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Last week I opted not to do a review for episode six of Rick and Morty The Anime. Simply because I had nothing interesting to say on it. It was a typical episode of the series and I’ve exhausted my thoughts past the basic, “wow, this is boring and I wish it was more interesting!” Well, turns out, my wish was granted. This week’s episode is probably the “best” episode of the whole show thus far, but that still doesn’t mean it’s good.
The whole episode is following up the Elle-focused episode from last week, with Rick now fighting an entire army in order to try and save Space Beth. Amongst that whole mess, Morty manages to get on the ship and then stands around, watching everyone fight. I guess that suit he got is worthless because he does nothing during the battle except exist. He ends up getting killed, which I find to be dumb and more than that, a poor plot device. In the episode, they really want to sell you on the belief that Morty is dead and he isn’t coming back, but let’s be real here, it’s Morty. I’d like the idea if the dead character were anyone else, like Elle or maybe one of the other Smiths, but Morty being killed is so contrived it hurts. It’s a poor plot device and does nothing but just piss me off. I hate it when any piece of media that has the main character’s name in the title dies and by episode’s end, they find some convenient way to save them and undo their death. In this case, they decide to send Elle back in time to save Morty from dying. Outside of Morty’s bullshit death, the rest of the episode is mostly fine.
I like a lot of the ideas Rick and Morty The Anime tries to present, but the show just lacks focus, with scenes that bounce around from place to place, never feeling like it is able to settle on just one area to focusing on a single idea for that episode. It has a very scattered, almost “ADHD” feel to it, like talking with someone who can’t focus on a single topic and instead keeps jumping around from thought to thought, idea to idea, without ever managing to focus on the original point they wanted to make. The difference is that someone like that can’t help it, but a TV show is a crafted experience meant to tell a story and have compelling enough characters in it, something anyone who has read my reviews of previous episodes knows that I believe Rick and Morty The Anime fails miserably at. While this week’s episode is certainly my favorite of the bunch, it’s really because it managed to have the most interesting ideas presented so far, even with them bouncing around. I like the idea of them using time travel, not that I think they’ll do a good job executing on the rest of it, but at least it’s something I can grasp onto, which is more than I can say about most of this show.
Final Verdict
6/10
