RJ Writing Ink

Rick and Morty S9 Ep 8 Review

I try to be an empathetic person every day. I think that the world can be too mean as it is for us to not feel bad for each other. But like many many things in life, Rick and Morty took this to its logical extreme, and therefore, showed us why it can be bad. And the worst part of it? It’s the fact that everything that happened this episode is mostly Morty’s fault.

Morty, this was all on you!

In this episode, we learn that Rick has a secret distillery where he creates his own alcohol as a hobby, and he seems to genuinely enjoy it. He’s happily making beer by himself and having a good time. But then Morty chooses to ignore the ‘Do not disturb’ sign he put on the door to bother him about something that is pretty pointless. I mean, it might not seem pointless to him, but in the grand scheme of things, bothering your grandpa during his personal time to help him get some Pokémon cards is a pretty stupid thing.

Normally, I would be on Morty’s side and say that Rick is being too hard on him. However, considering how the boy ignored the VERY VISIBLE sign asking not to be disturbed, and then destroying his grandpa’s distillery? Rick had every right to be mad at him. So, rather than deal with their usual arguments this time, Rick takes a shortcut by implanting Morty with a parasite that makes him emphathize with everyone, no matter how awful they are.

The effects of this parasite are actually pretty interesting to look at. Throughout the time Morty has it in his side, we are given almost context as to what is actually happening in his life, instead only seeing through his warped perspective of the world. For all we know, the way he tried to “help” everyone at his school was either making them feel worse or was just them yelling at him for acting inappropriately. Part of me wants to know what really happened, but a bigger part thinks it would be funnier not knowing!

Empathy can be a bad thing, I guess

Things come to a head when the pair head out to buy something, and Morty empathizes with an explosion that blows his arm off. By the time Rick pulls the parasite out of him, his empathy has been digested, turning him into the same stone-cold kind of guy Rick is. Karma sucks, though, because the parasite infests Rick’s brain, making him empathize with the guys trying to kill them! It’s a complete reversal of their usual dynamic, and one that is necessary for them to understand each other’s viewpoint…or something. I don’t really know or care.

It doesn’t care about the lotion!

Meanwhile, we have this subplot going on where Summer and Jerry are trying to get the supplies that Rick needs to rebuild, and find out these drums are being hoarded by a serial killer. Jerry is left to distract the guy while Summer gets the drums and frees this girl who was held captive in a pit out of Silence of the Lambs and…oh, who am I kidding? I wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening. I didn’t care about that part of the episode. I didn’t like that part of the episode. And I didn’t care when the serial killer got shot to death by the cops. It wasn’t that interesting for me.

So, in the end, Rick kills the parasite with beer, and Morty is left without any empathy until the next episode. Whoopdy-freaking-doo. This was honestly one of the weaker episodes for me, and I’m probably going to forget about it by next week. I know should have some empathy for Morty, but remember that this was largely because he ignored the dang sign.

I Give “Rickuiem Mort a Dream” a 2.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty S9 Ep 7 Review

Have you ever heard of the concept of Saṃsāra? It’s the Hindu/Buddhist belief that all life is part of a cycle of death and either reincarnation or rebirth, and thus is filled with pain and suffering. The only way to break the cycle is by achieving enlightenment and understanding. But what if you did that and found out that whoever’s controlling the cycle is a jerk who uses the suffering to sustain themselves? Replace Saṃsāra with the cycle of life and the food chain, and the one in charge with a sentient tree, that sums up Rick and Morty’s latest adventure. It’s a bizarre look at the circle of life, death, rebirth, and how it ultimately benefits those at the top. It’s bizarre, but also oddly entertaining to watch. Break the circle!

Jerk Tree Enforces Circle of Life

It all starts when Rick and Morty go to this planet orbiting a black hole. Their goal is to get this tree sap that Rick claims gives this crazy high, because why not? Unfortunately, the tree turns out to be sentient and doesn’t take kindly to intruders ruining nature. It traps the two in an ecosystem underneath its roots as single-celled organisms alongside countless other victims in a cycle of death and evolution. They can evolve into more advanced forms of life, but they have to start at the beginning every time they die.

