Rick and Morty S09E07 rewiew…
Achtung baby, spoilers alert.
Rick takes Morty on a trip to a distant planet to harvest some space “mad honey.” During the harvest, they’re caught by a gigantic sentient tree with godlike powers.
The tree absorbs both of them, reducing their bodies to nothing but their life essence—their memories and consciousness—It then sends them into the planet’s interior, a completely enclosed ecosystem under its absolute control, where they encounter countless other victims of the omnipotent tree, starting this new life as amoebas.
They soon discover that they can continuously evolve into increasingly complex life forms. Whenever they die—whether by accident or on purpose—they reset back to amoebas and begin the evolutionary journey all over again. They first become fish, develop lungs, and attempt to crawl onto land. Morty fails to adapt to breathing air and suffocates.
At one point they temporarily evolve into insects so Rick can enjoy having four pairs of legs as a spider, after getting tired of having none.
This premise creates countless hilarious scenes, most of them brutally violent, dripping with irony and, quite literally, venom. Rick quickly concludes that evolving into anything other than a humanoid with fully functional hands and opposable thumbs is pointless.
When they evolve into birds, he realizes that’s equally useless. Even if they could reach the planet’s surface, they still wouldn’t be able to do anything. As Rick puts it: “Being a bird is like being an astral projection. Sure, you can get there, but once you arrive, you can’t do shit.”
Eventually, both evolve into apes. Armed with a sharpened spear, Rick kills the leader of a tribe of space gorillas and becomes their new leader. Meanwhile, Morty is killed and resets back to an amoeba. This time Rick chooses not to commit suicide to reunite with his grandson, so they spend some time separated.
Morty meets a peaceful ameba who convinces him that absolute pacifism is the only path to escape. The man believes that if they abandon violence entirely, the all-powerful tree will recognize their moral growth and set them free. Together they evolve through harmless forms of life, from earthworms to snails.
Eventually Morty parts ways with his new companion. He evolves into algae, then into various plants, until he finally becomes first a tree and then an entire forest. As a vine, he manages to reach the planet’s surface, where he sprouts as a young tree right beside his tormentor.
Instead of rewarding Morty for his spiritual transformation, the tree reveals the horrifying truth. There is no redemption. No freedom. The beings it absorbs serve only one purpose: food. They evolve, fight, kill one another, die, and begin the cycle again, producing the nutrients the tree feeds on. It then coldly adds that this is its planet, and there’s no room for another sentient tree—before smashing Morty to death with a hammer.
Meanwhile Rick after observing Morty’s growth, realizes the solution: break the cycle of death that keeps producing fertilizer for their captor.
Rick convinces the inhabitants of the underground ecosystem to isolate themselves in a completely self-sufficient community. They stop killing one another, survive on vegetables, and use compost instead of corpses to fertilize their crops. With no more endless cycle of death feeding it, the god-tree starves.
When the weakened tree finally descends underground to investigate what’s happening, the prisoners overpower it, rip it out by its roots, and expose a massive opening to the surface. Rick now in the form of a troglodyte and Morty as a potted plant- escape using a homemade hot-air balloon.
Overall, the premise is fantastic. The episode is packed with classic Rick and Morty humor.
One great example comes when Morty evolves into worm. He points out to his pacifist mentor that they’re trapped in a literal shit cycle—they eat shit just to produce more shit. Morty eventually decides to break free, while his companion states that he has shit to do.
Another standout sequence is Rick taking command of the strongest species in the ecosystem and using them as cannon fodder to probe the tree’s defenses. Before long, the landscape is littered with corpses.
Finally, the episode argues that only cooperation can break the nightmare.
Naturally, in true Rick and Morty fashion, Rick and Morty abandon everyone else as they escape in their balloon. Everyone expected that killing the tree would restore their original bodies. Instead, they remain in whatever form they last evolved into. The tree’s death merely ends the reincarnation cycle—they can no longer evolve into anything else.
Rick happens to be a Neanderthal-like humanoid, which conveniently allows him to fly his spaceship back home, where some standard sci-fi shit restores both him and Morty to their original bodies.
Unfortunately, this ending contains a massive plot hole.
It’s funny, but it doesn’t hold up. Good science fiction can establish any rules it wants—as long as it follows them consistently. Once a fictional world establishes its internal logic, the story shouldn’t bend or ignore it simply because the plot needs a convenient ending.
That’s exactly what happens here.
Even if Rick managed to evolve into a humanoid with opposable thumbs, that alone shouldn’t have been enough to escape. Throughout the episode we’re shown that evolutionary cycles happen very quickly so the story maintains its pace instead of dragging on for millions of years.
But if evolution really takes place that quickly, then even if Rick escaped to the surface, he would have no realistic chance of making it home. He would die of old age long before reaching his spaceship, let alone flying it back to Earth.
Some form of suspended animation or hibernation could have solved this problem—but the episode never even hints at such a possibility. Rick and Morty simply return home as if time were irrelevant.
Perhaps Morty, as a seed or dormant spore, could have survived such a journey. But then who would have piloted the ship?
Dear Rick and Morty writers: a little less laziness, and a little more respect for your audience’s intelligence.
#rick #morty #and #rick&morty #evolution #season #9 #S09 #series #commedy #review #fair #rights #use #non-commercial
