Ep 9 “Childrick of Mort” opens with a brilliant, absurd concept: Rick accidentally impregnated an entire planet, Gaia, and is now forced to confront his role as a celestial absentee father.
The first ten minutes, setting up Beth’s immediate commitment to nurturing the new children and Rick’s predictable reaction (creating a rival race of “Incest Babies”), are prime Rick and Morty and deserve a higher score.
Unfortunately, the middle act gets bogged down in repetitive, large-scale, CGI-heavy warfare between the two rival child factions. The plot loses focus as it devolves into standard sci-fi battle sequences that fail to sustain the comedic energy established by the premise.
However, the episode is salvaged by a fantastic third act that brings the focus back to the Smith family. The climax, pitting Rick’s amoral science against Beth and Morty’s emotional idealism, and especially Jerry’s hilarious ascent to becoming the gentle, flying God of the planet, is inspired. The final image of the family bickering in the car after mutually committing genocide proves that no matter the galactic scale of the conflict, the dysfunctional Smiths are the one constant in the universe.
A solid, if uneven, 7.5/10 adventure. I need to get high and play video games :)