Rick & Morty (Season 1)

[Sycophant]

Season's almost over (it's been renewed for a second!), but it's almost perfect, and maybe the strongest first season of a show since Arrested Development. It seemed to know exactly what it was right out of the gate and has been stellar every week. We probably won't post a lot in here, but the show deserves a thread.

Also, from the most recent episode (on the whole, maybe my least favorite of the run so far, but still really good), here's the first minute, which basically describes the show's essence:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7HmltUWXgs

[Dukefrukem]

Love the show.

[Neclord]

So good.

[Qrazy]

I like it a lot, especially when the episodes go dark but I wouldn't be quite as effusive in my praise. Still, it's quality for sure.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Watched the first three episodes over the past day. Laughed quite a bit. The dog changing its "slave name" was hilarious and adorable. Loved how Hepatitis C was a real bro.

[Dead & Messed Up]

"Rixty Minutes" was one of the most unfunny wastes of a half hour I've ever seen in my life. I can't reconcile it with all the other episodes, except as some sort of wildly misconceived conceptual attack on half-assed cutaway gags.

[Neclord]

A lot of the dialogue between Rick and Morty on the show is just Justin Roiland doing improv off the top of his head, I don't think Rixty Minutes was so much a poke at cutaway gags as a full on indulgence and acknowledging of his method. I thought it was very funny. Ants in my Eyes Johnson!

[Dukefrukem]

Rixty Minutes was fucking hilarious. Ants in my eyes Johnson!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBvV1miNoA8

[Dead & Messed Up]

Well, if he is improvising Rick and Morty's dialogue for most of the show's episodes, I can't tell, because the prior episodes all had tight plotting and a direction for their jokes. The joke that got me to laugh (literally, I only laughed once) was the "Fake Doors" gag, and I think that's because it wasn't just weirdness for weirdness' sake. It's a very clear setup / punchline joke, with the tension released when the commercial resumes. I don't know what I'm supposed to be laughing at during "Ants in My Eyes" or "Cop Babylegs" or "Two Brothers..." or whatever else. Giving them all the exact same stuttered improvisational quality... I mean, what's the point of the any-channel-you-want TV if all you're getting is the exact same joke every channel, and the joke is that there is no joke but maybe they can find one if you let them stammer long enough?

ARRRRGH.

[Dead & Messed Up]

And I think "Meseeks and Destroy" is one of the funniest half hours I've seen in years.

[Dukefrukem]

Well, if he is improvising Rick and Morty's dialogue for most of the show's episodes, I can't tell, because the prior episodes all had tight plotting and a direction for their jokes. The joke that got me to laugh (literally, I only laughed once) was the "Fake Doors" gag, and I think that's because it wasn't just weirdness for weirdness' sake. It's a very clear setup / punchline joke, with the tension released when the commercial resumes. I don't know what I'm supposed to be laughing at during "Ants in My Eyes" or "Cop Babylegs" or "Two Brothers..." or whatever else. Giving them all the exact same stuttered improvisational quality... I mean, what's the point of the any-channel-you-want TV if all you're getting is the exact same joke every channel, and the joke is that there is no joke but maybe they can find one if you let them stammer long enough?

ARRRRGH.

LOL! I laughed at both. Both are weird for the sake of weird. "Get in quick, get out quicker with an arm of fake doors in your arms!" Bwhahahaha


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxbsV8QWGic

[Dukefrukem]

Hilarious last night.

"How many people did you invite Rick?"

"People?... 6. *as a UFO lands and green people start piling out*

[Sycophant]

I'm really hoping this season's second order is bigger than its first season, and doesn't take anything like Boondocks time to materialize.

This show speaks to my sensibilities almost impossibly perfectly. It's the only show since early Community that I've felt compelled to rewatch compulsively, sometimes three or four times over already. Justin Roiland's voice work makes him a new sort of hero for me. Its cold-blooded poisonous tongue and bleak worldview that almost falls off the cliff and into utter cynicism but kept in place and ultimately enhanced by a firm humanity, which I'm realizing may be just about my favorite sort of thing (I haven't figure out what this means about me, except I may be very broken).

