Review: Rick and Morty “Childrick of Mort”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The family camping trip takes a bit of a side-turn when Rick has to attend to his new girlfriend, Gaia, a living planet.  After Rick consummated their relationship the planet becomes pregnant and begins to give birth to clay golems.  Beth and Rick help the new creatures to establish themselves as a civilization in time to discover that Rick may not be the father.  He is going to have to fight a god if he wants to continue providing for his children.

Meanwhile, Jerry struggles to connect with his children while camping.  But when he runs across Rick’s undesirable children Jerry finds new purpose as their leader.  Unfortunately, his uprising may cause a problem for Beth and Rick’s new project.

Our Take:

Wow, Rick and Morty never stops giving.  The series always finds another way to blow fans expectations out of the water.  With only the season finale left to premiere, there is not a rotten apple in the bunch.  In fact, the stories continue to get bigger and more imaginative with each passing week.  Frankly, it makes reviewing pretty difficult when all you have are positive things to say. But it is worth it.

We are all aware that Rick is uber-confident and uber-capable.  This season has been proving that in pass after pass.  Whether he is creating the greatest quiet spot to take a big crap or utilizing a robot suit and a sword to mow down an entire civilization, Rick is an unstoppable force.  It is not often that we get to see the mad scientists’ limits tested.  However, in this episode, Rick punches a god directly in the face and lives to tell the story.  He comes out bigger and harder than we have ever seen him.  And the touching part is that he does it for his children, less so the clay golems than his true daughter, Beth.

On the other side of the coin is Jerry.  Poor Jerry is always the brunt of the abuse and insults.  Jerry too gets pushed to the boundaries when Summer makes her father cry.  Insecure and defeated, Jerry finds new life in mentoring the undesirables of Rick’s newly found civilization.  You have to love when Jerry takes a stand for himself because more often than not, it goes terribly wrong for him.  This episode is no exception.

Despite the big plots and outrageous ideas, Rick and Morty somehow maintains a healthy amount of character growth.  At its core, this episode is a camping adventure.  And with any good camping adventure the family bonds.  Jerry maybe the odd one out as usual but Summer and Morty share the burden of messing up together.  More so this was an episode for Beth and her father to bond and with that, there are some touching moments that help to keep Rick lovable despite his many flaws.

At the same time, this is a Rick and Morty episode of epic proportions.  Which is pretty standard for this series.  Yet this time it involves a battle for the ages and a fistfight between Rick and Zeus himself.  I have read fantasy sagas that fail to be that powerful.

This is not even my favourite episode.  It is not even close.  In terms of Rick and Morty this about where the average is.  The average episode is simply amazing.  Each week we are left wanting for more, and it will be a hard pill to swallow that next week’s episode is the season finale.