#10 – Fullmeta Jackrick
Fans can usually count on at least one episode a season that breaks out of the formula seen in the rest of the series. Breaking its narrative world in such a way that often results in a meta commentary on the series itself, this became more truer than ever with Season 6’s version of it in “Fullmeta Jackrick.” This episode quite literally saw the duo break out of the bounds of the fourth wall, and even crossed paths with a previous time the series has done it with Story Lord from Season 4’s “Never Ricking Morty.”
The only issue this time around is that in practice it’s a bit muddled. When the series has experimented with its format in the past, it was able to stay grounded either thanks to the strength of its overall jokes or the core story tying it all together. Neither the writing team’s commentary on their own writing or the trope jokes throughout had the necessary punch to keep the wild premise leveled. It’s still plenty fun, but when its strengths in fan callbacks, character work, and teases for the future are stacked against the others in the season, something had to be at the bottom.
#9 – Juricksic Mort
It was an episodic story filled season overall, so it gets tougher from this point on to rank where they all stand. One thing to look at first is the strength of the main premise of the episode. When it comes to the inherent intrigue of the main plot alone, “Juricksic Mort” takes a solid and fun premiere of dinosaurs coming back to Earth and delivers a solid experience. It’s just that the other episodes on this list take their ideas even further in terms of development for each of the characters.
“Juricksic Mort” gave us hints at what Rick acts like when he’s directly challenged intelligently, and that was the much needed development for his character fans were hoping for after Rick Prime was poised as a major villain with the premiere. The sixth episode of the season is dead center in terms of that development for Rick, so he sort of takes a step back in a lot of ways. The episode serves the purpose of snapping Rick out of his funk and setting the final episodes of the season in motion, but the higher episodes on this list took that and ran with it compared to this more calm episode.
#8 – A Rick in King Mortur’s Mort
Following the premiere episode, Morty had two big focus episodes in Season 6. The later of which unfortunately is nowhere near the strength of the first one. Serving as the penultimate episode of the season that ends up planting a surprising seed for the finale, Morty breaks away from Rick once more and soon finds that Rick is much more in agreement with him about things than expected. It leads to more of the exploration of this more outspoken version of Morty teased through the seasons thus far, and his reaction to an agreeable Rick certainly was a fun shift in their dynamic.
It all leads to a classic Morty ruins things the more he makes choices kind of episode, and even wraps up with a fun callback to one of Season 4’s best episode with its “vat of lava.” At this point in the list the rankings are really splitting hairs since it’s been such a good season overall, and the reason “A Rick in King Mortur’s Mort” in this spot is because it’s such a late entry in the season. It’s an adventure that really would have hit harder early on in the Season 6 run.
#7 – Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation
It’s always tough to figure out where the season finale fits on a list like this because not only do you have to weigh its successes as a story against the other episodes, but you also have to look at how it works at bringing the season to an end. Much like the Season 3 finale, “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” brings back the President to demonstrate why he’s Rick’s biggest rival in many ways. This time around it’s a bit different, however, as he is largely fighting with Morty in the main core of the episode.
The episode itself features a largely disconnected story from the main narrative in terms of what it covers, but it succeeds in tying back all of the character and emotional threads we have seen develop throughout Season 6. Its focus on Morty returns to the early season’s dissection of how he feels about Rick, and Rick’s reveal that he was so distressed by Morty choosing to ignore him an episode prior that he resorted back to his old ways.
It had the big character beats fitting of a season finale, and has a concrete tease for Season 7, but it’s tough to really rank this one high when weighed against some of the other bigger finales in the series overall. Especially when this character stuff is done better in previous episodes this season.
#6 – Bethic Twinstinct
“Bethic Twinstinct” is Beth’s big focus episode of the season as not only do we get to see more of the fallout of Space Beth becoming a more concrete part of the Smith Family dynamic, but it’s a return to the central debate Beth was having with herself and her feelings about her current life and choices. Here it becomes quite literal as both Beths become infatuated with the versions of themselves that chose different options.
It works on both the shocking surface level of Beth having a physical and romantic relationship with herself, and on the metaphorical level as both Beths are really just loving their respective potentials and reaching a new level of self love as a result. The episode gave the characters space to explore, and while it’s one of the strongest in that regard, it’s here because it lacks some of the punchier jokes and action as a result.
#5 – Final DeSmithation
“Final DeSmithation” is just a lot of pure fun. Much like “Bethic Twinstinct,” it’s Jerry’s big focus episode of the season as he and Rick look into why a fortune cookie told him he’s going to have physical relations with his own mother. It’s one of the wildest cold open jokes in the entire season, and it turned out to really only be the start to an episode that has unique concepts such as a Panda Express shoot out, a monster that eats chaos, and the most strange of all, a friendship brewing between Rick and Jerry.