Death is not a new concept to the likes of Rick and Morty. They’ve seen countless beings die and get reborn throughout their adventures, themselves and other versions of themselves included. And considering what the duo have done throughout the show, you could argue that is the perfect punishment for their antics. Well, mostly Rick, but Morty has done some crazy stuff, too. Going back to the concepts of reincarnation and rebirth, it’s like the idea of Saṃsāra masked as the circle of life. You would think that the whole point of this experience would be to teach them, and us, a lesson about respecting life. But this isn’t some eco-friendly program or Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. This is Rick and Morty. They’ll either refuse to learn their lesson, or, as I bet on, it would turn out the Tree was just being a jerk. To my amusement, I ended up being right.

After trying to make it through evolution together for a while, Rick and Morty try their own methods of escaping the cycle of death and reincarnation. Rick, naturally, refuses to bend to the rules and tries to escape using the other prisoners as fodder for experiments. Meanwhile, Morty opts for the nonviolent route by evolving into a tree that eventually makes it to the surface. However, the Tree reveals that there was never a lesson it wanted everyone to learn. It was just capturing them and using the circle of life to feed himself! That’s like making it to Nirvana or Heaven and then finding out that God is gatekeeping everyone for their own amusement!

Screw the Circle of Life!

After the big reveal, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how things are going to pan out. Rick and Morty rally the other prisoners to break the cycle of pseudo-Saṃsāra by refusing to kill each other. They lay low for the Tree to grow weak, and when it investigates, they jump it. What follows is a pretty satisifying moment where the captives manage to kill their tormentor, ending the cycle. Unfortunately, no one turns back into their orignal forms right away, and Rick and Morty just bail with the sap like they wanted.

This was honestly a good episode, if you ask me. I know that some people care more about the overarching lore, but in my experience, it’s the one-off adventures in a show that I’m most likely to go back and rewatch. If there was any lesson to be learned, it’s that either nature is cruel and comes at someone’s expense, or not to mess with Rick and Morty. Break the circle!

I Give “Mortgully: the Last Rickforest” a 4.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty S9 Ep 6 Review

I know that some people are at war with themselves, but I think Rick might have just taken that concept to a new level of hilarity. When a portal mishap leads to Rick’s head and body getting separated, we get treated to an entire episode of them first trying to reunite before trying to kill each other. And it is freaking hilarious!

Who let Rick get that Drunk?

It all starts with Rick on a drinking and eating binge with Summer and Morty acting as his chaperones. The show has been putting a lot of emphasis on Rick’s alcoholism this season, and I can’t help but wonder if this is going somewhere. That gets put on the back burner, though, when a portal mishap (that was all Summer’s fault) leads to Rick’s decapitation! The good news is that Rick’s cybernetics let his head and body survive for the time being. The bad news is that Morty and Summer are on opposite sides of the planet, and Rick’s Portal Gun is broken. So now both parties have to fight their way past doctors, bounty hunters, thugs, and police to reunite their Grandpa.

I dont know who came up with this concept, but it’s actually pretty genius. We get to see each Smith sibling deal with their own struggles to try and fix Rick, with each of them running into different problems because of it and resolving them in different ways. Morty and Rick’s Head get chased by the police due to a misunderstanding and are forced to use their wits to get out of trouble. In contrast, Summer has to fight her way through the slums while using the weapons in Rick’s Body to fight off their attackers. It’s just so entertaining to watch, and I remember openly laughing at several points. The show could have simply had this play out for the entire episode and it would have been fine. However, all of this only counts for the first half of the episode. The second half centers around Rick’s Head and his Body trying to kill each other.

Don’t Lose your Head Over this, Rick!

As it turns out, both halves of Rick start to like not having the other to make act in a self-destructive fashion. Rick’s Head is thinking clearer without any beer or lust clouding his judgment, while his Body is able to express himself emotionally without logic getting in the way. It really highlights just how at war with himself Rick is as a person, to the point that we get a literal war of the body and mind, and it’s as destructive as it sounds.

