Captain Planet analogue goes crazy and kills coal workers - Morty is devastated, he agrees it's right to feel bad the planet's dying but the ep implies the correct answer is to do nothing.
Not even 'subversive' Rick and Morty could dare suggest blowing up coal/gas plants without demonising the act (it's quite doable to do such a thing without killing workers....)
Ala a recent trend in modern blockbusters where villains are morally correct in their actions right up until they kills civilians for no reason- just to force a third act showdown, effectively negating their positive ideas.
Also there's an opening joke that is an explicit merch promotion that isn't even ironically done. Just a shitty shirt effectively done to camera. At least Schezuan sauce actually made sense in the show, this was just pure shit. The other eps are good, but the industry in culture industry will rear its head anytime you get big.
Rick can kill hundreds of people for personal gain in any given episode, but killing a few people for a common good? Cringe, you've gone too far, the Man-Bear-Pig isnt real
This coming from the same Rick and Morty where the main characters regularly cause planetary mass extinctions?
Real 2011 Friends of coal energy
“I mean fuck Morty you personally killed a small medieval city’s worth of people last episode just to try and get your dick wet.”
Why don't they just use the clean energy source Rick uses, enslaving an entire tiny universe of people and threatening them with destroying their universe if they won't power your phone
I mean what’s really fucking stupid is that Rick is presented as such a super genius he probably could invent some cold fusion drive and carbon capture device to stop global warming in a weekend. But he like, doesn’t, for reasons.
This coming from the same Rick and Morty where the main characters regularly cause planetary mass extinctions?
The prior episode is basically "Oopsie! We kicked off a genocide!"
That said, the current episode seems to explicitly revolve around the idea of selling out. The consequences of people getting old and cynical and greedy are what's being parodied. And the way Morty - who was more horny than invested - ends up selling out as soon as things get uncomfortable, is a predictable liberal attitude to the point of being its own trope. And the realization, at the end, that Earth is just one more disposable commodity for these characters while Morty's feelings are the real treasure to be defended is another common liberalist trope.
On a surface level, it definitely looks like crappy liberalism. But R&M is a show about horrible people doing unconscionable things all the time. Of course, other crappy liberals are going to sympathize with a show about crappy liberals. It's sort of like how STEM chuds idolize Walter White in Breaking Bad or asshole New Yorkers sympathize with Jerry Seinfield.
I'm not losing any sleep over this shit.
Lobbying propaganda group for the coal industry in the early 2010s, they were a major villain in the Trillbillies origin story
I think your take is completely different from the reality of the episode. Morty said you can't just kill workers who are forced to do it to survive. The miners even say this. That's true. Blue collar workers aren't responsible for the destruction of the environment, the unsustainable system that forces them to do it is. You can't expect them to just starve themselves. Systemic change need to happen. Planetina is the embodiment of short sighted liberalism that just wants to look at symptoms but refuses to acknowledge the root issues.
I mean, technically yes, but the show is also absurdist and seems to place rather fast loose with the concept of morality itself. Morty has “been 14” since 2013 at this point, plus he regularly behaved in a manor uncharacteristic of a person that age and has had experience that far exceed that of most adults. Neither the writers nor the fans treat him like they would an actual real world 14 year old.
If it was a more serious show displaying a romantic relationship between a 14 year old and an adult woman’s id be with you, gross. But the shows blatant disregard for real world morality makes it hard for me to take that seriously.
Show sucks for other reasons though.
I think it’s more the writers have ceased giving a fuck that they technically wrote Morty to be 14. I don’t think Harmon or Roland are actually advocating for the idea that sexual relationships between adult women and underaged boys can be healthy. I think it’s more that Morty was written as 14 cuz the show started as a parody of those old SciFi/adventure shows were a young boy goes on adventures with an adult but the fact that said adventures are actually super dangerous and traumatic for someone that age is glossed over (essentially the same thing Venture Bros was parodying). But at this point so much crazy shit has happened the fact Morty is technically 14 doesn’t really matter, Summer is like 16-17 and Rick sends here out on Commando assassination missions now. Every main character has nonchalantly committed war crimes at this point, by disbelief about how morality works in this show is throughly suspended.
right, but it doesnt change that he's 14 in some capacity, at least emotionally. Beth says as much as that in the episode. Rick and co do a bunch of genocide, but this isnt technically.....
