Rick and Morty has concluded another season. Adult Swim’s flagship show has had some ups and downs, for sure (I’m thinking of you Easter Bunny Jerry episode), but could it at least finish strong?
Episode 9 revisited the Gazorpazorp episode and Morty’s long-forgotten son, Morty Jr. Side note: it’s really gross that this young teenager has canonically two children: one alien hybrid and one giant special baby (IYKYK). The finale takes a more serious tone, showing us Rick’s desire to become healthier and more emotionally open with his family. Yeah, he does it in a f*@ked up way, but that’s Rick Sanchez for you.
I’m gonna be real with you, I’ve struggled with this season. Not because there’s been a shift in tone or anything, but because I might just be tired of their chaotic formula. I’ve never prioritised other shows over the Smith family before, and this year I have felt a little disillusioned. Could these final two episodes make me want to return to the series next year (I’m assuming)? Let’s find out.
Out of the blue, Morty (Harry Belden) receives a phone call from the hospital. It’s his alien hybrid son, Morty Jr. You remember the one? When Morty impregnated a sex-bot and it turned out to be like an IVF thing for Gazorpazorp? That one. F*@k that guy. He wrote a book that basically trashed Morty for being an abusive piece of crap. Anyway, Morty goes to see his son at the hospital, who wants to make peace with his mother, the aforementioned sexbot, before he goes to the beyond. Morty says OK, but she’s not in a very nice place…
Meanwhile, Rick (Ian Cardoni) and Summer (Spencer Grammer) go to this Precog restaurant (precognitive chefs predict what you want to eat), and Rick is dubious. That all changes when he is brought some tasty scran. However, Summer is served some basic b*tch avocado toast and she’s not happy! She confronts the chefs, they pull some annoying finishing people’s sentences shenanigans, and then Summer hits one of them with a frying pan. DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING!!! The police are on their way, though, so Rick and Summer take the Precogs and escape.
Morty and Jr. take a trip to the place where Rick portals his garbage. There’s a lot of stuff there, valuable or not. In fact, it takes a lot to keep control of, so Rick has built a genuine tower and eye of Sauron-like thing and created drones to keep everything in check. The drones determine it’s better to categorise everything as garbage rather than bother Rick, so they try to kill Morty and Jr. That just leads the Smiths to an underground trash village called Gartopia, where Morty Jr’s failed fantasy novels are truly appreciated.
Rick and the Precogs are hanging out in a pool and Summer is complaining, still annoyed that they gave her avocado toast. Banter, banter, banter, leading to Summer drugging Rick and kidnapping the Precogs. A wacky car chase with tons of destruction and screaming ensues, culminating in Summer crashing her getaway van but swerving it LIKE A GLOVE into an empty parking space. The Precogs open a street food truck right there and then. It was their plan all along to get out of the high-stress restaurant game. They then reveal that Summer actually wanted a hot dog, which is better than avocado toast?!!
In Gartopia, father and son pay their respects at the sexbot’s grave. SURPRISE! Garbage Frankenstein stabs Jr. and kidnaps Morty to try to leave the dimension. It doesn’t work because Rick AI assumes it’s a trick, and the Sauron bots kill the Frankenbot and follow Morty back to Gartopia. The Smith family (including Jr., who survived) lead a trash rebellion and topple the Sauron tower, powering down the drones. Morty Jr. reveals that he only contacted his father for inspiration for a sequel to his hit novel, which is fair. In fact, he wrote his follow-up, and it’s a top seller.
In the post-credits scene, the Precogs are serving hot dogs in Gartopia. Devil’s Advocate-bot tells them he doesn’t think it’s what he wants, and one of the Cogs tells him he’ll die from a heart attack to spite him.
Rick is in bed with BugAnne (Kari Wahlgren), his new alien girlfriend. She wants to take the relationship to the next level – nothing huge, simply meeting her parents. Rick is reluctant, and she knows why. He can’t get over his dead wife, Diane. At home, Beth and Space Beth (both Sarah Chalke) tell their father that he needs to move on and be happy. But Jerry (Chris Parnell) interjects, sticking up for his father-in-law. That. Is. Weird.