In the end, the status quo demands that Head Rick and Body Rick recombine, and so they do. As for what Head Rick promised his body, I dont think I want to know. Rick doesn’t really learn a lesson about treating himself better, as he just makes Morty and Summer get fit before joining him in a binge eating session at the same place this all started. He even uses what happened as a joke. So, pretty good episode. Great reminder that I need to take care of myself in the future.

I Give “Erickerhead” a 4.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty S9 EP 5 Review

Question: does Jerry Smith getting a job count as a sign of the apocalypse? Because if it does, then we’re all in big trouble. Besides the time Earth got taken over by aliens, Jerry hasn’t had a job since the first season! Though, I think that this episode involving that idea makes sense since it’s also calling back to another early plot point from the show: Morty’s pet dog, Snowball. He’s back!

But seriously, I’m more concerned about the fact that Jerry got a job!

Snowball is Back!

The main plot of the episode is about Morty going on a week-long trip to see his old dog, Snowball. Back in season 1, Rick gave him a helmet that granted him sentience, so he decided to lead a bunch of other dogs to a separate dimension to build their own society. This is the first time that we actually get to see it, and it’s pretty cool. Except for the fact that the Dogs have come full circle by creating their own pets, Mups. Understandably weirded out by this and the Dog’s hypocrisy, Morty tries to bail, but winds up getting involved when Snowball tries to kill him out of paranoia of what he thinks. Then he winds meeting the wild Mups called Mancors and is involved even more.

I think what the writers were trying to go with this plot was showing Morty’s character development via his refusal to get involved. He’s tried to take a moral stance on similar things in the past, and that only getting involved will make things worse. So he’s making the reasonable decision to try and get out of everything. The problem isn’t him; it’s Snowball. He gets super paranoid that Morty will think bad of him that he pushes him into leading the rebellion. Which I think only makes his unwillingness to get involved feel a little hollow.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Morty and Snowball make up and decide to just ride out the civil war that was already underway. Even Rick is proud of Morty for not making things worse than they would have been.

The real draw of the episode, though, is the plot with Jerry. He actually gets a job!

Jerry got a Job! Is this the End Times?

Jerry managed to get a job interview at an advertising company, and he’s super nervous about doing well. Ironically, his family has long since accepted his unemployment status and no longer mocks him for it. To help him out, Space Beth gives him these worms that feed on anxiety, turning him into this laid-back and chill guy with a ton of rizz. I can only imagine what the recording booth was like when Chris Parnell did his lines for this episode, because he must have been having fun with chill Jerry. I practically burst out laughing when I heard him unironically sing “Friday,” with full confidence!

To be honest, I was more invested in seeing how Jerry’s job interview panned out, and I was t disappointed. Jerry ends up becoming a breeding host for the worms that keep him chill at all times even when anxiety would be expected. He delivers a baby on board a private jet as it’s about to crash, and lives! It’s just so funny!! And the entire joke comes together with the worms just spewing out of Jerry like a plague, and his prospective employers are into it!

I think that my favorite part was that the worms tried to go after Rick, because they sensed how worried he was about Jerry having a job. I’d be right there with Rick! I watched the entire episode and my brain was going “does not compute!” Jerry has been unemployed for so long that the idea of him having a job feels like going against the natural order!

But somehow, it works. Jerry Smith now has a job again, and judging by the stinger, he’s happy with it.

Oh, and Rick feeds those worms to the Dog Planet so the Dogs and Mups can chill out. And that’s how the episode ends! Jerry has a job now, and he’s happy with it! Maybe things are finally changing!

I Give “Jer Bud” a 4.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty Season 9 Ep 2 Review

You think that being smart or being able to know what’s going to happen would be a good thing, but as Rick and Morty suggests, its a blessing and a curse. For Rick, it means he knows how little everything matters in the grand scheme of things. For me, it means I’ve watched this show long enough to know where it’s going without even finishing an entire episode. That’s right; I didn’t watch the full episode, and I was still able to figure out that Rick’s little misadventure was going to end badly for everyone. And I think I robbed myself of an otherwise emotional episode as we see Rick vs Vacation Rick. Or maybe it was just my brain’s way of managing having to juggle multiple things at once in my life.

