feeling pretty similar to their usual dynamic with whole body Rick, but just distinct enough. The Rick head is not reliant on his usual vices and can just engage with what he sees around him instead of trying to fill a void, and the Rick body can make passionate and heartfelt decisions it would normally hesitate to do because of Rick’s usual insecurities or simply wanting to avoid risky situations. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that they want to kill each other when they first reunite, so as to avoid dealing with how the other seemingly restrains them. Bu then Rick sucks his own dick and proves that the power of…self-acceptance is good? Yeah, let’s go with that. It was also fun to get more into all the weird gadgets and implants Rick has installed in his whole body, something that is infinitely creative and funny and part of what makes Rick such an enduring character who is probably super fun to write for. With that, we’ve got four more episodes in this season and I’m feeling good about its chances of holding a solid run for the remainder.
