[8.6/10] One hell of a premiere and one hell of a surprise. It delivered what I want from a show like Rick and Morty -- crazy, imaginative, absolutely insane sci-fi experimentation and adventure, with dark introspective emotional and character material to support it. The bits of the sci-fi weirdness, from Inception-like brain journeys to transferred consciousness to battles between disparate forces in space were colorful and mind-bending the whole way through.
But what I really loved about this episode was how it asked (and maybe answered) the question I was left asking at the end of the last episode -- what motivates Rick Sanchez? Is he a hero, as Summer thinks, a demon or crazy god like Morty thinks, or somebody whose motivations are just so opaque and arbitrary that he more or less defies that sort of characterization? The episode seems to give a troubling answer, one that pulls away from the way Rick was softened over the course of S2, but it spends most of the episode teasing you in either direction, making you think he's a hero or on an opportunist or an amoral crackpot or just a complicated guy.
I'm not sure I'm any more clarified on what he wants or what kind of guy he is than I was before (and Morty clearly still has its issues), but I love the way the show leans into that complexity, even amid the crazy science fiction wonderment and disaster taking place all around.
On the whole, this was one thrill of a surprise premiere that sets the stage for the rest of the season, changes enough of the status quo to make things meaningful, and delivers another exploration of what makes Rick tick, and how that affects his grandchildren, without giving any easy answers.
