The Smith family is growing bigger and bigger by the minute as an alien parasite injects memories of itself into the brain of everyone it’s around, so how does one kill a parasite when you’re convinced that you’ve known it all your life and you’re not sure who’s real and who’s not?
With a gun, obviously, but how can you be sure that you’re killing a parasite and not a real member of your family?
Just when I say that Rick and Morty is one of the most whacked out original series on television today, it does something even more whacked. The idea of someone injecting themselves into someone else’s life has been around since at least Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and probably before that too but it’s the earliest example I can think of) but never has it been exploited so wonderfully and amazingly as it has here.
While the cutaway gags felt like they belonged more in an episode of Family Guy than Rick and Morty, they were focused more on humor and less on pop culture and they were essential to the plot so I guess I can let it pass even if it felt a little odd.
What I found most interesting about this episode is that it continued the trend of the season of traumatizing a main character. Last week it was Rick with Unity, the week before it was Morty with Fart, and the week before that it was Jerry at the Jerry Day Care. Could Summer’s trauma be coming next week?
Overall, I found the tone of the episode a little inconsistent, but the humor of “Total Rickall” kept building and building every minute culminating in one of the most laugh out loud gags it’s ever taken a show thirty minutes to build up to. You’ve just got to comment that level of commitment.
Jason Gaston 