Rick and Morty season 5 retrospective: The Rick, The Mort, and The Jerry

Rick and Morty Season 5 has come to a close, meaning fans and casual viewers alike are free to judge how it stacks up to seasons past. What did it do and how did it do it, and did it do it well? Answering those questions is what I’m here to do, so let’s do it.

In terms of just judging the episodes on their own individual merits, no one can deny that season 5 had some wonderful moments. Episodes like “A Rickconvenient Mort” rank among the top for me because of their focus on emotion, as well as the concept of party-hopping between doomed planets. Another great high concept episode was “Mortyplicity,” where the Smith family fends off attacks from decoy Smith families, with the point of view shifting between different versions of the family as they die off, yet the plot as a whole continues to progress and get bigger in a way that’s easy to follow. Those two episodes got season 5 off to a great running start, though I’d be lying if I said I thought it held that momentum throughout.

Other episodes hit that above average mark, like “Thanksoloitation Spectacular” and “Mort Dinner Rick Andre,” which feature solid adventures and fun characters. However, not all the adventures reach that level. From what I’ve heard from other fans, “Rickdependence Spray” left a bad taste in people’s mouths (I can’t imagine why), and while I don’t think it’s the worst episode to date, I can sort of see where the naysayers are coming from. The plot ends up getting a little too silly, lowering the stakes.

Other episodes don’t go far enough, like “Amortycan Grickfitti,” which had a neat core idea but wasn’t that stimulating overall, and the repetitive humor didn’t help. And then there’s “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion,” which I just found boring conceptually. Seriously folks, Rick can build any mech he could ever want, and we’re supposed to buy that he’s interested in these Gotrons Ferrets? And don’t even get me started on “Rickmurai Jack”…

Rick and Morty season 5: High highs and low lows

All that said, rare is the season of television that is completely perfect (except maybe season 1 of Stranger Things, but that’s a topic for another day). From my perspective, Rick and Morty season 5 has more hits than misses.

That said, while some of these hits are dead on, some of the misses are very wide of the mark. It’s easy for me to look at the season as a whole and say its good overall because I watched it start to finish. But what if you used to watch Rick and Morty and thought to yourself one Sunday night, “What the hell, I’ve got nothing else to do?” and the first episode you watch is “Rickdependence Spray,” incest baby and all? Would you return next Sunday?

In the future, the show is going to have a hard time hanging on if it keeps shooting scattershot. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is a retrospective after all. Let’s focus on this season, not the sixth.

Morty grows as a character in Rick and Morty season 5

One notable thing about season 5 is the presence of grander arcs for the characters. This is most evident with Morty; many episodes featured him in the driver’s seat, going solo or taking charge, and in my opinion those were often the best stories the season had to offer. This is something that I hope the show continues, because coming-of-age stories are inherently interesting. We all know what it is like to grow from a wide-eyed kid to someone more experienced, more cynical, more rebellious, and more determined.

I think having Morty as a protagonist makes for better storytelling. Rick, we are often told by every other character, is God-like. He’s infallible, impossible to fool or defeat. And, for whatever reason, the writers make it worse every season. Rick started out occasionally having a useful tool tucked in his lab coat pocket, but now? Remember how Rick escapes being tied up by Evil Morty because his finger turned into a screwdriver? Things like this happen all the time. Weapons just somehow spring out of his very flesh. Episodes with Rick in the lead are like roller coaster rides; it’ll twist and turn and go loop-de-loop, but the seat beat’s firmly fastened and there is no real threat of falling. But Morty, while he is getting better at adventuring, can still be in danger, and his stories can have real stakes. I’m sure the writers recognize this problem, not only because of the focus on Morty this season, but also all their attempts to render Rick temporarily weak. (Uh oh, my weapons are gone because I was a turkey for too long.)

Power levels aside, I want to give some credit here and point out the show’s efforts to give Rick an arc as well. It definitely was not as pronounced as Morty’s, but it is there: he is attempting to right his wrongs more often, he’s addressing his past, and he even apologized to my main man Jerry…once. This is pretty interesting in its own right, and I see it continuing in the future. I could do without the meta-commentary humor about how much Rick hates his own arc, but whatever; Rick’s incessant fourth-wall-breaking seems here to stay.

As for the rest of the family, there really isn’t too much to say. Aside from the one or two episodes that put each Smith more into the foreground, the show seemed largely uninterested in developing them. Beth and Jerry, while still bickering now and then, seem to be on good terms. And Summer is still very much Summer. The only development with her is that she seems to be becoming more hedonistic, and that’s mostly seems for the sake of humor, so I don’t know how seriously I should take it. Hopefully season 6 will give the other Smith family members more to do, because there is room for them to grow. Maybe we can see Jerry’s attempts to get out of unemployment, Beth addressing her wine habit. Just spitballing here.

That’s all I’ve got for Rick and Morty season 5; despite the lows, the highs keep me interested in the show’s future. I’ve got my problems with how the finale was handled, but it does set up some major stuff. Are there even more dimensions to explore now that the Central Finite Curve is broken? Will Evil Morty return? And there’s other loose threads too, like Birdperson and his new child. Season 6 will be interesting to watch for sure, whenever it comes.

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