Rick and MortyThe season finales delivered some of the show’s all-time best episodes, but not all of them were great. The finale is without a doubt the most important episode of a television season. It has to wrap up all the current story arcs (or at least provide some major developments on them) and surpass everything that came before it. It has to leave the audience satisfied, because it’s the last time they’ll see the show for a while, but it also has to leave them wanting more so they stay tuned when the next season premieres.
Throughout its execution, some of the Rick and MortyThe most significant and plot-heavy episodes aired in the middle of a season. Rick and Morty had to move to a new universe after irreparably destroying their own in Season 1, Episode 6, “Rick Potion No. Rick finally got revenge on Rick Prime (and realized it didn’t solve anything) in Season 7, episode 5, “Unmortricken.” But the final episodes shocked audiences with their own bombastic twists and jaw-dropping developments. Some of the season finales are between Rick and MortyThe best episodes of , while others are just standard episodes.
7
Jerri’s Mort Rickturn Star
After Disney acquired Lucasfilm, it seemed like the only Star Wars The story it could tell was the original film’s story about the destruction of the Death Star. The Force Awakens had a Death Star, Rogue One told the origin story of the Death Star, and The Rise of Skywalker had an Imperial Star Destroyer with a Death Star cannon mounted on it. Rick and Morty parodied this trend in season 4 episode 10, “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri”, when the Smiths set out to destroy the New and Improved Galactic Federation’s own Death Star.
This episode marked the first official appearance of Space Beth, and the mystery of which Beth is a clone and which is the original made for an interesting storyline, but this is still arguably the weakest season finale of the series. When the time comes Rick and Morty counterfeit Star Warsthat area of jokes was pretty exhausted. The Season 4 finale has one of the most depressing endings in the series, as Rick fails to save Phoenixperson and ends up sad and alone, but at that point, it felt like a retread of every other episode that ended with Rick sad and alone.
6
The Rickchurian Mortydate
After the jaw-dropping cliffhanger that ended the Season 2 finale, the Season 3 finale — Season 3, Episode 10, “The Rickchurian Mortydate” — felt underwhelming. This doesn’t change the status quo of the series, nor does it radically alter the characters’ lives, nor does it create an exciting new plot for the future, as the Season 2 finale did; it’s just a standard standalone episode. This introduced Rick’s long-standing rivalry with the President, as Rick and Morty are angry that the President treats them like Ghostbusters, constantly calling them out to deal with monsters and never showing any gratitude.
Rick and MortyThe Season 2 president was introduced as a parody of Barack Obama when he first appeared in Season 2 Episode 5, “Get Schwifty.” But when he reappeared in “The Rickchurian Mortydate,” he transformed into a parody of the new sitting president, Donald Trump. When the episode aired in 2017, the Trump satire was painfully over the top. Between South Park and Saturday night liveevery joke that could be made about Trump’s presidency had already been made. Rick and Morty is generally a biting, incisive comedy, but the political satire in the Season 3 finale is extremely subdued.
Satirizing Trump’s America should have been a great premise for Rick and Morty to face. The series has a dark, nihilistic tone and uses twisted humor and inventive genre storytelling to capture real-world issues. But “The Rickchurian Mortydate” left a lot to be desired. It doesn’t use a clever science fiction allegory to reflect the US’s polarized political climate; it just revolves around a President of the United States who does and says whatever he wants, without any regard for dignity or diplomacy, which is one-note and gets old quickly.
5
Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation
After the disappointment of “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri”, Rick and Morty gave your best Star Wars parody in Season 6, Episode 10, “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation”. Instead of widely falsifying Star Wars iconography, the Season 6 finale focuses on a very specific hypothetical scenario that no one has ever pondered before, but now feels like a huge hole in the Star Wars tradition. Rick finally gives in to one of Morty’s long-held wishes and gives him a lightsaber for Christmas. He enjoys it for a few minutes, but immediately drops it to the floor in a perfectly straight line.
Rick and Morty desperately try to intercept the lightsaber before it reaches the Earth’s core. During this adventure, Morty suspects that Rick is being much kinder and more supportive than usual. Then, he is shocked to discover that Rick replaced himself with a robot after his adventure with the Sun Knights so that he could focus all his time on hunting Rick Prime. “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” starts out as a great standalone episode, but ends with a satisfying expansion on one of the series’ most compelling story arcs.
