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The latest episode of Rick and Morty is called ‘Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion’, which is both a reference to the robot children’s cartoon show Gobots and the critically acclaimed anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is really more of a subversion of the ‘sentai robot’ anime series. Honestly the terrible incest baby storyline is the sort of weird thing that actually would fit more in the insane, depressing world of NGE (which in fact does play around with incest if in a more subtle way).
The episode has a minor running gag about some sort of place called ‘Boob World’ which is the sort of stupid thing a teen boy like Morty would be obsessed with — it’s an okay gag, really the only thing that’s particularly fun about it is the original song that plays over the credits (composed by Ryan Elder as per usual). Otherwise the episode is mainly about a blip of anti-nihilism as Summer tries to become closer to Rick by enabling his addictive personality.
Said addiction is the heretofore never mentioned obsession with ‘GoTron Ferrets’, which naturally are giant ferret robots that can combine to form a bipedal even more giant robot that can be used to fit giant monsters. Those are basically just giant bugs — which again is one of the better jokes of the episode when it is revealed it’s a terrible mistake by some other bug world that are actually trying to spread the cure for AIDS ‘very loudly’. That was by far the funniest part of the episode.
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At first it’s all copacetic and reasonable, with Rick (via Summer) convincing the family to kill giant bug monsters as the giant robot and that’s nice — it’s a good family moment, that is ruined by Rick’s prioritizing of his own happiness over other people’s and Summer’s desperation to get one over Morty. Admittedly the recursive joke of ‘GoGoTron’ and further is funny, but all of the extra Rick’s from other worlds felt a bit underwritten — if they were all so different (with often crime movie references) why were their family members never shown as different versions too?
Feels like a missed opportunity, but then again, the episode did feel a bit cyclical, with a final joke of Rick shooting ‘voiceovarians’ which was a bit of an eye-roll joke. One of the ‘I’m not sure what to think’ jokes was the literal ‘anime character’ pilots, designed like classic 70s and 80s anime characters and played by Eric Bauza, Lauren Tom (Kendra as the only named one), and Darren Criss, who I suppose all have Asian ancestry (if not Japanese) so their little jokes about Rick appropriating their culture might be okay.
It’s weird because the episode almost felt like it was going to be about anime in some way, with the classic 70s/80s references, the 90s NGE, and the slightly more recent Naruto shoutout. But it’s just background noise next to the voice-over joke which is explicitly a Goodfellas reference (and also done better in Dan Harmon’s ‘Chicken Fingers’ episode of Community so I can’t imagine he doesn’t remember doing it before).
Anyway, I don’t think the incest baby jokes work, nor do I think it’s as funny as they think as an inherently funny phrase — the ‘deus ex machina’ moment where it saves the day in the end feels like it could’ve been any random save the day thing so it doesn’t feel earned or necessary. Overall the episode is fun enough if with a bunch of structural and story issues, and it’s not as funny or as interesting as they often can be. I suppose I was hoping for something less disposable and forgettable.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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