Rick and Morty – Promortyus Review

“Rattlestar Rickactica” and “Never Ricking Morty” were both excellent episodes, so it’s sad to report that the seventh episode in Rick and Morty’s fourth season was a downgrade.

Rick and Morty awake on a planet after killing a couple of facehugging parasites that were attached to them. The pair escape the planet but have to return when they realised they left Summer behind.

“Promortyus” was made as a partial parody of the Alien franchise. Even the episode’s title was a reference to Prometheus. The aliens in “Promortyus” had a similar life cycle to the Xenomorph: they hatched from an egg onto a host and the parasite ends up laying an egg, killing the host. The alien parasites in the episode were more intelligent than the parasites because were able to speak and form a civilisation. There were a bit like the Brain Slugs in Futurama where they control the host.

“Promortyus” best moment when the cold opening when Morty accidentally breaks the trance and the pair realise they have been controlled for an indeterminate amount of time. It was a great hook to the episode and allowed for some classic Rick and Morty bickering. Rick’s response to Morty’s criticisms was to highlight he had a PornHub account.

The episode took aim against social media. The alien that control Rick turned him into a Youtuber who just rants at a camera and seen as a crackpot who was sneered at by the rest of society. Rick asks did he sell out and peddle vitamins. This was a dig at Alex Jones and InfoWars who make money from ranting about conspiracy theories and selling products to the viewers. The other attack on social media was at Summer’s interest in long, boring podcasts.

“Promortyus” also shows off Summer’s survival skills. Summer was able to integrate herself with the parasites and lead them. It was like what Morty did with Tree People in “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” And like Morty with the Tree People, Summer wanted to escape the parasites at the first opportunity. Summer has in the past become a part of a Mad Max-like group in a post-apocalyptic waste but she enjoyed her time with them and only left because she got bored.

The big problem with “Promortyus” was the humour wasn’t up to standard. It was nowhere near as funny or creative as some of the best episodes. Worst were the attempts at edgy humour. In the episode Rick and Morty nearly cause a 9/11 style attack but decided against it because it was in poor taste and had an near incest scene involving two characters. Rick and Morty had done bad taste humour before. The second-ever episode of the show had a 9/11 joke and one version of Morty was interested in incest porn in the episode “The Ricklantis Mixup”. These jokes worked better because they were quick; there was no time to linger. Shock humour works best in short, sharp doses.

“Promortyus” was a weaker offering from Rick and Morty. The plotline was unoriginal by the show’s standards and the humour wasn’t able to lift it up.