Rick & Morty Season 5 Episode 2: Cast, Plot, Trailers, & Spoilers for 2022!

Rick and Morty is a bizarre show, to say the least.  I know I’m saying the obvious, but this is unusual from a storytelling perspective since, underneath all the sci-fi nonsense, this series is supposed to have a gooey comedy core, and sitcoms often want you to care a lot about their characters. Emotional rollercoasters and hope for their success are expected. In a nutshell, you’re intended to fall in love.

This is one of those Rick and Morty episodes that blatantly urges you not to care about these folks’ lives. Despite their sardonic, wisecrack-spouting nature, you’re expected to like them for their role as science fiction comedy vehicles. Investing in them as convincing representations of actual individuals on their own life journeys, on the other hand, isn’t really encouraged because, well, the programme basically informs you it has no consistent protagonists.

Season 5 Episode 2 of Rick and Morty

Although the show has dabbled with this before, when it is indicated that Rick may have brought home the incorrect Jerry or Morty, it is immaterial to Rick. Even the cloned-Beth problem has to be mentioned (which this episode calls back to a lot). In any case, I believe this is the first episode in which the spectator is not explicitly informed that they are following the exploits of a specific Rick, Morty, or any other Smith family member.

To frighten away potential assassins, Rick has created decoys (i.e., clones) of his family. However, because the decoys/clones are functional duplicates of the originals, some of the Rick clones/decoys mistakenly believe that they are the real Rick, leading them to create even more clones. There is no need to explain why this is happening, but the decoys have been killing off one another.

There are no people to care about in “Mortyplicity” and instead the film focuses on intensifying its weird sci-fi idea by following one family of Smiths only to have them murdered by another family, so then the POV shifts to that family and we follow them for a while.

A post-commercial-break montage of clones killing clones and other clones taking their own lives makes it impossible to tell which family we’re following and whether they’re clones or not by the time the sequence ends. When Rick and Morty and their family discover that the false tragedy is still going on, it suggests that nothing can be taken for granted and that Rick and Morty and their family are trapped in an endless cycle of self-murder. For the rest of the 70-episode deal, they’ll be using this method.

Rick and Beth had a quick, meaningful comedy conversation in this episode, successfully squeezing in some of the sitcom’s heartfelt moments (wearing Muppet costumes). After convincing Rick that he cares about his family, Beth convinces him to apologise and tells him how much he loves him that moment is a sweet one. When it comes to making us care about its characters, the sequence shows that Rick and Morty can still do so even after doing away with traditional protagonists in favour of forging an emotional through line across a collective of Ricks and Smith decoys.

However, this is simply a small emotional moment in a much larger episode of the Smith family coldly murdering clones while, as is the custom for modern Rick and Morty, continually snapping at each other. “Actually, I get hard protecting my family” and “We’re going to live in the woods like libertarians” were two of my favourite lines. The compressed audio voices on the wooden puppet clones were also rather adorable.

And serial killer Rick, in the style of Buffalo Bill, was inspired by the horrific nature of it. While “Mortyplicity” is one of those episodes, like “A Rickle in Time” or “One Crew Over the crewcoo’s Morty,” that is primarily invested in the increasing complexity of its wacky sci-fi premise. If you’re a fan like me who prefers the sitcom-like characters of the series, you’ll have a hard time connecting with the unfettered violence and wacky sci-fi rigamarole.

Despite this, I can’t help but give this episode a better rating than I did for the premiere last week because of the plot’s originality and ambition.

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