Review: Rick and Morty “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri”

Overview:

Old foes and new friends arrive as Rick and family face some of their relationship issues.  Beth comes face to face with herself to come full circle with what she is doing with her life.  Morty finds new bonds with his sister as they help to bring down the new and improved Galactic Federation.  While Rick must come to terms with the choices that he has made in life.  Even Jerry surprises as the family comes together to take on the biggest threat to their livelihood yet.

Our Take:

I knew this was going to be a great episode when I heard the title alone.

Every Rick and Morty fan knew that we could expect big things coming into season four.  Like clockwork, the series dropped brilliant, well-structured episode after thought-provoking episode.  And the season finale does not fail to impress.  Making the stakes higher, the episode answers some burning questions about the show while initiating whole new ones.  The battle lines were clearly drawn when the Smith family was destined for family therapy.

At the heart of Rick and Morty is this dysfunctional family with each member pushing their own agenda. Though spaceships, parallel universes, and philosophical queries are the hook that makes the series run.  The bread and butter of it all is the family sitcom hidden within.  The humour tends to make light of such timeworn storytelling, but without it, a show lacks heart.  The show hides its big emotional heart just as well as Rick.  But sometimes it all comes barreling out.  And just like when it happens in real life, it is big and explosive.

More characters are intertwined with the family than we care to remember.  Old friends like Tammy and Pheonix-person (formerly known as Birdperson) come to play a part in this messed-up family therapy episode.  At the centre of everything, though, is Beth literally coming face to face with herself, at least in clone form.  For once the Beth that we know well has to face her decisions of staying with Jerry and putting up with her father.  While many of those arcs find a satisfying end, new questions are brought up.  Like, who is the real Beth Smith?  And what will the space adventurer version get up to in future episodes?

Meanwhile, this is still a Rick and Morty episode.  Therefore there are plenty of spaceships and destruction.  This episode should be remembered for defining the rules of engagement of the series.  Rick’s showdown with his daughter is evenly matched enough for the two to use some impressive tactics.  However, when challenged by Pheonix-person we finally see Rick’s limits tested as he narrowly walks away with his life.

The pop-culture references are plentiful throughout this season finale.  But it is Star Wars that takes the brunt of the insulting parodies.  Besides a rebellion against the Galactic Federation, some moments and characters directly imitate the biggest science-fiction franchise.  Specifically, when the “death star” is easy defeated by one simple design flaw, this time in the form of Wrangler jeans.

The conclusion to season four truly had it all.  With most theories heading into this collection of new episodes surrounding Evil Morty, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland surprise us again with going down an unexpected tangent.  The beautiful part about that is it is always satisfying.  There are plenty of great episodes, stories, and directions to analyze for the next however many months as we await a fresh batch of episodes for season five.

It makes the waiting game that much easier when you have plots of this quality to revisit and re-watch time and time again.  Thankfully, we shouldn’t have to wait as long after this season finale for new episodes as we had to last time.