RICK AND MORTY S9 Review: A Boy and His Grandpa, More Cosmic Than Ever

Best grandfather ever!

Rick and Morty
Season 9 will premiere May 24 at 11:00pm ET/PT on Adult Swim. New episodes will be available to stream weekly on HBO Max and Hulu beginning June 15.

What's incredible about the ninth season of Rick and Morty is that it's more foul-mouthed and richly imaginative than ever, filled with bad taste and dirty jokes, yet also overflowing with wildly outrageous science-fiction concepts that every high-concept blockbuster movie ever made would love to steal.

Yet each episode is one and done after 30 minutes or less. Brilliant!

More than 10 years ago, our own Ben Umstead wrote a sterling feature article on the show's first two seasons, "Rick and Morty and the Multiplicity of Loneliness." The show was available exclusively on basic cable channel Adult Swim in those early years. Since I did not have cable, I took note and bookmarked it in my mind, though I'm sorry to say I never caught up with it when it became available on streaming services. The first eight seasons are now available on both Hulu (in the U.S.) and HBO Max.

Without binging the first eight seasons, I began watching Season 9 and was instantly hooked. I'm sure that I missed various references to past events as I watched all 10 episodes in advance for review consideration, but it's the kind of show where you know whether it's for you within the first 10 minutes.

As incredibly intelligent scientists are wont to do, Grandpa Rick Sanchez (voiced by Ian Cardoni since co-creator Justin Roiland's exit in 2023) goes on adventures across space and time with his 14-year-old grandson Morty Smith (voiced by Harry Belden). Morty's older sister Summer (Spencer Grammer) and their parents Beth (Sarah Chalke) and Jerry (Chris Parnell) sometimes get dragged in, as well.

In his review of the first two seasons, my friend and colleague Ben Umstead detected a strong whiff of loneliness that wafted through space and time and landed on his personal receptors. The latest season is so jam-packed with stuff -- every frame tells a story, and some are far more frightening than others -- that it's difficult to discern anything beyond outright lunacy.

Even so, the show often feels like a mirror held up to the lunatic edge of our modern times. This nuclear family has been exploded and reformed so many times that it would be well-nigh impossible -- though quite entertaining, I'm sure -- to track all the many times they have (literally) exploded in our face and then reformed through human evolution.

For my money, it's best to sit back and let the lunatics take over the asylum. As it happens, I've been catching up with the current (spring) season of anime over this past week, which pushed me to the edge already after sinking my teeth into 30 (and counting) new shows -- and then I binge watched Season 9 of Rick and Morty and I'm afraid I truly have lost track of sanity.

If one is going to lose their mind, however, I cannot make any higher recommendation than to do so by watching Rick and Morty Season 9, which will premiere May 24 at 11:00pm ET/PT on Adult Swim. New episodes will be available to stream weekly on HBO Max and Hulu beginning June 15.

I hope you regain your sanity soon, my friends. Until then, be well.

P.S. If you can't tell by my ranting above, I highly recommend the show. The animation is top-notch, the lead characters are drawn with a kind eye, the humor is scabrous yet affectionate, and the antics push past the bounds of all known science and somehow remain believable, in part because they move so rapidly that one hardly has time to question their internal logic, nor doubt their outwardly facing believability.