Review: Rick And Morty “Rest and Ricklaxation”

Let go of your hate…and let someone else deal with it!

SPOILERS AHEAD

Morty finally returns to school after apparently many consecutive missions and happens to overhear his long time crush Jessica has finally dumped the confrontational jock, Brad! Now is the time to make his move, or at least it would be if Rick didn’t pull him in on another adventure. But it should just be another quick side thing, right? Nothing that bad.

IT’S WORSE. Six days later and a sci-fi quadrilogy’s worth of explosions later, the two arrive back in the ship-car and just. Melt. Down. Hard. This is not safe. This is not healthy. They need a break.

And they finally get one at the best day spa in the galaxy, getting regurgitated by weird creatures that instantly relax them, and toping it off with a complementary psychological detox. And they need it, because even with all of the treatments so far, Rick still has quite a bit of edge to him. Something like this should be just what they need to really smooth things out and

DOUBLE TWIST. Rick and Morty, now green and melty, find themselves in a mucusy hellscape populated by equally rotting and melting creatures. Only for it to soon dawn on Rick that this was the plan all along. They are the toxins removed from our titular duo. Toxin Rick holds onto Rick’s desperation to prove his grasp of near-godhood over the universe and all related aggravations and insecurities, while Toxin Morty is in constant pain, despair, and subservience to Toxin Rick. Now to find a way back to their bodies.

Being none the wiser, the purified versions of the two exit the spa feeling completely rejuvenated and open to every possibility before them and appreciate life! Morty takes special advantage of this, quickly using his newfound confidence and charisma to pep up everyone in the school and FINALLY act on his feelings for Jessica by asking her out. This is soured a tad by Rick coming to him with a message from their toxic selves, and since Pure Rick seems to have taken up the whole “with great power comes great responsibility” schtick, it doesn’t seem like something he can just ignore. Morty seems pretty eager, though! And not so subtly drops that he is not fond of any further mention of it.

After thoroughly weirding out Jessica on their date (thank god for finally ripping that band aid off), he moves on to a grown woman named Stacey and brings her home, only to find Rick cheerfully attempting to bring back their toxic embodiments. He’s realized that these toxins are a part of who they need to be reabsorbed. Too bad the toxins don’t feel that way, beginning yet another of the show’s trademark hilarious, inventive, and existentially wrenching fight scenes, before Toxin Rick decides to pull a “Lizard from Amazing Spider-Man 1” and turn the whole world into Toxins just like them.

All over the world, every human breaks down into their worst selves. Churches turn to hedonism, salad eaters start consuming Sbarros, and everyone stops using their turn signals! Cats and dogs, living together! Mass hysteria! Until Pure Rick and Morty confront their toxins with a revelation: The things considered toxically varied between them, and among those things taken from Rick was his attachment to Morty, who he promptly shoots several times to get Toxic Rick to reverse the process and reabsorb. Morty, however, manages to bail and make it three weeks as a borderline sociopathic pro stock broker with an apartment and an older girlfriend…until Rick traces him through a call from Jessica to finally get his toxins put back in place. So life returns to what constitutes normality, but at least with a better understanding from Jessica.

Before I get into what I thought of this episode, here’s what I thought this WOULD be based on the trailer: Longtime viewers remember that this Rick and Morty are from an abandoned universe they let get overtaken by mutants back in the sixth episode. My speculation was that we were finally going to meet their fate and try fleeing to another plain of existence and we would have to follow a virtually similar version of the two from here on (just in time for the two-week break) because this show is just cruel like that.

Well, turns out that this would have been quite the mercy, because what this episode actually has to say just makes you want to take a long hard look in a mirror as you jump off a cliff. Obviously, what qualities are “toxic” varies from person to person, but it’s ultimately a part of what makes us who we are. These are things we need to confront within ourselves, not bury or remove because sometimes things we thought we didn’t need actually make us human. Shitty, awful humans. This friggin show.