Rick and Morty s changing. Kind of. Let me explain. Season six is a little over halfway
done now, and the hit-rate has been staggering. Every episode so far s been pretty good, and
some have been great. That s a level of consistency that I don t think we ve seen for years. I
say this as a guy who really loves some more recent episodes, like the Story Train, or
Mr Nimbus, but since maybe season 3, and definitely since season 4? Well, there s been a lot of
good, but there s also been a lot of not good. With season 6, though, it really feels like
something s shifted. I ve seen a lot of people saying it feels like a return to form , and
I think that s true but not just in terms of quality. No, I think that the first half
of this sixth season finds Rick and Morty actually tweaking the trajectory of the show,
re-aligning it s storytelling, particularly the role Rick plays in a given episode, to
a direction typical of the show s earlier seasons. And in this video, we re going to
explore how that s being done, and why it s being done now.
Boiled down to its most basic form, my take is this: in season 6, Rick has less control.
Rick has less power. Rick doesn t always have the answers. Generally, Rick s been humbled.
I think this is a deliberate choice from the writers room, I think it s visible as a general
trend across most of this new material, and I think the result of this trend, broadly,
is a re-invigorated Rick and Morty. Time and time again, in this sixth season, Rick s thrown
into situations he doesn t have a handle on, or situations where his expertise, intelligence,
and stature aren t, just, guaranteed win conditions. The night people revolution. The Fortune 500
conspiracy. The Dinosaur Theomachy. The Roy world, which we ll return to later. Rick s
discovering these problems as we do, and scrambling for answers alongside us. And we don t necessarily
see this pattern in every episode Bethsic Twisinct, for instance, is much more focused
on the show s non-Rick characters, and even though Rick messes up with the whole portal
reset thing in episode 1, he s not exactly thrown for a loop by it - but we do see this
dynamic more than we have in years. Now my take isn t as simple as a humbler Rick,
a rick with less power, less control of the situation, makes for a better episode . That
s not what I m saying. Two of my favourite episodes from season 4, the Vat of Acid episode,
and the heist one sorry, one crew over the crewcoo s morty cast Rick as the puppetmaster
extraordinaire. In
both of these cases, Rick s total control of the situation was a big reveal, a revelation
which flipped the stories on their heads, so they re not exactly standard examples,
but they do go to show that, in certain stories, this character can work really well when placed
firmly in the drivers seat. And there are plenty of episodes I like where Rick s just
kind of straightforwardly powerful and in control, without it being some big twist.
But it is a dynamic which gets old kinda quick and one that really wasn t there from the
start. And, sure. That s the pilot. Early instalment weirdness, and all that. But it
didn t go away after then, not for a good while. A lot of season one saw Rick just making
plans up as he went along. Things tend to work out for him, sure, but there s chaos,
and uncertainty here. Rick and Morty are underdogs, in nuts situations, faced by unknown threats,
and most of the time they just about eke out the W by virtue of Rick s quick wits. But
he s wrong, a lot. Some of the show s best episodes rely on Rick s ignorance and fallibility.
Total Rickall springs to mind the whole parasite mess was caused by Rick s negligence, and
the situation worsens in the rapid and entertaining way that it does due in large part to Rick
s errors, not merely those of his family. He only stumbles inadvertently into the solution.
Look at Rick Potion Number 9, practically an entire episode dedicated to showcasing
that, sometimes? Rick s science was a sloppy mess, with utterly disastrous consequences.
Or, look at The Ricks Must Be Crazy where he gets himself and his grandkids into a big
ol jam because while he d created a microverse battery he hadn t accounted for the possibility
of that microverse creating it s own battery. The first citadel episode in season 1 sees
our hero taken completely aback by the interdimensional conspiracy targeting him. He s on the lam
for the whole episode, until he just about clears his name but even in doing so, he gets
captured, and misses the real villain. And also? He does all this without the blas detachment
which characterised Season 5 Rick s response to a similar situation. I could go on, for
a while, but I think you get my point. Make no mistake, this more out-of-control
character is the original Rick the character originated, after all, as a copyright-safe,
adult spin on Back to the Future s Doc Brown, who, like season 1 Sanchez, was a great mind,
an adventurous one, but wasn t totally knowledgeable, or totally capable, and who rarely had his
shit together to use the show s parlance. Like the Rick of the first few episodes, Doc
Brown mostly operated on the back foot. But that s kind of where the fun lay seeing that
mad, demented, brilliant mind facing these crazy situations, and figuring out a resolution.
