“Rick and Morty” 2.2 “Mortynight Run” (7 out of 10) Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon; Written by Justin Roiland, Dan Harmon, Eric Acosta, Mike McMahan, David Phillips, Wade Randolph and Matt Roller; Directed by Dominic Polcino and Pete Michels; Starring Justin Roiland, , Chris Parnell, Jemaine Clement, and Andrew Daly; TV-14.
Season two of “Rick and Morty began last week with the premier episode “A Rickle in Time,” our favorite sci-fi duo is back this week with episode two of the sophomore season “Mortynight Run.”
In this episode Rick sells an antimatter gun to an intergalactic hit man (insect person) in exchange for enough money for he and Morty to spend an entire afternoon at a gigantic space arcade called “Blips and Chitz.”
While Rick is concerned only with beer and high tech video games Morty struggles with the ethical conundrum he finds himself in as an accessory to interstellar assassination. While Rick is distracted in a virtual reality simulation Morty steals the ship and seeks out the assassin, Krombopulous Michael, in an attempt to right the perceived wrong.
Morty succeeds in stopping the assassination and saves the mark, a disembodied telepathic cloud that can poop gold, in a manner of speaking, voiced by Jemaine Clement of “Flight of the Concords” fame. Rick appears just in time to save the two of them from the assembled forces trying to stop the nameless cloud’s escape and they spend the duration of the episode dodging foes while trying to get the cloud, later dubbed “fart,” home.
While this episode wasn’t as strong as the season premiere, the plot did provide plenty of opportunities for Rick to berate Morty for his ill informed decisions, delivering such one liners as-
And a guest appearance by Jemaine Clement wouldn’t be complete without at least one ridiculous yet entertaining musical number.
The adventure of the titular characters is intercut with scenes of Morty’s father Jerry at “Jerryboree,” an unregistered cross-temporal asteroid set up as daycare for the many multi-verse versions of Jerry since, as Rick says, Jerry’s don’t last five minutes off Earth.
While “Mortynight Run” isn’t the best outing for “Rick and Morty” it’s still above par when compared with other programming. It continues to skewer popular sci-fi tropes and showcases the talents of creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland who also provides the voices for both Rick and Morty. At the end of the day this episode only pales in comparisons to other, better episodes of the same show and continues to be an anticipated part of my weekly viewing.
“Rick and Morty” will return with season two episode three “Auto Erotic Assimilation” this Sunday August, 9 on Adult Swim. If you’re a little behind, don’t even trip dog, you can catch up with a free stream of previous episodes here.