Rick And Morty (Season 8 Premiere)

“Summer of All Fears”

When Rick punishes Morty and Summer for stealing his phone, he accidentally leaves them inside of a Matrix simulation for the equivalent of seventeen years. This gives Summer enough time to become the CEO of a major tech company, where she invests all of her time, money, and resources into getting her and her brother out of the simulation.

Only, once they do get out, their minds are still seventeen years older than they usually are. And that does make for some interesting character dynamics; Beth gets to experience having a friend in a wiser and more mature summer, while Rick gets to have fun with a cynical and jaded PTSD Morty.

The charm of their adult versions is too good to be true, though, as adult Summer turns out to be an ass who is too broke to afford anything herself, and adult Morty ends up trying to destroy a power plant that can shut down America's power grid. But when Morty and Summer have a nice moment of reconciliation, they agree to have their minds blown in order to properly enjoy their childhoods.

They do try to leave messages behind to their younger selves - just so they can remember parts of what happened in the Matrix - but the messages don't work, and they revert back to being their oblivious teenage selves again. And I thought this made for a really fun episode!

While we have seen several episodes based on simulations in the past, this was one of the first episodes that focused on the consequences of being pulled out of a simulation. So I enjoyed seeing how Morty and Summer were affected by being stuck in a Matrix for the equivalent of seventeen years, especially since it led to some really hilarious charger based puns.

But, perhaps more importantly, I was really impressed with the voice work in this episode. I liked Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden's work on season seven, but they've really perfected their voices as Rick and Morty, respectively. So I was really impressed with how much their voices have improved, especially since I thought they sounded really good in the first place. But their work was so effortlessly seamless here, that I was fully engaged in the story being told without even thinking about the voices. I fully believed that I was listening to the old Rick and Morty, which I thought made the episode feel like a classic Rick and Morty adventure.

And since that adventure was a lot of fun, I personally think that it made for one of the best premiere episodes of Rick and Morty ever. So, if this is any indication of how season eight is going to be, then I'm definitely looking forward to watching the rest of it.

But I guess we'll see how the next episode of Rick and Morty will actually turn out to be, once it gets released on Sunday.