Although officially, Justin Roiland has been acquitted of his formal charges for assault, Adult Swim fired him anyway from his titular series Rick and Morty, and Hulu let him go from his other show Solar Opposites. All of his voice roles were recast, with Dan Stevens as Korvo, Ian Cardoni as Rick Sanchez, and Harry Belden as Morty Smith. Given the stories we’ve heard about sexual harassment and shit involving minors, as well as his apparent falling out with co-creator Dan Harmon, I don’t think the court case matters. It sounds like he is a piece of shit, or a very autistically unaware piece of shit, and needs help. Hopefully he gets that. He’s a talented dude, even if the only voice that ever works for him is Lemongrab.
I suppose then it’s a bit unfair to come swinging out of the gate on this season opener. It wasn’t good. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything particularly negative about Rick’s friend circle, especially Birdperson. It’s just that they keep doing this soggy bit with Mr. Poopybutthole after Beth shot him way back in Total Rickall when she thought he was an imaginary friend. He’s been seen in season finales doing rehab, losing his job, losing his family, it’s a whole bit, but it’s also kind of trite in a show where there are infinite fucking universes, and his best friend the sociopathic scientist, could just fix his shit if he wanted to. I mean, I guess he kinda did, in the most cliche way possible. Bonus, Jon Allen is now the voice of Mr. Poopybutthole as that was another Roiland Lemongrab.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was more meta commentary about the show itself, about Dan Harmon, the rest of the crew, and what they even want to do with this. The infamous RICK AND MORTY 100 YEARS joke from long ago gets fourth-wall spoofed here when PB says “Or at least until Season 10” which slyly implies that this crew may not even make it to episode 100, either because the fanbase will quit, Adult Swim will quit, or they will quit. Certainly, Harmon himself is doing better than he was a few years ago. He doesn’t look completely homeless and dead inside like he did in some of those after-episode parts the last couple seasons. He also has another show Krapopolis, and co-creating Strange Planet with its creator Nathan Pyle. The moment he stopped drinking, shit talking on Twitter, and listening to Justin Roiland, has everything coming up Milhouse for him. Still, they have to keep portraying Rick as this soulless, careless entity obsessed with revenge alongside some other whimsical pursuit, oh but to fix his friends, it’s either reassemble them with science, or get them shit-faced drunk.
Of course, the only actually interesting bit to me was Birdperson and Birddaughter. It was a loose thread plucked at last season, and I guess being a parent to an extremely fickle toddler has me more amused and wanting to see more adventures of Birdperson trying to be a father and probably being incredibly exhausted by it. Because parenting is incredibly exhausting, especially when your children are nightmare fuel in forms of flesh. Hopefully the rest of this season pans out a little better than this opener. I have the absolute bargin-basement lowest of expectations. In fact, if all you did was an episode of Space Beth and Jessica fighting aliens or whatever, I’d be fine with that. I just do not need another season of Sad Sanchez. It’s overworked at this point.
