Rick and Morty – Juricksic Mort Review

The previous episode of Rick and Morty, “Final DeSmithation” was a disappointment with the plot centred around incest. “Juricksic Mort” sees the show return to a more traditional story.

A group of advanced dinosaurs land on Earth and seeing how much humanity has buggered up the planet decide to act as benevolent overlords. Due to Earth turning into a utopia life becomes boring for the Smiths and Rick becomes suspicious because he believes no one is truly selfless. Rick and Morty travel to the other planets the dinosaurs have inhabited to discover their secret.

The sixth season of Rick and Morty has generally been an improvement with many of the episodes matching the quality of the first three seasons. “Juricksic Mort” was trying to continue that trend because its story and message. “Juricksic Mort” had a wacky premise involving super-intelligent alien dinosaurs that felt like it could have been an episode from Season One or Two. The episode “Get Schwitfty” even did an alien contact story.

“Juricksic Mort” aimed to be more like an episode from Seasons One and Two because of its characterisation and theme. Rick and Morty became known for its nihilistic themes and for putting a dark twist on values we hold dear. Examples of this were “Mortynight Run” where Morty’s attempt to save a life results in the deaths of many people, and in “Auto Erotic Assimilation” Summer found out the hard way that free will meant people could be dicks to each other. “Juricksic Mort’s” philosophy was a utopia, and a life of leisure would be boring, yet if humans were left to their own devices then they’ll end up destroying themselves.

This dark, nihilistic approach was what helped Rick and Morty stand out and most fans wanted a return to this. It’s what I wanted. However, “Juricksic Mort” was lacking. It did not have the edge that made the previously mentioned episode so great. It was shockingly funny when Morty destroyed a city to save one life and when Summer accidentally started a race, but “Juricksic Mort” did not feel as shocking or offered any sort of character or social insight. The montage where the dinosaurs leave Earth and humanity goes back to their destructive ways was a lot like the religious war in “Rick: A Mort Well Lived.”

When previous episodes took a nihilistic viewpoint about society there was a relatability to it. It could appeal to the cynic in us. “Juricksic Mort” lacked this. The reveal in the episode was that all the good the dinosaurs did for various planets led to a sentient asteroid of negative energy that destroys the planets. It could be argued that the message of the episode was that if someone tries to be good then something bad will counterbalance it. This idea felt rushed and nowhere near as deep as previous Rick and Morty episodes.

The episode could have gone in a better direction. Rick could make a point that humanity would reject the dino utopia to highlight his bleak outlook, or Rick could instigate resistance of some sort by annoying the Dinosaurs. It would have been more fitting than the Dinosaurs leaving Earth because of a living rock.

The other aspect of the episode was Rick trying to prove he was right and trying to make the Dinosaurs break their principles. This would be in keeping for Rick who doesn’t like to be shown up or proven to be wrong. He agrees with the Dinosaurs that there wasn’t much of a difference between selflessness and selfishness. This idea felt a lot like Joey’s argument with Phoebe in the Friends episode “The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS.” This feeling was amplified because Lisa Kudrow voiced one of the Dinosaurs.

Rick’s pride and pettiness also played a major role in the episode. Rick didn’t like that the Dinosaurs showed him up and had the audacity to offer to help the mad scientist. For a long time Rick has been portrayed as the smartest man in the universe and he was unbeatable. Rick finally had someone who could challenge Rick’s intelligence and technology and offer a challenge. It was also fun to see Rick hurt himself when he tried to skateboard down a crater.

“Juricksic Rick” acted as a mid-season finale. The opening episode of Season Six showed portal travel was broken. “Juricksic Rick” finally addressed the issue with Rick finally getting the motivation to fix his portal gun and the episode ended with a Rick rant, like the opening episodes of Seasons One and Three.

“Juricksic Park” was an episode that had a lot of potential, but the script needed to undergo a few more drafts to refine the plot and jokes.