Reviews WesternAnimation / Rick And Morty

I think that's more on you. The show on an episode basis has been consistent in what it preaches. Rick is a deeply flawed character that like Sherlock, Dr. House or Einstein, is Brilliant But Lazy, too good at what he does so he finds refuge in always being right. It's a nihilistic series that subverts the feel good tropes with a realism and pessimism. Beth and Jerry are going through a divorce and they may never get back together just to make a point that people that do often don't. It's one thing to not like the message/point/joke or that it would be better if it was different, it's another to say you were duped into expecting said different.

Nobody exist on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody is gonna die. Come watch TV.

Morty Smith

Frankly the comparison to Sherlock just makes me think that the two share similar writing problems with their main characters. Things like how 'smart person' seems to equate to 'wizard,' or that the show is less interested in developing them as characters (with things like giving them meaningful challenges, choices, or consequences) than with simply wanking about how awesome they are, and having them be an insufferable prick.

In truth, the troubled but brilliant antihero is more or less the default setting for tv these days. Walter White, Rusty, Jimmy McGill, Don Draper, BoJack Horseman, the list goes on and on. Except with most of those there's a character arc over the course of a larger story. Rick, meanwhile, is a static character who tends to effortlessly breeze through everything because the script contrives to make everyone else an idiot or because he does magic off-screen, and what little overarching plot there was is apparently evaporated in favor of a return to the the standard formula of sitcom antics and genre pastiche.

And I'm gonna have to stop you on the realism point. We're talking about a season wherein an alien civilization takes over worth, said alien civilization collapses, said alien civilization leaves, and then everything goes right back to normal with nothing changed at all. Similarly I'm not buying the "well the pointlessness is the point" thing, because other shows have gone with the existentialist angle (True Detective, BoJack Horseman) and done it far better. Well, season one of True Detective, at least. Season two was a mess.

I don\'t get your point at all, it sounds like you\'re just replying to say something. So I\'ll repeat myself \"It\'s one thing to not like the message/point/joke or that it would be better if it was different, it\'s another to say you were duped into expecting said different.\"

A few episodes in, the series does seem to be going in a direction. Jerry\'s gone, Beth and Rick are in deep denial about their problems, Morty is bored by Rick\'s constant nihilism and \"I\'m right, everyone\'s wrong\" attitude to everything. So far in the show Rick has been an asshole with an occasional humanity, and I think we are going to be shown how that isn\'t enough, but I also think the real development isn\'t going to be something anywhere near as abrupt as him spending an entire season in jail, trying to be a better person.

Also, all the stuff in Rick\'s \"fictional\" backstory looks weirdly specific and will probably come back; it wouldn\'t surprise me if it was literally himself who murdered his own family in reality, on realising it was the only way to make himself turn into something \"special\".