5: Pickle Rick – Episode 3
Of all the episodes in season 3, the one that is the most memorable is definitely Pickle Rick. There’s just something about seeing Rick as a pickle that has really captured everybody’s imagination and the show relied on the image heavily for marketing before the season began.
The episode itself was hilarious and featured some of the most imaginative action sequences the show has ever put together. Inspired by franchises like John Wick and The Raid, the episode really established what an unstoppable force Rick has become.
It also continued the theme of family, with the Smiths attending a therapy session held by the hilarious Dr Wong, voiced excellently by Susan Sarandon, one of many great guest stars to partake in the show this season.
4: Rest and Ricklaxation – Episode 6
Rick and Morty season 3 has been heavy on character development and no episode did a better job of that than Rest and Ricklaxation. The season’s sixth episode had a genius concept – the duo’s personalities were split when a detoxifying spa went wrong. In a Jekyll and Hyde style story, the two sides of their personalities waged a battle on each other for supremacy.
While seeing Rick’s lighter side was interesting, it was Morty, who once he had his ‘toxicity’ released, who was the most interesting. With all of his anxieties removed, Morty becomes a sociopathic playboy, with no respect for women and a penchant for the finer things in life. It was a novel concept for the series and one that paid off in abundance.
3: Morty’s Mind Blowers – Episode 8
Rick and Morty’s clip show episodes have always been a treat, but this season the show moved away from the ‘Inter-Dimensional Cable’ format that had served them so well over the last two seasons, giving us something new entirely.
‘Morty’s Mind Blowers’ told us that Rick had been deleting Morty’s memories as and when he needed to over the years, presumably to both save Morty from some of the mistakes he had made, and also to stop any sort of uprising from his increasingly intelligent grandson.
Not only were all the clips in the episode absolutely hilarious, the episode also managed to move the show’s bigger narratives along as well. It was an interesting exploration of the power dynamic between the pair and it revealed a lot of things about their past relationship that has only added to the multiple Rick and Morty fan theories on the internet.
2: Ricklantis Mix-Up – Episode 7
The Ricklantis Mix-Up was the biggest surprise of season 3, a stand-alone episode that has added more than anyone could have hoped for to one of the show’s biggest mysteries, and a surprisingly dark and unflinching look at a broken down and corrupted society.
Heading into this, fans were expecting an episode about Rick and Morty’s adventures into the lost city of Atlantis. Instead, we were given a stand-alone look at the Citadel since the Council of Ricks collapsed and boy, was it something special. The Ricklantis Mix-Up not only had that absolutely awesome ending but it was also one of the show’s darkest, and saddest episodes to date, taking a look into the lives of everyday Ricks and Mortys and holding a light up to some of the biggest problems facing our world today.
1: The Rickshank Redemption
Choosing this over the Ricklantis Mix-Up was an incredibly difficult decision but in the end, The Rickshank Redemption just squeaked it for me. The biggest reason this is the best episode of Rick and Morty season 3 is that it managed, somehow, to defy everybody’s already incredibly high expectations.
The Rickshank Redemption dropped out of the blue back in April and it blew everyone away. Having not seen the show for the best part of 18 months, fans could never have anticipated that Harman and Roiland would have been able to satisfy us with an episode as much as this did. It wrapped everything up from the end of season 2, set us on a course for the rest of season 3 and also added a ton to Rick’s character, creating questions about Rick’s origins that set the internet alight for months.
What was your favourite episode of Rick and Morty Season 3? Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter @liamhoofe
Originally published October 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
