I feel that the first season was pretty neutral, maybe kind of left-leaning aesthetically, but it also aired way back in 2013.

The newer episodes are dropping more fashy lines. The Unity episode where Rick frames some minority alien group for something, and then says "sheesh, don't blame me it's the police who are racist"

Or the "future crystals" where rick keeps getting routed through fascist alternate universes with nazi morties, only to end up with a wasp rick where the entire wasp Smith family eats the (Black) math teacher larvae. Not exactly subtle.

The whole premise of the show also became even more over of a power fantasy in seasons 3/4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMILvY_FJj8

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Its the opposite. Rick is a deconstrution of a fascist Ubermensch as an anti-absurd-hero.

    Yeah, he can do anything, and maybe at one time he used that in the service of an ideal with Bird Person et al, but he's also a profoundly broken person who cant connect with anything and anyone, and every-time he nearly does he veers away from it in fear. His not caring edgelord-ness is a symbol of his lack of control over the few things that actually matter to him.

    He acts like the Ubermensch but he's actually The Last Man. That's what the pickle rick episode is about, he's so fucked up he'll literally risk his own life in an utterly stupid way to avoid talking with his family. He can't act authentically on his own real desires AT ALL

    • _else [she/her,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      this. rick sanchez is fundamentally a tragic figure. the hive mind assimilator breaks up with him because he's toxic, and his grandkids endorse its decision.

      • lvysaur [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        no he was the pickle, pickle rick wubwbababba

    • LeninsRage [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I think Renegade Cut did a video on the fundamental thematic contradiction of the show, where its supposed to be this deconstruction of a nihilistic Nietzchean character but the text frequently goes out of its way to frame Rick's beliefs and statements as correct.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I mean Rick has his good points, has the vestiges of a decent person remaining, and he has to seem on the surface as this ultimately self-actualized being. The show couldn't work if he was pathetic on the outside as well.