Although Rick and Morty has a lot of long-running storylines that still need to be fleshed out further, the show was right to drop one of these with a great throwaway gag from season 9, episode 3. Rick and Morty’s season 9 premiere wrapped up one long-running storyline, by bringing back the longtime villain Evil Morty and trapping him in prison by the episode’s ending. This means viewers can rest easy knowing the antagonist is unlikely to reappear anytime soon.
Much like Rick Prime’s sudden season 7 death reshaped the overarching storyline of Rick and Morty, this twist closed another chapter of the show’s lore. In a smaller, subtler way, season 9, episode 3, “Rick Fu Hustle,” wrapped up one of the show’s best running storylines by casually admitting that Rick has done enough soul-searching for one show’s lifetime in recent seasons.
The start of “Rick Fu Hustle” seemingly proves that Rick has learned nothing from his years of nearly villainous self-obsession when he refuses to apologize for accidentally rear-ending a kung fu master and instead starts an episode-long feud with the patient martial arts practitioner. However, when Morty attempts to bond with this tranquil figure, he soon realizes the kung fu master really is an unreasonable bully, and the character even later admits that he intentionally led Rick to rear-end him so he had an excuse to start a fight.
Rick and Morty Season 9 Episode 3 Forgets Rick’s Oldest Lesson
This prompts a hilarious moment where Rick and Morty’s older title character has a chance to redeem himself by acknowledging one of his biggest flaws, only for him to completely ignore this. When the kung fu master admits he started the fight on purpose because he can only relate to people through conflict, he asks Rick if he has a similar personality. Resolutely refusing anything resembling introspection, Rick flatly replies “No” and leaves it at that.
As far back as the season 2 premiere “A Rickle in Time,” countless episodes of Rick and Morty have focused on Rick’s moments of introspection and his growing ability to work on his self-centered attitude. Rick remains a fairly intolerant character, so it wouldn’t have been a big surprise if “Rick Fu Hustle” re-centered this familiar story arc yet again. Thus, Rick’s refusal to see any link between himself and the kung fu master was a subversive, surprising way for season 9 to underline its refusal to revisit tired storylines.
After Rick and Morty season 9’s killer premiere fight, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if the series had avoided big battle sequences for a while, but “Rick Fu Hustle” took the opposite approach entirely. A good chunk of the third act is devoted to a hysterical, goofy fight sequence that does justice to the inspiration for the episode’s title, director Stephen Chow’s cartoonish martial arts comedy Kung Fu Hustle.
Morty, Rick, and the kung fu master that they unintentionally aggravated throw an increasingly absurd volley of moves at each other before eventually working together to take down a god they disturbed with their antics, resulting in an unexpected truce between the trio. Since the episode was mostly an excuse for this ridiculously goofy extended fight, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if a pat, overly familiar line about Rick recognizing his self-obsessive streak was thrown in at the end.
Rick and Morty’s “Rick Fu Hustle” Is Right To Drop This Tired Storyline
However, much like Rick and Morty season 9’s premiere ended the show’s penchant for silly one-off character names, “Rick Fu Hustle” proved that the series has grown out of tacking unearned emotional moments at the end of its lighter, sillier storylines. Between season 5’s ending, season 7’s Rick Prime death, and basically all of season 8, Rick isn’t really as unambiguously aggressive and self-interested as he once was, so yet another plot where he learns the error of his ways wasn’t really necessary.
Furthermore, some of the show’s funniest outings ever have avoided this kind of moralizing entirely and just committed wholeheartedly to purely inspired cartoon silliness. When season 7’s “Mort: Ragnarick” saw Rick pit the Universal movie monsters against the Pope in an attempt to save Bigfoot, the show didn’t feel the need to try and tie this plot into his traumatic upbringing or the formative impact of losing his wife Diane.
Rick and Morty’s Season 9 Episode 3 Highlights The Show’s Best Change
The longer Rick and Morty continues, the more Rick has become more of a standard-issue irascible sitcom jerk, rather than an outright amoral monster. This not only makes it easier to root for him, but it also ensures that the show doesn’t need to work so hard on getting viewers to care about his journey. Throughout the early seasons, sudden sad moments like Rick’s tearful breakdown from season 2, episode 3, “Auto Erotic Assimilation,” served as necessary reminders that Rick did have a hard under his hard exterior.
However, by Rick and Morty season 9, viewers are more than familiar with Rick’s kind, caring side. If every episode featured him realizing the error of his ways and promising to do better, the show would become too schmaltzy for its own good, especially when Rick and Morty has already largely abandoned the show’s edgier side in recent seasons. While still full of foul language and gore, Rick and Morty isn’t as eager to offend as it once was.
Looking back on season 1 of the series, it is striking to see how much Rick and Morty used to flippantly joke about very dark, sensitive subject matter. The lighter, more playful and less confrontational tone of later seasons means that viewers no longer need to be reassured about Rick’s humanity, and this means that too many episodes spent humanizing him can end up feeling self-indulgent and overly serious.
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Thus, Rick’s decision to completely ignore the kung fu master’s invitation to introspection was a welcome change of pace for the show, and a reminder that season 9 can be sillier, lighter, and more playfully episodic after plenty of more serious outings focused on character development. In the closing moments of Rick and Morty season 9, episode 3, Rick tells viewers that this will be a “Pool season!” where the Smith family has a pool, and this kind of no-stakes broad comedy could be just what the series needs in its ninth outing.
- Release Date
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December 2, 2013
- Network
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Adult Swim
- Directors
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Bryan Newton, Dominic Polcino, Anthony Chun, John Rice, Stephen Sandoval, Jeff Myers
- Writers
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Tom Kauffman, Wade Randolph, Eric Acosta, David Phillips, Erica Rosbe, Sarah Carbiener, Matt Roller, Michael Waldron, Caitie Delaney
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Justin Roiland
Rick Sanchez / Morty Smith