Rick and Morty Season 8 rolls on like a Snake Jazz jam session. Never stop, never stopping!
The middle episodes of the season are tonally distinct from one another, and I have widely varying opinions on them. This time, we were blessed(?) with a standalone space heist crossed with Mickey 17 and a more family-orientated episode, complete with Space Beth, Gene and a guest-starring Danny DeVito.
Can you guess which one was my favorite? Well, wait until after my recaps to find out!
Rick (Ian Cardoni) and Morty (Harry Belden) are driving through space listening to podcasts when the car alerts them of a passing Cryo ship. They infiltrate to try to steal valuables while the occupants are asleep. However, when Rick gets frustrated by an impenetrable safe and decides to blow up the ship, Morty stops him. That, unfortunately, inadvertently awakens the sleeping population. That’s that, right? WRONG! RICK IS GETTING THAT HYPERCOAL, MORRRRRRRRRRRTY!
Disguising themselves in some cryopods whose occupants had expired, they awakened into two different economic classes. Rick becomes the “cryogenically deformed” young son of aristocrats, while Morty becomes a “Makey” (they make things). Makeys are controlled with behavior chips that zap them when they get out of line, but Morty tells people he removed his. And so births a rebellion. At Rick’s equivalent of a bar mitzvah, the Makeys attack the Takeys (the rich folk), giving Rick and Morty enough of a distraction to enter the safe…
…to find it empty.
Turns out, the people they’ve been impersonating stole the money and Hypercoal and are living it up on a space yacht. A Death Race sequence ensues with a bunch of folk crashing and exploding everywhere. One lucky racer who didn’t die was the owner of a monkey that had been killed by the thieves (more on him later). After killing a bunch of people, Rick makes it to the yacht and takes down the thieves, but Morty jettisons the cargo into space so nobody can have it. Hasn’t there been enough death already because of this money?
NOPE. The remaining citizens dive into space and murder even more of each other. In the end, the people salvage some of the money, pay off one of thieve’s debts with it, and enter back into cryosleep, ensuring all classes are fitted with behavioral chips. All’s well, that ends well.
Especially for the monkey dude. He found himself a new monkey and is making a fortune at the casinos!
This episode opens with parallels between Beth (Sarah Chalke) and Space Beth (also Sarah Chalke). They’re both bored and unhappy, one being called out to the horse hospital for an operation and the other on a run-of-the-mill bounty mission. *sigh*. After long nights at work, neither are down with Rick’s plan to go to Earth World, an unsafe, completely inaccurate theme park modelled on Earth. The Beths stay behind while Rick, Summer, Morty and Jerry go on their grand day out.
A couple of glasses of wine and a deep discussion about their happiness is all the fuel they need to do stupid sh*t. Space Beth has a machine that changes someone’s age. Beth goes first, and she de-ages to 10 years old, COMPLETELY FORGETTING 10-YEAR-OLD BETH HAS A PENCHANT FOR STABBING! SHE’S A GORRAM MANIAC! Space Beth also takes a turn, but when it’s time to transform back, young Space Beth traps Beth in the machine, too. Twin magic!
Meanwhile, at Earth World, it’s not as horrible as Rick remembered, in a bad way. Yeah, it’s commercialised (and a whole lot like Disney), but it’s not as awful as he wanted. Morty, a human in Earth World, is instantly picked up by an alien girl who only likes him because he’s human. There are also these weird celebrity caricature mascots with massive heads everywhere, like John Legend and Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. Disguising themselves as these mascots, Rick, Summer and Jerry go deeeep into the staff-only basement.
Back with the Beths: they’ve booby-trapped the treehouse and are getting bored. F*ck with Gene time! They zipline over to his house, and after an extremely funny interaction where Gene demonstrates he knows exactly what’s going on, the Beths go a-hunting. They slash his ankles and set fire to his house, causing Gene to call 911.
The rest of the Smith family free the original creator of Earth World, Dr. Dogballs (Danny DeVito), before Rick leaves to take care of the Beths and Gene problem. Jerry and Summer take a tour around the REAL Earth World, and then the Doc reveals himself to be a homicidal maniac who has engineered his massive-head mascots to kill everyone in the theme park. Death, death, destruction, destruction, and Earth World is decimated while Morty, Jerry and Summer escape.
Home stretch now, I promise.
Rick returns to Earth and saves Gene but is one-upped by his daughters, who age him up to over 300 years old! He’s so proud of his girls; they cry together and embrace. Finally, they reset their ages just as the rest of the family returns home in pain, Summer and Jerry still with huge heads.
In the post-credits scene, we listen to the various intercepted voicemails to 911 from Gene. My guy, 911 shouldn’t have a voicemail service!
I couldn’t have more opposing views of these two episodes. For the first time in a long time, I was actually bored watching an episode of Rick and Morty. Episode 5, the cryoship one, was kinda dull. I think it’s because we’ve seen similar heist and Death Race sequences before. The new stuff was the class war bits, which were just a bit meh. I couldn’t get into it at all.
In stark contrast, the Beths storyline was really good. I enjoyed the progression of the absentee father narrative, with Rick telling them that neither were his real daughter, but he was proud of both of them regardless. It was so powerful. The theme park stuff was fun, and the cameo from DeVito was enjoyable. And, Gene? Gene is becoming one of my favorite recurring characters in the show. He’s so normal, but he’s switched on to all of the bullshit!
The first six episodes have definitely been a mixed bag, but I’m confident this season will end strongly.
What did you think of these two episodes? Is Gene your new favorite character, too? And why is Beth so stab-happy?
