Rick and Morty – Mort Dinner Rick Andre Review

Rick and Morty are back for a fifth season of their popular series. The first episode of the season was a fine start with the show having its usual mix of cynicism and nihilism.

Morty saves Rick from a near-death situation. Instead of being grateful, Rick is mad at Morty because he must face his nemesis, Mr. Nimbus (Dan Harmon), and negotiate a peace treaty. On the night of the peace negotiations Morty has a movie night with Jessica. Unfortunately for Morty a civilisation sees the teen as the bringer of death and destruction.

‘Mort Dinner Rick Andre’ combines two major themes of the series. The first was good intentions have bad consequences This happened in ‘Mortynight Run,’ ‘Auto Erotic Assimilation,’ and ‘Rattlestar Ricklactica.’ The other theme was Morty’s libido also having negative consequences. Episodes like ‘Rick Potion #9,’ ‘Look Who’s Purging Now,’ and ‘Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat’ were examples of this.

In this episode Morty goes through the extra effort to save Rick and himself when there was a prospect of having a date with Jessica which leads to Rick having to face Mr. Nimbus. The other incident that ignites the story was when a creature from another dimension helps Morty which leads to the creation of the Morty hating civilisation. Every time Morty travelled into the other dimension he ends up escalating things. As Rick says Morty just ‘fucks things up.’

‘Mort Dinner Rick Andre’ does bare a lot of similarities to ‘Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat.’ In the Season Four opener Morty wanted to ensure he had a future with Jessica which led to Morty going on a murderous rampage. In this episode Morty ruins a society because they see him as the devil and that was before Morty massacres them because they kept ruining his date with Jessica.  It shows that the more that Morty hangs around Rick the more he becomes like Rick.

It was amazing to see how the situation with the other dimension escalated and ruined the Huckleberry Hound people. It goes from small, farmstead to the hounds starting the Night’s Watch, to them becoming a high-tech civilisation. This was an episode that had some excellent montages which showed how the society evolved like how a young man doubted the existence of the demon child and gets used by a dark wizard.

Morty called the portal to the other dimension a ‘Narnia door.’ This was fitting because the Huckleberry Hound people ended up forming their religion and belief system around Morty and the portal door.

Whilst the main plot of the episode focused on Morty’s conflict with the other dimension, the marketing focused on Mr. Nimbus. Mr. Nimbus was essentially a hypersexualised version of Aquaman or Namor the Sub-Mariner. Mr. Nimbus offered up a lot of cruder humour due to his sexuality. He thrust his crotch at the camera and got the police to do certain things. Mr. Nimbus was a one-note character, but he also offered a rare glimpse at Rick’s backstory. Whether he will reappear like Birdperson, or simply be a one-off character remains to be seen.

The C plot of the episode involved Beth and Jerry. A running theme of Rick and Morty is their marriage troubles. In this episode the pair try to be more sex-positive which leads to them getting an interesting offer from Mr. Nimbus. Despite Beth and Jerry saying they were both sex-positive it was clear they were really uncomfortable.

‘Mort Dinner Rick Andre’ was a strong start to season five due to the insanity involving Morty’s conflict in with the Huckleberry Hound people. It’s appreciated that the writer, Jeff Loveness was able to interlink the three seemingly random plots.