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Rick and Morty S6 Ep 2 Review

In the Summer of 1988, Fox gave the world the gift of Die Hard, one of the greatest action movies of all time. Then we got all those films trying to imitate its success, and people stopped wanting to see more Die Hard. Regardless, it’s still one of pop culture’s staples, and being who they are, Rick and Morty do their own Die Hard. The result is an episode that runs the joke about the original film into the ground.

Get used to seeing Die Hard in this because pretty much every character name drops it.

Roy: A Life Well Lived Returns!

Firstly, the A Plot. In Season Two’s “Mortynight Run,” Rick introduced Morty to his favorite game, Roy. It’s a VR game where players play this guy named Roy from childhood through his entire life. I remember seeing it and thinking, “Wow, this one thing’s way more interesting than the rest of the episode. I want an episode focused on this game!”

Well, I got my wish, but not in the way I intended.

Morty’s in the middle of playing Roy when terrorists take over the arcade for…reasons. Their brief shutting down the power while Morty’s inside makes the game glitch. Thanks to that, his mind’s split between all the NPCs, and when the game ends, Morty dies. So, Rick has to take control of Roy and convince all the MPCs (Morty PCs, get it?) to leave the game.

Easier said than done, even for Rick Sanchez. He ends up starting a pseudo-religion where everyone is Morty and gets most of him onboard with getting out. However, 8% of Morty doesn’t want to leave since they think their lives are better in a VR game than dealing with Rick. And, since Rick can’t simply say he loves and respects Morty, Morty goes to war…with himself. Holy War!

I didn’t appreciate it until after I slept a full night, but this whole thing is hilarious and brilliant. The entire episode serves as an abridged retelling of how the titular duo’s relationship’s developed over the series, from the trusting attitude at the start to his growing desire to break free from Rick that we see today. Moreover, It’s not said explicitly, but the fact that Morty’s mind went to war with itself over whether to stay or follow Rick shows how much this is tearing him up inside. It may not have happened here, but sooner or later, Morty will need to find a balance or choose a side.

Until then, though, it’s fun to see a planet based on Morty’s limited knowledge of the world destroy itself.

Summer Does a Die Hard

Meanwhile, in the real world, Summer’s left to fend off the terrorists by herself and keep Rick and Morty safe. Or, as Rick puts it, “do a ‘Die Hard.’”

There’s two problems with that, though. Firstly, Summer’s never seen Die Hard before, so she’s clueless about it. Secondly, the terrorists, whose leader’s voiced by Peter Dinklage fusing Alan Rickman and Tyrion Lannister, have seen Die Hard. In fact, in a hilarious twist, it’s revealed that every culture in the universe eventually develops a Die Hard myth.

This is either a jab at how many times filmmakers tried to copy the formula of Die Hard, or at how cultures can develop similar myths. The Greeks and Jews had the Great Flood and Noah’s arc character, and everyone had dragons. Either way, it’s hilarious to think that a universal constant is Die Hard.

Ironically, it’s Summer’s ignorance of Die Hard that allows her to pull off a Die Hard. She’s the unpredictable wild card, the “Ultimate Mclane,” as the lead guy puts it. And with six seasons of adventures with Rick, Summer’s good enough to mop the floor with them. Especially after she actually read the guy’s book on Die Hard.

Die Hard Dies Hard

In the end, the terrorists either die or run away, and Rick pulls Morty out before Roy croaks. However, there’s the unsettling realization that Rick left a part of Morty behind. The part that wanted his independence from Rick got it as part of a deal for everyone else to go.

Fortunately, though, Rick does care about his grandson, so he pays to have the Roy game stored on a battery so Morty can live his life inside the game. It also serves as a nice spoof to the end of the original Indiana Jones movie.

At first, I didn’t have a high opinion of this episode. It felt like the show was beating the Die Hard joke into the dirt past a certain point. After sleeping on it, though, I admit that maybe that was the point of the joke. Plus, while the plot with Rick and Morty in the Roy game seems like a backpedal on their character development, it’s not. The show loves negative continuity for one-off adventures, so I doubt Morty got affected. In addition, the fact that Rick agreed to Morty’s terms is a subtle sign of progress. There’s hope for Rick and Morty yet.

Now, I need to go count how many times Die Hard was said in this episode.

I Give “Rick: a Mort Well Lived”

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Rick and Morty S6, Ep 1 Review

So last year, I did something different and reacted to Rick and Morty on YouTube. However, I didn’t expect Warner Bros to be a killjoy and make the process longer than necessary. So I’m back reviewing it here, and HOLY SHIT! Was that Season premiere amazing, or what?!? Rick and Morty may get stuck debating over its better with episodic or serialized content, but it can go all in when it does the latter.

