Rick & Morty Season 8 Review

Hey, hey, hey Basement Dwellers! The Dace Man is back with another review, or I guess more so recap, and thought process from the world of entertainment! In this article we'll be looking at Rick and Morty season 8.

Rick and Morty season 8 consisted of 10 episodes and debuted this year on May 25th 2025. Season 8 marks the halfway point of the 90 episode deal 70 from the original 20 with the extension to work the show through 12 seasons, On Adult Swim signed by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. In this review, we're going to break down all 10 episodes of season 8 and the adventures of Rick and Morty.

"Summer of All Fears"

Rick traps Morty & Summer in a Matrix for taking his phone charger.

Season 8 kicks off with a Summer and Morty adventure after being trapped in a matrix created by Rick as punishment for stealing his phone charger. This season's premiere kind of goes back to the original Rick and Morty formula that won us over is fans where they're doing weekly episodic adventures not to mention this also goes back to the strategy of Rick overreacting to a small problem. Summer and Morty both develop PTSD from dealing with their time in the matrix where summer was able to grow up as a corporate executive manufacturer in a war that traps Morty a lower being in said war and going through and realizing that he can't possibly die but must see all the horrors that come with war as well. After summer and Morty returned to the real world they trapped Rick with inside the matrix giving him a side plot of trying to escape his own punishment to get back to his grandkids to make them be punished again and ultimately Rick will save the day by helping summer and more to get their memories wiped after they have a full breakdown in reintegrating with society. Overall, I gave the episode a 9 out of 10 stairs for a season premiere to bring it back into the Rick and Morty chemistry back into the Rick and Morty action and back on track for what Rick and Morty used to be when we were first introduced all those years ago period.

“Valkyrick"

Rick & Space Beth team-up for this week's adventure.

Episode 2 primarily focuses on a Rick and Space Beth pair up. Space Beth at this point is teamed up with a group known as the defiance enacting missions to take down the remaining galactic federation forces in desperation she needs to call Rick because she gets kind of stuck in a situation she's unable to escape and this now sets up the plot of the episode where Rick and Beth will take on the federation and ultimately destroy the defiance at the same time. The episode pivots to a team up between the defiance and the galactic federation to take down fantabulous and his infection that is mutating galactic federation forces and ultimately gets a what one would assume a temporary peace agreement between the two forces and gives you a nice pair up between Space Beth and Rick. This episode will be rated at 6out of 10 stairs as the Space Beth/Rick formula is a buddy cop type episode but at the same time was not too interesting to keep my attention throughout it still a good episode though and that's why it's getting a 6 out of 10 stairs.

"The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly"

Morty Clones hanging at the Arcade.

In this episode we follow Rick and Morty clones on a planet that is themed around the wild Wild West. These clones were placed on this planet after the destruction of the citadel from previous seasons that will ultimately reveal that the Rick that is running the planet is not a clone but the one who made the clones for the citadel. This is kind of a fun Rick and Morty adventure without being a true Rick and Morty adventure seeing as it is revolving around clones, but the episode has its classic Rick and Morty comedy classic Rick and Morty team up and classic Rick and Morty problems we'll give this a 7 out of 10 stairs.

"The Last Temptation of Jerry"

Jerry tries to spread the joy of Easter.

The fourth episode of season 8 is a Jerry centric episode. The one great thing about Rick and Morty is Chris Parnell and his voice acting for Jerry and the sad sack that is Jerry throughout the entire multiverse of Rick and Morty. In classic Jerry centric episodes Jerry is attempting to celebrate Easter with the family but the family wants nothing to do with the holiday period Jerry accidentally kills the Easter Bunny and starts mutating into another Easter Bunny himself really relying on the Tim Allen comedy Santa Claus for the plot device here. As Rick and Morty tried to solve the mutation of Jerry into the Easter Bunny monster they are pursued by space Christians led by Christopher Kincaid that wish to abstain sex and get rid of the rabbits throughout the entire universe. This episode definitely felt like one of the ones that are returned to form when it comes to Rick and Morty and the comedy was on point we'll give this a 9 out of 10 stairs as Jerry centric episodes and Rick and Morty team up all in one is a home run.

"Cryo Mort a Rickver"

Rick and Morty try to rob a sleeper ship.

The halfway point of the season sees that Rick and Morty team up adventure where they ultimately swap positions with other characters or unimportant characters within this series to set up a class divide and ultimate plot device for the episode to put Rick and Morty at odds. The entire premise of the episode has Rick trying to steal from a vault on a sleeper ship but when Morty tries to stop him from doing the wrong thing he accidentally causes the ship to wake up from their cryosleep in doing so Rick becomes part of the upper echelon Morty becomes part of the labor force Morty starts a revolt typical Rick and Morty adventure. After completely upending the entire sleeper ships populations way of life the treasures are ultimately ejected out of an airlock along with the people who originally tried to steal the treasures with Rick ending the episode of implanting all the surviving aliens with compliance chips before placing them back into cryosleep. This episode gets an 8 out of 10 stairs because it's a repeated process in the Rick and Morty formula but at the same time still fresh and funny while doing the same damn thing.