[Sycophant]

Re: "Rixty Minutes" and Roiland's improv

As I understand it, the show's written pretty traditionally and tightly, with scripted lines and everything. But when Roiland (who, I understand, directs the recording sessions) gets in the booth--and especially when he's doing both Rick and Morty in a scene--he goes wherever his mind takes him. I watched an interview/panel where he says that doing that unlocks parts of his creativity he doesn't otherwise have access to. So the plot, I gather, remains pretty firmly in place (I'm sure they can add something to the script/storyboards if something brilliant occurs in there), but the actual dialogue is subject to a great opening up as he stutters his way through a thought.

The sometimes banal insanity of Roiland's TV imaginings on "Rixty Minutes" really worked for me, both as individual bits of oddness, and a bizarre connection to the episode's themes of randomness, chance, unpredictability, and emptiness. Morty's speech to Summer might carry a bit of punch in any episode as a callback, but with this episode's A and B plots, both, it really tied together and pushed further the episode's existing elements. I can totally understand not being that into it if the brand of humor or freewheling nature (which is different from the show's usual, more carefully refined jokes (see the great pizza-phone-chair bit in Something Rick-ed) of these bits doesn't hit you in quite the right place. But Gazorpazorpfield (and its attendant dialogue about Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray), Ants In My Eyes Johnson, Strawberry Smiggles, and Fake Doors (especially Fake Doors, oh my god) all worked for me, regardless of how workshopped they were or weren't.

[Sycophant]

The number of fans clamoring for Rick & Morty to disappear up its own ass with rich, deep lore is the sort of thing I hope Harmon & Roiland know to never listen to.

[Thirdmango]

I marathoned all the episodes last night.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Re: "Rixty Minutes" and Roiland's improv

As I understand it, the show's written pretty traditionally and tightly, with scripted lines and everything. But when Roiland (who, I understand, directs the recording sessions) gets in the booth--and especially when he's doing both Rick and Morty in a scene--he goes wherever his mind takes him. I watched an interview/panel where he says that doing that unlocks parts of his creativity he doesn't otherwise have access to. So the plot, I gather, remains pretty firmly in place (I'm sure they can add something to the script/storyboards if something brilliant occurs in there), but the actual dialogue is subject to a great opening up as he stutters his way through a thought.

The sometimes banal insanity of Roiland's TV imaginings on "Rixty Minutes" really worked for me, both as individual bits of oddness, and a bizarre connection to the episode's themes of randomness, chance, unpredictability, and emptiness. Morty's speech to Summer might carry a bit of punch in any episode as a callback, but with this episode's A and B plots, both, it really tied together and pushed further the episode's existing elements. I can totally understand not being that into it if the brand of humor or freewheling nature (which is different from the show's usual, more carefully refined jokes (see the great pizza-phone-chair bit in Something Rick-ed) of these bits doesn't hit you in quite the right place. But Gazorpazorpfield (and its attendant dialogue about Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray), Ants In My Eyes Johnson, Strawberry Smiggles, and Fake Doors (especially Fake Doors, oh my god) all worked for me, regardless of how workshopped they were or weren't.

Yeah, I don't quite know if it's an issue with my sensibilities or more my perspective on what the show's strengths are, since a great number of fans really enjoyed that episode. But I can't help thinking there's something limiting with presenting all those jokes through the exact same stuttered, stream-of-consciousness delivery.

I finished Season One a couple nights back and thoroughly enjoyed all the other episodes. My favorites were "Meseeks and Destroy" and "Close Rick-Counters."

[Spun Lepton]

Uh, I watched the first four episodes. This thing is kinda brilliant, isn't it? Rick's alcoholism is a big source of laughs for me, and I'd be lying if I said that his frequent burping didn't consistently -- URRRP -- crack me up.