Warning! SPOILERS for Rick and Morty season 6, episode 10.While Rick and Morty’s season 6 finale was not the Adult Swim hit’s first holiday special, the outing was its best Christmas episode yet. Rick and Morty does not, at first glance, seem like a show that would be well-suited to the television institution that is the Christmas special. Typically a staple of family sitcoms, Christmas episodes are infamous for being schmaltzy affairs brimming with "Golden Moments," hugging, and learning the proverbial meaning of Christmas. However, Rick and Morty has still aired three Christmas episodes in its six seasons.
While the show had two Christmas specials before, there has never been an outing of the series that effectively contrasted the spirit of the holiday with Rick and Morty’s unique brand of dark comedy. That is, until Rick and Morty season 6, episode 10, "Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation,” the show’s season 6 finale. By marrying the light-hearted antics of the Smith family with Rick’s obsessive, all-consuming search for Rick Prime, "Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” satirized the Christmas special format while simultaneously fleshing out its two titular antiheroes in the process.
Rick and Morty’s Christmas Episodes Explained
What made “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” an effective Christmas episode was how Rick and Morty took the conventions of the sitcom and turned them on their heads. Rick played Santa in the opening scene, acting more loving and accepting toward the Smith family than ever before, proving that Christmas warms the heart of even the bitterest old crank. Then, in a twist that undid Rick and Morty’s season 6’s rule-breaking episode 9, this turned out to be a robotic stand-in rather than the real Rick. It was a twisted subversion of Christmas sitcom tropes that the show has never pulled off before.
Rick and Morty season 4, episode 5, “Rattlestar Ricklactica” was technically a Christmas episode, but this outing simply used the holiday as an incidental setting and nothing more. Meanwhile, season 1, episode 3, “Anatomy Park,” was closer to a classic Christmas special, as Jerry learned to his shock that his parents had an open relationship. Rick and Morty used this revelation to show that sharing time with family wasn’t always wholesome and idyllic. Yet, that outing had the awkward tonal imbalance of season 1 and, like other controversial early Rick and Morty episodes, is too bleak and glib to care about its characters.
Why Rick and Morty’s Season 6 Finale Was Set At Christmas
The reason that “Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation” worked as a Christmas episode was the same reason that the outing was set during the holiday season in the first place. The holiday brought the Smith family together, and the revelation that Rick couldn’t be bothered to show up for it in person proves just how detached he was from the Smiths. Rick was seemingly working on himself in season 6, and Rick and Morty pulled the rug out from under this arc when the show revealed that he had secretly just sunk further into his obsession. Whether Rick’s nihilism destroys his redemption remains to be seen, but it has already made Rick and Morty’s season 6 finale the show's best Christmas episode so far.