Rick and Morty The Complete Seasons 1-5 Review: The Best Clip Show

Rick and Morty fans can now celebrate having the entire series in one handy place. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment put out Seasons 1-5 for the Internet’s howling amusement, but, the question remains, does it capture the Rick and Morty experience adequately? In a word, yes, and in an era of streaming television, this home video collection of episodes and extras allows fans to see the entire arc of the show in ways that picking and choosing can’t really convey. Viewing Rick and Morty’s adventures all together helps give some needed structure to the central, finite curve.

Right off the bat, these discs offer something that sets them apart from the online viewing experience: all of the features are here in a centralized place. For the first three seasons of Rick and Morty, viewers are treated to commentary for every episode. For Seasons 4 and 5, there are “Inside The Episode” segments, while animatics are plentiful across all of these episodes, with the series’ delightfully strange humor is on full display.

If you’re going to go deep into Rick and Morty, you might want to know how they made Snake Jazz or how the origins of the series were formed. These discs feature a wealth of information that true obsessives could spend hours unpacking. One of the biggest perks being the voice talent getting to strut their stuff while discussing various characters. Episodes might have zany structure and a seemingly grandiose epic bubbling under the surface, but this show lives and dies with the vocal performances. Justin Roiland, Sarah Chalke, Chris Parnell, and Spencer Grammer each have moments to shine across the five Seasons. 

An underrated feature of this collection is the access to all of Rick and Morty wherever. Your purchase price gets you the physical discs, but access to the episodes digitally as well. In a home with multiple ways of streaming content, this is a welcome comfort. (To say nothing of being able to run through an entire season on an airplane or bus ride.) These are the kinds of features that end up driving the value of the package up.

More than anything, though, the inherent necessity of this collection appears through having all 51 episodes together. A lot of times, animation fans might have to get this done season by season. But, the box set has all of it. (However, it will be interesting to see how Warner Bros. and Adult Swim manage to top themselves in the future.) 2013 is an eternity ago in internet time. It feels like ages since the pilot episode premiered and that iconic “100yearsRickandMorty” meme entered the online lexicon.

Since then, there have been arguments about Szechuan Sauce because of “The Rickshank Rickdemption” and people cosplaying “Pickle Rick” because of that episode. Recent seasons had some fans wondering if the show would ever reach the heights of the early, looser episodes. Watching Season 5 again compiled together gives us a lot of hope. (Entries like “Rickdependence Spray” and its sperm-filled shenanigans go over easier when you get to the hysterical Gotron Jerry’s Rickvangelion not too far afterward. Heck, there’s even a lot to love about the wacky Thanksgiving episode with the strange turkey-based threat.)

Long-haul Rick and Morty fans have to love the classics being available without any delay. First season standouts like “Lawnmower Dog” and “Meseeks and Destroy” are there for comparisons to later entries like “Total Rickall” or  “The Vat of Acid Episode.” One of the frustrating and amazing elements of this show is how disconnected the individual installments can feel. Don’t like one episode? The next one could be completely different! No harm, no foul. But, watching it all together also has another effect.

Watching Seasons 1-5 will make viewers excited that the show is ostensibly freshening itself up like Archer in the upcoming Season 6. Rick isn’t the smartest guy around, and that’s probably for the best going forward. However, that doesn’t mean that the formula that served the show so well for the first five seasons didn’t create some amazing TV. In honesty, that story wheel and other quirks probably account for why a lot of fans will be picking this box set up. (And not just because they might be hoping for a real-live Story Train one day.)

Rating: 5 out of 5

Rick and Morty Seasons 1-5 is available right now. You can order it on Amazon now.