Rick and Morty: "Pilot" Review

  This is an advance review of Adult Swim's Rick and Morty pilot, which airs Monday, December 2nd at 10:30pm. The full episode, however, can be viewed on YouTube. Since you can watch it before reading what follows, this review will be a bit more spoiler-y than other pilot reviews...

Welcome to Back to the Future on bath salts.

You don't necessarily have to be a Back to the Future fan to appreciate Rick and Morty, the new half-hour animated series from Community creator Dan Harmon and voice actor Justin Roiland (who worked with Harmon on 2007's Acceptable TV for VH1), but it does help to know what the show is perversely skewering. No, Rick and Morty isn't an out-and-out parody of the movie franchise, but it does shine a hilarious spotlight on how unsavory it actually is when a high school kid is "BFF"s with the town's eccentric tinkerer. Which, as you know, is a relationship that's never fully explained in Back to the Future. Just how did Marty and Doc Brown came to be so close? I'm not insinuating anything wicked, it's just one of those things that the movies never chose to reveal.
Here though, they've made the Doc Brown character, Rick, the boy's actual grandfather. Switch out the time-travel for irresponsible inter-dimentional adventures, and the genuine passion for science for alcoholism and puke lips, and you've got Rick. As far as Morty goes, he's a panicky, anxiety-riddled human shield who gets dragged along (or suckered into) dangerous situations, living a secret and horrifying sci-fi life that his classmates might envy. If they weren't, you know, accidentally being killed by Rick's inventions and stuff.

Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland Talk Rick and Morty
Roiland voices both title characters here, getting the best of both worlds: the insane, selfish (constantly belching) scientist and the tortured squeaky-voiced middle schooler. The show shifts nicely between social parody and dark humor, and I often found myself laughing aloud. The sign of a good comedy I'd say. Rick's burping, however, as strange as this complaint may sound, was too much. Because it never stopped. And I'd even say that his incessant belch-speak killed some of the jokes.



Due to the possibilities opened up by the premise, Rick and Morty could become another Futurama, though I don't think it's necessarily within its design to deliver clever social commentary. It seems much more comfortable being playful - with Harmon's love for classic comedy bits mixed with the imaginative "bending" of those bits on full display. It does share Futurama's glorious grimness though.

Chris Parnell, who does a great voice job over on Archer, plays Morty's dad, Jerry, with Scrubs' Sarah Chalke as the mom, Beth. Together they bounce nicely off one another, as Jerry is constantly at odds with Rick, trying to convince Beth to put him in an old age home. The rest of the pilot episode involves Rick spiriting Morty off to an alternate dimension in order to obtain mega-seeds from mega trees. Things quickly go awry (monsters give chase, legs are broken) and soon the two find themselves trying to smuggle the giant, jagged seeds through Inter-dimenstional Customs. Via Morty's taught-yet-maleable anal cavity.
Verdict
There's a moment in this pilot episode that really says it all, with Morty writhing in pain while Rick launches into a (very funny) deranged speech about how they'll never be separated. "Rick and Morty forever. A hundred years Rick and Morty!" It's clear that this is nothing short of an abusive inter-family relationship. And while it make for a good pilot, I'm not sure how the torture will be able to sustain itself. We shall see. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rick and Morty premieres Monday, December 2nd at 10:30pm on Adult Swim. The pilot episode can now be seen on You Tube