Few cartoon shows have enjoyed as much critical and commercial success right from the first season as Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty. Part family comedy and part sci-fi satire, the series was hailed for its clever writing and compelling characters. Rick and Morty seemed like such a sure bet, that the series was renewed for a gigantic 70 additional episodes after only its third season.
And yet, a few years later and six seasons down the line, Rick and Morty seems to be losing its sheen. The series has been plagued with a number of issues that have left its fandom divided. It is becoming increasingly clear that the show needs to make some major changes if it is to regain its lost glory. Let us look at how it can do so.
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Lack of Focus
Warner Bros. Television
Rick and Morty was built on a cynical, nihilistic view of the world as encapsulated by the lead character of Rick Sanchez, the smartest man in the universe. Right from the first season, it was confirmed that there exists an infinite number of universes in the multiverse, each with its own versions of Rick, Morty, and the rest of the show’s supporting characters. Each of these characters are interchangeable, and in fact the character do occasionally switch places with their multiverse counterparts to escape problems in their own universe.
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Living in a world where every person can be replaced at any moment, Rick often emphasizes to his grandson and sidekick Morty that life has no meaning. Love is nothing but a chemical reaction in our brains. People hold no intrinsic value. The only way to cope is to stop looking for meaning in life and just have fun with the time and resources available to you. As Morty tells his older sister Summer in one of the show’s most iconic dialogs, “Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV.” It’s essentially pessimistic hedonism.
Changing the Rules Mid-way
The first couple of seasons of Rick and Morty stuck to the principle of “nothing matters.” Each episode was largely standalone, with Rick and Morty getting into all kinds of interdimensional shenanigans. No lessons were learned. The characters only existed to make jokes, like Rick, or as walking punchlines, like Jerry. It was clear that the show’s main interest was in making fun of sci-fi tropes rather than telling an overarching story.
But this did not last. Fans were clamoring to know more about Rick’s backstory. And slowly the writers of the show obliged. One-off locations and characters started making recurring appearances, like the Citadel of Ricks and Evil Morty, hinting at a larger story behind Rick’s misanthropic worldview and purpose in life. From being one-off adventures, the show’s episodes started becoming more interconnected with an overarching narrative.
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This might have worked if the show had always intended to move in this direction. But looking at the characterization of Rick in the first couple of seasons, it is clear that his behavior and temperament were massively modified in later seasons to make him more sympathetic and turn him into a tragic hero instead of the cynical, callous anti-hero he started out as.
Throwaway Plotlines and Characters
So is Rick and Morty supposed to be an irreverent parody highlighting the absurdities of sci-fi tropes, or is it supposed to be a proper space adventure saga featuring three-dimensional characters with complex backstories whose emotional journey you are actually supposed to care about? This is the question that fans and writers of the series have been struggling with for the past few seasons. In fact, the showrunners have made a running gag out of Rick voicing his disgust for having episodes that are heavy on series canon instead of being satirical, solo stand-alone adventures.
This has resulted in Rick and Morty having a curious mix of “canon” and “filler” episodes which ultimately end up satisfying no one. Characters and plot lines are introduced which seem set to have a major impact on the overall narrative, only to be resolved soon afterward with a throwaway gag. Like the ominous interdimensional rip Evil Morty creates at the end of the fifth season, only for the whole issue to be solved in seconds in the sixth season with little narrative impact, in a manner that seems designed to be a middle finger to the fans who keep demanding more canon episodes.
So how do you get fans to care about the show and its characters if the same show and characters actively make fun of fans for caring? It’s like a twisted paradox that only Rick Sanchez could manage to create with his unique mix of intelligence and toxicity. And it is clear that such an arrangement is unsustainable in the long run.
A Difficult Show to Stan
Ever since the release of the first season of Rick and Morty, the series gained a notorious reputation for its toxic fandom. It is hardly surprising that a bunch of viewers who idolize someone like Rick Sanchez and think they are the only ones clever enough to get the “real meaning” of the show would be less than pleasant people to deal with. But things are hardly any better on the creative side of the show. From open hostility between the animators and showrunners Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, to Harmon getting embroiled in a MeToo controversy.
In 2023 Roiland, who also voices both Rick and Morty, was accused of domestic violence, which led to Adult Swim severing ties with him and announcing that the lead characters’ voices will be recast. At this point Rick and Morty almost seems like too much trouble to try to salvage from the toxicity surrounding every aspect of the show. Sooner or later, if the series does manage to cross 70 episodes, Rick and Morty will have to decide what kind of show it wants to be both in front of and behind the scenes, and what kind of legacy it wants to leave behind.
