My new term for certain Rick and Morty episodes is “sci-fi puzzle boxes,” because they start with a sci-fi concept and then ask “and then what? and then what? and then what?” as the episode spirals outward and becomes increasingly insanely complicated. “Edge of Tomorty”: Rick, Die, Rickpeat, introduces death crystals that allow one to see possible ways they might die, resulting in Morty so doggedly pursuing an ideal end to his life that he eventually transforms himself into Akira. Meeseeks and Destroy” is one of these, with the Meeseeks themselves being an interesting sci-fi invention that is developed until it reaches its violent, bonkers conclusion.
The puzzle box episodes can be a little too clever at times. A Rickle in Time, the show’s second-season opener, is perhaps the best example of this. Season five also had two such episodes, both of which had clever premises (a vengeful Narnia world and clones who don’t know that they’re clones, respectively), but they were so focused on building out these premises that, in the process, they kind of forgot to be funny or to do anything interesting with the characters.
To answer the sci-fi conundrum of what would happen if Morty had sex with a horse fertilization machine, and then Rick took Morty’s excrement from the machine and transformed it into a flying, sentient sperm?
There isn’t much of a mystery to this story’s underlying concept. Indeed, “Rickdependence Spray” appears to be a direct response to those of us who have grown tired of the show’s recent, too-sophisticated science-fiction puzzle boxes. Similar to “Pickle Rick,” it quickly discards its set up so that it can launch right into absurdity, which here takes the form of giant sperms killing people and being killed in increasingly flashy ways.
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This episode’s humor is heavily reliant on sexual allusions, as was the case in last week’s “A Rickconvenient Mort,” which also featured a disproportionate number of sex-related jokes. However, this episode has an advantage over the previous one in that it has more funny jokes and doesn’t try to squeeze an emotional payoff out of its storyline. No, this is nothing more than a mediocre episode about cannibalistic horse-people and giant death sperms. In the end, that’s all there is to it, and that’s admirable.
This begs the question, however: Is this episode truly stupid? I’d say so; I can’t think of a more ridiculous one. Morty’s shameful secret that he had sex with a horse sex machine is the funniest part of the plot, but it can only go on for so long. To continue the story, the sperm will have to be taken out of the bag, and the rest of the episode will be filled with increasingly ridiculous sperm (and horse) antics. While some of these antics are amusing (Beth and Summer’s sperm-riding adventure is the best and most filmic-looking), the comedy suffers from diminishing returns as the absurdity increases. The final gag involves Rick French kissing an anthropomorphic horse, which I assume has no other purpose than to be funny in and of itself. But it isn’t. The president refusing to destroy a giant incest baby because it’s an election year is funny, I’ll grant you that (however).
Like a breath of fresh air, “Rickdependence Spray” avoids being one of those episodes where the comedy and characters get lost in an overly complicated sci-fi premise, as in the first two episodes of this season, or one that plays at being something more than that like last week’s. I don’t think this is anything more than a gag about the sexual relations between sperm and horse people. When it comes to “Rick dependency Spray,” the jokes are everything. At most, half of what’s said is amusing. Is the rest?
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