Warning: SPOILERS for Rick and Morty season 4, episode half dozen, "Never Ricking Morty."

Rick and Morty returned with a meta exam of the thought of stories themselves. In the process,Rick and Morty parodied itself while poking the eye of critical analysis, western animation, capitalism, and the more toxic elements of the show'south fanbase.

Rick and Morty flavor 4, episode 6, "Never Ricking Morty" opened up as if information technology were an ordinary album episode, with a variety of colorful characters on a infinite railroad train (in a nod to Murder On The Orient Limited) sharing stories of why they wanted to kill Rick Sanchez. It was quickly revealed that two of the passengers were Rick and Morty in disguise and that the space train was a metaphor fabricated existent; a literal plot device carrying them through a narrative devised past a beingness known as the Story Lord.

All of this is revealed to be function of a scheme to reach beyond the 5th Wall by borer Rick and Morty's space potential to generate interesting, relatable stories. Nevertheless, what follows is less than articulate and deeper than Inception, though Rick is quick to dismiss any deeper significant to what happened. Yet even Rick'south usual nihilism is co-opted and corrupted by the story, collapsing after Rick arranges an ending that nobody should accept.

The Meta Story About Stories

The bones plot ofRick and Morty flavour four, episode 6 "Never Ricking Morty" is based effectually a literalization of a metaphorical construct; a story circle. Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon famously uses story circles for developing every story he writes, be information technology a 5-infinitesimal animated brusk or a feature-length movie. No matter what odd things happen during a story, a tight structure guides the characters to a formulated decision and brings things full circle.

"Never Ricking Morty" sees Rick and Morty, fully enlightened that they are in a fictional story, attempting to regain control of their destinies. Nearly of the episode is devoted to them trying to break outside the confines of the Story Train, on which they find themselves with niggling explanation. Once there, they endeavor to have command of the narrative or, failing that, derail the story railroad train that the Story Lord trapped them in.

The Problem With Continuity

One of the more interesting aspects ofRick and Morty's meta-narrative is the use of continuity. In the Story Lord's reality, continuity is like oxygen, with a breach in the story train causing continuity to leak out into the void of disbelief. At one bespeak Rick uses a tank full of continuity every bit a shield to protect himself and Morty from the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation burn down of the Story Train guards. They're able to escape from certain death when the tank explodes - i.e. when the independent continuity is broken. Through this structure Harmon seems to mock his own dumbo continuities and the need his audience has for everything to be linked, likening continuity to a life-giving gas.

The Mockery Of Western Animation

Once the Story Lord recaptures Rick and Morty and starts draining them of their narrative energy, nosotros're treated to a number of scenes from episodes that haven't happened yet. These include Morty's older sister Summer getting gear up to leave for college, the return of Abradolf Lincler and a glimpse and Rick and Morty'due south concluding battle, which features the Evil Morty with an eye patch, a Sithed-out Mr. Poopybutthole and an army made of thousands of Ricks, Mr. Meseeks and male Gazorpazorpians. No explanation is given for what led upwardly to this point, but all of it seems to conform to what little has been revealed almost the Evil Morty's plans and information technology features some of the prove's most popular recurring characters.

Autonomously from being some other gag most continuity and the epic ending that many causeless Rick and Morty must be edifice toward with the Evil Morty subplot, this is too a criticism of a tendency in western animation to avoid long-running narratives in favor of compact stories where information technology doesn't affair what order the episodes are watched in and the characters never really develop. Consider episodic western cartoons like South Park and Family Guy compared to the long narratives of Eastern-influenced shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Steven Universe. Rick ultimately derails the narrative past doing something he would never do; pray to Jesus Christ for salvation rather than trusting in his own intelligence and science. This leaves the Story Lord trapped in his own narrative, demanding to know how this fits the continuity he was building.

The Capitalism Criticism

The episode closes with some other mockery of western blitheness and merchandise-driven cartons., every bit the Rick and Morty audiences have been following discover they're trapped on a toy train in the living room of another Rick and Morty. This leads Rick to declare how proud he is of Morty for having bought the toy railroad train from the Citadel of Ricks' souvenir-shop, because "you just looked straight into the haemorrhage jaws of commercialism and said, 'Yes, Daddy, please.'" Rick goes on to declare that there's no purpose to life beyond ownership and consuming merchandise considering someone told you to. This segues into a toy commercial for the Rick and Morty Story Railroad train Playset, with Rick and Morty playing with activity figures of themselves and the characters from before in the episode.

This terminal bit of mockery seems to exist a stab at the more than toxic elements of the Rick and Morty fandom who, in their efforts to emulate the nihilistic Rick, wound up inspiring a existent-earth demand for the Szechuan Craven McNugget Sauce that McDonalds briefly carried as part of a tie-in to the 1998 animated Disney film Mulan. Why? Because Rick said that information technology was the greatest thing in the multiverse and the sole motivation for everything he did as he traversed the multiverse. The terminal punchline was the commercial endmost with a website address and a need that viewers "Purchase information technology ironically. Buy it sincerely. Just buy information technology!" The website accost does not actually get anywhere and, to add insult to injury, the commercial makes information technology articulate that you're a horrible person for wanting to purchase it, as the action figures that come with it are alive "but non in any ways that matter," being soulless puppets of fate.

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About The Author

Matt Morrison (1837 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word "blogging" was coined. He got his start writing for the legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing, before receiving his own cavalcade, The Mount. Since then he has gone on to write for over a dozen websites, including 411 Mania, Comics Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information Science from the University of Northward Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Known equally a font of comic volume history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions and served equally an Good In-Residence for a form on Graphic Novels for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal weblog – My Geeky Geeky Ways – which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series making up The Arrowverse equally well equally his comedic Permit'south Play videos. What little spare time he has is devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You lot can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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