Season Review: Rick and Morty Season Seven

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For the show’s fanbase, 2023 was a full calendar year full of uncertainty. Along with the New Year, January rang in a number of troubling accusations of domestic violence and sexual misconduct against show co-creator and lead voice actor Justin Roiland. In the tumultuous months that followed, Roiland was unceremoniously ejected from the Morty-verse, more accusations came to light, a search for sound-alike voice actors was mounted, and a divided fan base redefined their loyalties and argued amongst themselves on the internet. The level of intense public discussion between two seasons of this animated series was reminiscent of the wild summer when everybody was asking ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns,’ except instead of being a ton of fun for the whole family, it was fucking terrible for everybody involved. So let’s talk Rick and Morty, Season 7, people!
I fully admit that I started out watching this season with a kernel of resentment in my heart, but as the episodes aired each week, I remembered why I love this show. There were some all time series highs in this season, some real epic character arcs, and a satisfying amount of story resolution. Perhaps other seasons have spun weirder yarns, or been more in your face frantic in their absurd notions, but Season 7 has its own, slow-burn energy that settles in subtly and refuses to be ignored. The show is past it’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ era – we’re in ‘Hateful Eight’ territory now. Rick and Morty has always been about change – we may seek stasis in shows as a way to comfort us in an ever-changing world – this season in general wants us to see that change is necessary.
Of all of thus season’s strongest episodes, my favourite was ‘That’s Amorte,’ written by Heather Anne Campbell. It’s a poignant, funny, depressing and disgusting outing – eating the spaghetti guts of suicidal humanoid aliens is a great metaphor for pretty much everything we all get up to you all the time as a society. On my first watch through of this episode, learning at the end that the quality of the death spaghetti is intrinsically linked to the nuanced chain of moments that make up a person’s life felt deeply uplifting. On rewatching this episode, it made me feel incredibly sad. The third time, I was impressed by the way this episode low-key ties the whole season together – Rick has tried to end his own life at least once during the course of the series (arguably, he tries to do so in a round-about way every episode), but only recently has he been reflecting on the moments that make up that life, and the man it’s made him become. Every time I’ve watched this episode, it makes me hungry for spaghetti.
 
