Review: Rick and Morty “Field of Dreams”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Morty gets an idea from another Morty to check out the funerals of dead Mortys to hear some nice things, but ends up stuck with a crazed, perfectionist version of his family that’s estranged from Rick.
OUR TAKE
Season finale time once again for Rick and Morty, and I think I might be going crazy. I’m giving this season, the NINTH season of RICK AND MORTY for god’s sake, another ten out of ten. I rarely give any tens at all! But this season gets two, I guess. Well, I might as well defend it, and I think I can. This episode, just like the one a few weeks ago that I also gave a ten, is basically total distillation of what this show is about, what makes and has made its characters tick, and a story that, frankly, only this show could tell. And it all starts because Morty is pulled into another example of multiversal cosmic apathy as Rick brings him to an “estate sale”, in this case meaning looting a dead Rick’s home for tech, and there meets a Morty with sunglasses for eyes (thereby showing him to be a bad influence) who turns Morty on to crashing funerals of his dead selves and wafting in the grief and nice words of those Mortys’ loved ones. In true Rick and Morty fashion, Rick sees these things as an opportunity for more things to continue doing science as an escape from his self-loathing, while Morty uses them as a chance to receive the love and acceptance he can’t find in his regular universe.
Expectedly, he eventually gets caught and meets a seemingly nice and well adjusted version of the Smiths…who turn out to be total psychos, also expectedly. But escaping them is mostly done before the commercial break, while the real meat of the episode and its true tragedy comes from meeting this world’s Rick. He’s a recovering alcoholic, having committed to bettering himself after this world’s more authoritative Jerry cut him out of the family, and has made a life for himself as a tenured professor with a lovely Swedish wife. THAT IS, until Morty needs him to figure out portal tech and tells him that his first Diane leaving him was actually not his fault because of other multiverse shenanigans not involving him. Which is a true thing and it’s probably good he learned that, but instead it basically unravels all the mental healing he had done and turns him into…Rick. The kind we’re familiar with at least. His new wife walks away, the psycho Smiths find Morty, and all hell breaks loose leading to everyone dying…which in turn triggers another estate sale, allowing Morty to find his Rick and come home. For whatever that’s worth.
From basically the beginning of the show, there has been an underlying argument happening between Rick and Morty. Rick is constantly shouting from the rooftops that he can do anything, therefore nothing matters and things like morals and ethics and the like are just bad jokes. Morty, meanwhile, tends to argue the opposite, often pushing for some good hearted solution to things and feeling the need to exercise his personal morals in a situation, even when those often lead to him being manipulated and exploited for the good things he tries to do. And here, a journey to just get some extra reaffirmation that he is loved across these timelines led to him destroying a Rick’s life, all so he could get home to his ridiculously dysfunctional family. Rick does give him a solemn and heartfelt moment at the end in his own way, but it’s another example of how Morty thinking with his heart sometimes leads to more pain than Rick’s detached view would have. And yet, Morty will likely continue to do this because someday this may just help things work out. Perhaps we’ll see that happen in Season 10, but for the time being, that’s another season of Rick and Morty in the books.