Rick takes a look in Jerry’s head and finds Memory Rick, the nice, loving one that was inside of Birdperson’s head a couple of seasons back. He’s been sequestered in Jerry’s mind for a while, altering his memories. Using a modified mind-blower device, Rick removes Memory Rick and inserts him into a lab-grown brain for safekeeping. But that gives him an idea. In a locked room in one of his lab sub-basements, he drunkenly removes a memory of Diane, attempting to help himself move on. When he awakens from his booze induced coma, he calls BugAnne and accepts her offer to be a plus one at her family event.
However, it’s not as simple as that. You see, somehow Memory Rick enters Beth’s brain after he MacGyver’s something together. He rummages through her memories until he finds a younger version of herself to incept the idea of saving Diane from the sub-basement because “this is how we stay a family.” A bunch of memories of her younger self are trained by Memory Rick to become a freaking badass. IRL, Beth discovers which sub-basement level the Diane brain is locked away in by asking a gullible Summer.
At BugAnne’s family event, Rick is making a good impression… until he suggests that he and BugAnne are knocking boots outside the confines of MARRIAGE! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN! That means a death duel with BA’s ex, Jak-Pu, who is really dumb. Rick argues with BugAnne during the fight, confessing that he removed Diane from his brain, which Jak-pu tells him isn’t really the way to move on. Rick becomes annoyed, so bugs (hehe) out.
Beth finds the Diane brain and Memory Rick enters to retrieve her. Once rescued, Diane mistakenly finds a memory Beth and tells her she’s a memory, which is a BIG mistake. Memory Beth wakes all of the other versions of Memory Beth. In the real world, Space Beth interrupts Beth, but she can’t overpower her seemingly weaker version. In fact, Beth snaps Space Beth’s neck. She dead! This causes Beth to start to crash out.
Beth jumps in the car and flees the scene, her head full of awakened memories. Rick returns home to find Space Beth dead, but actually not because she’s a very enhanced superhuman. With a bit of care, Rick revives her and they both chase after Beth. Memory Diane and Rick are chased by Memory Beths into the near present and they travel with her in the car as it barrels towards the edge of a cliff. Beth, thinking she’d ACTUALLY killed Space Beth, is contemplating the worst. But Rick manages to stop her.
He sincerely apologises for how he wasn’t around to be a good father when she needed him the most… and then sticks her with a syringe. Rick uses the mind-blower device to remove her recent memories and tells everyone he has taken care of Memory Rick once and for all. In reality, he had created a new lab-grown brain that Memory Rick and Diane could live in for the rest of their memory lives in the depths of space. Awwwwwww.
In the post-credits scene, Mr. Poopybutthole is being studied. His wife, Amy, thinks he’s not HER Mr. Poopybuthole, and the scientists agree. Finally! Someone believed her.
We’re at the end of Rick and Morty Season 8. It’s all over; done. Finito. We now have to wait another eternity for Season 9. Let’s take a temperature check following the end of this block of ten episodes.
My thoughts have been all over the place this season. I definitely haven’t vibed with the more out-there, chaotic and absurd episodes. The Easter Bunny, James Gunn and cryo-heist episodes were low points for me, but the more narrative-focused ones really kept me hooked. This last episode, which dove into Rick’s family life and Beth’s childhood, was pretty great. I loved it, and it’s not like they didn’t have some zany moments. I just think I might be over the complete nonsense installments now.
Every time I think I’m out, they keep pulling me back in. That’s how I feel about Rick and Morty right now. So close to noping out after the finale, I’m now 100% engaged again. When it wants to, this show has tons of heart. I would just like a bit more of it amongst the chaos.
What did you think of these two episodes? Are you still watching Rick and Morty? Can we all agree that Morty is a trash parent? And, who is Mr. Poopybutthole really?!
