Rick and Morty Fifth Season Gets Steelbook Release

I'm an animation snob. I grew up in an era when cartoonists hand-drew twenty-four frames  on celluloid to produce one second of movement, with attention given to background and basic anatomy. As the styles trended more toward the CalArts method of bean-mouthed strobe-animated characters, I felt no compunction in shunning these new shows, shows like Steven Universe, The Regular Show, and others. And while Rick and Morty didn't have quite the same lazy approach to visuals, a sort of 'guilt by association' rubbed off on it, such that my first real, true, sit-down-and-watch exposure of it came with the opportunity to review this fifth season steelbook Blu-ray collection.

Rick Sanchez is a world-weary, cynical old man who's seen it all and done it all -- on this planet and every other. He's invented science miracle devices just to see what they would do and what kind of adventures he could have with them.

Morty Smith is Rick's grandson, an eager, fourteen-year-old with a forgiving attitude and an almost unwavering obedience to do anything Rick says; i.e. the perfect lackey.

Together, Rick and Morty (and Morty's family -- father Jerry, mother Beth, and sister Summer) go off on mind-bending, science-fiction adventures that stretch the tropes of the genre to absurd lengths. In one episode, we see the family get destroyed by alien squids -- only to find out that it was a decoy family Rick set up (Rick's made a lot of enemies over the span of his life of adventuring), made to look and act exactly like the real family. But he made his decoys too well; not only did they not know they were decoys, but the various Ricks began realizing the need for... decoy families. Now you have decoys forming at an exponential rate, but with each generation making copies slightly inferior to the generation before them.

Later, Morty becomes enamored of the ecological super hero, Planetina, a Captain Planet homage. When he finds out the children who once merged their elemental powers have grown up into capitalist adults who use Planetina to make money on the convention circuit, he rescues her by killing her controllers. The two get romantically entangled, but a freed Planetina begins to get more and more militant about her methods of protecting the environment, and starts using deadly force to send her message.

That's what comes with Rick and Morty: deceptively complex stories with over-the-top violence and pervasive profanity. (The profanity is not bleeped out in this release, but animated naughty bits are still pixellated.) I actually had quite a lot of fun with this one -- enough that I wouldn't mind going back over the previous seasons to see what I've missed so far.