WiC Watches: Rick and Morty season 4

Season 4, Episode 6: “Never Ricking Morty”

Rick and Morty find themselves aboard a Story Train, a literal story device for an anthology episode where all the passengers have their own story to tell about the man with the white coat, aka Rick Sanchez. As they make their way to the engine room, they encounter Story Lord, the mastermind behind their current predicament.

After giving them a swift beating, he attempts to drain them of their story potential to give his Story Train enough power to take them beyond the fifth wall. While seeing potential futures, Rick and Morty realize the only way out is to strand Story Lord in every writer’ Hell, the bible.

The big reveal is that the train is actually just a toy that Morty purchased at the Citadel of Rick’s gift shop filled with an assortment of characters and continuously changing narratives. When the train breaks, Rick chastises Morty about the importance of consumerism and goads him into going to buy another one.

The potential futures showcased throughout the episode, along with the assortment of cameo appearances by popular bit players like Mr. Poopybutthole, are by far the highlights of the entire ordeal. The epic battle featuring the return of Snowball, the mechanized smart dog from season 1, and Phoenix Person was a beautifully cruel tease as viewers were only given a mere taste of the brilliance we’ll probably never get to see in its entirety. Without a doubt, Summer and Tammy fighting with lightsabers is something fans would camp out all week to see.

But the absolute funniest part of it all was Morty’s feminist masterpiece that I think everyone can agree passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. And it definitely unveils the golden rule of storytelling that when in doubt, always go with attacking scorpions. It never fails.

While this wasn’t as good as either “Interdimensional Cable” or “Morty’s Mindblowers,” it’s still a terrific installment overall. The pleasantly meta episode does a great job of intertwining story tropes into the unique narrative, and it is extremely impressive how they continue to reinvent the notorious anthology episode every season with spectacular results.