Rick and Morty – That’s Amorte Review

After three Rick-centric episodes, the seventh season of Rick and Morty finally gives audiences a classic grandfather-and-grandson adventure with the pair going to another screwed-up world.

Thursday is Spaghetti Night where Rick makes his famous spaghetti for the whole family. However, Morty discovers the disputing truth of Rick’s spaghetti: it’s made by aliens who have committed suicide. Morty tries to right this wrong, but in classic Morty fashion, his best intentions make things worse.

Season 7 had a rough start with “How Poopy Got His Poop Back” but it has gradually improved with every episode since then. Now the season has gone back to the tried and tested formula of Morty trying to do the right thing but his actions end up having negative consequences. It’s a story that Rick and Morty had done many times before. Morty’s attempt to save Fart led to a large number of citizen deaths, trying to save Arthricia led to Rick and Morty being trapped on a purge planet, and Morty’s attempts to unite a snake planet led to a Terminator situation. Morty’s conscience and libido often land the teenager in trouble.

Rick and Morty have fallen into the trap of being formulaic. “That’s Amorte” has some similarities with “The Ricks Must Be Crazy” due to Rick’s exploitation of people and the social commentary about capitalism. “The Rick Must Be Crazy” was one of the best Rick and Morty episodes and it’s a great episode to reference. All the episodes that “That’s Amorte” referenced were great and it shared basic DNA with them, not a clone. “That’s Amorte” was a back-to-basics story for Rick and Morty.

“That’s Amorte” was one of the more fucked up episodes of Rick and Morty. This was an episode where a planet turned into a food processing plant. It was wonderfully dark when the Spaghetti Planet turned into a dystopian hellscape that encouraged its citizens to kill themselves. It was darkly hilarious. I am a fan of dystopian fiction so I was appreciative of the references. “That’s Amorte” made a lot of references to Soylent Green. The famous twist in Soylent Green was that the titular food was actually processed people and the cold opening of “That’s Amorte” ends with Morty making a similar discovery. There was also a reference to the euthanasia room in the 1973 classic.

Rick makes a reference to Never Let Me Go which was fun to see something more literacy being mentioned. As Rick puts it, he was trying to speedrun a Never Let Me Go scenario but ends with two clones shooting each other. The quick scene where two clones run away looked more like THX-1138 and The Island. There was a more subtle reference to Never Let Me Go due to many of the characters wanting to live the lie and continue to eat spaghetti without any guilt. Morty’s family was upset that he ruined spaghetti night and Rick and Morty were looking for a loophole to make eating people more palpable.

The story of “That’s Amorte” bore a similarity to Jupiter Ascending. In Jupiter Ascending an intergalactic corporate family harvests planets with humans to turn the people into a rejuvenating liquid. In “That’s Amorte” the Spaghetti Planet became a hot spot for many aliens who wanted a taste of that delicious pasta.

“That’s Amorte” was also an indictment of capitalism. The spaghetti trade turned the planet from a seemingly nice place to live to a polluted industrial hellhole. The planet turned into a depressing place because of the heavy industrialisation, let alone from the added factors the government imposes on the people. There was a dig against Discovery, the company that owns Cartoon Network/AdultSwim which was nice to see, especially after Warner Bros. Discovery having made another film a tax write-off.

“That’s Amorte” took capitalist ideas to an extreme. The resources being exploited were the people. The workers were literally meat to the grinder. Or to put it another way, the elites were willing to destroy their environment and deplete resources so they could make a quick buck. When Morty tried to bring down the spaghetti trade he was warned it would crash the galactic economy. There is a lot going on for audiences to think about. This episode seems like one that would win an award from the Vegan community for its portrayal of the meat industry.

“That’s Amorte” was the best-written episode of Season 7 so far. It was thematic and darkly twisted and felt more like it was made during Rick and Morty’s golden age.