After last week's heavy episode, the writers wisely decided to give us a break with "Rick Fu Hustle." This episode wasn't strictly a character study, but the crew has a knack for throwing in moments that show how much Rick is changing, even if he can't see it himself.
At this point in the series, when Rick and Morty announce that they're finally going to Boob World, you know something crazy is going to happen. In this case, Rick's in the wrong place at the wrong time: he backs into someone else's vehicle, leading to a confrontation with Liu Sin, a kung fu master.
Rick does try to wave it off instead of throwing a tantrum, but when Liu Sin persists, Rick tries to flex his way out of the situation by bragging that he's a "Doctor Who Loki" (a reference that I loved because I've always thought that he and Loki have a lot in common.) Unfortunately, he wasn't prepared for Liu to resort to physical violence, hitting him with Kill Bill's famous five-point exploding heart technique.
I expected this story to be a rehash of "The Rickchurian Mortydate," with Rick and Liu fighting for most of the episode while Morty begs him to back off. Instead, we cut to the garage where Rick tries to understand the science behind the punch--and since this is a Rick and Morty episode, he does in the goriest way possible--until Morty storms off and tries to make peace with Liu.
This seemed like a setup for Morty to team up with Liu and force Rick to apologize in the name of taking the moral high ground. However, this episode surprised me again. Turns out, Liu is actually a maniac who has no problem killing old men, TV repairmen and even 14-year-old boys. I guess I should've figured out when he attempted to murder a stranger over a fender bender.
Morty runs crying to Rick after Liu uses the five-point technique on him, which leads Rick to cradle him in his robotic arms and call him his "little boopa"--a callback to a famous scene from season four. However, unlike season four, Rick doesn't ruin this moment later on. Instead, he announces, "Nobody fucks with my sweet little grandson," before vowing to get revenge.
You also see Rick's changing attitude toward Morty at the start of the episode. He's not dragging Morty on some traumatizing adventure or shouting at him for no reason; rather, he's talking to him like a normal person and looking forward to their fun day together. If season three Rick's goal was to destroy Morty's psyche just because he can, season nine Rick's goal is to build a better relationship with him, even though his ego sometimes gets in the way.
While all this is going on, Jerry ends up having sex with the pool cleaning machine, then tries to destroy it when it turns on him. This B-plot is pretty goofy, and I'm not too impressed. The "man gets romantically involved with a machine with disastrous results" concept has been done a million times (I can think of at least three Futurama episodes with this plot, for one), and we didn't learn anything new about this idea or Jerry in general.
This would've been a great opportunity to give Beth or Summer the spotlight or at least put Jerry in a unique situation--but, instead, we get graphic scenes of Jerry having sex with a pool cleaning machine for shock value. The only part I liked was Beth cutting through two tropes in one--loud whispering and forcing someone to keep a secret--and admitting that she doesn't care because she's had plenty of fun with her hairdryer.
Jerry should've known that if anyone was fine with this situation, it would be Beth. They're basically in an open marriage after their flings with Space Beth and Mr. Nimbus.
Anyway, back to the A-plot: Rick and Morty visit another kung fu master named Gerd Jergins, who agrees to teach them how to counteract the five-point punch if they help him resolve a conflict with his daughter, Stephanie. She doesn't get much screentime, but I love Stephanie and her bisexual polycule--and, honestly, I wish I could ask the lavender lolita princess on a date.
Morty helping Gerd through the situation is also a great touch. We all know he's the moral center of the show, but it's nice to see him use his emotional intelligence to help others instead of trying to do the right thing and watching it blow up in his face. Once they're cured, Rick and Morty happily run around Stephanie's apartment before paying Lin a visit to get payback.
I missed seeing Rick and Morty together, and it's fun to watch them take on Lin with vibrant animation and increasingly ridiculous fighting techniques. Still, at this point, it's not hard to see where this episode was going. With the characters evenly matched, another character would have to intervene to get the fight to stop--and, sure enough, their destruction causes an angry god to release the episode's final boss.
In the heat of the moment, Lin drops another twist. Turns out, he purposely hit Rick's vehicle because he's lonely and only knows how to connect with people by creating conflict (after asking Rick if he can relate, Rick bluntly replies, "No.") This seems like the writers giving Rick another "get out of jail free" card after making him look like an asshole at the start of the episode. In fact, he was just reacting to a violent old man's shenanigans--and we all know he can relate, despite his claims otherwise.
Predictably, the episode ends with Rick, Morty and Lin teaming up to defeat Punchenheimer, then inviting Lin, Gerd, Stephanie and the whole polycule to a backyard pool party. Everyone's enjoying themselves so much that it feels a little ominous. The show has lightened up over the years, but this is still Rick and Morty, and nobody's getting a happy ending just yet.
The pool has appeared in all three episodes so far, and while I'm not expecting a shocking twist, I'm wondering if it's going to play a role like the pool in Breaking Bad: always there, reflecting the characters' mindsets, and contributing to funny and tragic scenes alike. In great fiction, a pool is never just a pool. Rick slipped in a little "wubba lubba dub dub" when he was running around the apartment, and with him getting drunk at the pool party, it's clear that he's still metaphorically drowning.
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