Vacation Rick is Okay, I Guess

The episode starts off on a very strange note as we see Rick traveling to a bowling alley in an old RV to meet up with some friends of his who think his name is Ted. At first, I thought that this was another bit that Rick was doing. He would be pretending to not to be who he is so that he can get away from the stress of his regular lifestyle. And to a certain extent, I was right. This is, in fact, Rick’s way of going on vacation. However, after he gets caught in a robbery at a gas station and winds up killing his attacker, it becomes clear that there’s more to this.

As it turns out, Rick’s idea of a vacation involves him taking a vacation from himself. And that by, I mean he erases his own memories for a few weeks and makes himself believe that he’s an average guy so he can live a normal life. Once he’s done, he restores his memories and goes back to how he normally is. Since Vacation Rick is still Rick, though, Rick had Morty and an army of drones on standby to bring him back by force when he inevitably resists.

The problem? Like I just said, Vacation Rick is still Rick. If he doesn’t want to do something, he will fight like hell to avoid it.

This was pretty much the moment where I lost interest in the episode as a whole. I’ve been watching the show for years now, and I knew that this was not going to end well for anyone. Rick is a man who can do anything he wants, and we know he sees his knowledge as a double-edged sword. He believes that ignorance is bliss and that living a normal life to be the ultimate happiness, and is thus willing to lie to himself by becoming vacation Rick. He may end up having a point, though, as once his vacation friends, people from a world with an early 90s aesthetic, learn about everything, it pretty much ruins their lives.

I kind of knew where this was going

I only watched the remainder of the episode intermittently from this point onward. Vacation Rick tries to fight back against regular Rick, but in doing so, he falls into the trap he was trying to escape. His vacation friends start abusing Rick’s resources for their own benefit, and by the end of the episode, “Ted” is pretty much back to being Rick, two of his friends are dead, and he’s no longer welcome among them. By the time he hits the reset button, there’s hardly any difference between vacation Rick and regular Rick. It’s as Emergency Awesome put it: Rick is his own worst enemy.

Maybe I’m just too accustomed to the show or it’s because I can be good at predicting where things will go in fiction, but this episode just wasn’t doing it for me. I liked how emotional it was, but that’s about it. What made it veer back into comedy though was the post-credits scene where we see Rick doing the exact same stunt on another world, only for Summer and Morty to speedrun everything to save everyone the heartache. That was pretty funny.

I Give “Rick Days, Seven Nights” 2.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty S9 Ep 1 Review

I wasn’t planning on reviewing Rick and Morty this season, but after seeing the season premiere, I’ve had to rethink that. It gave us back one of the best characters in the show, someone who has been able to run rings around everyone, Evil Morty. The only problem is that the way it portrays Evil Morty seems to contradict everything that we know about the character. Or maybe the writers just decided that Evil Morty is not above it all like he made himself out to be.

Evil Morty is Back? But Why?

In the season premiere, Morty discovers that not only is Rick in regular contact with Evil Morty, but he’s been going on off-screen escapades with him. The reason being that Evil Morty has been using the Omega Device as a sword of Damocles hanging over our Rick’s head, extorting him to help him with stuff. They’ve been fighting off threats to their neck of the multiverse, and our Morty is not happy about it. Neither am I, really!

Even as I was watching this episode, one of my initial thoughts was, “this feels like character regression.” The whole point behind Evil Morty is that he’s the Morty who wants Rick out of his life. It’s why he orchestrated the fall of the Citadel. The only reason he helped Rick kill Rick Prime was to keep him from messing with his new life, with the Omega Device serving as his nuclear deterrent. Yet this episode reveals that not only is Evil Morty regularly forcing Rick to help him out, but he spends a good part of the episode acting like he wants to make our Morty feel jealous.

Maybe the show writers decided to change up this aspect of Evil Morty’s character so that they could keep him on as an antagonist. Or they were trying to show that despite what he says, Evil Morty can never fully get rid of his connection to Rick. Either way, though, I dont like how it feels like a 180 without any hints or build-up. The only thing that I did like about it was that we got to see just how competent the pair are working together as we get this big, sakuga-level fight against this multiversal threat. And the only reason that works is because the situation they’re in demands that they be competent, or else they will not survive. It’s cool in a vacuum, but if every adventure were like this, it would get boring.

