With Beth and Jerry off world at alien marriage therapy, Rick puts his brain into a younger clone of himself to join Morty and Summer in High School to take down a vampire menace… only things get complicated when Rick decides he’d rather be a teenager forever.
This episode represents one of those rare occasions when the side story is actually better than the main story. The main story… sigh…. we’ve seen it before and we know what it’s getting at. Yes, we know that Rick is depressed and that he hates himself. This is not new information and it’s been covered several times today. The idea of Rick becoming a teenager to escape himself isn’t surprising or new even if it is very funny when it tries to be.
I, on the other hand, thought that the story of Beth and Jerry facing off against their demonized perceptions of each other was hysterically brilliant and insightful. If there’s one thing that keeps drawing me back to Rick and Morty – even through the occasional misfires – it’s how this show constantly surprises by being both funny and being a science fiction series with amazingly fresh ideas.
Sure, this time the ideas were only half-fresh, but they were fresh enough to make the episode more than enjoyable. I’ll forgive it for the stale Rick is a teenager story.
Jason Gaston 