Edit:I'm sorry, I didnt realize you said it was technically. I dont actually care, I also think its an absurd, stupidass Futurama bit. I was trying to poorly parody the people upset over the climate change bit. Your points ring true and everyone upset over a Rick and Morty bit should read them
I mean if you find it disturbing I ain’t gonna tel you you’re wrong.
I just find it difficult to consider the real world moral implication of it when the 14 year old in question has also killed a few thousand people, been a Wall Street stock broker, lived the entire life of another man in a simulator and went on a post apocalyptic vengeance quest where he drowned a man to death.
Idk if there's any good point that can be made following the words "yes technically they're a pedophile, BUT"
i'm disagreeing with the reality of the episode. If Planetina was even half as climate savvy as she should be, she should be aware killing miners wouldn't help her cause since they're not even fully in control of their environment. Going after CEOs and shareholders (the people who control the material reality) isn't even mentioned. The reality of the show is, killing people who aren't in control of their scenarios, or nothing.
Notice how Morty's reaction was basically the same when she threw a molotov cocktail at a congressman's house and when she murdered actually innocent workers. :LIB:
Personally, what I think is really wrong with this episode is that those miners are presented as the direct culprit for global warming, and murdering them is said to be "the only solution". I'm starting to know this show and I'm pretty sure this is yet another "villain is right but they're also evil and thus leftists aren't being reasonable" kind of trope.
Remember when Rick helped some peasant girl slaughter a bunch of rich people who were oppressing the poor into purging each other, just for the moral of the story to be "the poor are stupid and they're gonna end up killing each other with or without oppression from the rich"? Yeah. Fuck this show.
Personally, what I think is really wrong with this episode is that those miners are presented as the direct culprit for global warming, and murdering them is said to be “the only solution”.
That was annoying. Basically the Mitch McConnell campaign playbook. Convincing people that their human worth is bound up in their business roles.
Remember when Rick helped some peasant girl slaughter a bunch of rich people who were oppressing the poor into purging each other, just for the moral of the story to be “the poor are stupid and they’re gonna end up killing each other with or without oppression from the rich”? Yeah. Fuck this show.
I believe that episode ended with him leading the peasants to purge the rich assholes that implemented the system.
I believe that episode ended with him leading the peasants to purge the rich assholes that implemented the system.
I just rewatched the end of the episode and I'm sorry but what I said was just right. Rick and one peasant lass do indeed "purge" (i.e bring a well deserved slaughter to) the rich assholes who profited off the model of the purge, but at the end of the episode, when the peasants have to actually come up with a new way to actually run society, they just end up disagreeing to the point of almost slaughtering each other and one guy ends up being like "hey wait up what if we just agreeing to slaughter each other on one given day". Back to the status quo in other words. That's strong "communism no work" energy. Here's the episode
That’s strong “communism no work” energy. Here’s the episode
Communism is when you revenge kill and the more kills you get, the more Communist it is?
I love the Expanse, but the latest season really leans into this hard. Basically the OPA represented revolutionary/socialist workers struggle in the series up until the latest season where the main OPA guy is going around saying things like "The colonization of the belt must end!" And calling for rights and self determination. He organizes a revolutionary force and manages to take control of a powerful navy (built and maintained by the workers he supports), but then he just decided to drop asteroids on Africa and Philidelpia because you can't have people arguing for rights that aren't also mass murderers.
I found that extra dumb because by this point in the show the OPA has a small arsenal of nukes AND the fucking evil space goo bio weapon. The idea they weren’t in a good enough bargaining position with earth and had to resort to throwing rocks at them seemed fucking dumb.
The idea was that he wanted to start a war so he could use the weapons I think. Which is totally nonsensical.
