Highlights
- “Fear No Mort” is a terrifying and twist-filled episode that forces Rick and Morty to confront their fears.
- Heather Anne Campbell continues her winning streak as the writer of this hilarious and thought-provoking script.
- The episode explores Morty’s fear of Rick not needing him and Rick’s fear of letting go of his late wife, Diane.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for Rick and Morty’s season 7 finale.
Rick and Morty’s title characters are forced to face their fears in the season 7 finale, “Fear No Mort,” one of the show’s most terrifying and twist-filled episodes. In their search for a haunted house that will truly scare them, Rick and Morty stumble upon a cursed hole in a Denny’s men’s room. This is a wildly unpredictable storyline. Every time they think they’ve escaped from the hole, they turn out to still be stuck in it. Even when Rick and Morty fly home and Morty leaves home, goes to college, and grows up into an adult, it turns out he’s still trapped in the fear hole.
The finale was written by Heather Anne Campbell, who also penned “That’s Amorte,” the suicide spaghetti episode from earlier this season, and “Final DeSmithation,” the fortune cookie episode from season 6. Both of Campbell’s previous Rick and Morty episodes were winners, and “Fear No Mort” continues that winning streak with another hilarious, profound, deeply thought-provoking script. The episode wastes no time and dives right into the story. It doesn’t even have a cold open; it begins with Rick and Morty wandering through an unimpressive haunted house on an alien planet. Within a minute, they meet a Rod Serling type who takes them to a truly terrifying haunted house inside a hole in the floor of a men’s room stall in a Denny’s.
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This episode has the most screen time Rick’s late wife Diane has ever been given by far. She’s previously only ever been seen briefly in a backstory flashback or her voice has been heard via an A.I. Rick set up to torture himself. But here, she returns to the family and Rick gets to reunite with her, doing all the things they used to do as a happy, young married couple. Even if it’s not really her and it’s just a simulation based on what Morty knows about the grandmother he never met, it offers a fascinating glimpse at what she was like, and why Rick has had such a tough time letting her go. The hole initially seems to be exploring Morty’s fear of Rick not needing him anymore. But, as Rick spends more and more time with a simulation of Diane, it seems to be feeding off of Rick’s fear of letting her go. It digs into a lot of interesting abstract phobias, like the fear of happiness. Then, in yet another twist, it turns out to be something else entirely.
Throughout season 7, Rick and Morty has mostly done away with B-plots. This has meant that some episodes haven’t even featured both Rick and Morty. The first few episodes sent Rick on solo adventures without Morty and the Numbericons episode sent Morty on a solo adventure without Rick. Not only does “Fear No Mort” feature both Rick and Morty side-by-side; it finally has a B-plot, and that B-plot is directly linked to the A-plot. When Morty realizes the fear hole is killing Rick with happiness (or so it seems), he starts facing all his own worst fears – mostly involving spiders and public humiliation – to feed Serling with enough fear to let them out of the hole.
Rick and Morty is available to stream on Hulu
The last couple of Rick and Morty season finales have set up major story arcs for the future. The season 5 finale saw Evil Morty using a hacked portal gun to disappear through a yellow portal into an unknown destination. The season 6 finale saw Rick doubling down on his quest to find Rick Prime. The season 7 finale doesn’t leave any lingering cliffhangers for the show to pick up next season – it has its own self-contained story that it wraps up in time for the end credits – but it still has the feel of a season finale, because it puts Rick and Morty at a crossroads in their relationship. Morty has to dig through all his fears about Rick – that he’s replaceable, that Rick will eventually move on, etc. – to get to the heart of the dysfunction: he’s ultimately scared that if he jumped into a frightening hole in the floor, Rick wouldn’t follow him in to save him. This is a major breakthrough, and since it allows Morty to get out of the fear hole, he still embraces his grandpa in spite of realizing that fear came true.
The final moment of “Fear No Mort” is an uncharacteristically sweet touch. Rick goes back to the fear hole, seemingly to try it out for himself, but instead just takes a picture of Morty out of his wallet to pin onto the corkboard of customers who survived the fear hole. This moment is beautiful for two reasons: it shows that Rick is proud of Morty for facing his worst fears and living to tell the tale, and it shows that Rick carries around a photo of Morty in his wallet. After all the uncertainty and existential terror woven throughout this episode, it was refreshing to end the episode – and the season – on such a heartwarming note.
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