Enter Evil Morty
At first, Rick and Morty played with the idea of continuity just enough to make the audience feel like there was a bigger world without actually locking itself into long-term storytelling. Enter Evil Morty.
When Evil Morty was introduced, he wasn’t just another throwaway character - he was a mystery. A Morty who was smarter, more ambitious, and apparently playing a long game. Fans became obsessed. Who is Evil Morty? What does he want? When is he coming back?
And the writers, seeing how much people cared, decided to answer those questions.
The moment they did that, the show changed. Now, suddenly, there was an overarching story. Suddenly, it did matter which universe we were in. Suddenly, we had lore. And don't get me wrong, The citadel episode, where we finally meet evil Morty again and find out (part of) his evil plan was one of the greatest episodes in the entire show.
But here’s the thing: this goes against the very foundation of the show. If you tell me that Morty does have a destiny, if you tell me that there is an overarching plotline I have to follow, then you’re telling me that people do belong somewhere, and some things do matter. And at that point, Rick and Morty stops being a collection of absurd, high-concept sci-fi stories and becomes something else entirely—a show where you need to keep track of who is who, what happened in past seasons, and what’s coming next.
The same thing happened with Space Beth. When Rick told Beth he could clone her and let one version stay with her family while the other went off to explore the universe, the show did something brilliant—it left the answer ambiguous.
Is Beth a clone? Is she the real one? Does it even matter?
It was the perfect Rick and Morty move because it reinforced the show’s central philosophy: the answer doesn’t matter. Nothing matters!
And then, they answered it anyway. Not only did they confirm that Beth did clone herself, but they fully introduced Space Beth into the show as a permanent character. Suddenly, Beth’s choice did matter. Suddenly, there was real continuity.
And suddenly, Rick and Morty wasn’t the show it used to be.
When Lore Killed the Magic
Now, watching Rick and Morty feels more like an obligation than an experience. If you watch the season finale of the latest season, you’ll see an intricate, tangled web of continuity that demands you remember which Rick is which, which Beth is which, which Morty is which, and how they all connect.
This isn’t the same show that once thrived on absurd, self-contained adventures.
It’s a show that got caught up in its own mythology. A show that listened to the fans asking for answers and forgot that it was never supposed to have answers.
Rick and Morty used to be a show where each episode was its own weird, high-concept sci-fi experiment. Now, it’s a show where every story has to fit into a grand narrative. And honestly? That’s just not fun anymore.
The irony is, the show told us from the beginning exactly how to enjoy it.
Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV
That’s all I ever wanted to do—enjoy each episode for what it was, not for how it fit into a larger storyline.
But now? Now it feels like Rick and Morty wants to be something bigger—something deeper, something interconnected, something with lore.
Maybe that’s what some fans wanted. But it’s not what I wanted. And I suspect I’m not alone.
So if you’re wondering why Rick and Morty just doesn’t hit the same way it used to, it’s simple:
It stopped being the show it set out to be and started taking itself way to seriously.
Now the show “matters”. It just doesn’t matter to me.
