It’s another episode of wonderful interdimensional television, combined with Jerry having to deal with the fate of one of the universe’s greatest leaders.

SUMMARY

Jerry (Chris Parnell) is rushed to a space hospital due to eating a mutant bacteria which Rick (Justin Roiland) kept in a pint of Cherry Garcia. After he’s stabilized, Rick decides to entertain himself and the rest of the family by putting interdimensional cable on the television. The episode mostly consists of watching this as the B-plot.

Meanwhile, Jerry finds out that the hospital wants him to donate his penis as a heart to save the life of Shrimply Pibbles, an intergalactic civil rights advocate. After an elderly alien (Werner Herzog) says that humans are too selfish about their penises to sacrifice one, Jerry promises to give his away… then immediately regrets it. He tries to get Beth (Sarah Chalke) to help bail him out, but she tells him to do it himself. He then attempts to turn popular opinion against Shrimply Pibbles, but fails massively, resulting in the crowd calling him out for trying to get out of his promise. The crowd hates him so much that they end up crowd-funding an artificial heart for Pibbles. Jerry, unable to deal with people hating him, tries to shove his penis in Pibbles’ chest, but is shot by security. He’s revived in the hospital and Beth tells him “You can’t make people like you. You just have to wait for their hating you to bore them.” He tries to be assertive, but the family shoots him down immediately.

END SUMMARY

As Rick even says in the episode, this is a sequel to “Rixty Minutes,” (one of my add-ons to the 100 Greatest Episodes list) once again showcasing a series of short skits that all take place in parallel universes put forth by Justin Roiland. According to interviews, a few of the funnier ones were the ideas that Roiland really hated, which, out of spite, he would keep dissecting or destroying in such a fun way that they made it in. One of those is “Man Vs. Car,” which even contains the obviously slightly out of context line “Wouldn’t the car always win?”

Much like the first interdimensional cable, the beauty of the interdimensional cable shows and ads is that they are completely improvised, which gives them a unique feel compared to most television. Since Roiland apparently did most of them under the influence of some kind of substance, they also have a bit of an oblique way of being presented. For example, “Jan Quadrant Vincent 16” is the odd pitch of an action film involving multiple copies of Jan-Michael Vincent from Airwolf. It’s such an insane reference that Morty (Roiland) even asks if it’s important to know who Jan-Michael Vincent is for the ad to make sense. It turns out that, no, knowing who it is doesn’t add anything to the experience.

Jerry’s story arc is pretty typical for Jerry. He felt like asserting himself in response to being perceived as selfish, but then refused to do anything to correct that after realizing that he does, in fact, want to keep his penis. Beth, rather than helping him, instead becomes focused on the options that she has to replace his penis, most of which are, apparently, vastly superior to Jerry’s current equipment. She even apparently memorizes a lot of the catalogue, being able to recognize one later on sight.

The biggest problem with this episode, compared to the original, is that it doesn’t contain any dialogue as amazing as Morty’s speech to Summer. However, I do find the lines of Jerry calling the doctors dicks for not giving Pibbles an artificial heart earlier and them calling him a dick do make me chuckle. Despite how much Jerry is usually a weeny, it’s also true that they were kind of dickish for not telling him that there was a possibility of getting Pibbles an artificial heart. In fact, they asserted exactly the opposite.

JOKER’S THEORY CORNER

Rick buys Eyeholes just to get back at Jerry. Jerry started the whole episode by trying to steal Rick’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. Then, he sees the ad for Eyeholes but acknowledges that, if you buy the cereal, the Eyeholes Man (Roiland) will show up and kick the crap out of you. Despite this, Rick doesn’t keep the Eyeholes in the garage or in his basement lab, but instead puts them in the kitchen so that Jerry, with his lack of respect for Rick’s food, will end up getting a beating.

LEAVING THE CORNER

Overall, I give this episode a

B

on the Rick and Morty scale.

Wubba-Lubba-Dub-Dub, I need a drink. See you in two weeks.

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If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

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