Remember when neckbeards on Reddit used to brag that you had to have a high IQ to appreciate Rick and Morty? Remember that? That you had to have a high IQ to truly grasp the intricacies of this program? The program where our 14 year old protagonist uses a horse semen extractor to pleasure himself and then his sperm comes to life, becomes monsters, and threatens to destroy the world?
You have to have a high IQ to appreciate it, apparently.
All right, full disclosure… I did laugh and I laughed several times. Not during the plot where Rick and Morty battle the killer sperm, but rather the banter in The War Room with the president, Summer, Beth, and Jerry. Everything from Beth not understanding the joke to wondering how large space members were… that was funny.
Everything else was just… not.
I like it most when Rick and Morty does high concept science fiction and “Rickdependence Spray” was anything but high concept. Granted, this is a very competent episode with a lot of humor and ridiculousness and that’s fine, but Rick and Morty have never done all out South Park style gross out humor and it makes this episode awkward.
I did like how Morty kept trying to conceal his lie and how he was willing to let Rick take the fall and I also like how his lie was exposed early on rather than allow it to become a cliché, but still… an entire episode devoted to killer sperm resulting in an ending that seemed right out of Brickleberry is disappointing and beneath this series.
At that point, the episode relies solely on its jokes and, when one entire half of the episode falls flat, the disappointment only mounts.
Jason Gaston 