After a shaky, hit-and-miss fourth season, the fifth season of Adult Swim’s hit sci-fi satire Rick and Morty marked a return to form for the mind-bending animated series. On top of some solid standalone installments, this season reprised some ongoing narrative threads from the show’s past.
From a trippy storyline about decoy families killing each other to a shocking season finale that brought back “Evil Morty,” season 5 had some of Rick and Morty’s strongest episodes to date. Some of the season’s entries were ranked higher on IMDb than others.
Rickdependence Spray (5.7)
The lowest-rated episode from Rick and Morty’s fifth season has a score of just 5.7. “Rickdependence Spray” opens with Morty discovering the horse breeding mount in his mom’s office. Naturally, he decides to use it as a masturbation machine.
This entire premise is built around American Pie-level crassness. When Rick uses what he thinks is horse semen to create a weapon, he ends up turning Morty’s semen into a race of monsters determined to destroy America.
Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion (6.4)
IMDb users didn’t love Rick and Morty’s parody of cartoons about robot warriors who join up to go into battle as a larger robot. A lot of the references in “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion” go over fans’ heads if they’re not familiar with those shows.
The arc in “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion” is more one-dimensional than the average Rick and Morty episode. It revolves around Summer enabling Rick’s addiction to color-coded connective cyborgs.
Amortycan Grickfitti (7.0)
Any Rick and Morty episode that pairs up Rick and Jerry is bound to have a few big laughs. In “Amortycan Grickfitti,” Rick takes Jerry out for their weekly “guys’ night.” Of course, it’s revealed that Rick is only spending time with Jerry to pay off a debt to some demons who feed off of human suffering (something that happens a lot when Jerry is around).
The B-story isn’t quite as strong, but there’s still some fun to be had with Morty and Summer’s attempts to impress the cool new kid at their school.
Rick & Morty’s Thanksploitation Spectacular (7.2)
In its latest season, Rick and Morty aired a Thanksgiving episode in the middle of summer. The writers came up with the perfect premise for a Rick and Morty Thanksgiving episode: Rick transfers his consciousness into a turkey body so he can get a presidential pardon.
The episode wrings a ton of laughs out of this concept, like the crack team of American soldiers waiting to be deployed as turkeys in case such a day ever came.
A Rickconvenient Mort (7.8)
There are some great moments in “A Rickconvenient Mort,” but it doesn’t have any of the jaw-dropping twists and mind-bending conceptual stuff that the show is famous for.
Both the A-plot and the B-plot are thinly drawn. Morty falls in love with an ecological superhero named Planetina and butts heads with the people who created her. Meanwhile, Rick and Summer party on a few planets that are about to be wiped out.
Rickternal Friendshine Of The Spotless Mort (8.3)
A few seasons back, Rick lost his best friend Birdperson. He was resurrected as Phoenixperson, but Rick couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t acting like himself. In “Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort,” he tries to get to the bottom of it.
The Smiths go on vacation and Rick insinuates he’ll be enjoying some time off, but he actually plans to go into Birdperson’s mind to try to bring himself back. There are a lot of awesome moments in this episode, like Rick interacting with a memory of his former self.
Forgetting Sarick Mortshall (8.4)
Named after the beloved Jason Segel romcom Forgetting Sarah Marshall, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” similarly revolves around the troubles of getting over a breakup as Rick and Morty end their partnership and seek new sidekicks.
Morty befriends a violent psychopath that he meets through a portal in his hand, while Rick replaces Morty with two crows as a bit (and then seriously commits to that bit).
Mortyplicity (8.8)
Rick and Morty fans had to watch the Smith family get brutally murdered over and over again in “Mortyplicity” after it’s revealed that Rick has planted “decoy families” all over the country and they start hunting each other.
The decoy double-crossing starts to feel repetitive toward the end of the episode, but the final twist makes up for it with one of the show’s most darkly hilarious endings.
Mort Dinner Rick Andre (9.0)
The season 5 premiere, “Mort Dinner Rick Andre,” introduced fans to Rick’s hilariously anticlimactic arch-nemesis, Mr. Nimbus. Instead of being a Lex Luthor-esque criminal mastermind, he’s just a jerk who lives in the ocean.
This episode brilliantly dovetails its A-plot with its B-plot as Morty finally gets a date with Jessica and Rick keeps pulling him away to help with the dinner he’s hosting for Mr. Nimbus. The epic saga that unfolds every time Morty steps through a portal to collect some wine is a brilliant running gag in this episode.
Rickmurai Jack (9.4)
The highest-rated episode of season 5 is the finale, “Rickmurai Jack.” This finale follows on from the season’s penultimate episode as Rick is still going on adventures with his two crow sidekicks and trying to win the crow war for them.
By the end of the episode, Rick and Morty are reunited in the Citadel of Ricks by the culmination of Evil Morty’s plan. “Rickmurai Jack” spectacularly pays off a storyline that goes all the way back to season 1.