As the school year ends and I forget to turn in my assignments, I felt an urge to have a marathon. A beautifully terrible marathon, for myself and two friends, to watch, analyze, and critique the only show for people of a high IQ: Rick and Morty. Here is how the first episode went.
We started with my sister’s favorite episode “Lawnmower Dog.” The episode’s title parodies a film title, “Lawnmower Man,” which is my favorite running gag within the show. I start the marathon with Abby and Blake, one watching the show diligently, the other sending videos to her friend through Snapchat. The first thing I realized upon this rewatch of the episode is that Justin Roiland’s Rick voice has really evolved since the first season. The looser, boozier slur was abandoned for a quicker witted, gravelly voice that is far more varied than Justin’s other voices. The “Inception” aspect of the episode is incredibly well done, with a play on the plane scene, as well as one of the grossest/weirdest/strangely alluring worlds in the show within the flight attendant’s dream.
Next in the episode is my favorite Rick and Morty character, Scary Terry. A hilarious rip off of the Springwood Slasher, Terry has a beautiful backstory sequence and dream with a ton of funny and memorable lines. Blake, who had been silent for the rest of the episode’s viewing, immediately started quoting the demon’s lines, word for word. After that amazing sequence is the Snuffles questioning scene, where he asks a question that has become notorious as one of the funniest lines in TV history. When Snowball refers to Snuffles as his “Slave Name” I let out an audible chuckle, not super common when watching TV.
When Rick and Morty decide to hide from Scary Terry, its a really funny meta-joke that actually deconstructs the fight, flight, or freeze responses usually found among slasher movies. Scary Brandon is also introduced soon after this scene, one of the funniest fictional character names of all time. When Rick says “Don’t even trip dawg,” I really felt that and realized I should use the word far more than I do now. Overall the episodes crescendo’s into a hilarious finally, involving a liberal amount of urine and castration threats. The image of Morty as Snowball’s pet sums up this episode best, as a weird, hilarious, and sometimes dark ride.
The Attraction Compaction 