The first episode of the new the Rick and Morty was nothing short of smashing. It has everything you’d want from a Rick and Morty episode. Its got a WILD story, great character moments and gags.
Rick and Morty is great for so many reasons. One of those things that makes it great is how it took the whacky, futuristic, cartoon comedy like Futurama and went one deeper.
Episode 1 of Season 5 goes one deeper. It starts in the normal world where Rick and Morty are wrapping up an adventure except this time Morty is the one that’s in control because Rick is out cold. As usual, this leads to something bad happening. The bad thing being Rick and Morty are about to crash land and die. This prompts Morty to confess his love to his love interest, Jessica which lands him a date. GO MORTY! Morty then decides to save him and Rick which causes them to crash into the ocean waking Rick up. Then it goes one deeper. Rick’s arch-nemesis, Nimbus joins the party.
Nimbus is an erotic version of Aquaman. He also controls the police. I’ll say no more and let you enjoy the episode.
The minor character development is another thing that makes this episode great for me.
Morty takes control of the situation and it finally pays off with a date. Great!
The character development that really scratches my itch is that Rick finally reduced the nihilistic, mean attitude that he’s been doing the last few seasons.
I feared that Rick was becoming an exaggerated version of himself, a phenomenon that happens to sitcom characters in later seasons like Homer Simpson. In the early seasons of The Simpsons Homer is a loveable, fatherly idiot i.e He quits his steady job to join the bowling alley only to return to the power plant. Homer then decides to put pictures of his youngest daughter on the wall to keep motivated in the job he hates because it’s what he must do to provide for his family. The point being that Homer’s bad decisions eventually catch up with him and he genuinely tries to fix it.
In the modern episodes of The Simpsons Homer becomes an exaggerated, cruel version of himself i.e he will make a mistake and show no remorse for it. In earlier seasons Homer almost killed himself because of his guilt. Fans have dubbed this modern Homer, “Jerkass Homer”.
I feared that Rick was going down this path. In earlier seasons Rick is a drunk uncle that loves his nephew. In later seasons Rick becomes this exaggerated version of himself where he sees the world as this hopeless place and frequently rants about it. I’m glad to see the writers have recognised this and dialled it back in this episode. Hopefully this continues throughout the season.
The gags also make this a great episode. I can’t understate how funny the Nimbus shit is. The way Nimbus camply controls the police by commanding them to “flee!” like they’re lapdogs is so funny.
On top of this, you have a time travel plot going on with Morty. Morty causes an accident to happen to a farmer which leads to a rapidly ageing society building its culture around swearing revenge on Morty. How do you even come up with that?
The first episode of the latest season of Rick and Morty is full of great moments, gags and a promising revision of its main character. If I were to give this episode a rating it would be an 8/10.