Summary
- Rick and Morty season 7 is shaping up to be the show's worst year, with underwhelming episodes that lack originality and strong writing.
- The repetitive storytelling, like the body-swap premise in "The Jerrick Trap," shows that the show might be past its prime and unable to reclaim its former glory.
- The lack of focus on the core dynamic between Rick and Morty is disappointing, and the new voices for the title characters lack the improvisational energy of the original.
With its underwhelming second episode, “The Jerrick Trap,” Rick and Morty season 7 is shaping up to be the show’s worst year. Season 4 is arguably the most hit-and-miss season to date, but season 7 is miss-and-miss so far. “The Jerrick Trap” starts off with an interesting premise: to prove to Jerry that he’s not wasting his brainpower, Rick switches minds with his son-in-law. That setup had a lot of potential, but it just paved the way for another unfocused script that plods its way to the end credits with no real twists or catharsis.
Last week’s premiere episode, “How Poopy Got His Poop Back,” got season 7 off to a disappointing start – not because the lead roles have been recast (following disturbing allegations against the series’ co-creator and former star, Justin Roiland), but because the writing is nowhere near as sharp as it used to be. Rick and Morty earned a reputation as one of the greatest shows on the air because of its ability to sneak in a touching emotional arc alongside a mind-bending, fiercely original sci-fi storyline, with plenty of humor along the way. Season 7 is falling far short of that reputation with generic, razor-thin plots that could be taken from any sitcom, like an intervention gone awry. Both the first and second installments of season 7 have no B-story, and the A-stories haven’t been strong enough to carry a whole episode.
Rick and Morty Season 6 Ending, Explained
The Rick and Morty season 6 finale featured some important reveals and teased an interesting future for the next season.
The Freaky Friday body-swap premise of “The Jerrick Trap” is something Rick and Morty has never done before (except for when Rick switched bodies a dozen times to break out of space prison in season 3), but that premise just sets up a story that the show has told more than once before. After switching minds, Rick and Jerry hate each other more than ever, but they find some common ground and gradually warm to one another and become good friends. The exact same arc was seen in season 3’s “The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy” and season 5’s “Amortycan Grickfitti.” How many more times is this show going to tell the same Rick and Jerry story? Repeating familiar storylines is an ominous sign that a TV show is past its prime and will never reclaim its former glory.
The core of the series – and the key to its success – is the titular dynamic. But, two episodes into season 7, Rick and Morty have barely shared the screen. They exchange a couple of lines of dialogue towards the end of the episode (which, hopefully, is a sign that next week’s episode will get back to classic Rick and Morty adventures), but the first episode was about Rick and his friends and this one is about Rick and Jerry. It’s more like Rick and Everyone Else than Rick and Morty.
The new voices of the title characters – Ian Cardoni as Rick and Harry Belden as Morty – were somewhat distracting in last week’s episode, because they sounded a little off. But it’s slightly less distracting this week, because the soundalikes are starting to settle into their roles and their voices are starting to sound natural. Cardoni’s Rick still doesn’t sound quite right (and probably never will), but Belden’s Morty is practically indistinguishable from the original. Firing Roiland was the right move after everything that came to light about his personal life, but the new Rick and Morty lack the improvisational energy that Roiland brought to the characters.
As for the rest of the voice cast, Spencer Grammer and Sarah Chalke are once again given very little to do as Summer and Beth, respectively. Previous seasons did a great job of getting the rest of the Smiths on equal footing with the eponymous duo, but these past two episodes have sidelined Summer and Beth. The decision to promote the Smiths’ neighbor Gene to the main cast is a baffling one, because he’s never been a particularly memorable character (there’s nothing that separates him from the dorky neighbors seen in countless other sitcoms) and he’s already worn out his welcome after two episodes in the regular ensemble. The bright spot of this body-swap episode is Chris Parnell, who does a hilarious job of delivering aggressively profane Rick lines in his mild-mannered Jerry voice.
It’s in the nature of TV shows to go downhill sometime during their run, and Rick and Morty might have finally reached that stage. The second episode of season 7, much like the premiere episode, suffers from an undercooked script with a dearth of original ideas. There’s still time for season 7 to turn it around – some previous seasons have redeemed their weaker earlier episodes with stronger later episodes – but it’s been a let-down so far. Maybe Rick and Morty has just run its course. Maybe, when Adult Swim fired Roiland, they should’ve just ended the series altogether.
Rick and Morty
- Release Date
- December 2, 2013
- Network
- Adult Swim
- Showrunner
- Dan Harmon
- Directors
- Bryan Newton, Dominic Polcino, Anthony Chun, John Rice, Stephen Sandoval, Jeff Myers
- Writers
- Tom Kauffman, Wade Randolph, Eric Acosta, David Phillips, Erica Rosbe, Sarah Carbiener, Matt Roller, Michael Waldron, Caitie Delaney
- Franchise(s)
- Rick and Morty
Cast
-
Spencer GrammerSummer Smith (voice) -
Justin RoilandRick Sanchez / Morty Smith
WHERE TO WATCH
"The Jerrick Trap" - Rick and Jerry switch minds, Freaky Friday-style, and have to save Morty from space gangsters.