Rick and Morty Season 7
A dirtbag gets his comeuppance, and the show goes on!
I have long been a fan of cartoons focused on “Adults.” No, nothing nasty (I do know they exist) but the ones that have a sophistication and wry wit that the pre-pubescent me wouldn’t have understood. South Park, The Simpsons1, and the like are typical of this fare.
Circa 2018 or so, I subscribed to Hulu, and one of the shows it recommended was “Rick and Morty”. As one who studied physics in college, the idea of a multiverse hopping mad scientist with a drinking problem and his moron of a grandson just tickled my funny bone. I was addicted.
If you spent your late teens and early twenties learning about general relativity, special relativity, string theory, and the nascent topics of multiple universes based on the probabilistic tenets of quantum mechanics like I had, R&M is just candy2.
But, I am not here to talk about the show in general. R&M was created by Dan Harmon, and Justin Roiland. Late last year, he allegedly beat the shit out of his partner, was charged, and that led to the production team dropping him3. Ultimately, his domestic partner recanted and withdrew the domestic violence charge, and Roiland thought that he would be able to happily go back to being the co-creator and star. Hell, he was the voiceover of the two main characters, Rick and Morty. They couldn’t actually drop him without ruining the show.
Then the really fucked up DM’s appeared. Apparently a few years earlier Roiland had a habit of connecting with underaged women and having at times very inappropriate conversations with these minors.
Oops.
Still, Roiland believed that he was irreplaceable, and that the folks at Adult Swim would not fire him. Punish perhaps.
Turns out that was a bad bet. All the shows he was involved with terminated their contracts with him, and he has become a pariah.
And that is good. No, this is not a "#metoo” overreach.
About a month ago, I got the notification that season 7 was hitting the airwaves (cable?) and even my wife4 wanted to watch that first episode to see if the new voices sucked.
And they are pretty damn good.
Are they perfect? No. If I play an older episode and a new episode back-to-back, I can tell a difference. But it is damn slight of a difference. Indeed folks, gifted voice actors can get really close. The enjoyment remains the same.
At the end of the day, Rick and Morty lives on, a scumbag will probably have to change careers, and I can continue to enjoy my guilty pleasures.
The Simpsons are a special case. They cover all bases, and the viewer gets some credit to connect the dots. Masterful writing, and that is likely why it has had such a long run.
Of course it is not mathematically or logically reasonable, but for those who dabbled in the infinite universe symposia that was common on campus physics departments in the 1980’s it is far more plausible than many premises.
When the allegations first dropped, it was rumored that Roiland was defiant, and that it would all blow over.
My wife is a film and television arts graduate from USC, and you would be surprised at how many of the classic films she hasn’t seen. That said, she tolerates my fandom of adult targeted animation.