It s hard, victory isn t served on a silver platter it s fought for, won. And yeah, I
m well aware that the origins of Rick Sanchez, in that Doc and Mharti project were less than
serious.. but I think it s plain to see that at the beginning of Rick and Morty proper,
this Doc Brown derived dynamic was a foundation the show built upon. As Rick and Morty grew,
as it continued carving out its own identity, this dynamic would evolve into something less
straightforward Rick grew more and more powerful, prepared, knowledgeable, and unflappable - until,
sometime around the third season, and definitely by the fourth he sort of had an answer for
everything. With this Rick, new, ostensibly unknown surroundings
or situations kind of ceased to pose any threat. When he found himself in unfamiliar situations,
even totally alien ones, which would seem to throw a wrench in his normal process of
problem solving, he was never on the back foot for long, at all. Bump into a race of
subterranean horse people, for instance? No worries, Rick s already intimately familiar
with them. Take Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim s Morty (Jesus guys, you re killing
me with these titles). In that episode, Rick a man for whom science and logic are the ultimate
truth, gets thrown into a world where magic is real, and where science doesn t seem to
work. You might think this d be a problem for him, but it isn t, really. He just sciences
the magic, in like a couple of minutes. Or, previously? It was possible Rick would get
physically threatened or overpowered. Not any more though! He s, just, like a nigh-unkillable
cyborg with a level of robotic augmentation that d make Adam Jensen jealous. Even placed
in the form of an entirely inert vegetable, he s able to go from pickle to John Wickle
in, what, a couple of hours? He became almost Godlike. Look, I m not going to dwell on this,
because I m pretty sure others have, but while plenty of episodes found ways to make this
new dynamic interesting some didn t. And again if you want to hear more about that, how the
show s middle years may have been harmed in some ways by this, Rick s quasi-divinity,
I get the impression there s plenty of video essays tackling precisely that but I don t
wanna get bogged down in the details, I wanna flip back to season 6, and take a look at
how the show tweaked this. Because in many ways, Rick still is this near-godly
figure. He s still got that instant arsenal of total destruction, he s still able to accomplish
pretty much anything the story demands, and it s rare to see anything properly faze him.
But in some ways he isn t this god anymore or, at least, the Rick and Morty team have
been emphasising this aspect of his character less and less. With the Night Family, Rick
can t just solve that problem. It s Jerry s more human side that gives the smiths an
out, and it s pretty much a whole day family effort to escape the Night Family s clutches.
And sure, even that doesn t totally pay off, but when the Night People leave for good,
it isn t just because Rick made them. They were a threat which posed a real problem to
him, and ergo, to the rest of our cast one he couldn t just zap away, one his scientific
and interstellar problem-solving skills couldn t just shut down. Similarly, while Rick s
not powerless in the face of the glitched-out Roy game, while he makes a plan to save Morty,
and while his knowledge and logic are helpful here, this is a new situation for him - and
he isn t able to just make it his bitch in a couple of minutes, like he did in Dragon
Episode Fantasy Land, or with the Snake Time Travel stuff. No, even when he eventually
gets a handle on this new reality, he messes it up. Rick fails horribly, because of his
own inadequacies. Through his inability to tell these shards of his grandson that he
loves him or them, I guess, Rick ruins the rescue op, and ends up leaving behind way
more of Morty s psyche than he could have done. I want to linger on this moment for
a little longer though, because I think we can make a pretty telling comparison to the
Rick of season 3, particularly the Rick we see in that season s finale. Because both
of these episodes have Rick sort of emotionally damage a family member, in a way that kinda
messes things up for him, but I think there s an important distinction in how these happen.
Season 3, Episode 10, the Rickchurian Mortydate, sees Sanchez trying to get one over on the
President. It s an ego thing, but in trying to win their Pickle-Rick measuring contest,
we see Rick go full OP. This is Rick the God. Any sort of nonsense he can dream of, he can
make. He can even, just, instantly smite his foes. But that episode ends with none of that
mattering because by virtue of being preoccupied with this ego-stroking, in this episode and
just generally, Rick hadn t noticed the family catastrophe he d inadvertently created with
the whole Beth cloning stuff. The point here seems to be sure, Rick can be a god, can do
anything, can invent anything, can stand up to anyone but in doing so, in placing his
focus on this aspect of this existence, on trying to climb a couple of rungs higher on
that metaphysical ladder, he s made himself oblivious to what actually matters, and only
when it s nearly too late does he even realise this. When he finally sees this, the whole
ego-stroking, President-dunking project of artificial divinity comes crashing down. It's
a similar deal a few episodes earlier, in Pickle Rick. Rick spends that episode trying
to assert control onto the universe, instead of going to family therapy. It works but unbeknownst
to him, this avoidance only makes his family s emotional issues worse. Surprise surprise,
that does eventually come back to bite him. Now in both these cases, you could argue that
Rick is aware, on some level, that by chasing this personal actualisation, he s ignoring
important family issues. But I think it s fair to say that Season 3 Rick exacerbates
these emotional problems, makes his family unhappy because he s choosing to be this scientific
ubermensch first and foremost. It's his perhaps faulty process of prioritisation that leads
to these issues cropping up and him not noticing them in time. When he finally does have to
contend with this family drama, it s made more painful and tricky for him because he
d put this other side of himself first, but when he finally gets his priorities in order
and wades into the mess, he doesn t fail completely. Maybe he takes an L or two as these conflicts
are resolved, but they are resolved. The idea season 3 seems to be exploring here then is
that yes, maybe Rick can be a god of sorts but pursuing that path means neglecting the
one thing that might be more important to him, deep down his family. He can commit himself
to this godhood, or he can commit himself to his family, but he can t do both, not fully
I think that s the central tension here. But that isn t the case in season 6.
