‘Rick and Morty’s Rick-Plush.Biz Doesn’t Work and That’s the Point

Rick and Morty is no stranger to two-part episodes. But it isn’t often that a series releases its second half two and a half years after Part 1. That’s basically what Rick and Morty has done with “Full Meta Jackrick”, the sister episode to Season 4’s “Never Ricking Morty.” And just like with Story-Train.com, the non-functional Rick-Plush.biz is the entire joke as well as an insightful deep dive into where Rick and Morty is after six seasons.

If you need a refresher, Season 4’s “Never Ricking Morty” followed Rick (Justin Roiland) and Morty (Roiland) as they battled their way through a Story Train, a plot device that was also an actual train. At the end of their adventure, they were forced to face off against Story Lord (Paul Giamatti), the ruler of this train. But that wasn’t the true ending of this episode. In its final moments, “Never Ricking Morty” revealed that this entire adventure — this Rick and Morty, Story Lord, and the Tickets Please guy — was part of a toy train set that our real Morty bought at the Citadel of Ricks. The entire adventure was part of that toy. That’s what fathered Story-Train.com, a fake website that mocked the ruthlessness of capitalism and the pressures successful shows face to constantly create and sell merchandise.

As meta as all that is, it’s nothing compared to “Full Meta Jackrick.” Using the power of fictional Jesus (it’s a long story), Story Lord manages to make himself real and confronts his creator. It’s thanks to this unnamed writer that we finally learn how Story-Train.com came to be in the Rick and Morty universe. Apparently, the Ricks of the Citadel originally wanted this unnamed writer to turn the Story Train toy into a Canterbury Tales situation. But after noting it to death, the current version of the Story Train was born, much to the writer’s endless frustration.

“They kept telling me it ‘needed something.’ Yeah, no shit it needed something. It needed to never be pitched!” the writer yells at Story Lord. “I did my job — Goomby, the Ice Queen, the Tickets Please Guy. They just bailed on it! The website didn’t even fucking work, and it was a shitty URL to begin with. Story dash train? Who uses a dash? They set me up to fail.”

So even in the world of Rick and Morty, Story-Train.com was a bust. That what makes what comes next even funnier. Throughout the episode, a Rick toy with dark blue hair is shown. It actually becomes the object used in Story Lord’s murder. Naturally, that leads to another merchandising plug from Rick: the far-stupider Rick-Plush.biz.

By the way, that site does exist. If you go to it, you’ll see an advertisement for a sentience-resistant Rick plush for $29.99. It’s also 50 percent heavier, which is… good? Honestly, who knows. Even though the site is real this time, you can’t purchase this toy. Clicking the “Unavailable in this reality” button leads you to Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty stream. Just like with the Story Train, the dark-haired Rick plush is an item that only exists and can be purchased in this show’s universe.

As silly as this gag is, it continues a conversation that series creator Dan Harmon has been having with his work for years. Dating back to Community, Harmon’s shows have produced several meta episodes like “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” and “Advanced Documentary Filmmaking.” Written by Alex Rubens and directed by Lucas Gray, “Full Meta Jackrick” seems to be a continuation of this conversation that was started in “Never Ricking Morty.”

This time around, these two Rick and Morty episodes use their very plot to tell the story of an episode that goes off the rails thanks to meddling from executives and marketing teams. If the unnamed writer isn’t complaining about how how the Citadel team kept noting his work to death, then the episode is introducing a new a character every few minutes. “Full Meta Jackrick” even gives us a new super-powered team, the Story Six. After the success of Season 3’s The Vindicators — a Marvel satire that led to its own spinoff series — this team of talking plot devices stands as a pointed middle finger to easily marketable concepts. Because of all this commentary, “Full Meta Jackrick” intentionally becomes a weaker episode. Rather than Rick and Morty being part of its story, they feel like they’re merely trying to survive it. That’s exactly the pitfall that often comes with overly produced shows and movies that seem more interested in franchising opportunities than telling compelling stories.

The thesis of the episode is best summarized by the ghost of Joseph Campbell (Harmon) speaking through Morty. “Sir, you’re only proud of your creation’s success because you want to be creative,” Morty tells the writer. “But creation doesn’t happen through gimmicks, technology, or distribution. It doesn’t even happen through work. Creativity is, frankly, adjacent to mental illness and overlaps with it substantially. A lot of talented people kill themselves, and all of them are miserable. The real gift is to be ungifted.”

So what’s the point of any of this? What’s the point of the Rick toy? And why can’t you buy it?

As one of the seven TV critics this episode was written for, to me, the Rick toy represents how capitalism can often stifle art. All stories — both good and bad — must eventually come to an end. But the very medium of television always requires there to be more story. There have to be more episodes, more twists, and more lore. Otherwise, the entire operation ends and people stop making money.

But there’s a silver lining to all this dreary navel-gazing. At the end of the day, Harmon, Roiland, and the rest of the Rick and Morty team truly have created a show that fans love. Their art has connected with people and made their lives better. Even if the pressures of capitalism and the ego-stroking that comes with making something people like means that Rick and Morty has moved past its creative prime, why does that really matter? At the end of the day, this show is bringing people joy. If people want to make a ton money off this fandom by marketing everything in sight, so be it.

Rick-Plush.biz is a conversation between doing what’s creatively best for a project — which, in the case of Rick and Morty, honestly have been ending it a couple of seasons ago — or giving fans and executives more of what they want. As this show is in its sixth season, that’s likely a real conversation Rick and Morty is having.  Seeing it played out through multi-part episodes and website tie-ins may be confusing, but it’s also fascinating. Rick and Morty is breathing rarefied air as one of a handful of shows that has become a full-blown pop culture sensation. Watching them put some version of their concerns on screen is a bit like peeling back the curtain. What’s on the other side may be nauseatingly self-referential, but at least it’s honest.