I think it was supposed to be like a 9/11 allegory or something but they just decided to make the Osama character a socialist
Pretty sure if the Taliban had nukes they wouldn’t have had to fly planes into building tho.
Why bother blowing up earth if you can get everything you want by threatening to blow them up (or have them be eaten by space goop)?
Just absolute insanity. The whole plotline makes no sense. Still a pretty fun show though
I kinda lost interest after the season where they go to the other solar system
The latest season is pretty good, the stuff on Earth is cool. They show Philadelphia as a massive sprawling slum plauged by inequality and exploitation. There's no dancing around the fact that the UN/Earth is a failed capitalist state that's been preventing the revolutions of the second (Mars) and third (Belt) worlds.
Part of the drama in The Expanse revolves around people making shitty foolish choices because they overestimate their position. The OPA and Earth getting into a military exchange, and the fallout that ensues, isn't a bad subplot on its face. Each side assumes the other will blink and... they don't.
The conflicts and the ensuing mass migration are a big part of the story. Cut that stuff out and there's not much of a show.
Also, I think "The OPA is socialist" is a bit of a stretch. They're anti-Earth liberationists, but none of them seem shy about doing their own brand of localized capitalism. If any place is socialist, it's Mars.
Mars is meh, it's very clearly a corporate colony. Like half the dialogue about it is like "ohz your family has a monopoly on the terraformers" and "financial incentives" and shit. It's like a South Korean military/corporate welfare type state.
The OPA people talk more about liberation using proletarian language "it is who build their ships, it is us who mine their ores and water, and we never get anything in return". Fred Johnson is also pretty clearly an internationalist, he is big on cooperation and leveraging the Belt's labor power to extract concessions and control over the ring gates from Earth and Mars.
The OPA is basically the IRA or the PLO. There are tons of factions within it and some are pretty clearly socialist (Fred) while others are nationalist (Marco) and others are just Mafia style mob bosses (Dawes).
The earth gov is basically demsuc, of course the space workers revolt would be made to look like they go "too far"
“Hey Morty, check it out, i turned myself into an ICE CREAM BAR! We’re really milking this stale IP for everything it’s worth Morty! Harmon gonna be able to buy his own fucking Epstein island with all this merch skrilla!”
“Oh jeez Rick I’m pretty sure our fan base is dwindling, after that last season we’ve really been bleeding viewership, I don’t know how many people are really going to be lining up for a gross ass mint ice cream snack.”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP MORTY AND SHILL THE MERCHANDISE!!!”
hot take:
it's wild people still try to analyze this show's "messaging". it's like probably 95% of other situational comedies: spectacular nihilism. nothing matters except you watching it. there are no transcendent or eternal values.
this is how all 22 minute sitcoms are formatted, so they can return to baseline at the end of each episode and let the writers start over for the next episode without having to update/re-reference the show's bible. the longer, seasonal arcs of TV shows like this work "best" for the format--a potentially never ending set of episodes--when there are no lessons learned, no lasting changes, nothing that forces the writers room into character development. trying to do something else, results in something like Community: a hilarious show that executives do not know what to do with or how to market, because you can't have a show where characters actually learn and grow and stay together forever AND prevent the power dynamics of executives/labor from infiltrating the longer arcs.
this show has been explicitly oriented around singular episodes from the beginning. its creativity and appeal--in my opinion--is to work within that vacuum but still make each, singular episode leverage existing tropes that raise the stakes for the characters/universe to the highest possible levels: oblivion, eternal insanity, massive loss of life, collapse of civilization, torture, genocide, slavery, tyranny, etc. and at the end of the episode, they're just eating pancakes or watching TV, because none of it mattered. my personal favorite episode of R&M is explicitly this (The Ricklantis Mixup, S3:E7) because it explicitly doesn't involve any of the main characters and the episode even starts with "our" rick saying some shit like, "i feel bad for anyone that cares about anything going on with the citadel of ricks" before taking us on this intimate and emotional journey exploring the absolute hellworld that is the citadel of ricks.
