Rick and Morty - Season 4: Part One
Amid wild science fiction concepts and nihilistic explorations of the meaning of life, Rick and Morty has always kept a basic premise: a genius grandpa takes his dimwitted grandson on adventures across the universe. Despite an overarching narrative defined by a dark outlook on life and a psychoanalytic study of its core cast, the show never fundamentally strays far from that premise. In the first half of its fourth season, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s comedically cerebral animated brainchild remains more committed than ever to this premise and by extension, the preservation of the status quo.
Where last season saw a shift in the usual by complicating the dynamic between titular leads Rick and Morty (Roiland) and removing Morty’s incompetent father Jerry (Chris Parnell) from the family, this season sees Jerry return to the fold and Rick and Morty’s relationship come full circle, with just a few slight complications. Rick is now forced to construct his adventures at the behest of the family and has to consider Morty’s feelings. With the re-addition of Jerry, Rick now answers to him as well as his daughter Beth (Sarah Chalke), often including his granddaughter Summer (Spencer Grammer) in his and Morty’s adventures. Aside from these conditions, Rick and Morty’s adventures unfold as ludicrously and hilariously as ever and the writers continuously escalate the stakes by emphasizing plot over pretty much anything else.
Season three saw a heightened focus on character development from beginning to end and pushed the boundaries of its storytelling by linking the adventure plots with therapeutic challenges for its leads. Season four foregoes all of that, fully immersing its characters in wacky scenarios that are pushed past their natural endpoint without ever entirely changing anything about the status quo. This is reminiscent of season one’s approach to storytelling where nothing about the show ever fundamentally changed, even when the episodes pushed Rick and Morty to odds and ends of the universe and often reshaped their reality in unexpected, often horrifying ways.
This return to form for the show works well, freeing the show of having to subvert expectations and challenge its viewers like it often strived to in the previous season. However, it also makes the show just a bit less interesting and sometimes wrongly favours plot and comedy over the series-spanning arcs of its characters. Inherently comedic scenarios are escalated in such a convoluted way that the show often loses sight of itself and is forced to press a hard reset button at the end of every episode. When the show finds a way to balance convolution with actual narrative resonance and the comedy stems naturally from that balance, then the show finds its groove and hits new high notes that rank with the best of the entire series. Episodes such as Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat and One Crew Over The Crewcoo’s Morty showcase the show’s ability to stay fresh, funny and set itself apart from other shows by driving its already memorable lead characters to unexpected new heights. When it is good, it is impeccable and hard to beat; when it is terrible, it is still better than most animated sitcoms currently on the air.
In this first half of the season, it remains unclear just what Rick and Morty’s fourth season is trying to achieve beyond preserving the status quo and being funny. It is disappointing to see it so thoroughly disregard its brilliant focus on character and emotional resonance. Nevertheless, the show remains as visually and narratively engaging, unexpected and consistent as ever, never letting its slight missteps get in the way of its high overall entertainment value.