Evil Morty finally Slipped up With Rick

In the end, though, it still feels like this was character regression on Evil Morty’s part. He talks all about how he wants to be the Morty that doesn’t need a Rick. But if you ask me, this episode said otherwise. It portrays Evil Morty less as someone who wants to get away from Rick, and more like someone who subconsciously wants Rick in his life, but on his terms and as an equal rather than a sidekick. Ironically, he ends up falling victim to the very ego that allowed him to one-up the Ricks.

When he carelessly lets Rick go off on his own, claiming he has to use the bathroom, Rick uses that to destroy the Omega device by destroying its very blueprints. And since the weapon erases all trace and memory of it from the multiverse, its gone for good!

Ultimately, Evil Morty’s subsequent assault on the Smith family’s bunker world is little more than icing on the cake for fans. It’s a chance to show what would happen if Rick and Evil Morty actually fought, and to its credit, it is pretty cool. Unfortunately for Evil Morty, Rick had won before firing the first shot. He tricked him into making a device messing with time, and thus, leading him to get busted by the Time Police. The last we see of him, he’s getting hauled off to Time Prison!

This isn’t the Last We’ve Seen of him

Now, some people think that this might be the last that we see of Evil Morty, and they might be right. Getting locked in prison for literal eternity is a good way to write a character out of the story. However, I disagree with this. Evil Morty is still the most dangerous Morty on the show, and his now-established ego won’t let this slide. I think that he’s going to eventually bust out of prison, utterly pissed, and he’s going to want revenge.

Regardless of whether this is the last we see of him or not, though, the myth has been broken. Evil Morty was seen as the ultimate enemy for Rick and Morty who could run rings around them. But that aura of an invincible villain has been shattered. Whether this is for good or for ill, I don’t know. But much like the character, I’m now compelled to keep following this show. Happy 9th season, you guys.

I Give “There’s Something about Morty” a 3/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Rick and Morty Season 8, Ep 6 Review

Back in the season three episode, “The ABCs of Beth” we learned from Rick that when she was a kid, Beth was kind of nuts. Besides leaving her friend in the imaginary world her dad made for her, she apparently had a penchant for violence and a desire to hurt people. Since we’ve never met a kid version of Beth, we had to take Rick’s word for it…until now. Not only do we seethe Beths become kids again, but they’re every bit as psycho as Rick claims.

At least, most versions of Beth were like that. We don’t know what Rick’s original Beth was like.

Beths Become Kids Again

The Smith family is going on a day trip to this alien-made amusement park that Rick claims is a hilariously bad version of Earth. However, Beth and Space Beth are in too foul a mood to want to go and stay behind. That leads them to discussing when they were last genuinely happy, and that leads them both to turn themselves back into kids using a device on Space Beth’s ship. Unfortunately, the device also reverts them mentally as well as physically. As a result, both Beths become psychotic, bloodthirsty kids who terrorize anyone they come across, like their neighbor, Gene.

I’m a kid at heart myself, so I understand the appeal of wanting to return to being a child. After all, life was simpler when most of us were kids; ergo, it was happier. However, I’m also smart enough to understand that nostalgia has a tendency to blind us to what the past was really like. I loved being a kid, but that also meant dealing with my growing body, going to school every weekday, and the stress of homework. In Beth’s case, we see that Rick was not exaggerating when he said his daughter was nuts as a kid. Rick’s aren’t always the best dads, but at least they had the common sense to make sure their daughter couldn’t hurt anyone…most of the time.

Aww, Rick Really Does Love Beth!

Meanwhile, Rick is also dealing with his nostalgia crisis when he discovers that the theme park he loved, Earth World, has become cleaner and more gentrified. It’s more like how Earth is, at least in America, and it irritates him to no end. He’s the kind of person who thinks a park of inaccurate rides and rusty nails everywhere is hilarious. That leads him to seek out the park’s creator, voiced by Danny DeVito, which leads him to what’s left of the original park. In keeping with the warning about nostalgia filters, it’s not as cool as Rick remembers, and he opts to bail on it to fix the crisis the Beths have started. They end up turning the tables on him, though, and age him up to 360 years old! Those implants of his mean he’s going to live for a long time.

