Review: Rick and Morty “Rickmancing the Stone”

Is this series like a stone?

Spoilers Below

It’s another day in the neighborhood as Jerry and Beth are dealing with the fallout of their divorce. To try and get a change of scenery, Summer, Morty, and Rick head to a post-apocalyptic planet that doesn’t seem so bad. Yea sure, it’s inhabited by Death Stalkers, but these guys really are just like you and me…except that they frequent cannibalism. After Summer kills their leader, Rick uses the opportunity of being on a new planet by attempting to swindle a rare mineral that can conduct electricity. Unfortunately, the Death Stalkers refuse to let Rick leave with it, so he decides to stay in town for a couple of weeks and even provide a neighborhood with sustainable electricity for a time.

It isn’t long before Summer befriends a local dude and Morty is equipped with a large John Cena-like arm with a mind of its own and, quite frankly, some unfinished business on behalf of the arm’s previous owner. But like all good things, they come to an end, and eventually, the kids grow tired of their new surroundings and opt to return with Rick back home where Jerry has to fight wolves over his unemployment check and Beth’s been dealing with animatronic alter egos of her family for a bit.

Our Take

I hope you kids are full of the Szechuan sauce bit from the first episode of Rick and Morty Season Three and are ready to spot some more entertaining story tropes and gags from the nineties because they are here! And no, I’m not talking about the post-apocalyptic Mad Max bit which is starting to show up a bit more in other cartoons, but if you do your research of pop culture of the aforementioned decade, you’ll find a few gags.

In any event, this week’s episode was very funny and very indicative of popular episodes of show’s past that feature Rick and Morty going to different worlds, fucking shit up, and coming home. That said, I LOVE the growth of Summer’s character. This is actually a concept none too foreign to the Rick and Morty franchise if you’ve been keeping up with all of the comics that have released as there were definitely a few strips where Summer not only was able to hold her own but even exhibit scenes of complete bad-assery. That’s what we get here, and I have a feeling the producers will go here more to make up for the fact that Jerry and Beth are split leaving it unlikely that Summer is just an ancillary character that kind of just stays at home while Rick and Morty head off on adventures.

I do hope we get a bit more variety in future episodes in terms of ideas on story and episode structure. Already, the divorce arc has been put in place, but for those looking for a BoJack Horseman or F is for Family-like level of weight in which that familial event can bring, I’m not quite sure we’re there YET. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, doesn’t mean it will, but I’ll be curious to see how the writers and producers cater to the bandwagon audience of those looking for the same ol’ crazy hi jinx of classic Rick and Morty premises versus really fleshing out this divorce bit and trying something new that could take the franchise to that next Emmy level of story-telling that both of the aforementioned Netflix series definitely have and what even TBS’ upcoming Final Space is looking to threaten with. For Rick and Morty to TRULY ascend Adult Swim (sorry, IGN…but you were wrong again), the producers are gonna have to showcase a bit more muscle the rest of the way.