Comedic sociopathy – the effect produced when a show’s prioritization of jokes over relationships ends up giving off the feeling that no one involved has the capacity to feel for other human beings – is generally the furthest thing from my cup of tea. While shedding emotion for punchlines can work beautifully in short standalone works (one need look no further than classic Looney Tunes shorts to prove that), it tends to clash badly with anything requiring continuity.

You’ll find this as one of the foremost reasons people give for checking out on Family Guy and later seasons of The Simpsons, for example. And yet it’s far more rarely an accusation laid against British comedy, whose most famous works (Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Father Ted, the Monty Python canon to an extent) pretty much run on flippant cruelty. The crucial difference is the format: the latter shows tend very much toward absurdity, asking nothing of the audience but to point and laugh at the hypocritical jackassery before them; while American comedy born from that sitcom mold finds itself married to the emotional resolution, often building the shape of what should be an emotional dynamic only to discard it when inconvenient. The disconnect between familiar beats relying on the audience’s emotions and the cruelty required to sell the jokes (comedy, after all, is pretty much always seeded in some kind of pain) becomes jarring over time, and has a way of breeding resentment in the audience. At the very least, yours truly has little use for them.

All of which is an extremely long-winded way of saying that Rick and Morty is, eight times in ten, a black-hearted grotesquery with more interest in its odd, world-hopping scenarios than building any kind of warm and fuzzy feelings. And after 11 episodes I am more invested in its world and characters than any adult comedy of the last few years. In fact, it might be Adult Swim’s best program since the indomitable Venture Bros. Continue reading →