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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2015 18:01:01 GMT -5
And yet, it still has a "A-" on the AV Club. As I recall, the review had sort of an overexcited fanboy "I can't believe they revisited my favorite episode!" tone to it I'm glad the reviewer loves R&M as much as we do, but it was just a bad episode. If Get Schwifty (which has grown on me) gets a B, this one should have been a B- (Also, AVC reviewers suck at the letter grades. They acknowledge this when it's pointed out and don't seem to care, as it's just there to get you to read the long-form review) |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2015 21:07:09 GMT -5
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 24, 2015 5:41:30 GMT -5
(Also, AVC reviewers suck at the letter grades. They acknowledge this when it's pointed out and don't seem to care, as it's just there to get you to read the long-form review) Letter grades are by definition subjective; I wouldn't read much into it beyond the fact the reviewer liked the episode better than "Get Schwifty"; if one wants a grade averaged by votes from the community, well, that's what the community grade is for. Also that orchestral cover being stitched together from source pieces is kind of interesting to me. Writing digital music's come a fair way from my days dicking in Sibelius. |
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Post by Meth Lab Shenanigans on Sept 28, 2015 0:56:58 GMT -5
I'm a little tired of Rick and Morty hammering home the message that trying to do something good only makes the universe worse- at a certain point, mean-spirited nihilism stops being funny or refreshing, and just becomes really boring. And the "I think you don't watch decapitation videos because..." thing was a pretty obnoxious continuation of the out-of-nowhere screed about violence on TV from last week. I get it, Justin Roiland. It's coming through loud and clear. Don't worry about, like, subtlety or any of that.
This wasn't a bad episode, but the show's really repeating itself, and I'm getting a little sick of it. As this season goes on it gets clearer that they essentially put all the really great episodes at the beginning. "Big Trouble in Little Sanchez" was good, but aside from that, nothing since "Total Rickall" has been anything to write home about.
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Post by Dackquiri on Sept 28, 2015 12:49:14 GMT -5
I'm a little tired of Rick and Morty hammering home the message that trying to do something good only makes the universe worse- at a certain point, mean-spirited nihilism stops being funny or refreshing, and just becomes really boring. And the "I think you don't watch decapitation videos because..." thing was a pretty obnoxious continuation of the out-of-nowhere screed about violence on TV from last week. I get it, Justin Roiland. It's coming through loud and clear. Don't worry about, like, subtlety or any of that. That tirade last week was weird. Especially with Roiland using Morty as a mouthpiece when he's such a pacifist at the onset of this episode. You can make a lot of points that society's too squeamish about sex, language, drug use... I'd disagree with the assertion "everyone's too PC nowadays", but there's certainly a conversation that can be had there, too. But violence? Kind of a dumb free expression hill to die on. It's the thing that a) is probably most justified to have an aversion to or be offended by, and b) probably the least censored of these things on TV (in America, anyway). That said, I liked this episode a lot. While the show took a little too much glee in turning Morty into a murder machine (and it did seem like a betrayal of one of this show's strengths—that it never divorces violence and gore from its horrifying plot consequences (the bane of a lot of Adult Swim/ADHD shows for me)), I felt less like the show was soapboxing with the decapitation bit and more having Rick try to shake Morty out of his comfort zone of small-scale idealism and field-untested principles, as he often does. That's what I took away from the "eyes bigger than my stomach" bit, anyway—he's not actually that desensitized. |
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 28, 2015 14:12:44 GMT -5
The line about beheadings didn't bother me precisely because it was from Rick - he's repeatedly been shown to have a fairly cavalier attitude towards life and horror; it's extremely consistent with the character's manner of thinking. (Morty going off about PC culture the week before, however, felt a little more soapboxy for the reason Dackquiri stated.) We also immediately see Rick get grossed out by the Purge just minutes later and think better of the whole idea - even he has limits, at least to what he can stomach. As far as consequences go I think the show's better at emotional consequences than consequences consequences. I keep coming back to that throwaway cold open where Morty helps Rick kill his family - okay, clones of his family from an alternate reality possessed by demonic alien spirits from another dimension's future - and while that has no long term effects to his day-to-day life, the episode implies rather strongly he was traumatized by it. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2015 14:38:23 GMT -5
Ratings:
1.
A Rickle in Time
A-
Great A-plot, hilarious, bad Beth/Jerry B-plot
2.
Mortynight Run
A
Great A-plot + "Roy", hilarious, Great B-plot
3.
Auto Erotic Assimilation
A-
Great A-plot, hilarious but not overly jokey for the more serious story being told + legitimately heartbreaking ending, bad Beth/Jerry B-plot
4.
Total Rickall
A
Perfect.
5.
Get Schwifty
B
Great A-plot idea imperfectly executed, B-plot kind of boring
6.
The Ricks Must Be Crazy
A
Great A-plot, hilarious, good B-plot
7.
Big Trouble in Little Sanchez
B
Not very funny, kind of boring, bad Beth/Jerry B-plot
8.
Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate
B-
Not funny, terrible "tv commercials", B-plot starts good but ends stupid
9.
