Main spoilers beneath for the most recent episode of Rick and Morty Season 7, so be warned if you happen to haven’t but watched!
Simply whenever you thought it was protected to to proceed making comparative references between Rick C-137 and Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab, Rick and Morty dove again into canon-heavy waters with “Unmortricken” and shockingly gave its most vengeful character the means and alternative to brutally take down his white(haired) whale, Rick Prime. Coupled with the return of Evil Morty, this midseason installment seemingly capped off one of many collection’ largest plotlines, drawing comparative strains between it and HBO hits Succession and The Wire.
Co-creator Dan Harmon and showrunner Scott Marder knew they had been dropping a doozy on followers already with this ep’s battle, and that the shock can be much more palpable in the midst of all the things, versus “Unmortricken” serving as a finale. (Grownup Swim’s president teased main canon dropping midseason, however I hadn’t anticipated this.) In that means, the episode’s timing was on the identical wavelength because the jaw-dropping fourth episode of Succession’s closing season, despite the fact that it was conceived and within the works forward of that ep’s airing on HBO. Right here’s how Marder defined it to Selection:
That episode would have been a collection finale on quite a lot of reveals, and I preferred that it was simply an episode in the midst of one in every of our seasons. We transfer at a extremely loopy tempo. . . . When Succession did it I used to be like, ‘Ah, rattling! Animation takes so lengthy!’
It needs to be a novel jab to a TV author’s mind when an concept they’ve finally ends up getting utilized by one other collection (or film) earlier than the author’s personal venture can. Not that anybody would have assumed Rick and Morty snipped its concepts from Succession, contemplating the Season 7 scripts all pre-date the prolonged animation course of and post-production duties. However seeing any one other collection pulling off a large story-flipping loss of life in the midst of its yearly cycle, a lot much less one that may be streamed with the identical Max subscription, positively deserves a “Rattling!” response, if not a stronger one.
A minimum of Rick and Morty can say it had the extra violent and wicked midseason loss of life, amirite?
Simply so all followers are clear: Rick Prime’s loss of life doesn’t suggest the present is coming to a halt anytime quickly, since there are nonetheless a number of seasons left to go in Grownup Swim’s large 7-season order. Plus, Evil Morty now has the Omega gadget that might feasibly kill off each character followers have grown to like and/or hate over the hears. (Or in Jerry’s case, a gross concoction of each emotions.)
Talking of Evil Morty, having him return in the identical episode as Rick Prime took this episode into blockbuster territory, even when the eyepatch-wearing foe quasi-teamed up with the protagonists as a substitute of serving as one other menace. However that was a part of the purpose, with Dan Harmon evaluating it to the layered social construction on the coronary heart of The Wire‘s extra harmful neighborhoods. In his phrases:
I assumed that was a terrific concept to lean into. It gave me vibes of The Wire — studying all through the primary season that there’s completely different flavors of unhealthy man, and then you definitely get that satisfaction of watching your favourite drug sellers towards the one which had completely confirmed himself to be a meritless sociopath. That concept of workforce ups the place it’s not as easy, as saccharine as, ‘I’ll placed on a white hat, you placed on a white hat. Let’s go after the man with black hat.’
In the long run, Evil Morty aided in Rick Prime’s demise, however with the remainder of humanity doubtlessly paying the associated fee, now that the emotionally stunted villain has extra energy than ever. Count on that energy to loom massive once more in, say, 9 or 10 episodes.
Will “Unrickmorten” enter into the annals of the most effective Rick and Morty episodes? That somber ending alone makes me assume it is going to, and remembering Rick Prime getting the snot beat out of him solely bolsters that confidence. However now let’s examine how Rick handles himself within the extra standalone episodes, realizing that his arch nemesis has been eradicated.
