4x09 Childrick of Mort

[7.1/10] Phwew. This one was kind of all over the place. There’s some nice ideas here: Rick and Beth working together through the lens of barely-contained child abandonment issues, Jerry feeling powerless and so reducing everyone to a camping environment where he can shine, a subversion on the Last Starfighter-esque “my teenage habits prepared me for the real world” bit with Morty and Summer. But it just gets really out there and unfocused through all three, and they don’t dovetail especially well, especially when you throw in Yaweh or Zeus or whatever the hell that’s supposed to be, and it turns into a strange science vs. religion throwdown.

This is one of those episodes that probably could have used another draft or two along the process. There’s not a lot of big laughs (though Rick and Beth talking about how to manage their little society generates some solid chuckles), and while the episode taps into the Smiths’ strange family dynamics, it mostly just splashes around rather than actually sticking to some particular point. The Beth/Rick stuff is quality and even a little sweet in places, but it’s not like the show ultimately has a strong point either beyond reverting to the status quo. On top of that, the religious material was really aimless and general, with a grab bag of biblical references without a strong purpose.

Overall, there’s some neat individual moments in this one, but the episode doesn’t really hang together, and feels more like a hodgepodge of different ideas than a harmonized, unified story.

(The "Planets Only" gag at the end was a solid laugh, though.)