Look Who's Purging Now
B+
Kind of just one joke turned into an episode, but not boring at least
10.
The Wedding Squanchers
A
Perfect
Morals:
1) They should have aired good episodes every other time instead of all the good ones being at the beginning of the season.
2) The writers sometimes obsess over showing characters just react to things that are happening. Get Schwifty is a good example: we didn't need the song interrupted multiple times by President and Captain Military just to point out to us how CRAZY RANDOM and WACKY this situation is. WE KNOW IT'S CRAZY. We don't need characters to explain that to us. It ruins the joke.
3) Beth/Jerry sub-plots suck. We're talking about universes being destroyed, I don't care about a semi-relevant earth couple re-learning that they actually do love each other every single week.
4) It's pretty easy to tell from the previews whether the next episode will be good or bad.
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Post by Meth Lab Shenanigans on Sept 28, 2015 14:43:48 GMT -5
A Rickle in Time - A-
Mortynight Run - A-
Auto-Erotic Assimilation - A
Total Rickall - A
Get Schwifty - B-
The Ricks Must Be Crazy - B+
Big Trouble in Little Sanchez - B+
Interdimensional Cable 2: Testing Fate - C
Look Who's Purging Now - C+
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Post by 🔪 silly buns on Oct 4, 2015 23:38:44 GMT -5
A year and a half or longer  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2015 0:13:13 GMT -5
I'm probably alone in thinking this, but I wasn't really feeling the big emotional payoff for tonight's episode.
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Post by Meth Lab Shenanigans on Oct 5, 2015 1:15:13 GMT -5
That shit was crazy.
I wish they'd built up to the "Rick and Birdperson were Firefly-style outlaws" revelation a bit more slowly instead of dumping it all on us at once, but in retrospect the hints were definitely there- this wasn't something they just threw in. Aside from that nitpicking, this episode was pretty much perfect.
Updated grades:
A Rickle in Time - A-
Mortynight Run - A-
Auto-Erotic Assimilation - A
Total Rickall - A
Get Schwifty - B-
The Ricks Must Be Crazy - B+
Big Trouble in Little Sanchez - B+
Interdimensional Cable 2: Testing Fate - C
Look Who's Purging Now - C+
Wedding Squanchers - A
Season grade - B+
Started off one of the best shows on television, got lost somewhere in there, and returned with a fantastic season finale.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Oct 5, 2015 6:19:50 GMT -5
I should have known James Callis and Tricia Helfer as Tammy's parents was a clue! Meth Lab Shenanigans I think we had enough to go on. Rick's disdain for the galactic government was established all the way back in the Pilot, the Council of Ricks was created primarily as a response to his galactic reputation, and "Get Schwifty" did have a melancholic scene where Bird Person says Rick has saved his life. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2015 12:27:02 GMT -5
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Post by Dackquiri on Oct 5, 2015 14:20:30 GMT -5
A Rickle in Time - AMortynight Run - A-Auto-Erotic Assimilation - A-Total Rickall - AGet Schwifty - BThe Ricks Must Be Crazy - ABig Trouble in Little Sanchez - B+Interdimensional Cable 2: Testing Fate - B-Look Who's Purging Now - BWedding Squanchers - ASeason grade - A-I think its stumbling near the end had a little bit to do with—as Meth Lab Shenanigans pointed out last week—a bit of misanthropy uncomfortably coupled with a zeal for violence, and—as Douay-Rheims-Challoner pointed out—a lack of emotional consequences that usually help its bloodier gags and shock moments land without hurting the emotional core of the show. (The candy bar bit at the end of Look Who's Purging especially.) That said, Squanchers absolutely course corrected. We got to see Beth reveal some of the toll of Rick walking out on her (the revelations about her fear of him leaving were nothing that the show hadn't already laid fairly implicit—and that Harmon hadn't already explicitly explained in interviews—but seeing such a stubborn character tearfully own up to it was still pretty affecting). That, and the gags were on fire. From the absurd stuff like the cob planet, and then all the sight gags regarding the dwarf planet's size, to the dense potency of the dialog (I tried to quote a couple of Rick's bits like the Grandson's Useless Advice drink and "Here's dessert: fuck you", but holy shit, they seem way too mean to be funny when I take them out of context.) Beth's insistence that the ceremony was still lovely in particular got me, though. Things that intrigued me/that I hope get covered next season: - Tammy didn't just want to disarm Rick, she wanted that fucking portal gun. And he was not willing to let her have it. It makes me wonder, even though those were the bureaucrat customs aliens from the first episode, if the technology in that gun goes beyond what the federation has. - Maybe he is a Firefly-style outlaw. Maybe he's even more ethically dubious. As it stands, Rick's always had a questionable moral compass. I do wonder if his criminal activities were justifiable, or if maybe he really did earn that terrorist label. - Earth is part of this federation now! I kinda fear that's the kind of thing they'll wanna undo to some extent next season to get back to something resembling a status quo, but this really could open up some story possibilities. |
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Post by saganaut on Oct 7, 2015 17:05:23 GMT -5
I absolutely loved the final episode; the ending really hit hard for me. Such a good use of Hurt.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2016 23:00:31 GMT -5
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