As messed up as the entire thing is, it does lead to a heartfelt moment between Rick and his daughters. The Beths vent their anger at how they were abandoned by Rick (their Rick), and Rick admits he’s proud of both his daughters. It’s another small example of how their relationship has become healthier as the series has progressed, and it’s nice to see.

Another Disastrous Theme Park

Meanwhile, things go downhill for the rest of the Smiths. Morty almost gets it on with an alien, only to realize she’s only into him because he’s human. Summer and Jerry discover that the park owner is insane and sics its mascots (humans with giant heads) on the park to kill everyone. Why? Because that’s what happens in movies involving amusement parks. The trio are barely able to escape with their lives, and in the end, they all agree that the place sucked.

This was a fun episode of Rick and Morty. It’s not one of its better episodes, but it was still entertaining enough to watch. Plus, I really liked how it satirized all those horrible amusement parks we see in movies. The fact that it overtly references Jurassic Park is funny.

“The Curicksous Case of Bethjamin Button” a 3.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff. 

Rick and Morty Season 8 Ep 5 Review

Sometimes, the best episodes of a show with serialized storytelling are the one-off ones. The silly ones where nothing of real consequence happens and viewers can enjoy the ride. Granted, this is still Rick and Morty, so whatever they do has consequences; if not for them, then for someone else. In this case, those consequences are felt by the residents of a cryoship they find, leading to a wacky class war that turns into Wacky Races in space!

Oh, and Rick experiences what it’s like to have loving parents, broh.

Rick and Morty Wake up a Cryoship…

While Rick and Morty are cruising through space one day, they stumble across a cryoship, full of sleeping refugees fleeing their destroyed world. The two proceed to get into an argument, with Rick wanting to rob them blind while Morty wants to take the high road. Naturally, this leads to the ship waking everyone from cryostasis. Rather than run for it, Rick doubles down by having them posed as two (apparently) dead passengers. Rick gets mistaken for the son of two wealthy passengers, while Morty is stuck on the lower decks doing cleaning work. Chaos ensues as both wind up in positions of power on opposite sides.

#RickAndMorty pic.twitter.com/weNdxhWPmf

— Badgerclops 3.0 Deluxe Edition (@beeclops2) June 23, 2025

At first glance, the episode makes it seem like the plot will be about Rick and Morty coming into conflict with each other. Morty leads the lower class known as the “Makeys” while Rick throws his lot in with the elites, AKA the “Takeys.” However, it doesn’t take long for the episode to subvert this expectation. Morty quickly realizes that he’s in over his head, but it’s too late to call the workers’ revolution. Meanwhile, despite deceiving the couple, Karen and Doug, he genuinely grows to care about them for the love and pride they give their “son.” It’s been hinted that Rick never had the best relationship with his parents, so this experience is something he enjoys. Sadly, the episode makes any epiphany or lesson learned a moot point halfway through the episode, as its revealed that the vault is empty.

…And it Turns into Wacky Races in Space

Plot-twist time: it turns out that the two passengers on the cryoship that Rick and Morty were posing as, Jimmy and Chachaco, weren’t dead. Not only were they alive, but they had already robbed the vault of all its resources and bailed. And Jimmy put a dead monkey skeleton in his pod to fool his parents because he thought it would be funny. What a little brat!

From then on, the entire episode shifts gears, going from being a class war on a cryoship to what can only be described as Wacky Races in Space. Everyone starts racing for the treasure in this increasingly silly sequence that people will either find hilarious or incredibly stupid. The show itself even lampshades how nonsensical the situation is, and I dont blame it. Rick and Morty even fly through a space coop, and Rick rolls down the windows to have the full experience. That should have killed them in the process!!

#RickAndMorty pic.twitter.com/pAKjZNVnET

— Badgerclops 3.0 Deluxe Edition (@beeclops2) June 23, 2025

In the end, though, Morty decides enough is enough and shoots the treasure out into deep space. In true Rick and Morty fashion, though, people keep fighting over the loot in space suits. But at some point, everyone decides to call it quits and go back into cryostasis. Rick helps Karen and Doug wrangle their bratty son, and installs compliance chips that will force everyone to get along. No one ends up walking away with anything, and it seems like Rick doesn’t learn his lesson, as he opts to go after a medical cryoship minutes later. And Morty? All he does is ask Rick to share the drugs.

