Rick & Meta Morty
After a long hiatus, Rick & Morty return in 2020 with a new batch of episodes to consume. With a consistent aesthetic and some wonderfully imaginative ideas, the duo return for another mind-bending episode, this time revolving around the idea of storytelling techniques and meta references. At times the episode does feel a little haphazard and random, but most of this plays into the core theme of the episode so it’s easily to look past. Episode 6 of Rick & Morty begins with a train full of creatures racing off in search of Rick Sanchez with one goal – to get their revenge. The females on-board all dated Rick too and they’re after him for their own reasons. It turns out Rick and Morty are onboard with disguises and after a few jokes about how this is an anthological episode, it turns out this whole 20 minute segment is an exercise in continuity and how to break it. After a slew of different scenarios involving Rick, Morty saves Rick through his own story involving scorpions and feminist power before they head back inside where a new antagonist called Storylord faces them. He’s determined to have them break the fifth wall and through a series of different jumps we see this almost come to fruition. With all hope lost and our pair surrounded by a whole slew of different characters from the past, Rick and Morty break character and get down on their knees and start praying. As they do, the train runs out of power and the familiar Rick & Morty creatures are replaced with wholesome characters like the Veggietales. As Rick and Morty call on Jesus Christ for help, Storylord is forced to spend eternity with him while our duo skip out and learn the train is actually a toy. As we cut out once again we see this whole thing has been a gift Morty bought at the store, which is where the episode ends. At times this episode is difficult to follow, with multiple threads and ideas running throughout. Instead of focusing on the humour, Rick & Morty instead leans in heavily on the meta references for an episode chock full of nods toward writing and tropes. From the Deus Ex Machina at the end to the Mary Sue persona projected on Summer in Morty’s own story, there’s a lot of interesting mechanics here that’s sure to have fans dissecting this one for a while. On the whole though, Rick & Morty certainly make the wait worth it, delivering a decent episode to kick this second half off with.