Another mid-season stunner was ‘Unmortricken,’ written by Albro Lundy & James Siciliano. It’s an absolute masterpiece – a perfectly executed symphony of canon. It’s got the return of Evil Morty, who appears in all his fine and flinty brilliance to divest Rick of his notion of the status quo. Not every Morty’s mind is inferior to the mind of their Rick, and Evil Morty proves that. He also does a bang-up job of helping Rick enact his revenge against Rick Prime, correctly predicting all along the way that doing so will earn him not catharsis, but the ache of emptiness.
‘Mort – Ragnarick,’ is an essential tee-up to the season finale. Written by Jeremy Gilfor and Scott Marder, this episode sees Rick tangling with the theological in Valhalla. It’s an episode about trying to know the unknown, but it also has classic movie monsters, Bigfoot, the ghosts of Vikings, and Pope battle after Pope battle after Pope battle. It quantifies the nature of belief and the power it can have – Rick explains the idea of ‘Heaven’ using some super-science, but what it boils down to is that some version of spirituality is the key to infinite energy – an open-minded discovery for our once brutally atheistic nihilist. The season finale, ‘Fear No Mort’ was also written by Heather Anne Campbell, completely closes the ring on the show’s first seven seasons. Rick, at the beginning of Season One, has recently arrived at the home of Rick Prime’s abandoned family to lay in wait for his nemesis. He begins using that Rick’s Morty to dampen his brainwaves as he gathers resources on various ‘adventures.’ At this point, Rick isn’t just being the standard aloof asshole he always is – being around this particular version of the Smith-Sanchez family is incredibly painful for him, for many reasons. He’s angry and jealous and sad and trying to convince himself that this family does not matter to him – that they cannot matter to him. The family is a means to an end, and that’s it. And yet, over seven seasons, they do start to matter to Rick. They matter a whole fucking lot. Even though they touch his shit and screw things up sometimes. He grows to admire Morty’s futile efforts to help others, to trust in Summer, and to see both these versions of his daughter as their own valuable people, not just variations of his own lost Beth. He even learns to understand and appreciate Jerry, as seen in “The Jerrick Trap.” Rick sees his whole family, for the first time, and he feels lucky to have them.
That’s what makes ‘Fear No Mort’ so satisfying. In this episode, the Rick that is letting Morty die in a hole so he can spend fake time with a simulated version of his dead wife is just a projection of Morty’s deepest fears, embedded in him years ago by his grandfather’s detached genius schtick – that Rick no longer exists. He hasn’t for a long time, and Morty needs to admit that to move forward, emotionality. He is worthy of love, and is capable of receiving that love. Rick running back to the hole just to add Morty’s picture to the Wall of Fame says it all. God is in his Heaven and all is right in the world.
Season 7 also has what is arguably the worst episode of the season – ‘Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie. I reserve judgement on this episode because it was written by the ever-brilliant Rob Schrab, and I get the feeling that it was an episode he found some delight in writing.
There was a lot of trepidation leading up to the Season 7 premiere in general, but especially in regards to the new voice actors. The worry was that without Roiland at the helm, the show would become a mere imitation of itself – a reasonable fear to have, considering that newcomers Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden were chosen specifically for their ability to imitate the voices of Rick and Morty, respectively. At this time last year, the two largely unknown actors were just a couple of fans busting out their best Rick and Morty impressions to amuse their friends and families. And then a series of surreal auditions later, the two men landed the voice roles of a lifetime. The circumstances surrounding their windfall were less than ideal -filling a position left vacant by the very public fall of a man they had long admired must have come along with some complicated feelings. Cardoni and Belden both know how much the characters mean to fans all over the world, because they‘re fans too. From the very first episode, the voices of Rick and Morty were instantly iconic, and change, even at the best of times is scary. Adding to the strain was the semi-unspoken understanding that the show’s entire future hung in the balance, and the near constant nattering of prejudicial message board posters in the weeks before the premiere – some people, the so-called Only Roilanders, were determined to hate the new voices, no matter what. For some other people, the new voice actors felt like a necessity to remain a fan – to them, if Roiland had remained on the payroll, continuing to watch Rick and Morty would mean emotionally and financially supporting a show that chose to continue embracing an alleged abuser, which is not a great state of mind to be in when you’re looking to laugh. It’s safe to say the pressure was on.
So into this quagmire waded these two brave new boys, and I am happy to report that not only did Cardoni and Belden hold the line this season, they rose up to meet the challenge head on. Their imitative abilities are absolutely up to snuff, and they fold into Season 7 at a time when the characters are even more in flux than normal. As with many long-term animated characters, the voices of Rick and Morty have never been static – they’ve evolved over the years to reflect the minute changes in their relationship. Season after season, Morty becomes less screechy as he grows more jaded. He and Evil Morty begin to share more and more of that flat-edged, worn-down worldliness in their voice. Rick’s aggressive belching has been dialled down considerably since the pilot, and his trademark bouts of manic shouting are no longer his go-to defence mechanism. It was never about the Szechuan sauce. It was always the dead wife vengeance thing. He’s finally able to admit that to himself and to Morty at the end of Season Six. The Rick Sanchez we encounter in Season One is a mercurial malefactor, overcompensating constantly with chaotic capriciousness and vainglorious vagaries. Season 7 Rick is still those things, but considerably less so. This Rick is working hard to be a more honest version of himself even though he is reticent to admit it, and Morty is realizing that trusting this man is an option. This is the moment into which these new voice actors have fallen into this universe. I’m excited to see where they take these voices in Season 8, now that so much house cleaning has been done, both dangling plot-wise and emotionally. Great job, both you guys!
 
Even the lesser episodes of the season were solid, and it felt like each one contributed to the over-arching evolution of Rick. The recurring characters that come back are a veritable rogue’s gallery of the people that have challenged Rick the most over the years. When Rick first encountered Dr. Wong, she basically rocked his world with her “you chose to become a pickle’ speech enough to convince him to go to therapy. It’s not just that he wants to be a better man, it’s that Wong is intelligent in a way that Rick is not. It’s the beginning of his understanding that his definition of ‘smart’ is woefully limiting. She tells him that he use his intelligence to justify his behaviour while refusing to take responsibility for the results of the actions driven by that intelligence. She posits that his mind is within his control, and he hears the truth in her expert opinion. By the end of Season 7, he’s basically taken that control. Wong’s appearance in ‘Air Force Wong’ reinforces how important she is to giving Rick access to the tools he needs to develop his emotional intelligence. Unity also returns in this episode – another big challenge in Rick’s life. Unity’s power comes from connection, not isolation, and they are formidable enough a nemesis for Rick to make him take note of a different approach to other people. They also remind Rick that romantic love is something he still believes in.
In the season premiere, Rick tries to help Mr. Poopybutthole when he’s bottoming out. Beth has long been blamed for Mr. Poopybutthole’s woes – after all, she’s the one who shot him. But really, it’s all Rick’s fault – he brought the memory parasites into the house, and he gives Beth the space gun – he creates the moment, Beth is just trapped within it, as the family so often is. Rick trying to help is his way of acknowledging his culpability here, using the perspective he’s gained in therapy. In Season 7, Rick is finally choosing progress over self-annihilation, and the family he actually has over the family he lost so long ago. The world is full of idiots that have no idea what’s actually important. Rick Sanchez is finally no longer one of those idiots.