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The changing storytelling style of “Rick and Morty”

Graphic by Kyle St. John

Over the five seasons that “Rick and Morty” has been airing, Morty Smith has remained Rick Sanchez’s 14-year-old sidekick the entire time. However, when the last couple episodes of season five premiered, the tone shifted. Rick and Morty began existing as two separate entities instead of together, which led to more canon content than the previous couple of seasons had given fans.

While it can be argued that every episode of “Rick and Morty” is canon, they don’t always connect to one another or revolve around one of the main storylines with Evil Morty and his plan. In fact, fans hadn’t heard from Evil Morty since his election victory in the Citadel episode of the third season.

The rest of the episodes, other than the ones dealing with the Galactic Federation, have been fillers that demonstrate the range of Rick’s ingenious mind and inventions and the family relationships within the Smith household. They show how Rick’s adventures affect those outside his family or showcase Morty’s character development from a dumb kid to a teenager who can disarm a neutrino bomb without help or suffering from an anxiety attack.

Season five did bring in fun episodes, but even after the fillers, the show brought back Evil Morty, who finally revealed his plan. After Rick and Morty essentially broke up at the end of episode ten, their adventures seemed like a notion of the past.

However, when Morty emotionally manipulates Rick into coming back home, they find themselves back at the Citadel to reverse the aging progress Morty inflicted on himself to trick his grandfather.

They are called upon by President Morty, who tells them his plan to destroy the wall around infinity that Rick built, the wall that ensures all Mortys are enslaved to their Ricks and are taken on seemingly endless quests. With the wall destroyed, there are no rules anymore, and Morty isn’t required to go anywhere with Rick. Evil Morty demonstrates this by jumping through a portal of his own volition. Not only did this episode shift the tone for the whole season, but it also changed the entire tone of the show from here on out.

Rick made it possible to have infinite Earths where he was the smartest man alive, and all it took was one determined Morty to break the cycle of adventures, freeing himself and any Mortys that happened to survive the Citadel massacre. Fans are unsure of where this will lead the show, other than it becoming completely different from seasons 1-5, but they won’t have to wait long to find out.

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