"The Curicksous Case of Bethjamin Button"

The de-aged Beths and and aged Rick settle some issues.

The next episode in season 8 is a twofold episode. One part of the episode focuses on a Beth and Space Beth team up where they de-aged themselves and go through some historical background realization of what their lives are while Rick, Morty, Jerry and Summer go to theme park called “Earth World”. Morty Jerry and summer ultimately have to deal with the mutants that are running around on earth world after Rick leaves to go Dale with the Beth situation back on the real earth the big reveal in this episode is Rick tells the two Beths that his Beth had died. After a battle between the Beths and the Rick, where Rick got into the aging machine and became an extremely old man the revelation of his Beth’s fate cools the temperament of the room and he and the Beth’s return to their appropriate ages feeling more satisfied and the episode finally ends. This episode gets a 5 out of 10 stairs whereas the Beth part of the storyline is not as satisfying as watching the chaos of the Morty and earth world part of the storyline now I get that there's more emotional impacts of the best storyline, but Danny DeVito is Dr. DogBalls is phenomenal.

"Ricker than Fiction"

Zack Snyder & James Gunn on Rick And Morty.

In a fun episode that pokes fun at Warner Brothers properties Rick and Morty expressed disappointment and anger in their film franchise of ‘Maximum Velocitree’ a parody on superhero movies. This episode contains fun cameos of Zack Snyder in James Gunn poking fun of themselves and their takes on the Superman movies they've directed while simultaneously dragging James Gunn further into the plot of Rick and Morty trying to write their own version of the movie and James Gunn stealing it to produce it. The highlight of the episode is the interaction between James Gunn and Zack Snyder and that joke alone to me made the entire season as it broke the 4th wall and did a kind of social commentary on how we view the DC cinematic universe. This episode gets a 9 out of 10 stairs hands down probably my favorite episode of the season.

"Nomortland"

Jerry meets Mooch.

Episode 8 is a special treat for this season as well where we get another Jerry centric episode. This episode kicks off with the Smith family going about their morning business as normal, not realizing that the cherry eating breakfast with them is not their Jerry but a Jerry called Mooch. The episode is then triggered into a Jerry solo episode where Jerry is going across dimensions where he meets other versions of Jerry who have determined that there is this network between the universes they can travel seamlessly without anyone noticing specifically Rick. Jerry in typical Jerry fashion completely destroys this network known as the road that the cherries have created between dimensions that goes undetected by most Ricks. In doing so Jerry pisses off the boss Jerry who now goes after Mooch and Jerry to take them down for ruining the road our Jerry ultimately beats the boss Jerry and returns home just to be berated by his family for being missing and being in his room the entire time. This Jerry centric episode gets 7 out of 10 stars as it is a typical Jerry adventure that starts in a sad moment and ultimately ends in a sad moment for Jerry.

"Morty Daddy"

Morty and Morty Jr.

In a deep cut adventure when it comes to the Rick and Morty lore, Morty’s son Morty Jr. returns as a very old man on his ‘deathbed’. In a sub plot to this episode, Summer and Rick go to a planet that is filled with precogs that can determine what meal you want before you say what meal you want. When summer ultimately does not get the meal, she desires or feels that her meal is not on par of what she wanted they kidnapped the precogs leading them on an adventure that ultimately ends with the precogs opening their own food truck some say it was part of the ultimate plan of the precogs and adds to the frustration of summer and Rick. Morty's adventure on the other hand takes him through a bonding session with his son as they try to find Morty Jr's mother which is in a dump created by Rick to handle failed projects with robots voiced by Charlie Day which is fun. This episode gets a 6 out of 10 stairs as it is a fun adventure for both Rick and Morty but ultimately one of the weaker episodes of the season.

"Hot Rick"

Rick watches Memory Rick & Memory Diana.

In typical fashion the season ends with a very emotional and deep dive of Rick and rick's past for Rick and Morty. In this episode Rick removes his memories of Diane, his first wife, to further a relationship with Bug Anne, a high-ranking member of a bug-based society. This ultimately creates the character of memory Rick and memory Rick has been transferred into Jerry's mind, filling him with happy memories of him and Rick, tipping off the real Rick that memory Rick exists and hoping mind to mind. Memory Rick devises a plot to trick Beth into putting memory Diane and memory into Beth’s mind so they can live their lives out in Beth’s mind. Rick figures this out extract’s memory rake and memory Diane and ultimately puts them on a storage device and shoots them out into space. The episode takes some breaks from comedy in order to dive deeper into rick's mentality and rick's past and rick's pain as they typically do in most ends of the seasons for Rick and Morty the episode gets a 9 out of 10 stairs because once again Dan Harmon and the writers know how to pivot and make you care about Rick who is a person on the surface you should not care about at all.

Overall, the season deserves an 8 out of 10 stairs as it is a very solid season for Rick and Morty and kind of returns to the form of a weekly episodic adventure rather than an entire season overarch. With four more seasons on the horizon Rick and Morty looks like it will never slow down and could possibly go further than the 12 seasons promised and I look forward to each and every adventure that Rick and Morty bring us.

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