A New Status Quo

To recap the end of Season 5:

• Evil Morty converted the Citadel into a massive portal gun.
• Evil Morty used said Citadel to break the Central Finite Curve and escape to the greater multiverse.
• Rick and Morty escaped the Citadel’s destruction with many other Mortys.
• Portal tech no longer works.

It would’ve been so easy for the show to hit the reset button and return things to some semblance of a status quo. To its credit, though, they follow through with Rick and Morty reenacting the start to Endgame. And Space Beth pulls a Captain Marvel and saves them.

Now back home (the other Mortys killed themselves), Rick’s first act is trying to reset portal tech. Unfortunately, instead of that, he resets things so that every interdimensional traveler returns to their native dimension. Thus, Rick, Morty, and Jerry all get sent home, leaving the women to track them down.

From here on out, the episode’s a mix of one wham moment after another and showing how much the Smith family’s grown over the show. Also, more on Jerry shortly.

Rick and Morty Have Grown

So, Morty returns to the original dimension that he unwillingly abandoned in Season One. It’s there that he deals with the fallout of his actions when he’s reunited with his original Jerry. His Beth and Summer died offscreen, leaving Jerry alone and wanting nothing to do with his son, despite the latter’s attempts to reconnect. 

Meanwhile, Rick returns to his home dimension, where we learn that he stuck it in an infinite loop of the day he lost his wife and Beth. A constant reminder of his biggest failure. Now more than ever, it’s apparent Rick’s seeming apathy is a sham to cope with how he’s failed to avenge them. However, it’s also revealed there’s a reason he chose Morty’s dimension to live in. It turns out that Morty’s original Rick was Weird Rick, aka the one who killed his family. He stuck around, hoping Weird Rick would show up, but he never did!

This single moment recontextualizes much of the show’s first season. Rick’s uncaring behavior stemmed from him seeing his initial family as a means to an end. Over time, though, Rick grew to care for and love his interdimensional family. 

Nowhere is this shown more than in the series climax when in a big revelation, Rick realizes that he inadvertently returned Weird Rick to his home dimension. When he has the chance to hunt him down, it’s Morty who talks him out of it. Despite being from separate dimensions, Morty considers the Rick he’s been with his grandpa. It works, too.

Summer and the Beth’s Arc

As all this goes down, Summer, Beth, and Space Beth fight in the Citadel ruins to ensure they can reunite with their adoptive family. Summer shows how much of a badass she’s become, with Rick even stating she reminds him of his late wife. In addition, Beth and Space Beth, despite having made peace over not knowing which one’s the clone, still have issues. One of them did bail on their family to do some soul-searching. In the end, though, they make peace with each other, with Space Beth agreeing to visit more often.

Jerry Stands Up for Himself

Lastly, we have Jerry, who is now confirmed to have been mixed up with Jerry-2 back in Season Two. He got returned to his original dimension, whose Smith family never grew out of their Season Two mindset; i.e., they’re all dysfunctional jerks. In contrast to now, Jerry-3’s new family is far more stable and closer together. Jerry-3 even admits that the time he and Beth spent apart helped them both grow as people. So, Jerry-3 flips off his original family and goes back to his new one. It’s a satisfying moment for him, even if he doesn’t quite stick the landing.

Then Jerry-2 Jerry’s it up and ruins their dimension, forcing everyone to move to a new one.

An Amazing Start to Rick and Morty S6

So, to recap, no one is living in their home dimension anymore. Beth and Summer are the only members left of their dimensions original family. And to top it off, everyone has to bury their counterpart’s dead bodies. Oh, and everyone knows Rick and Morty aren’t their original Rick and Morty. 

Even though they’re all biologically related, almost no one is from the same dimension. However, they all accept that despite this, they’re still a family. A weird, interdimensional version of the family of choice trope, but a heartwarming one. Even when Rick denies it, everyone knows by this point that he cares about them. 

So this is the new status quo in the future for everyone. Portal guns don’t work now, and it may take Rick all season to rebuild them. Given that it’s Rick, it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, the show leaves many questions up in the air. Will Evil Morty return, or is he gone for good? How many Ricks and Morty’s are still alive? For now, the show’s putting them on the back burner, and there’s a 50% chance they may return to them.

The Most Evil Rick Yet

One thing that the show doesn’t sit on, though, is Weird Rick.

So Rick did end up trapping Weird Rick in his home dimension. Moreover, despite having given up his chance for revenge for now, there’s a good chance that Rick and Weird Rick will meet again someday soon. The show would be insane not to, at this point!

As a whole, this is Rick and Morty at its absolute finest. I would easily rank this episode among the top 5 of all time. The writers may not always like doing it, but when they want to focus on serialized storytelling, they do an amazing job at it. Here’s to another season of Rick and Morty forever.

I Give “Solaricks” a 5/5

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