Rick and Morty – Night Family Review

“Rick: A Mort Well Lived” and “Bethic Twinstinct” have been great episodes of Rick and Morty and showed that there’s still life in the show. “Night Family” is even better and the best episode of Season Six, so far.

Rick has brought a device that allowed him to programme his body to do tasks whilst he’s asleep. When the Smith family finds out they also want to use the device so their subconscious can learn new skills, get exercise, and do household chores. However, a conflict arises when the ‘Night Family’ make a simple request to Rick.

“Night People” was a focused episode. It centred around the conflict between The Smiths and Night Family. There were no subplots or a B-plot like in most episodes. It was more like “Mortyplicity” since it was about the Smiths surviving and killing robotic doppelgangers. In “Night People” the Smiths were fighting themselves.

This Rick and Morty episode was similar to three American Dad episodes: “Stan Time,” “Cock of the Sleepwalk,” and “The One That Got Away.” In “Stan Time” Stan and Francine take pills that allow them to stay awake at night and they spend their time learning new skills. In “Cock of the Sleepwalk” Stan goes to war with his subconscious because Stan’s subconscious did nice things to atone for Stan’s sins. “The One That Got Away” had a similar premise to “Cock of the Sleepwalk” because one of Roger’s identities forms a life of its own and he was fighting himself.

“Night Family” combines some great ideas from previous Rick and Morty episodes. The Night Family was meant to make the Smith’s lives easier, similar to the Meeseeks in “Meeseeks and Destroy” but it all goes wrong because Jerry gave the Meeseeks an impossible task. “Night Family” plays on Rick’s petty and stubborn attitude. The Night Family just wanted the Smiths to rinse the plates and Rick outright refuses. Rick acted as he did in “The Rickchurian Mortydate” and “The Old Man and the Seat.”

The episode had a great sense of escalation. It started with Rick refusing to rinse his plates, leading to the Night Family smashing all the crockery. Rick responds by acquiring indestructible plates and the Night Family gets rid of the family’s furniture in retaliation. It’s an episode that ends with robots shooting sleeping dates and the family having a big car chase. It was great fun.

“Night Family” does play upon the horror imaginary. Beth gets frightened when she sees Rick doing sit-ups in his sleep. It was creepy seeing the dead-eyed Smiths go around the house doing their tasks. They looked like zombies, and they spoke with horrible croaky voices.

Season Six has been a seriously-minded season so far. “Solaricks” was a lore episode that dealt with the fallout of Season Five’s finale, “Rick: A Mort Well Lived” explored Rick and Morty’s relationship, and “Bethic Twinstinct” was about Beth discovering self-love. “Night Family” was the funniest episode of the season so far. It was hilarious that Rick started a conflict over something so minor and see how both sides react. The Night Family forcing Rick to eat the grime from plates was hilarious and it was fun seeing the Smiths knocking themselves in and out of consciousness during the final conflict. Whilst it was a small joke, I really enjoyed Rick’s alarm clock as a visual gag.

Rick and Morty Sixth Season has been going from strength to strength and “Night Family” was proof of that. “Night Family” was a zany and hilarious entry in the series.