Rick and Morty is a bizarre, confusing, superbly twisted... something or other. Honestly, it's pretty hard to explain what Rick and Morty actually is. Coming from the creative mind of Dan Harmon, there are clear parallels with Community, the frankly amazing cult classic that made Harmon's name. Both do one thing, in particular, extremely well: taking a piece of pop-culture and dissecting it with laser focus. They also both play with their own genre's tropes, consistently break the fourth wall and generally take liberties with our pre-conceived notions of how TV should work.

It definitely wasn't love at first sight thought, so if you do decide to try out the internet phenomenon my one piece of advice would be: stick with it. The episodes are short and, as mentioned, rarely re-tread the same ground, so if one part leaves you a little cold then you're unlikely to come across it again. To be honest, I was very unimpressed by the pilot, which was full of bad puns, body horror animation (harking back to the 90's Cartoon Network – I hated it then, I hate it now) and childish 'adult' humour that felt like it was aiming at South Park but fell far short. I pushed on and the worst parts became less prevalent, whilst the characters and their interactions grew in interest. A couple of episodes really piqued my interest, with decent parodies of the likes of Jurassic Park, The Matrix and Inception, and these were topped off by consistently clever references and humour. By the end of the season I was happy to nod along and keep watching. Rick and Morty looks set to be well on the way to cult classic status, and possibly much more on top.

When I compared Rick and Morty to Community I noted that both shows are particularly intelligent in subverting the precise TV tropes you expect them to embrace. Season two provides a prime example of just that with its ending.

For two seasons, the show has slowly been building some relatively clever, but not massively complex, characters and interactions. Subplots are weaved in and out of each episode but largely they appear to exist as single, relatively unconnected snapshots; continuity is preserved, but you don't expect that to always be the case. As a viewer, you will likely have built up a fairly good idea of "what the show is". But, then the final episode of season two rolls around and tears down your assumptions like a rabid E. coli. You discover that all those little subplots were actually building to something pretty epic and the show uses them to pull off an emotional gut punch that launches out of nowhere. It briefly returns to what you would expect as the credits roll and a fourth wall breaking call back to an earlier episode appears. Except, rather than alleviating the darkness, it just reaffirms it and tells you, without exception, that there isn't anything more until season three. It masterfully keeps you hooked, thinking at any minute a punchline will surely drop and everything would be okay, but nothing ever arrives. It toys with you, with your emotions and with your sensibilities about what a TV show like Rick and Morty ought to do. And then it ends.

In other words, if I had any misgivings about my loyalty in season one, by the end of season two I have become a full-blown Fan! (note the capital "f"). There were still a couple of dud episodes (I'm really not sure why the inter-dimensional clip show had to come back for a second round, it was one of the worst ideas from season one) but these were spread thinly between some stunning ones. The screen-duplicating antics that took place in the opening episode, A Rickle Through Time, were some of the cleverest uses of animation and syncing I've seen, and both Auto Erotic Assimilation and Total Rickall provided clever and thought-provoking genre parodies. Overall, Rick and Morty has become one of the cleverest, most intelligent and genuinely intriguing shows I've watched in a while. Onwards to season three!

What. Just. Happened. Having praised Rick and Morty for the slow-build, background plot arcs that led to the season two finale, season three just explodes them all in a glorious ball of fire and revenge. It's beautiful. The entire opening episode is fantastic, with the whole mind-swapping angle really giving Rick a chance to think extremely quickly. I loved every second, including the Nathan Fillion cameo and the bizarre Szechuan sauce angle. I mean sure, why not 😂

If season two expanded a lot on Rick, Beth, and Jerry, then season three is gunning hard for Morty and Summer, as well as the ongoing impact Rick is having on everyone's lives. The Pickle Rick episode is a particularly strong one in terms of ridiculous action somehow complementing an otherwise slow-paced and personal character arc, but my favourite is the toxic-sludge clones episode. The entire setup had me hysterical, with both characters utterly distraught and the ridiculous adventure we never get to see, but the payoff with what it means for their relationship is brilliant.

I was a little confused by the Vindicators episode, so much so that I actually paused it and Googled around to see if I'd missed something. But no, it's just Rick and Morty doing their thing and fucking with the audience. Bravo sirs, bravo *slow clap*. I also infinitely preferred Morty's Mindblowers to more intergalactic cable – more of that please!

As for the finale... I think it's the weakest so far, but it had fun and wrapped up a few other plot threads. Personally, it pales in comparison with the earlier revelation that the Evilist Morty has taken over the Citadel and I do wonder why they didn't end on that note. Maybe they preferred to end on the character note this season, which I'd get. Still, the setup there for season four is great and has me pumped for more.

