{"id":55175,"date":"2026-05-25T13:03:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=55175"},"modified":"2026-05-25T13:03:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:03:46","slug":"rick-and-morty-season-9-premiere-review-theres-something-about-morty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=55175","title":{"rendered":"Rick and Morty Season 9 Premiere Review: &#8220;There&#8217;s Something About Morty&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em><strong>Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 9, Episode 1! <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">By now, Rick and Morty has us trained to look forward to at least one &#8220;mythology episode&#8221; per season &#8211; those episodes that advance a larger narrative, dig more into Rick&#8217;s tragic past, and involve characters like Rick Prime and Evil Morty. It happens that Season 9 kicks off with one such episode. Evil Morty is back, but as flashy and bombastic as this episode is, the results are a little underwhelming.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I&#8217;ll just get right to my core complaint with &#8220;There&#8217;s Something About Morty.&#8221; I&#8217;m not a huge fan of how Evil Morty is handled here. He&#8217;s long been one of the show&#8217;s more fascinating characters. He&#8217;s not just a Morty who has the intelligence and confidence of a Rick; he&#8217;s a Morty who desperately wants to be free of the toxic, destructive Rick\/Morty dynamic as a whole. But with the character having more or less achieved what he set out to do (and helped Rick take down Rick Prime, for good measure), it&#8217;s as though the writers don&#8217;t really know what to do with him anymore. Maybe the answer should have been to simply retire Evil Morty? <\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-slideshow\"><button type=\"button\" style=\"display:none\" class=\"jsx-2228525885\"\/><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Rick and Morty Season 9 First Images<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img alt=\"Image courtesy of Adult Swim.\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2021719738 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3381835873 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\" style=\"mask:url(https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/RightChevron.272be43c.svg?cors=1) no-repeat center center \/ contain;background:currentColor\"\/><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/output><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Regardless, casting Evil Morty as Rick&#8217;s clingy new partner-in-crime doesn&#8217;t seem like the right angle. For a guy who went to such great lengths to free himself from a multiverse of Ricks, it just seems odd to see Evil Morty now portrayed as a rival for Rick&#8217;s affections. It rings hollow and works against the core conflict of this episode. I&#8217;m all for seeing Rick and Evil Morty duke it out, but I&#8217;d rather they have a more compelling reason to come to blows.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Still, there&#8217;s plenty to like in the premiere if you can get over what feels like the mischaracterization of Evil Morty. The Collective (Tilda Swinton) is a fun Galactus-meets-The Borg villain that offers up a challenge worthy of two united super-geniuses. And it&#8217;s only fitting that Evil Morty wins the day mostly by banking on his counterpart&#8217;s predictable clumsiness.   <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Morty\/Evil Morty voice actor Harry Belden also deserves a lot of credit for how deftly he handles both roles here. Evil Morty sounds tangibly different from regular Morty. At one point, there&#8217;s an exchange where Evil Morty is doing a mocking impersonation of his other self, and Belden really nails the subtlety of that exchange.  <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">In general, &#8220;There&#8217;s Something About Morty&#8221; thrives on the strength of its spectacle. This series has always been leaps and bounds above most of its fellow Adult Swim shows in the animation department, but the gulf is especially stark here. There&#8217;s a real sense of scale and carnage to the Collective battle that befits a conflict between two mad scientists and an all-powerful space god. <\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\">\n<aside class=\"card jsx-1339469126 jsx-1178573261 box jsx-2627838217\" data-cy=\"aside\">\n<h3 data-cy=\"title3\" class=\"title3 jsx-12333944 jsx-3517023867\">Rick and Morty Season 9 Spoiler-Free Review<\/h3>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"jsx-313219616\"><span><img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image article-image article-image-full-size jsx-1809694635 jsx-2338608387\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p><\/output><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;It\u2019s no easy task to keep any series fresh and exciting after nine seasons, but Rick and Morty pulls it off. If anything, Season 9 is an improvement over the relatively weaker Season 8. Certainly, not every episode is a banger, but there are several here that rank among the show\u2019s best. The series continues to merge high-concept sci-fi with wacky comedy. It still finds novel ways of exploring how Rick Sanchez is his own worst enemy and how toxic the Smith family dynamic can be. With at least three more seasons left to go, the series still has plenty to offer fans.&#8221; -Jesse Schedeen 05\/19\/2026<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Click here to read our full review.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/section>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That scale carries over to the later showdown in the Bunker Dimension, where we really see Rick and Evil Morty unleash their full power against one another. If it weren&#8217;t for the fact that we got a full season of Rick and Morty: The Anime, I&#8217;d say we&#8217;ve never seen the series look this much like an anime. Rick and Evil Morty even go full Dragon Ball in the scene where they squat and scream at each other while their respective nanobots go to war. It&#8217;s impossible not to be entertained by the neverending barrage of larger-than-life carnage.  <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The payoff to this battle is also pretty amusing, as Evil Morty learns the hard way why Rick doesn&#8217;t like to mess around with time travel. It&#8217;s a fitting way to end the deadlock between the two characters. I just worry that Evil Morty is now locked into this underwhelming new role as Rick&#8217;s jilted archnemesis. Hopefully, when he inevitably returns in a season or two, the show won&#8217;t simply deliver Round 2 of their free-for-all battle, but find some way of making this rivalry more unique and poignant.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/rick-and-morty-season-9-premiere-review-recap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 9, Episode 1! By now, Rick and Morty has us trained to look forward&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[23299,669,28,13204,668],"class_list":["post-55175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-morty","tag-premiere","tag-review","tag-rick","tag-season","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}