When you first look at it, Rick and Morty seems to be just another one of those zany shows that Adult Swim (a YouTube channel) pumps out each year to placate the gaggle of sci-fi geeks and nerds dying for the next Doctor Who or Stranger Things. But as a sci-fi geek, we can tell you first-hand that Rick and Morty strays off the beaten path of time-travelling lightsaber-wielding Kryptonians who trek down the twilight zone.

Created by Community producer Dan Harmon and animator Justin Roiland, Rick and Morty is a dark comedy telling the haphazard tales of a cynical, alcoholic genius scientist Rick Sanchez, and his dim-witted grandson Morty Smith as they travel through space, time and alternate dimensions. With a crazy Season 3 about to end, here’s four reasons to binge-watch the show!

The characters are comic (they are after all ‘cartoons’), but still very relatable

The total absurdity and chaos of the show’s plots and settings is generally grounded by the social dynamics and struggles between the main characters. Each episode balances two separate stories that end up being related to each other near the end: Rick and Morty go through some adventure that rapidly spirals out of control and the rest of the family struggle at home to deal with another crisis, ranging from being held hostage by dogs that have grown sentient and demand compensation for their neutering/spaying or simple marital complications. What makes the show addictive is that each adventure is more intriguing than the last, and learning more about the characters and their struggles gives you something to relate to. Even when an extremely minor character is introduced, sufficient character development is implemented to allow the viewer get a quick glance at the character, just like meeting a random person in real life, and some even quickly become favourites like Mr. Poopybutthole and Squanchy.

The main characters and their relationships are incredibly more complex and human. Morty’s parents are dissatisfied with their lives and their decisions, and struggle to keep their frayed marriage together (they finally separate in Season 3). Rick’s character is genuinely amoral and manipulative, but occasional breaks in his apathetic attitude let the viewer see glimpses of a man who’s broken by the loss of his wife and a complicated past, and only turned to science as a way to hide the pain. Morty’s older sister, Summer, is jealous of Rick’s bond with Morty, and feels neglected by her self-absorbed parents. Morty remains the white knight of the series, starting off incredibly innocent and trusting in others, but when pushed to the brink, he also reveals hidden anger and frustration with his life. The drama throughout the show is often played up for laughs, but it frequently hits close to home. The Sanchez/Smith family relationships feel real, and it’s this adherence to real life problems that makes sure to balance out the times when the adventures spiral out of control.

It’s incredibly dark, but masterfully so

Based off a twisted version of Back to the Future, Rick and Morty separates itself from other Adult Swim shows because although it’s incredibly dark and depressing at times, every episode is still balanced out by different characters, be it Rick’s apathetic attitude towards life or Morty’s optimistic innocence keeping the audience hopeful. Even when situations seriously spiral out of control, there is always a quick and elegant, albeit unsettling at times, solution presented by the characters.

WTF MOMENTS 

Take Episode 6 of Season 1: Rick Potion #9. In this episode, Morty convinces Rick to create a potion that would help Morty woo his crush. The plan quickly backfires, resulting in everyone in the world but Morty and his family falling in passionate lustful love with Morty. The world quickly falls into even more chaos as Rick accidentally turns everyone else into hideous mutated conglomerates of fleshy aliens and insectoid creatures in an attempt to fix his errors. However, instead of going through a deux ex machina riddled plot to fix the world, the two just ditch and jump into an alternate reality where everything is fine, except their alternate versions died gorily in a laboratory accident just as they arrived through the portal. The episode ends with Rick and Morty burying their own alternate bodies in the backyard. Rick doesn’t seem fazed, but Morty looks horrified and disillusioned as he wanders around listlessly staring at his “new” family. This is the dark philosophy of the show that makes it so watchable, summed up quite neatly by Morty to his sister Summer: “Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV.”

It’s filled with innumerable references and allusions

While keeping a jet-black plot line, Rick and Morty sprinkles its storylines with tons of pop culture references and occasional fourth-wall breakings. For example, when Rick needs Morty’s help on an adventure, Rick prefers to enter an Inception-inspired plot line where he enters the dreams of Morty’s math teacher to convince Morty to get an A rather than tutor his grandson. As the duo jump between dreams, the episode reaches its climax with a sudden confrontation with someone who Rick aptly describes as “a legally-safe knock-off of an ’80s horror character with miniature swords for fingers instead of knives”: Scary Terry — an obvious rendition of Freddy Krueger (he can even travel through dreams!). Or, in another episode, Rick and Morty are stranded on another planet where everyone lives in peace with no conflict, until The Festival, a night where all crime, including murder, is allowed: An obvious nod to the Purge.

Incredibly witty and cynical, and it doesn’t take anything seriously — not even itself

The episodes involve the general division in plot between Rick and Morty’s adventure and the rest of the family’s struggles, but in Rixty Minutes, Rick and Morty’s screen time focuses primarily on “Interdimensional Cable”, a cable box invented by Rick that gives access to television shows across all dimensions and alternate realities. The episode shows clips from a variety of different imaginary shows and commercials that are utterly random and stupid to such a degree that you can’t help but laugh. Needless to say, what makes Rick and Morty hilarious is its complete eccentricity that seems stupid at first glance, but more meaningful in retrospect. While Beth, Jerry and Summer are stressing about what their lives would be in alternate realities, Rick and Morty choose to stay oblivious to what could have happened and focus on what’s happening right now. They realise that dealing with alternate realities will end up causing nothing but harm and prefer to just bum out in front of the TV, watching hilarious satirical renditions of cereal ads and cliched rom-coms.