What a Silly Episode

This was a very silly and pointless episode of Rick and Morty with no impact on the series as a whole. However, I find that it is often the one-off episodes of a show that I end up going back to rewatch the most. And given how silly the wacky race was, I think that this qualifies for the occasional rewatch. It’s not as strong as the last episode, but they’re not all going to be winners.

S8E6 promo!
WE'RE GOING TO EARTH WORLD!#RickAndMorty pic.twitter.com/0Ye7Xm40Hm

— Badgerclops 3.0 Deluxe Edition (@beeclops2) June 23, 2025

I Give “Cryo Mort a Rickver” a 3/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff. 

Rick and Morty S8 EP 4 Review

For a show mainly focused on sci-fi adventures, Rick and Morty manages to have a lot of holiday episodes. The Christmas episodes can be some of the best in the entire series, and the Thanksgiving episode was insane. When the first teaser for Season 8 revealed that we’d be getting an Easter episode, though, I’ll admit I was skeptical. How could a special about Easter end up being as crazy as what fans have come to expect? As it turns out, all it took was Jerry, a few movie references, and the not-so-wholesome origins behind Easter icons like the bunny and eggs.

Easter Ruined by Jerry

It all starts a few days before Easter Sunday, and while Jerry is wholeheartedly embracing the holiday, his family couldn’t care less. Until Jerry accidentally runs over and, apparently, kills the Easter Bunny. This curses him to transform into a were-rabbit in a plot straight out of The Santa Clause, forcing Rick and Morty to go in search of a cure. In doing so, they uncover the true meaning of Easter: it’s a war between aliens.

Someone on the Rick and Morty team must have thought it would’ve been funny to satirize the entirety of Easter, because this episode doesn’t hold anything back. The opening has Jerry acting like Easter is Christmas, complete with hanging up decorations and singing a retooled version of “Deck the Halls.” At first, it looks like he’s just being overly into the holiday, the show wastes no time in having his family call him out for his love being based on shallow commercialism. The fact that he can’t even name what day Easter is only cements this. That’s a big jab at how capitalism has turned the holiday into one less about Christ or pre-Christian traditions, and more about selling candy. The show’s not wrong, either. Unless you’re a kid looking forward to the candy and eggs, or are actively religious, most people have no reason to care about Easter.

The satirization goes even further, though, as the main plot of the episode tackles the opposing aspects of the holiday. And it does it through aliens.

Easter Ruined by Aliens

Like several other major holidays, Easter started as a pre-Christian celebration. In this case, it celebrated the arrival of spring, with the rabbit and eggs serving as symbols of fertility and renewal. Christianity co-opted it like it did with Christmas and made it into a more wholesome holiday. And as Rick and Morty discover, the reason for these different versions of the holiday are because of interference from aliens.

It turns out, the Easter Bunny is an alien sent by other aliens to act as a living aphrodisiac. This would compel a population to breed until overpopulation brought about their collapse, with Earth being one of their targets. The Easter Aliens rivals opposed this by sending their best warrior to kill the Bunny on Earth, only for him to get crucified as Jesus and start Christianity.

That’s not even the craziest part. While the Easter aliens (who look like Easter Island heads with bodies) are never given a motivation, the Christian aliens reason for oppossing them is because…they don’t like s**. They think it’s gross and hate it.

The Less you Know about Some Holidays, the better

Honestly, this is a hilarious take on the different versions of Easter. The idea of two alien races fighting a war over chastity vs lust for the sake of it is so dumb, it’s funny. Rick and Morty sum up how the show wants the audience to react when they acknowledge how dumb it is. And by the time they manage to stop the Easter curse, the entire family is dissillusioned with Easter altogether. As the last Christian alien crawls away missing half their body, Morty tells his mom that it’s not worth knowing. What it does do, though is lead the family to spend the rest of the year destroying decorations for all holidays. And somehow, they forgot about Summer, forcing her to spend the last eight months on Spring Break!

