Valkyrick

I guess last week was a tough act to follow, but this episode was still good. It was a double-edged sword with how ridiculously fast paced it was. This allowed for a ton of jokes to just come and go. I missed only seeing Rick and Space Beth in this. Still, the jokes it does have are quite good. This episode features Space Beth getting help from Rick after being hired to assassinate an insect queen.

Space Beth finds the queen already dead and works with Rick to find out who killed her. Hey, we get a new intro! I guess the last episode was just a fake out. I'm going to say none of these will appear in the season. This kind of seemed like standard sci-fi violence. It's still pretty interesting. ***

The character of Space Beth rarely appears in the series and interacts with other characters. The last time her relationship with Rick seems to have been explored in the series was with her first appearance at the end of season 4. Throughout the series, we see how these characters interact with each other, as her and Rick's paternal relationship unfolds. However, this exploration of their characters and relationships seems very superficial, due to the fast pace of the episode, the senseless conflict that does not fit in with the episode's theme and the drawn-out jokes. It seems to me that this episode could be one of the most interesting. Watching the rare interactions of Space Beth and Rick is very exciting, but these moments are only at the beginning of the episode. The other two thirds of the episode, as I said, consist of drawn-out fights and shootouts that don't seem to make any sense. I think if the episode consisted entirely of Rick and Beth talking while they're sitting in a bar somewhere and just having fun (like in the episode "A Rickconvenient Mort" only not with Summer, but with Beth) it would be much more interesting.

This episode feels like it wasn't written by a professional screenwriter, but by some Rick and Morty fan dying of leukemia through a Make-A-Wish foundation. The dialogue is stiff and clunky, and the stakes feel nonexistent (who even cares about the Galactic Federation at this point?). Hopefully, this is just a fluke, and we'll get more creative episodes moving forward.

Also, it feels like the potential for centering the plot around Space Beth's adventures has run dry, especially since Rick himself says from the very beginning that they're just meaningless side quests and she's gonna grow out of it eventually.

If it wasn't obvious then, it should be obvious now. The characters felt more alive, and the show felt more dynamic and authentic when Justin Roiland was still writing for the show. You can try to downplay his creative contributions all you want, but you can never downplay his results. With those results being 3 seasons (season 1-3) of some of the best written TV out there.

Multiple people working there have said Dan and Justin turn into creative geniuses when they are working together. This is just as much Justin's show as it is Dan's and like it or not, the show falls apart when one is without the other. They both have different strengths, weaknesses and approaches that when mixed together, turns the show into the iconic, explosive success that it became. With Dan having the more methodical approach, and Roiland having the more "throwing darts/ideas and seeing what sticks" approach. In other words, Dan was the "stick to your guns" type of writer, and Roiland was the "high risk, high reward" type of writer when it came to the show.

Dan provided the amazing narrative structure, character driven storytelliing, and the philosophical depth/complexity each episode had. While Roiland provided the chaotic energy, amazing character dialogue that sounded like improv at times, and character depth/complexity each episode had. He was also responsible for the world building and the crazy sci-fi creativity of the show. Like for example, the idea of a Galactic Federation full of insects, and the idea of a Mr. Meeseeks box where Meeseeks can't die unless they perform their task. In other words, Dan laid the foundation for the show, while Roiland gave life to that foundation.

Finally, this is just a personal gripe of mine. But I hate how Rick uses these over the top, tech gadgets that turns him into a god to solve his problems. Where as before, he used to use his witts/genius, invent stuff/solutions to his problems instead of already having them, and got lucky in tough situations instead of being essentially indestructible. It's just a lazy way of writing solutions to your problems.

Not sure if it's just me, but Rick's voice sounds completely different in this episode, and it kinda threw me off. Otherwise, it would've been an amazing episode-everything else was on point, but the voice acting for Rick really didn't feel like him at all. It's hard to get into it when the voice is so off, and it makes it feel like you're watching someone else pretend to be Rick. It's frustrating because the writing and animation were top-notch, but the voice mismatch ruined the immersion for me completely. It's crazy how something as small as the voice can have such a big impact. I really hope they fix it in future episodes because Rick is such an iconic character.