Rick & Morty season 5, episode 7 subtly acknowledged and addressed a major criticism of the show. Since its inception, Rick & Morty has been criticized for giving its female characters the short shrift when it comes to story focus and development. While season 4 saw some steps forward in this regard, season 5 was the first instance of Rick & Morty giving Morty’s love interests actual personalities and character arcs.
One of Rick & Morty’s most problematic characters, Jessica, went from being a wordless object of Morty’s unrequited affections to a Time God in the season 5 premiere. As such, it was not surprising when a later episode of Rick & Morty season 5 acknowledged the show’s issue with shallow female characters even more pointedly. What was surprising was the fourth-wall-leaning way in which the Adult Swim hit managed to pull this off.
"Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion" (season 5, episode 7) opened with Rick and Morty heading to “Boob World,” only for the pair to reveal that they were only bringing Summer along because including a woman in their party guaranteed them free entry and shielded Boob World from criticism. This gag acted as a tacit admission of Rick & Morty’s male character-focused storytelling in earlier seasons. While earlier outings like the underrated "Promortyus" (season 4, episode 7) had seen Summer join Rick and Morty on their adventures, she was always the third wheel to the title characters, something that was acknowledged when the duo admitted they were only bringing her to Boob World for token representation. However, the fact that this joke was almost immediately followed by Summer taking over Morty’s voiceover and becoming the episode’s POV character proved that the episode wanted to authentically address these criticisms rather than just reference them.
It is not uncommon for television shows, particularly self-referential comedies, to reference and acknowledge common criticisms without actually addressing them. Rick & Morty itself has done this from time to time, which made the decision to give the narration of "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion" to Summer a more effective surprise. While Rick & Morty season 5 saw Morty and Summer work together at some stages, most of these episodes such as “Rickdpendence Spray” (season 5, episode 4) still prioritized Morty as the show’s primary POV character.
Since viewers were used to seeing Rick & Morty mock its own criticisms without then addressing the issues that the critiques mentioned, it was a refreshing change for "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion" to switch up the show’s perspective and offer a new POV character. This also allowed Rick & Morty season 5 to depict Rick’s manipulative behavior in a new light, something that seemed comparatively light-hearted in the episode’s story but came back in a darker, sadder fashion by the show’s season 5 finale. Thus, promoting Summer to main character status even for a standalone episode allowed Rick & Morty season 5 to not only acknowledge and make fun of but also address, one of the show’s longest-lasting criticisms.