From 2018 through 2020, one Inverse writer embarked on an impossible journey: review every single Rick and Morty episode. This is the result.
Author’s Note:
I was a huge fan of Rick and Morty long before it became a bigger than Big Bang Theory and somehow forced McDonald’s to resurrect a 20-year-old McNugget sauce. It was even before I began working at Inverse, where I now write regularly about the series.
I have fond memories of bingeing the first season in my tiny corner of a small three-bedroom apartment in Providence, RI somehow shared between four, sometimes five, people. It was 2014, before Season 2 premiered, and Rick and Morty’s cynical humor resonated with this frustrated 20-something balancing three random jobs and grad school.
Rick and Morty caters to despairing millennials like myself in a way that’s almost uncanny, wearing its nihilism like a badge of honor in a chaotic world. It makes you feel special and smart to a meme-worthy extent, like it’s an exclusive privilege to ride along with Morty and Rick on their adventures.
Like everyone else, I get dismayed by the lengthy delay between seasons, so in the uncertain era after Season 3 ended, I couldn’t think of a better project as an entertainment journalist than to look back at every Rick and Morty episode ever to analyze, rank, and wax philosophical about one of my favorite television shows. Because going chronologically felt too bland for a zany show like Rick and Morty, I decided to review each episode according to the incoherent, arbitrary order in which I’d ranked them.
I’ve always urged fans to join us as we “search for finite meaning in an inherently meaningless infinite multiverse” because that’s the same challenge that Rick and Morty presents to its viewers, and it’s one that’ll continue throughout the next 70 episodes and beyond. Read that original ranking here. — Corey Plante
