WiC Watches: Rick and Morty season 4

Season 4, Episode 9: “Childrick of Mort”

Most of season 4 has focused on the show’s titular duo, with the family sitcom aspect of Rick and Morty being mostly MIA. “Childrick of Mort” brings the gang back together for a spring break camping adventure that Morty and Summer couldn’t care less about. Jerry declares their trip be a sci-fi-free endeavor, but with Rick along for the ride, that policy gets tossed aside when he receives a call from a woman claiming she’s pregnant with the mad scientist’s offspring. Beth, not wanting her half-siblings to be abandoned by their father like she was, forces her dad to step up, bringing the family along to ensure he does the right thing.

Once again, Rick surprises everyone when he reveals that he somehow impregnated a planet named Gaia, which is continually spewing out thousands of offspring only to have them fall to their deaths immediately after creation. Beth forces Rick to help, so he constructs a building that will filter the offspring into different roles within society, like athletes, lawyers, astronomers and the unproductive.

Meanwhile, Jerry forces Morty and Summer to go camping. It doesn’t take long for the group to splinter; Jerry becomes king of the unproductive offspring while Summer and Morty find a crashed spaceship, hoping it’s their ticket out of this bore.

Once Beth and Rick build the offspring a massive city, it’s revealed that Rick isn’t actually the father. Rather, it’s a godlike deadbeat dad. Rick and God fight in space while the unproductives, led by Jerry, fight Beth and the productive offspring. The ordeal is brought to a halt when a spaceship crashes in the back of God’s head, killing him instantly. Morty and Summer get so high they couldn’t work out what they thought were video game controls for the interstellar vessel. Gaia becomes furious Rick killed her slam piece and Pompei’s most of her children. The Smith family escapes, and it’s probably safe to say Rick will use protection next time he engages in interplanetary coitus.

The funniest part of the episodes are the strategies Rick uses to develop a self-sufficient society. These gut-busting measures include pairing the athletes with the introverts so they get bullied enough to become astronomers, raising the amount of incest porn for therapists, and diverting lawyers away from the ethics tube. Its the attention to detail that makes this show so good.

If you ask me, the best adventures in the series focus on Rick and Morty, but the episodes involving the family make for some nice variety. Occasionally Morty will have to team up with his sister, and Beth eventually gets the father-daughter time she was deprived of as a child. Even the occasional Jerry episode helps keep things fresh. “Childrik of Mort” does a great job of weaving these secondary threads together.

The way this show utilizes the post-credit scenes puts the MCU and Westworld to shame, answering questions rather than posing them. Many were probably wondering just how Rick hooked up with a planet. It turns out he saw an add for lonely celestial bodies. While he may be a super genius, the man is still human.

Overall, “Childrick of Mort” continues to solidify season 4 as the best so far. While it’s not a game-changer, it’s a well-crafted entry with a lot of rewatch value.