It’s unfair how the Pickle Rick episode is Criticized.

I enjoyed it. It has a lot of good stuff in it. Big things and little things. It’s not my favorite, but it’s better than most of Season 4 so far.

Rick talking to himself as a pickle, like oh boy, I’m stuck here, doopdy doo. And then the cat comes in and he starts talking to it and the primitive snake fear that cats have of cucumber-shaped objects. And his little monologue as he gets stuck in the sun, and then down the grate. They break the rule of “show, don’t tell” so badly that it’s actually funny. That “get that parkour, get that parkour” where he’s talking to himself just loving the action of his rat body. I guess they really had to reach for ways to engage the audience’s attention, but it works. Otherwise there would have been long periods of just little grunts and stuff.

I enjoyed the Iron Man-esque suit up scene with Rick. It’s so elaborate; it should have literally taken *years* to set up something so complex and advanced, and yet apparently Rick did it behind the scenes in a matter of minutes. Using a cockroach brain controlled via tongue. Hilarious in its absurdity.

The action sequences, especially with Jaguar, plays into cliched action film tropes perfectly. It’s a deconstruction of the genre.

The little bit where Rick puts the bottle in the recycling bin is great. Did they put that in as a way to prompt the exposition of the Solenya myth? I love asking myself how the writers may have arrived at some of the decisions they make.

And of course Susan Sarandon’s exposition at the end where she flays Rick to the pickle bone is awesome. And the juxtaposition of her coprophagia counseling with her family counseling is hysterical. Bathos and pathos, hand in hand.

I’m a bit of a structure/story nerd, though, so I love to get deep into the nitty gritty of it.

Oh yeah, one of my favorite bits was in the outtakes, when Justin Roiland is trying to do the scene where the family talks to him in the garage and he has to tell Morty to turn him around so he can see. Justin is just dying with laughter and takes numerous takes to get it right.