Honestly, this felt like the weakest start to a season yet. The first episode was a little too focused on meta-pandering (which had a subtle irony to it, at least; plus the after-credits punchline was genuinely funny) and the second just felt a little flat. The third was a least a little fun, but the heist gag wore thin and the big ending reveal felt a little forced. That's the kind of gag Rick & Morty would normally have set up for an entire season, rather than a single off-hand comment the episode before 🤷‍♂️

Still, shaky start aside, I thought the fantasy-spin dragon episode was great and the snakes-Terminator homage began to feel like prior-season quality; the Alien episode was excellent. Still, the show feels like it's lost a bit of zing. Based on the constant character meta-references, it seems like the previous season came under fire from some fans for being too story-focused and character-driven, but honestly, that was the evolution of the show that felt the most interesting to me. This forced return to wackiness at the cost of those deeper relationships feels a little shallow, and it only ever worked in the early seasons because the parodies, homages, and adventures were genuinely intelligent, creative, and subversive. Making dragons say slut a lot is none of those things; it's more Family Guy style edge-lord crassness...

Which is to say, even when season four embraces true trope subversion, it rarely feels like it hits those same high notes, and most of that is because the character's feel way too two-dimensional. Brief moments of insight (not just those wrapped up in deliberately fourth-wall-breaking commentary) hint at those lost depths, but they're few and far between. It's not helped by lazy subversion either, such as the tongue-in-cheek use of the Bechdel test as a weapon, which just comes across like a "man yells at cloud" moment rather than actually clever meta-commentary on society.

Oh, and whilst I mention that episode, though I'm still not a fan of Interdimensional Cable as a concept, this season's take was doubly boring. It kept trying to subvert itself and got so preoccupied with this weird, garbled narrative that the skits never had enough time to land punchlines, whilst the ending just felt forced. At least the OG concept was deliberately and narratively pointless; this just felt dumb.

That said, the season does get increasingly solid throughout. I've already mentioned the Aliens homage, but Summer's arc in that is a lot of fun. The follow-up episode with a save-game device is one of those really fun ideas with surprising levels of conceptual thought, and then the season finale finally gets back to the long-arc narrative style, revealing a bunch of stuff from the end of the previous season. I really like the way they dealt with clone Beth and how that ended up resolved, though I wish they'd made more use of Phoenix Person (again, this felt like a lot to squeeze into one episode and may have been better spaced out). Still, the ultimate end note is depressing and jarring and great. In many ways, it feels like they could just leave the show here, but I hope they don't. It deserves a better final season than this, and the spark clearly still exists. Here's hoping.

If season four was a massive over-correction, season five hit a much better balance. Sure, we're (largely) back to self-contained adventures, but the show is still happy to dip into canon and long-form story arcs when needed. More importantly, it doesn't shove the reversion to story-of-the-week down your throat – it just gets on and does it. The result is a number of highly entertaining, enjoyable episodes, with just enough character development and absurd plot twists to feel like Rick & Morty whilst remaining completely independent from most of the rest of the show. Particular highlights include demons using Jerry as a kind of sadism drug; the entire giant sperm/incest baby arc (even if the Voltron bit was a little weak); Morty falling in love with a Captain Planet rip-off who ends up (rightfully, but still horrifically) going a bit insane at how awful humans are); and the various ways that Rick's AIs are becoming increasingly sentient. Both the spaceship and garage get their own mini-arcs within episodes, and they're both great.

Other moments walk a fine line between being really enjoyable and feeling like classic episodes in the moment, but ultimately failing to live up to that high-bar after the fact, like the turkey pardoning episode or the whole clone-cascade concept. They're both neat, and the latter perfectly balances twists whilst feeding you just enough information to understand what's going on, but neither really stick the landing in ways that prior concept episodes managed. Plus, the whole Rick and Two Crows gimmick is fun, but ran just long enough 😂

Instead, the true standouts (for me) remain the meta-episodes. Rick saves Bird Person from his coma, and in doing so reveals a huge amount about their past and Bird Person's death (and child!). Then, in the finale, we see Evil President Morty finally reveal his goals, destroying the Capitol entirely, along with most of the Ricks and Mortys in the multiverse. As much as fans seem to get bored by these longer, world-building arcs, the deep dives into who Rick and Morty are, their lives, their motivations, none of this would be possible without them, and they remain the best of the show. I hope to see a similar balance between one-shots and story narratives moving forward.

A fun but largely forgettable middle chapter.