Rick and Morty: Season 2 Blu-ray Review
Back to the Futurama.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 10, 2016
It may be branded as Adult Swim, but Cartoon Network's late night (or at least
later at night) programming block frankly probably
appeals to those just a bit younger than true "adults", as least if evidence gleaned from my two teenaged sons counts. My 17 year old is an
Adult Swim fan and in
fact rather cogently described
Rick and Morty as
Futurama crossed
with
Back to the Future,
albeit in a more "over the top" (to quote my kid) manner that makes the show, in true Adult Swim fashion, NSFW (that's "not safe for work"
for those of you without teens around to explain acronyms for you).
Rick and Morty is consistently laugh out loud hilarious, at least
for those who don't mind scabrous dialogue that is not shy about dropping any number of versions of the f-bomb at a veritable moment's
notice. While the series mines some rather smart humor out of quasi-scientific data like time travel, parallel universes and the like, it finds
just
as much consistent comedic fodder in the tried and true standby of sitcoms from days of yore, namely the good, old dysfunctional family. Rick
is a hard drinking scientist who is an unlikely mentor to his grandkids Morty and Summer. Morty and Summer are the children of Rick's
daughter Beth, a somewhat frustrated cardiac surgeon for horses (talk about specificity in comedy!), who is married to Jerry, a somewhat
addled guy who never seems to
quite know what's really going on, in tried and true sitcom husband-father tradition.
For those wanting to catch up on the story thus far, or be introduced to it, Ken Brown's assessment of the series' first season can be found
here:
Rick and Morty: Season One Blu-ray
review.
The second season of
Rick and Morty picks up more or less right where the first season left off, at least if you consider six months
after
time has been frozen as an immediate follow up. Right off the bat, the simmering tensions between Morty and Summer are expertly detailed,
with older sister berating younger brother for not dusting their frozen parents correctly. There are a number of wonderful sight gags in store
even in this early sequence, especially with regard to one of the neighbors whose misadventures on his roof have been brought to a halt
due
to Rick's "scientific" pursuits. The sibling rivalry only gets worse in the early going of this second season, with the first episode cascading into
hilarity when the kids' arguing (and "uncertainty") leaves them "split" between an increasing number of alternate universes, each filled to the
brim with floating felines which Rick smartly realizes must be versions of Schrödinger's cat.
Already it should be obvious that as juvenile as many of
Rick and Morty's jokes often are, there's an appealing and at time
surprisingly literate (maybe even literary) intelligence at work in this show (and I don't say that simply due to the writing contributions of Tom
Kauffman, who is no relation, at least not in this universe). Every episode has great offerings of smart humor, often with some rather sly
references to other science fiction outings. One episode for example finds Marty playing a videogame of sorts where he experiences a man's
life in one sitting, in a conceit that may remind some of a certain episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5 (Morty's experience is considerably more
comical than Jean-Luc Picard's, it should be added).
But the refreshing thing about
Rick and Morty, and a proclivity this show does in fact share with
Futurama, is that the humor is
not just derived from the science fiction aspect. Actually some of the best moments come from more supposedly "mundane" interactions,
especially those between Beth, who often feels underappreciated or at least misunderstood, and Jerry, a well meaning but often hapless
shlub who nonetheless seems to know how to at least occasionally encourage his wife. For all of this show's whimsy (and
Rick
and Morty is virtually the textbook definition of whimsical), the family dynamic feels strangely realistic and well formed.
That spills over to
the often contentious interchanges between the kids as well, with the bantering between the siblings seeming to be surprisingly honest
feeling a lot of the time despite the often bizarre context. Interestingly, then, Rick's kind of quasi-Doc Brown persona (albeit an often
pretty inebriated Doc) comes off as the most obviously and patently "cartoonish" (in both senses of the word) character in the show. That's
a pretty outlandish accomplishment, given some of the more outré offerings
Rick and Morty serve up, which include everything from
aliens fashioned after a certain bit of the male anatomy (see screenshot 5), or a new recurring character named Mr. Poopy Butthole (like I
said, the humor can be juvenile at times).
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