If last week’s episode was the best-written episode of the season right now, then I think that this episode is the funniest. It’s stupid, nonsensical, and completely skewers Easter as a holiday. I loved it, and my only regret is that it didn’t release around actual Easter. I’m going to have rewatch it next year when the time comes!

I Give “The Last Temptation of Jerry” a 4.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff. 

Rick and Morty S8 EP 3 Review

For almost as long as there has been Rick and Morty, there was the Citadel of Ricks. The idea of an entire society being made up of variants of two people was one of the show’s strongest aspects, and some of its best moments have had to do with the Citadel. So when it was ultimately destroyed by Evil Morty at the end of Season Five, it was the end of an era for the show. Ricks and Mortys would continue to exist, but they no longer had a place where they could gather, leaving many stranded in whatever dimension they were in. While this wasn’t the first time the Citadel was seemingly destroyed, there was always the chance that it could be rebuilt in the future. However, the third episode of this season confirms that this time, the Citadel isn’t coming back.

Exit, Stage Left

The episode starts off with our Rick and Morty forced to make an emergency landing while scavenging the wreckage of the Citadel, leading them to discover a few stragglers still hanging around. The episode teaser made it seem like our Rick and Morty would be getting into conflict with these other Ricks and Mortys. However, the episode quickly makes it clear that it tricked us. Our Rick and Morty exit stage left and don’t appear again until the aftermath of what goes down.

The Citadel of Ricks Tries to Rebuild

This episode serves as a spiritual sequel to the Season Three episode “The Ricklantis Mixup,” which focused exclusively on the Citadel of Ricks and its populace. It was one of the series’ best episodes, showing just how good a story could be gotten out of a society essentially made up of two people. Now that that society has fallen, though, we get to see what its population has been up to. In this case, that population consisting of clones of Rick and Morty created by the Citadel to maintain its population. When Rick reset portal travel, they were left stranded due to not having a home dimension to return to. In true Rick fashion, most of the surviving Ricks are trying to rebuild the Citadel under a Rick created to be a mascot for a gumbo restaurant. And they’re kidnapping any Mortys they can find, hoping to use them to restart the cloning process to gain more slave labor. The sole exception to this is Farmer Rick, who serves as the focus of the episode. When the other Ricks try to kill him in their latest raid and torch his homestead, he goes on a path of revenge.

The Citadel in the Wild West

Like it’s name implies, this episode is pretty much a fusion of space westerns and John Wick, with Farmer Rick serving as the John Wick. It’s revealed that he was in charge of cloning at the Citadel halfway through the episode, but like our Rick, he’s come to see the place as a failed experiment. He knows that bringing it back will only cause more pain and suffering, and, while he flat-out denies it, it’s obvious he stuck near the Mortys as a form of penance. It doesn’t make it a good person, but it demonstrates how Rick has always had it in him to be a better person. Case in point, while he doesn’t have to do it, he winds up saving the surviving Mortys and helping them escape the Citadel while he stays behind to finish the job. And by the time he’s done, what was left of the Citadel of Ricks is a smoldering crater with presumably no survivors.

While it’s possible that another version of it might come about down the road, the Citadel as we’ve known it is gone for good. If the destruction of the actual Citadel isn’t enough to hammer that home, it’s the fact that the remaining Morty clones decide to go their separate ways. They each find new lives based on their own interests, away from the usually toxic relationship they have with Rick. The sole exception to this is a Morty called Arcade Morty, who chooses to live in Farmer Rick’s homestead. He has no other place to call home, and as the episode ends with him watching how much healthier our Rick and Morty’s relationship has become, he’s even denied that.

Great Ending to the Citadel Story

This might be the best episode of the season thus far. It not only closes the book on the Citadel, it does so by fusing John Wick with sci-fi westerns. If shows like The Mandalorian have shown in recent years, there’s still an audience for the western genre, even if it’s acting as sci-fi. Even if the show does bring the Citadel back, this episode is still pretty solid.

I Give “The Rick, The Mort, and the Ugly” a 4.5/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.