Warning: This overview incorporates full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 9, Episode 10!
I would not fairly go as far as to say that Rick and Morty Season 9 saved its greatest episode for final. “Ricks Days, Seven Nights” is fairly laborious to prime. But “Field of Dreams” remains to be undoubtedly a detailed second, and for most of the identical causes. This episode caps off the season with a really profitable mix of high-concept humor and crushing existential drama.
This week, we get launched to the idea of a Rick property sale, the place Rick’s (Ian Cardoni) demise leads his multiversal counterparts to swoop in and declare his stuff like opportunistic vultures. It’s at all times enjoyable seeing alternate variations of Rick and Morty (Harry Belden), particularly now on this post-Citadel period. But finally, the entire property sale factor is only a means to an finish for the true meat of this episode, which is Morty’s determination to go funeral-hopping.
It’s each an amusing and disturbing idea. You can perceive why Morty can be inquisitive about how these varied alternate households are grappling along with his demise, and how rapidly he turns into hooked on the voyeuristic thrill of all of it. And as soon as he is inevitably caught within the act, you may even see why he would develop hooked up to a household that really exhibits him love and appreciation. Even if the entire thing is extremely poisonous and harmful for all concerned.
And that is why this episode works so effectively. Morty’s seemingly benign thirst for affection turns into a weight that drags everybody down into darkness. This alternate Jerry (Chris Parnell), already a borderline abusive dad or mum beneath the nice facade, loses his grip on actuality when confronted with the prospect of reclaiming his son. Rick morphs from recovering addict with a satisfying house life to a mirror picture of the drunken, spiralling mess we have come to know so effectively. The Russian janitor turns into a canine with an impossibly lengthy neck. Everyone loses right here.
There’s an actual however very grim attraction in watching as Rick quickly throws all of it away, much less out of a want to assist Morty than the attract of turning into the person he may need been all these years in the past. Along the best way, this episode makes sparing however efficient use of Malin Ackerman’s character, one other reminder of what Rick is throwing away in his reckless pursuit of science. The finale hits on among the identical concepts as “Ricks Days, Seven Nights” by way of Rick escaping the vacancy of his life, solely to fall utterly again into that function, but it surely’s accomplished in a different way sufficient that it nonetheless feels novel right here.
Special credit score goes to Parnell right here. One of the neat issues about Jerry on the subject of these alternate universe episodes is that the assorted variations of him really feel distinct in a manner that is not actually the case for the remainder of the Smith household. Part of that’s all the way down to the writing, in fact, however do not low cost Parnell’s efficiency when he performs characters like this Jerry or the late Jerry Prime. It’s such a far cry from the standard unhappy sack model of the character, which we actually see in these couple of scenes with common Jerry singing about his silly fedora.
Episode 10 reaches a fittingly bleak finish, ensuing within the deaths of Rick, Jerry, and everybody else in Morty’s false household. None of it mattered. Rick’s whole quest to construct a portal gun was an enormous failure. But, hey, it is okay. Another Rick property sale means Morty has a straightforward ticket house. So it’s that the season wraps with a correct dose of existential angst, however this time coming from Morty reasonably than his grandfather.
