Rick and Morty Review

The engine here is a refusal to repeat itself: an idea a lesser series would spend a season on gets eight minutes, and the discarded remainder is played as background detail. That density is the point, and it is why the best episodes work as structural jokes rather than plots. Total Rickall is a parasite story built entirely from flashbacks that cannot be trusted, and the Citadel episodes turn an infinite multiverse into municipal bureaucracy.

Underneath the invention sits an argument that Rick's genius is inseparable from his cruelty, and the writers have never let him off it; Beth and Jerry's marriage is treated with more seriousness than the format promises. Justin Roiland's dual performance carried the early seasons on improvised, overlapping stammering that made both leads sound like they were thinking in real time. The recast is audible, and the later seasons trade some anarchy for continuity, which the show itself keeps joking about. At its best it is simultaneously the funniest and the most pessimistic thing on television.