Rick and Morty Season 4 review.
I am a bit late to the Rick and Morty craze. I’m not sure why I actively avoided the show for years, but I would basically always fick past it when looking for something to watch. Then I caught the first one on E4 over the summer and was instantly hooked. This inevitably led to binge watching the first three series over a long weekend. I waited for series four like every other anxious fanboy, and came to the conclusion that R&M is probably the best comedy show on TV at the moment. It is a work of stunning brilliance.
Why is it so good?
Well, I think the metafictional easter eggs galore is one definite attraction for me. There are pop culture references, running alongside nihlist and absurdist philosophy, wrapped up into a scifi multidimensional anti-heroquest with edgy innovative comedy and animation. The situation is the characters and the characters grow throughout the series, in stark contrast to usual animations like The Simpsons or Family Guy (both of which I love). There are of course elements of some of my favourite programmes: Dr Who, Red Dwarf, Back to the Future and almost every scifi show since the 1970s (sadly no Blake 7 that I have noticed so far.)
The basic premise started as an animated parody of Back to the Future that Adult Swim developed into a full blown series. Rick, the undeniably most intelligent man in the multiverse, is a drunken arsehole and lives with his daughter Beth and her family – hapless husband Gerry, eldest daughter Summer, and youngest son, the witless, willing and generally likable Morty. Rick takes Morty with him on his adventures around the multiverse whilst the family negotiate the consequences. And there are consequences; the show does not reset every episode. People die; there are plot arcs, fantastically convoluted on occasion, but the show doesn’t collapse under a weight of continuity contradictions. It is absolutely fabulous writing by the team led by Justin Rollaind and Dan Harmon.
Sadly the fanbase does have a rather toxic reputation, something the writers and showrunners are at pains to distance themselves from. Such an innovative and clever, but also self deprecating, show deserves better than dipping sauce riots and online dogpiling.
Season 4 is currently showing on Channel 4 and available to stream, and I heartily recommend it, just avoid some of the fans.
The Last Roundhead is available for FREE with your Audible trial
