YMMV / Rick And Morty S 5 E 3 A Rickconvenient Mort

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Planetina's sudden swing into darkness is subject to a lot of this.
    • Since Morty killed the Tina-teers with their own rings, it's possible that his violent side seeped into the rings and corrupted Planetina, explaining her sudden violent turn. Or could it be that years of the Tina-teers mistreating her had slowly done the same and she wasn't manifested long enough for it to really develop.
    • It's possible that Planetina started going crazy from simply being active for too long. Her very nature does seem to be serve as a "when all hope is lost" emergency hero rather than someone who is supposed to be active all the time.
    • She mentions hearing the Earth screaming which could mean that she has some kind of empathic connection to the world and staying active just caused it to reach unbearable levels for her.
    • Planetina says that she's trying to save Morty with her extremist actions. She could be seeing the absolute worst case scenario in the environment's destruction and mixed with her feelings for Morty it could have sent her over the line in trying to protect him.
    • It's possible she always had thoughts and inclinations towards being more destructive, but the Tina-teers kept her on enough of a leash that she couldn't really act on them, so when Morty sets her free and joins along with little complaint about what she does, it unwittingly encouraged her to go to more extreme measures.
    • She mentions, early on, that her handlers didn't allow her to watch the news. It's possible that she was shielded from understanding how serious and widespread environmental destruction really is. When exposed to the realities of humanity's true impact on the planet, she may have just concluded that extreme measures were the only solution.
    • As explained by Fridge Brilliance, there was also no Heart element to balance her out, just the four elements that make her up. A Common Knowledge with Captain Planet was that him being summoned without Heart would make him a jerkass and thus take similar extreme measures like Planetina.
    • Does Planetina even care about the environment? She had three other elemental powers she could've used to murder all the miners that wouldn't have resulted in the coal mine being on fire, releasing all the extra carbon. Given that Planetina often saves the day with violence, Environmentalism might actually just be a convenient excuse to fight people. Likewise, the same could be argued about the original Captain Planet, considering how often he solves problems by fighting. At least one of the recurring villains was able to listen to reason (and no longer be an existential threat to the world every week) when it was shown that recycling could make money too...
  • On a note sorta unrelated to Planetina herself, did the Tina-teers eventually just grew up to be cynical assholes who started exploiting Planetina once they saw the potential profit? Or is it possible they were always like that?
  • The fact that the coal miners can't just abandon their job is a valid point. However, the "your people" comment from the leader seems to imply that he is just unsympathetic to the cause in general, and only using the fact that he needs a job as an excuse.
• Ass Pull: Planetina's sudden violent and destructive side of her near the end of the episode was accused of this by some people, since there's little-to-no foreshadowing to indicate she even had a violent side, even with the slight Foreshadowing that she gets depressed from watching the news if the Tina-Teers ever allow her to.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After several instances of treating Morty like a burden, Beth gets the verbal beatdown some fans felt she deserved. Given the episode ends with Beth comforting Morty, it seems like even she appreciated this kick-in-the-pants.
  • Seeing Summer screw over Rick's hedonism will prompt some cheering from those who are sick of Rick's entitlement and hypocrisy in how he treats others, especially when this episode makes it clear just how screwed up Morty is from how Rick treats him. Even more cathartic when Rick admits this is something he would actually do himself.
• Designated Villain:
  • Beth. For all her flaws, she has been shown working through season 4 and 5 to be a better mother and take more care of her family, including being shown to be actually supportive of Morty. Morty complains about being continuously dismissed, but that comes mostly from Rick, who earlier in the episode made a point to leave for an adventure to show how little he thought of Morty's crush, while Beth was raising very valid points about the age gap and Morty rushing things.
  • Planetina. While she did kill innocent miners, that's far from the worst thing that ever happened in the series. Morty himself had his times slaughtering punch-clock villains or even innocent people, not to mention Rick's usual antics, yet that single incident is considered damning and irredeemable. No one tries to suggest an alternative or try to work with her, she is just cast off after that. It doesn't help that Planetina was shown to have been very sheltered and manipulated by people who exploiting her for money and were ready to sell her, and that's never taken into account.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Similar to Morty's one-shot girlfriend from Season 4, Planetina instantly became a fan-favourite, with the added bonus of being her own character rather than a Satellite Love Interest, considering that she's a darker take on an iconic 90s kids superhero in Captain Planet will do that.
• Fridge Brilliance: Planetina deciding to just start killing seems pretty dang heartless. You'll notice there are only four Tina-teers and four power rings. What Planeteer expy (and subsequently, what ring) is missing? Ma-Ti and the Heart ring.
