Rick and Morty's Shrinking Room for Error
The most frustrating setback about Rick and Morty is actually how good a cartoon it can truly become.
Because, sometimes, it feels like our time is being wasted. And it has felt this way more in the last couple seasons.
***Spoilers Throughout this Entry***
In case you are not caught up with the Rick and Morty criticism, there are corners of the fanbase that is getting more and more frustrated and restless about getting all these excellent narrative beats and ideas that never get any progress for major chunks of time in favor of one-off episodes of explored and discarded concepts. Whether it’s the Evil Morty storyline, the happenings over at the Citadel, the Clone Beth mystery, Rick’s complete backstory, Birdperson’s seemingly superior knowledge of Rick’s inner demons, and even smaller plotlines that had formed like Morty’s love life, and of course the Beth/Jerry marriage dynamic, all of these story beats that can push the overarching story forward gets pushed aside more times than most of us would like.
Compounding this issue is how each Rick and Morty season is significantly shorter than the average television show. Compounding it more is that when they do decide to give the show some depth and advance the overarching narrative of the story of Rick and Morty, the results are almost always spectacular. The season finales are notorious for being exceptional, and the fifth season finale even dared to go beyond what the show has ever done with Rick’s backstory. It had the best season ending since the second, which famously led to Rick abandoning the family once again and getting arrested to the tune of Nine Inch Nail’s Hurt. As a matter of fact, the revelations on the 49th episode could have easily been a three-episode arc.
However, unlike Netflix, Rick and Morty’s short seasons consists of smaller 20-minute episodes. Unlike the average show and even cartoon for that matter, we don’t get 20-30 episodes per season. So with these limited windows of opportunity, every time it feels like we get an episode that doesn’t really propel the story forward and leaves multiple plotlines hanging, if the content doesn’t deliver the half hour feels much more like a letdown.
Granted, Rick and Morty does once in a while toss absolute gems that doesn’t push anything forward in terms of narrative, they are just hilarious, clever, and overall entertaining---most recently Mortyplicity was a masterclass in unique concept and flawless execution. But we’ve been getting less and less of these each season, and we’ve had some shocking clunkers within the past couple years of ideas that really go nowhere and doesn’t have much to say.
Now, can one counter with the fact that no show has ever had a perfect run of episodes? Of course. But Rick and Morty doesn’t have as much wiggle room to mess around with their shortened seasons, they don’t have as much space to try silly ideas. They don’t have the narrative spacing of The Simpsons during its peak or even Futurama, shows with significantly longer seasons. If Futurama threw an episode that wasn’t as good, that’s fine, on to the next one. But Rick and Morty’s fifth season featured a plotline that was about preventing a giant incent baby made with Morty’s sperm. Yikes upon yikes, and only six more episodes after that debacle. The fourth season had one of their ten episodes dedicated to sex-crazed dragons. Yea, not making any of this up. I’m all for random storylines, but there a line where it goes from interesting sci-fi (Anatomy Park back in season one) to random words that would be better suited for an episode of Family Guy.
Similar to what happened to Lost back in 2004, Rick and Morty started right out of the gate with very strong episodes, strong characterizations, as well as intriguing mysteries that had fans overanalyzing every episode and every moment. Also similar to what happened to Lost, Rick and Morty completely ignores large plot gaps and storylines that is in need of resolving before any narrative progress can actually happen. The breadcrumbs have been placed, but the writing team just appears to sometimes not know what the payoff should be, or they don’t really have much interest in advancing the story without trying out some fun ideas. Even more maddening is that some of the revelations we have been seeking turn out to be amazing, but they’re never given its proper amount of time to process and dive into details.
Rick’s backstory revelation in the season five finale was a wild, incredible, dark story. It revealed everything you needed to know about why he is the way that he is, and filled in an incredible amount of plot holes that had lingered since the first season. But the two minute montage should have been expanded to an entire episode, maybe even two of them. Our Rick spending his entire life hunting down Ricks in a variety of planets and universes in pursuit of justice for his murdered wife and child, before surrendering the chase after a giant massacre could have easily been the rewarding episode to the most patient fans. Even though I’m glad to see Harmon and Roiland finally give us what we’ve been waiting for, it still feels hollow because we spent two episodes with an incest baby as a storyline when we could have spent more time with Rick, Birdperson, and the Citadel (as well as the consequences for what transpired in the last 10 minutes of the Season five finale).
I stick with Rick and Morty after all these years and its slight dip in quality because it still has very strong characters and when the episodes are good, they are among the best you’ll see in all of television. Unfortunately though, unless they decide to actually make the leap for season six and truly continue off from where we left off on season five’s very unexpected finale, we’re probably going to continue seeing this blend of great episodes and okay-ish throwaway ones, especially as the team of writers expands and changes constantly.
Its becoming clear that this is the format that is preferred, whether its to add more weight to the stronger episodes or its how the writing process can survive making content as wild as the science fiction insanity that surrounds Rick and Morty. Personally, I do wish they would lean heavier on concentrating more towards exploring the characters as opposed to exploring tropes and concepts and twisting or spoofing them. Rick and Morty is that student in school that can get straight As easily, but is perfectly fine settling for Bs and Cs.
Rick and Morty is still among the best that the world of television offers, but its becoming clear that their methods of creating and releasing content is unsustainable. I beg of you, less incest baby and more Evil Morty.