Screengrab
The latest episode of Rick and Morty is called ‘JuRicksic Mort’ which is an obvious reference to Jurassic Park. The episode has dinosaur-aliens returning to Earth after apparently having been there earlier, and how they create a classic ‘boring utopia’. The beginning starts with a pretty funny sequence of moments, like Morty’s teacher yelling out ‘Morty Protocol’ which makes perfect sense, and then the really silly moment with the Egyptian general shouting out ‘Mummy mia!’
Very silly but certainly a funny line — we mainly listen to three dinosaur leaders, one voiced by Lisa Kudrow, as they take over Earth easily by (as Rick says) appealing to people wanting more free time. There’s a silly, classic anti-Marvel joke that reminds of some jokes from Community as I guess Dan Harmon doesn’t care for them, but then we get a really great original song by series composer Ryan Elder of a bunch of silly real dinosaur names (albeit including ones knowingly named after pop culture icons like Elvisaurus).
The easy way the dinosaurs improve Rick’s technology is amusing, because it’s always fun to see Rick actually struggling. It’s one of those interesting things about this season that Jerry is portrayed as someone who’s not the complete butt of the joke which continues here — the realization the family has that they’re all Jerry now.
Naturally the dinos both offer Jerry’s book as a great guide for humanity in the current paradigm but don’t credit him — it’s more of a throwaway joke, but it’s interesting that the show has been keeping this pro-Jerry thing pretty consistent. The actual secret that Rick uncovers is interesting, because the dinosaurs actually don’t have an ulterior motive, they just inadvertently evolved alongside a very silly evil meteor (the gag of watching the meteor nonsensically babbling is pretty funny).
Screengrab
Perhaps the funniest sequence is when Rick visits the other planets dinosaurs were at, leading to a great line about ‘increasingly terrible movies about cloning them in a theme park’ and what seems like a throwaway gag about the dinos skateboarding around. The end tag that reveals that it’s actually true is pretty hilarious, even if it’s ultimately a little pointless.
Rick’s desire to host the Oscars feels like it could be a much longer segment, but it’s a cute one so far — he even implies that it’s entirely scripted, including ‘that one’ (which might be referring to the Chris Rock slap, the Moonlight/La La Land mixup, or both). The final segment is kicked off with a reprise of that dinosaur song about how awful things are going when humans are back in charge again, which feels a little nihilstic — I don’t know that I really like that messaging.
At least it’s funny to see Rick stymied by the dinos at the end when they screw with him back by closing the ‘mysterious rift’ that the Evil Morty used to leave the universe and they banter about the ‘god being’ stuff. Naturally Rick gets into his head and spends who knows how long fixing his portal gun, ending the episode with a classic sad, manic screechy speech about the next exciting Rick and Morty adventures.
The dinosaur stuff was pretty funny, but the themes were pretty light and repetitive — I feel like it’s a mostly forgettable, if fun episode, not really up to the higher standards that the show can do. But hey, at least there weren’t any incest plotlines this time, that’s progress.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
Share this post