there is a throughline of sitcom animation starting with the simpsons -> south park -> R&M where each iteration of the sitcom with ageless characters realizes that articulating values, having longform arcs, and developing principles just gets in the way of the limitless episodic format.
make no mistake, i am not a fan of this phenomenon as much as R&M can entertain me. personally, i would love it if TV weren't like this. i wish they were all like that <5% of stuff out there that doesn't conform, where some weird company trying to be edgy took a shot on some scrappy team of misfit toys with just enough cache to make a thing that makes us forget the confines of the format and just listen to a human story where we laugh and cry and interrogate ourselves. i'm sure there are others, but the only 25 minute show coming to mind that has gotten under my skin like that being aired now is Mr. Inbetween (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Inbetween).
i dislike the resetting of shows continuity unless it's a purposefully fluff (simpsons, New girl, 30 Rock, whatever).
I think the only reason I care about messaging in pop culture is around Climate Change- nihilism is exactly what the FF deep state wants, and Libs are out here pretending there aren't solutions to this problem.
i don't actually get what the whole fuss is about WRT the content of the episode itself. I thought it was clear that Morty's issues with Planetina closely mirrored literally every average American's view regarding the climate apocalypse. The only thing left to do is to take drastic action (which Planetina understands). Morty, a classic american lib, doesn't want the bloodshed that would result from taking the planet's health seriously.
It would have been nice if she focused more on the owners than the coal miners. But she did burn down a congressperson's home, so points for that.
I love Dan Harmon, I have rewatched Community multiple times including the gas leak season but I agree 100% it just keeps getting worse and worse, the last season only had a handful of funny gags
I think he's started that they have a multi-season contact, but he's kinda burnt out on the show (partly cause of the behavior of the fan base iirc)
There was a couple of really good ones imo, plus this season's first two, but yeah, they've lost something. Pretty cringe that they seemed to stop doing an interesting over-arching story simply because fans were annoying about it.
They were never doing an overarching story, ever. Every single episode is self-contained and might have at most one callback to a different episode. The show was never serialized and since the first time the creators made a continuity reference they've been fucking with the obsessed little nerd boys who think that Rick and Morty must secretly be building up to a grand avengers style plot instead of seeing the show for what it is, a half hour wacky animated comedy that has some funny dick jokes and also some not funny dick jokes.
I think they’ll have some big two episode finale where the evil Morty character they’ve shown pop up once a season or show will reveal some big evil plan and some major character (probably Rick) will die defeating him and everyone will act sad. Then everyone will forget about the show except the dozen or so good episodes in the first 3 seasons.
This is completely wrong. They had an entire episode that made fun of this concept in season 4 where they defeated evil Morty in a non canon episode through the power of praying to Jesus Christ.
I'm pretty sure I watched the last season but all I remember is the train episode. And I thought that was trying too hard and wasn't that funny
I think they had ideas already chambered for the first two seasons a d now they're all out of sci Fi concepts to parody so there isn't really any direction left.
Nah this is a bad take. In the episode Morty doesn't even say that she's wrong for doing the things she's doing (which btw massacring miners is actually wrong), he just personally can't be around her if she's doing them. Like he has the power to stop her the entire time and doesn't, and lets her go at the end to do her ecoterrorist thing, he just personally can't be in a relationship with someone who's doing that.
Yeah the right thing to do would be to continue this relationship and steer her into continuing to do the stuff she was doing right before she killed the miners.
Sorry but I can't stand this show. I am so sick of terminally meek, feeble characters, usually male nerds. Morty and his dad are just pure agony to watch. Simply not entertaining.
one of the worst artistic ideas is to allow a voice actor to do riffs with himself where one half says absurd shit and the meek straight man says variations of 'geez idk man' 'that's kinda gross'
a reason why i'm still watching this show is because the writing is so convoluted that Roiland can't squeeze in his shit riffs.
I also think it's a huge crime Leo Spaceman himself is confined to beta cuck character who's sole joke is he's not as alpha as rick.
Liberalism's eternal lesson: Things will never improve but they can always get worse.
