Rick and Morty is an animated show created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. This Sci-fi comedy is inspired by the relationship between Doc and Marty from the movie Back To The Future and follows Rick, a super genius, and Morty, his grandson, on whacky and dark adventures in other parallel universes. Season three was released this past year as an April Fool’s joke, catching many of the members of its loyal fan base off guard, especially since the last season ended almost two years before the season three premiere was released. The episode, Rickshank Redemption entails Rick’s escape from a space prison.

If you have not watched this episode yet please stop reading at this point. I definitely don’t want to spoil this episode for you. Anyway, the episode opens up at a diner called Shoney’s, which is a hologram created in Rick’s cerebellum (I know this is complicated but please stay with me). The hologram is created by the galactic federation, which are basically a bunch of space bugs who want to get the memory of Rick creating his famed portal gun (A gun that allows him to hop between dimensions). To literally get into his head, they use a gun called the Brainilizer (10/10 on the name) which not only has the capacity to manifest holograms in one’s brain, but also to switch someone’s consciousness into another person’s body. One of the space bugs uses the Brainilizer to transport his consciousness into Ricks cerebellum, so now there is a space bug sitting with Rick at the diner. He explains to Rick the situation, about how the Brainilizer is slowly collapsing Rick’s cerebellum which will lead to death. The space bug makes a deal with Rick: if Rick shows him the day he made the portal gun, he will let Rick see his ex-wife. Rick agrees, and they are off to the memory (after a quick stop for McNuggets with Mulan Szechuan Sauce; this is important, trust me). In the memory, a Rick from another dimension kills the original Rick’s wife and daughter in order to convince the original Rick to use the portal gun to seek revenge (Ricks hate each other, it’s a thing, don’t think too hard about it). The space bug sends the memory to his Headquarters and says goodbye to Rick. However, when the bug tries to leave Rick’s brain, he can’t. It turns out Rick never left the diner in the beginning, however he used his mind to transform Shoney’s into a false memory, which uploaded a virus, giving him control of the Brainilizer. He then uses the Brainilizer to go into the space bug’s body and basically dismantle the Galactic Federation. (There were way more steps between this, but you get the idea). In the end (after switching into a different Rick’s body), he goes home to his family, reuniting with Morty, Beth (Rick’s daughter) and Summer (Rick’s granddaughter). He explains to Morty that he had been planning to be arrested in order to find more Mulan Szechuan Sauce this whole time.

Rick and Morty is amazing in that it can tackle issues as huge as the meaning of life, while also humoring its audience with casual fart jokes. One of the major themes throughout the series is how meaningless life is in the universe. The man literally destroyed a government for Chicken Nugget Sauce. Overall, Rick and Morty is a very dark and very philosophical television series and I would definitely recommend watching it.