Rick and Morty recap: In Childrick of Mort, big daddy Rick fights a god

(Warning: spoilers ahead for the May 24 episode of Rick and Morty.) The Sanchez-Smith family starts the new one on Sunday Rick and Morty Episode, Childrick of Mort, all together as a family when Papa Jerry drags them on a family outing. But that’s not Brady Bunch’s camping episode. Jerry’s dream is derailed when it turns out that Rick once had a sexual congress with a sentient planet and the planet now wants his supposed baby daddy to show up and represent.

Show co-creator Dan Harmon said in a video that someone on the team only suggested the idea that Rick would be romantic with a planet and that the idea would come from there. But the show has a deeper topic.

“The topic (of the episode) is actually parenthood,” director Kyounghee Lim said in the video.

And so it is for at least two of the show’s three acts. In one case, Rick works with daughter Beth, who doesn’t want to see her father’s alleged new children neglected as she was. The two work together to guide the careers and future of the apparent Ricks race, with Beth and her father interacting in ways they have rarely done in the past. There may be questions about who created the Rick-like creatures, but there’s no doubt that Beth is the daughter of her crazy but capable father.

Meanwhile, Jerry is depressed because Morty and Summer have declined his camping plans and don’t want his (actually delicious looking) S’mores. But when he’s stranded with a rejected bunch of Rick-like kids, he discovers that some creatures will actually listen to him and respect him – just not his own offspring. Like Jerry himself, this act was the dud of the episode.

And Morty and Summer, robbed of their spring break plans for video games and drug parties, find a crashed spaceship that will fill them with both activities. At least they think. It is absolutely not their own ability to save the day that Rick loses a fist fight with a Zeus-like god named Reggie.

It’s fun to see the whole family in action again in Childrick of Morty, although I still think The Vat of Acid episode from last week is by far the best season 4 Rick and Morty offering. Summer, Beth and Jerry are fun, but the show is called Rick and Morty for a reason, and the two title characters can’t interact much this time.

Rick and Morty fans may not want the next Sunday to come too quickly. The fourth season finale will air on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim on May 31 at 11:30 p.m. PT. It’s titled Star Mort Rickturn by the Jerri, so the Force can be with all of us if we face an unknown amount of time without new Rick and Morty.