  • The Arab villain, dressed like Osama bin Laden, is killed by seals.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • This episode came out around the same time details of Britney Spears's conservatorship under her father became more publicly known,^note Among other things, Britney was at the time unable to make financial decisions for herself or even get her IUD removed so she can have more children so seeing the adult Tina-Teens exploit Planetina to the point they're willing to sell her into literal slavery has an extra dark subtext.
  • The premier for Season 6 ended with the entire planet being infected by some eldritch plague that quickly wiped out all natural resources, prompting the Smiths to migrate to a new dimension. Planetina was doomed to fail.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Justin Roiland convincingly conveys Morty's childish outrage at being limited by his mother from seeing Planetina and subsequent heartbreak over their breakup.
  • Sarah Chalke's performance when comforting Morty is the first time where she gets to be a good mother to him, and it is well executed.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sure, Planetina had gone too far in her environmental crusade by killing 300 people, but she did raise a good point about the pollution among other environmental problems, especially that she could see the apathy the humans are showing to the planet they're harming. Even though she cursed at Morty for breaking up with her because of her extreme methods, she truly loved him and is very heartbroken as he is from it.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • An extremely sad example, but it's worth noting that Morty was the one who wanted to call it off with Planetina. Usually, Morty's love life gets screwed over by the girl breaking up with him or his family getting in the way. So while the breakup was depressing, it's amazing to see Morty finally have the guts to cut himself off from toxic people.
  • Even before all that, Morty chewing out his parents for never supporting him and making him feel like he doesn't belong in the family. Compare that to Morty in the first three seasons, who usually just absorbed the emotional abuse.
• Squick:
  • Morty's relationship with Planetina is noted by many, including Beth, to look like ephebophilia because even if age doesn't apply to her she still looks like an adult woman and has existed since The '90s, while Morty is 14.
  • Rick has wildly disgusting sex with an alien who has breasts growing from her elbows while an entire planet has an incest-laced orgy.
• Narm: While the acting is good as mentioned-above, it's hard to believe that Morty would be as broken by his breakup with Planetina, considering he barely got to know her, as opposed to his relationship with Jessica, or with the unnamed girlfriend from "The Vat of Acid Episode". It's made even worse when it doesn't even carry over to the next episode, meaning Morty did not grow whatsoever from this experience.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • The coal miner who snaps at Planetina. A jerkass who would sell out his own planet for short-term gains for sure, but he's not exactly wrong when he says he needs the income. In real life, plenty of coal miners actually are willing to move into more eco-friendly jobs, but have the bad luck of being stuck in towns where the mining industry has too strong a hold and due to extreme economic depression, they don't have the resources to go elsewhere and no one wants to come in and build up the region. Then again, Morty wasn't on board with actually wanting to harm the miners and Planetina was clearly unhinged at that point.
  • Beth isn't wrong to feel uncomfortable by Morty and Planetina's relationship, given that it's a case of a teenage boy being wooed by someone who is effectively an adult. Furthermore, while Morty's The Reason You Suck speech would have been applicable to Season 3 Beth, she has undergone significant Character Development since then - she has become more supportive and caring towards Morty (as seen in Edge Of Tomorty and One Crew Over The Crewcoo's Morty). She even had no problem with Morty's Girlfriend in The Vat of Acid Episode and Jessica in Mort Dinner Rick Andre, showing that the age gap was her only issue with Planetina.
  • Planetina. She goes through extreme measures, but it is true that Earth is in a desperate situation. Morty gets upset about her actions, yet never actually tries suggesting an alternative course of action. And lets not forget that Morty has outright abandoned at least two other Earths because they'd become inhabitable with Rick telling him that there's only a finite number of times they can do that, so he really should have been more understanding.
• Tearjerker: Easily one of the saddest episodes in the series. Morty finally finds love and has the courage to stand up for himself... only to discover that Planetina is willing to commit murder to save the planet and is forced to break things off with her not long after saving her from being sold to a shady man.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The lack of a "Heart" element for the Tina-teers prevents exploring how the Heart Tina-teer member would be affected by the fact that their remaining fellow Tina-teers now only care about money and are being willing to sell Planetina for profit and of course finding out that all of his/her fellow members are dead and Planetina becoming a mass murderer thanks to Morty.
  • The entire story about Planetina. It could have explored the toll it would take to have fought for the environment since the 90s with no step forward and the situation actually getting worse, and society even turning the environmentalist message into an empty slogan just to make more money. Instead they just went the gritty way, turning the Tina-teers into greedy assholes and Planetina into an extremist, focusing entirely on Morty's relationship and avoiding any actual discussion about the environment altogether.