4
Rickmurai Jack
Rick and Morty committed to the titular duo’s breakup in Season 5, Episode 10, “Rickmurai Jack.” In the penultimate episode of season 5, Rick and Morty ended their partnership. Rick replaced Morty with two ravens and set off to enjoy intergalactic adventures with his new companions in a spin-off franchise. However, at the beginning of “Rickmurai Jack”, Rick is disheartened to learn that he is the crows’ rebound, which leads him back to Morty.
“Rickmurai Jack” responded to all complaints that Rick and Morty it wasn’t developing its mythology enough. It fills in the missing pieces of Rick’s story in a series of tragic flashbacks and brings back Evil Morty – now President Morty – as the series’ big bad. The Citadel is destroyed, the Central Finite Curve is destroyed, and Rick and Morty are trapped in space – it was an incredible ending to a subdued season.
3
Ricksy Business
While Beth and Jerry are on a Titanic-themed vacation, Rick, Morty and Summer throw a house party in Season 1, Episode 11, “Ricksy Business.” The best Rick and Morty episodes combine an identifiable everyday situation. “Ricksy Business” gets that balance right by bringing in sci-fi guests like Gearhead and Abradolf Lincler for a typical booze-filled party.
Rick and Morty hadn’t yet recovered by the end of the first season, but it had established the poignant existential dread that runs beneath the series’ absurdist humor, with scenes like Rick and Morty moving to a new universe and Morty pointing out his own grave to Summer. “Ricksy Business” has a big moment when Birdperson reveals that Rick’s seemingly nonsensical catchphrase, “Wubba lubba dub-dub,” actually translates to “I’m in a lot of pain, please help me.This introduced an unseen depth to Rick’s character that would become the dramatic backbone of the series.
2
Don’t fear Mort
Rick and Morty Season 7 was a mixed bag. Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden, the new voice actors hired to replace disgraced creator Justin Roiland, did a great job with the roles, but the actual writing of the episodes was very unpredictable. It had some really fantastic episodes, like “That’s Amorte” and “Unmortricken”, but it also has some of the worst episodes of the series, like “Air Force Wong” and “Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie”. Fortunately, the season finale – Season 7, Episode 10, “Fear No Mort” – is a winner that ranks among the series’ best.
The episode finds Rick and Morty facing their deepest, darkest fears in a mysterious hole in the men’s room of a Denny’s. The episode is a true journey full of mind-boggling twists and turns that keep the audience guessing. It’s as scary as it is hilarious and is a deep dive into Morty’s psychology and the toxicity and fragility of his relationship with Rick. Most Rick and MortySeason finales end on a depressing note, but the final episode of Season 7 ends with an emotional moment that proves that Rick really cares about Morty.
1
The wedding looters
The final episode of Season 2 — Season 2, Episode 10, “The Wedding Squanchers” — finds the family attending the wedding of Rick’s friend Birdperson and Summer’s friend Tammy, who met at the party at the Smiths’ house in end of season 1. Although he is completely against the institution of marriage, Rick is forced to attend the wedding to rescue Jerry, who has accidentally been caught in the invitation delivery system. At the wedding, Tammy reveals that she is actually a secret intergalactic agent and the wedding is an elaborate operation to lure Birdperson’s partners in crime (i.e. Rick) to the same location.
Like all the best Rick and Morty episodes, “The Wedding Squanchers” is filled with lots of laughs, but it also has an underlying emotional core. The episode has a lot of great jokes about weddings, but these jokes also have a deeper meaning: Rick uses these anti-marriage lines to cover up his deep well of loneliness and despair. As the Smiths flee their wedding, run away, and must find a new planetary home, the Season 2 finale also delves into Rick’s strained relationship with Beth and the psychological damage of his unstable parenting.
With its mix of the everyday mundanity of a wedding and the sci-fi tropes of space cops and interstellar travel, “The Wedding Squanchers” was already one of the Rick and Mortybest episodes. But what makes it the series’ best season finale is its jaw-dropping finale. Like all the best finales, Season 2 ends with a bombastic twist that completely redefines the series’ status quo. The Galactic Federation takes control of Earth and Rick turns himself in so his family can return home. Season 3 restored the status quo quickly, but this was a mind-bending cliffhanger.
Rick and Morty is an animated science fiction/adventure series that follows the intergalactic and interdimensional adventures of supergenius Rick Sanchez and his below-average grandson, Morty Smith. Rick’s daughter Beth, his granddaughter Summer, and his hated stepson Jerry also take center stage more often. Coming from creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, the series mixes comedy with science fiction as a way to explore a wide variety of themes aimed at an adult audience.
- Seasons
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7
- Streaming Services
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Hulu, Max