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The latest episode of Rick and Morty is called ‘Amortycan Grickfitti’ which is obviously a reference to the movie American Graffiti but the connections seem to be only about the teenage rebellion and car driving plotlines (although I haven’t seen the movie so it’s hard to be sure). In any event, there are two pretty distinct storylines here, both with a more pointless chaotic vibe — but both are pretty fun, and the episode is overall a huge step up from last week’s trainwreck.
In the adults’ storyline, a bunch of literal demons from Hell hang out with Jerry and Rick because of Rick scamming them on some faulty hooks (and there’s even a cute little callback about it later). The demons start with a simple concept: ‘bad times’ are actually enjoyable for them, so Rick being embarrassed by Jerry’s lameness is a lot of fun for them.
But this sort of pain=pleasure idea gets more and more convoluted as the concept gets taken to classic Rick and Morty nonsense extremes. Eventually Beth shows up, annoyed that Rick is treating her husband like that — but she easily falls prey to the idea that Rick said that she was cool to the Hell demons. And it doesn’t take long before she’s making fun of Jerry to his face, and Jerry has that classic cliché moment where he overhears two demons in the bathroom making fun of him. I mean I know it happened in Galaxy Quest in one of the more fun examples, but it’s a classic trope called the ‘Bathroom Stall of Overhead Insults’.
So they’re off to Hell to rescue Jerry where the ‘pain pleasure’ concept goes even more into silly word salad — I liked one of the first ones, an exchange between two demons of ‘A great day for suffering; which is the worst day; which is the best day!’. It’s so absurd because that kind of logical loop seems like it’ll never end — the obvious answer is that the pleasure gained by pain is differentiated from pain gained through pleasure so there’s no loop, but here it seems that it could go on forever.
But ultimately the real point is Rick’s capability to admit he can care about Jerry and his feelings, and acknowledge that he doesn’t have to make fun of him — it’s quite a thing of growth, and when you compare it to that backup family episode it does make you wonder what’s really going on.
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The other plotline is more fun visuals and a touch of nihilistic nonsense, as Summer and Morty try desperately to impress cool new guy Bruce Chutback (voice of Darren Criss). Of course by the end we find out that despite his little attempts at not caring, and catch phrases like ‘cut the chut’, he’s unable to actually be cool in the new school.
The siblings manage to convince Rick’s spaceship to let them fly and do stupid teenage stuff, although it’s naturally all a ruse — but we can’t forget about the extended Transformer parody where the ship tries to romance a ‘Changeformer’ robot. It’s all pretty silly but there’s a lot of fun moments and funny lines, so I appreciate the idea.
The other highlights are lines like the ship saying that Rick can ‘smell adventure’, the mailbox aliens in general, the lawyer called ‘Alyson Hannigan, no relation’, and the two songs — first the ‘evil things are happening’ simple silly one and the last song by Harmon himself about Chutback and his ‘lack of slacks’. I do love a silly stupid rhyme.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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