Rick and Morty – How Poopy Got His Poop Back Review

Rick and Morty returns with the seventh season opening with a night out only Rick Sanchez can have.

Mr. Poopybutthole has fallen into a deep depression resulting in him drinking and taking drugs. The Smith family wants to kick out their house guest and demand that Rick perform an intervention for Mr. Poopybutthole. So, Rick and his drinking pals take the weird yellow creature for a night out.

Earlier this year Justin Roiland, the co-creator of the show and the voice of the titular characters was fired after being arrested for domestic violence, The Hollywood Reporter wrote an expose about the behind-the-scene drama on the show and Roiland’s toxic behaviour. Even Roiland admitted in a behind-the-scene video that it was a bad idea to let him get drunk when recording. It has also been reported that Roiland messaged underaged fans. There have been fans calling for Roiland to be rehired after the charges were dropped, but that won’t happen considering how much everyone he worked with hates him.

The show needed to be recast which seemed like a challenge considering how recognisable the voices of Rick, Morty, and other characters like Mr. Poopybutthole and Mr. Meeseeks are. The producers of Rick and Morty replaced Roiland with soundalikes who have done a good job so far. Ian Cardoni, Harry Beldon, and Jon Allen sounded like Roiland’s voices for Rick, Morty, and Mr. Poopybutthole respectively. I have heard worse recasting like Carl and Dr. Hibbett in The Simpsons and the impersonations in 2DTV.

Rick and Morty had suffered from a decline since Season Four. The show became inconsistent due to having more formulaic and outright bad episodes. Nick Rutherford wrote this season’s opener and this was a bad sign since his previous Rick and Morty episodes were “Rickdependence Spray,” the worst Rick and Morty episode, and “Juricksic Mort,” an episode about advanced dinosaurs that was somehow humdrum. “How Poopy Got His Poop Back” was more like a filler episode than a season opener.

The previous seasons have had great opening episodes. The Pilot set up the premise of the show well, “A Rickle in Time” and “Mort Dinner Rick Andre” had big sci-fi concepts, “The Rickshank Rickemption” and “Solaricks” concluded great cliffhangers, and “Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat” was chaotic fun. “How Poppy Got His Poop Back” was bland by comparison since it was simply Rick and pals going out on a bender and getting into trouble. Rick doesn’t even get blackout, shit-himself drunk like in “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender.” That would have been hilarious.

“How Poppy Got His Poop Back” had the same issue as “Rickdependence Spray,” it felt that a load of words were yelled out in the writers’ room and a story formulated around it. It had the ’and then’ problem where the characters were reacting to events instead of dictating them. The plot can be described as Rick and his friends take Mr. Poopybutthole to a bar, and then they find out it’s his birthday, and then they meet Hugh Jackman, and then they go to Mr. Poopybutthole’s ex-wife’s apartment, and then they fight a predator. It sounds scattergun and forced when described like that.

The moment the predator appears made “How Poppy Got His Poop Back” feel like a different show. It was something that Family Guy would do since they go for random jokes and obvious pop culture references. Rick and Morty was more creative with pop culture references and parodies.

The episode also went to great pains to ensure this episode was still part of Rick and Morty’s continuity. There were references throughout the episode, starting with Mr. Poopybutthole reminding the audience Beth shot him and the collapse of his marriage. Mr. Poopybutthole mentioned his fighting prowess as shown in “One Crew over the Crewcoo’s Morty” and Gearhead’s testicles shoved into his mouth for a second time. It came across as desperate from the showrunners to assure fans and failed. Simultaneously, this episode brought back Squachy, who survived his encounter with the Federation, and most importantly Birdperson had liberated his daughter from a Federation prison. The show skipped over some major stories, and it didn’t feel as clever or subversive as in previous seasons.

There was a vein attempt at character development for Rick. He went on the intervention to distract him from his search Rick Prime and show that doesn’t want to handle emotional issues. That was why he brought in his friends for the intervention. Rick had to act as a real friend to Mr. Poopybutthole whose behaviour was becoming more self-destructive. Mr. Poopybutthole described himself, he was a ’real piece of garage’.

The episode had Hugh Jackman as a guest star. He played a parody of himself as a hard-drinking, partying man. Jackman has lent his voice to quite a few adult animated shows. He appeared in The Simpsons, Big Mouth, and Human Resources. It seems like Jackman has a bingo card of adult animated shows, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he appears in shows like American Dad and Futurama.

There were some decent jokes that made “How Poopy Got His Poop Back” that made it mildly enjoyable. There was the absurdity of Rick making a robot just so he can kill it and create a ghost, and a moment where during the bender the characters went to ‘Beer World’ which felt like a Homer Simpson fantasy.

“How Poopy Got His Poop Back” was sadly a mediocre start to Rick and Morty’s seventh season. The few moments of humour weren’t enough to lift an uninspired story.