Review: Rick and Morty “Air Force Wong”
Overview
In ‘Air Force Wong’, three fan favourite characters come together to cause some real problems for America. Just when Rick finally seems to be making real, slow progress in his therapy with Dr. Wong, his ex-girlfriend Unity turns up on Earth in the form of a fully hive-minded state of Virginia. If you recall, their previous break-up was a particularly nasty one that had Rick toying with ending it all, and her return has him shook up, even though he refuses to admit it. President Andre Curtis has to use a secret laser-powered state-sized containment dome to stop the hive from spreading, with assistance from a crack team of experts that just happens to include both Rick and Dr. Wong. The President becomes obsessed with gaining a 100% approval rating from the public, Rick begrudgingly agrees to help out, and Summer tries to figure out what the fuck is going on.
Our Take
“Air Force Wong” continues to follow the blueprint laid out by the first two episodes of season 7 – bringing back a couple of recurring characters for a stand-alone adventure while keeping Morty largely in the background. There are a lot of reasons for fans to expect this to be a great episode. Not only do Keith David, Christina Hendricks and Susan Sarandon all reprise their roles as The President, Unity and Dr. Wong, respectively, (a straight-up stellar roster of guest voices), it is also penned by Alex Rubens – the writer behind classic Rick and Morty episodes like “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” Rubens’ script has a lot of stylistic choices that keep things zipping right along. The President’s initial explanation for interrupting Rick’s therapy session is a long, silly, ramble about how the US government replaced the Loch Ness Monster‘s bones with titanium, but we miss out on all the action and find out through a throw-away Morty line later on that Rick has slain the creature. The build-up to the reveal that Virginia has been Unity-fied is done in classic 70s horror movie style – when Rick, The President and Dr. Wong first arrive in the newly problem-free state, everything seems like it’s perfect right up until it doesn’t. It’s a little bit Bodysnatchers, a little bit Stepford Wives, and effectively spooky. It’s also smart to pair Unity and Wong up in an episode – they’re the two women who understand Rick better than anybody else.
Summer plays a small but important role in this episode. At one point, she goes into the garage to try and engage with Rick about his feelings, and she stands near the door and Rick stands at his work bench, the distance between them like something out of an Alex Colville painting. Summer’s attempts to figure out what’s going on with Rick draw his ire, and her curiosity becomes concern, which turns to anger, and she ends up storming out in a rage. Their brief conversation in the garage is like a key to the rest of the episode, encapsulating every other element of this episode, like an overture. It’s always great when Spencer Grammer gets to show off her vocal mastery of Summer’s enormous emotional range. Morty later ends up standing exactly where Summer did, with equally fruitless results.
I have long suspected that Rick’s truest nemesis is not Mr. Nimbus, or any other Rick, or even himself – its Unity. She’s an absolute anti-Rick from a philosophical perspective, and has the power to take over Rick’s mind completely any time she wants, but Rick trusts her not to. She may not intend to antagonize Rick, it’s just that her very existence threatens everything that he stands for. She’s the ultimate connector, and he loves that about her, because it makes
him feel the things he pretends he’s too smart to want. She is the only character capable of being the agent of Rick’s undoing – and that’s something they’ve both been aware of for a while. It’s why she ends their relationship in “Auto Erotic Assimilation” – to protect him from letting her influence destroy him. In “Air Force Wong,” Rick tells her “You quit that business, and you were fired from that business.” It’s a little contradictory moment where he rewrites the story of their break-up in real time, because it hurts too much. He also compares his heart to a stapler. Rick understands the extreme threat that Unity is to him – that’s why he doesn’t answer when she calls, and that’s why he crafted a special repellent to neutralize her.
We also get to see a bit more of Unity’s perspective in this episode. The only reason why she came to Earth was to check on her terminally aloof ex-boyfriend, and she ends up hive-minding every single person in the state of Virginia, even though she promised Rick she wouldn’t do that. As an entity that normally interacts through mental domination and total mental harmony with her hive-mindees, it must be complicated for her to try and reach out to the always emotionally insular Rick. The two of them are are total opposites in most ways, but neither one is great at understanding other people. Rick’s shouting of ‘Boundaries!’ seems like something he picked up from Dr. Wong, and I like to think that his slow beer drinking at the end is also a result of her influence. He’s still sad and lonely, but demonstrably less so than he used to be. Or maybe he’s the same amount of sad and lonely, but he’s handling it better.
Just cancel this bird already. The chicken is beyond cooked. It's burnt to a crisp.