It isn t like the Rickchurian Mortydate, in that Rick s prioritisation led to him missing
a problem until it was too late. It isn t that he s Ricking around, and the big ego,
all that quasi-divinity has meant he s lost track of his familial bonds. No, this is a
far more direct failing with none of these caveats or ambiguities. When asked, point-blank,
to express love, he cannot do it. There s none of that god-versus-man tension we perhaps
saw in season 3. No, he went into this machine for the sole purpose of rescuing Morty, and
yet he can t say he loves the kid. This naked failing then leads to the rest of the episode
s conflict, and the mixed bag of an ending we saw. Rick didn t even succeed here, not
fully. Like the Night People episode, this is a situation Rick s stumbled into that isn
t immediately known to him, that poses genuine problems. And seeing him struggle, seeing
him on the back foot? That makes for a good viewing experience. Even later in the season,
when we do see a more OP Rick, perhaps closer to the unstoppable know-it-all we discussed
above, it s never a cakewalk for him. He never starts with all the knowledge, or all the
tools. Take the Fortune Cookie episode. Sure, he s got all manner of magic science doodas,
sure, he goes sicko mode on the panda express guys, or Ricko mode, I guess, sure when they
discover the Fate Alien he s able to figure out a way to get the W in the following shootup
but it s all a process, a journey, one we re on alongside Rick, and one which takes
the whole episode to play out. He doesn t know how it is that Jerry s fate has been
altered, or who s behind it. This has him kinda thrown. Again, he s on the back foot
here, for most of the episode. So, even though he s got all his lasers and gizmos, this feels
like classic Rick and Morty, in the best way. Similarly, the return of the Dinosaurs takes
Rick by surprise just as much as it does us, and while we get a decent-sized scoop of unthinkably-advanced
Rick this episode, it s counterbalanced by the similarly ascended Dinos. Rick s gotta
take Morty sleuthing across the universe to eventually get one over on these guys, and
even then the conflict takes a good deal more resolving.
And I m sure there s a few exceptions to the pattern I ve laid out here, either in season
6 or beforehand, but I m talking about trends here. The wider, more general way that this
show has understood Rick and Rick s role in a story across various points in its existence.
So, there s always going to be some exceptions, but I think most of you will agree that, by
and large, shifts like the ones I m describing have taken place. So what s with this one?
The way Season 6 seems to be reshuffling the deck, just a little? Well, I think it s worth
thinking back to where we left off last year the season 5 finale. Evil morty, the central
finite curve, all that good stuff. I ve noted this before in a video from back around the
time that finale aired but in a lot of ways that episode very consciously gestured toward
wiping the show s slate clean, revamping the setting, relaunching Rick and Morty in a sense.
New possibilities beyond the multiverse we d seen so far were placed on the table but
we ve not seen anything beyond the central finite curve so far, because Rick s portals
have been out of action. Until now, that is. Portals are back. Everything s on the table
now, for the rest of season 6, and the four or so more seasons thereafter. Why the delay,
though? Why the pause? Well given the shift in writing sensibility we ve seen throughout
season 6 so far, I wonder if the decision to have this little pod of episodes, this
cluster of relatively self-contained stories, is supposed to be a pit-stop of sorts, before
we really get going with the second half of Rick and Morty s 10 season run. Because in-universe?
The temporary removal of the portal gun isn t some nerf that s cut Rick back down to size,
not really. That hasn t really been a major factor in any of these episodes. No, I think
it s a symbolic gesture. It s more that Rick s place in the world, in the story, has been
altered, just a little, in these new episodes. He s faced some real issues, made some real
mistakes, and been made to really struggle again. This pod of episodes, the first half-and-a-bit
of season 6, has humbled Rick Sanchez. Not massively, but just enough that Rick and Morty
kind of seem like the underdogs again, in a crazy, chaotic cosmos. And I think that
s one of the reasons that season 6 has been received so well.
That s the Pillar of Garbage take, anyway! I d love to know how you felt about it! There
s more to it than we ve discussed here, of course for instance, what effect does cutting
Rick down to size have on the famed Harmon story circle at the centre of each episode
s narrative? I don t believe anyone else has answered that question yet, but I think it
s certainly an interesting one. That s something I could take a look at if this video does
well, I guess. Also, I m sorry if the audio sounds a bit off today, I ve recently moved
into a new place and I haven t quite figured out the acoustics properly. It s something
I m working on so hopefully it wont last forever. Make sure you give this video a big old like
before you go though, and thanks as always to my Patreon backers for supporting what
I do especially Jonathan Francis Bond, Kevin Douglas, Ian Fyfield, and Ztrangefolk. And
PS - if you ve ever thought about signing up to the channel Patreon, now s a good time:
there s a new exclusive video coming out over there in a few days. Cheers for watching,
though, and take care!