While previous seasons have teased the deeper connection between Rick and Jerry before, Season 6 really leaned into how their dynamic had changed. Not only did Rick treat Jerry much better throughout, but “Final DeSmithation” saw them connecting on a much deeper level than ever before. Sure, Rick started the episode mostly just curious why he was left out of the main plot by the fortune cookie company, but soon he ended up going all out to save Jerry. The two of them even share a special moment at the end, and Rick’s slapping Jerry’s face following soon after was the coldest one-two punch of Season 6 overall.
#4 – Rick: A Mort Well Lived
The other major Morty focused episode was somehow the episode with the least amount of Morty directly in it, yet the episode with the most of him throughout. “Rick: A Mort Well Lived” was certainly an odd episode to watch at first because there’s a lot of Justin Roiland in it compared to everything else we’ve seen thus far, but it’s a very interesting deep dive into Morty’s character. Much like we had seen in the fifth season, Morty was pulling away from Rick more and more.
This episode literally fragmented him into his basest parts, so hearing some of the characters like Marta Morty reveal how he really feels about Rick was the best look into his character in a long, long time. It’s unfortunately not higher on the list as it can feel like it stays in one kind of narrative rhythm due to all of the Roiland, but it gets as high as it is here because of how we get to see Morty. And of course, Summer’s doing a Die-Hard in a very fun and light B-plot and it makes for a great follow up after such an intense premiere.
#3 – Analyze Piss
“Analyze Piss” was such a difficult episode to place on this list, and that’s why it was ultimately as effective as it was. On the one hand, it’s the only episode of the series where Adult Swim aired a content warning due to its references to suicide, and on the other, it’s all balanced out because it’s centered on a urine based villain named “Pissmaster.” It’s such an encapsulation of everything Rick and Morty does well. It’s got the hard hitting, real emotional beats, it’s got the awkward comedy of Jerry becoming an entitled hero jerk, and it’s showcasing a Rick who has begun confronting all of the changes he’s gone through in the last few seasons.
It was just one of the most thematically rich episodes of the season as a whole, and once again, it has a guy named “Pissmaster” (voiced by the always excellent Will Forte) in it who shoots urine. It’s just a great example of why Season 6 as a whole was so strong, and really earned a place as one of the best in the series overall. But there’s still two more to go on this list that edge it out just a bit more.
#2 – Solaricks
Just as how one has to look at “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” and stack it against not only all of the other episodes of the season, but as a finale, “Solaricks” has to be examined from multiple angles as the season premiere. Thankfully, it succeeds on both fronts. It started out Season 6 with one of the strongest opening salvos of the last few years where fans not only got to see a serialized continuation from the end of the fifth season (something that really only happened a couple of times before), but it introduced some major new elements to the overall canon.
It’s what fans had been asking to see for a long time, and “Solaricks” does an admirable job in using its callbacks to set up the rest of the season. Both Rick and Morty are set on new emotional development paths that we see play out over the course of the season, and that’s what ends up being the main serialized thread in Season 6 overall. Story wise it’s one of the stronger premieres, and wound up as one of the best stories seen play out. But there’s still one left to go that manages to beat out all of this fan service.
#1 – Night Family
Even with all of the big story elements that happened in the premiere, the biggest and best episode of the season was actually one of the episodic adventures. “Night Family” is as close to a perfect episode of Rick and Morty that you can get. It’s not only a standalone adventure that anyone can just jump into without needing to know anything else about the series, but it’s also got a lot of character development threads that fans like me who pore over these things constantly always notice. In a season where Rick and Morty leave the fourth wall, this was still the most experimental episode.
Taking inspiration from many Horror movie and TV projects, “Night Family” uses what we know about the Smith Family dynamic to make a fun character rich Horror. The shift in presentation to darker tones, lighting, and a killer synth soundtrack makes it stand out from everything else in Season 6. It’s not just a visual upgrade either as it’s the only episode of the season where the Smith Family takes on a challenge altogether from its beginning to end, so we get a lot of fun twists on how they relate to one another.
And yes, while “Solaricks” introduces Rick Prime, “Night Family” introduces the much more intriguing potential future villain, Night Summer. Expanding on the changing dynamic between Rick and Summer over the seasons, Night Summer is the perfect kind of villain that not only had a proper victory over Rick, but goes to show that Summer does see her grandfather negatively (which is something explored in the other episodes as well). “
Night Family” sits on the top of this list because it’s the best advertisement for Season 6 as a whole. An episodic adventure with lots of fun smaller character moments that takes some wild swings with its ideas. Let’s hope this continues in Season 7.
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