How Poopy Got His Poop Back

This episode is basically written like a middling Simpsons celebrity special-guest episode. It really feels like this episode's been re-written to purposely make fun of Roiland after his departure from the show. There are a lot of callbacks to previous episodes that aren't really jokes so much as references. For a show that's headed by someone known for his cleverness, this episode misses the mark. I probably laughed...once?

The replacement voice actors were clearly still learning the nuances, and calibrating them well is on the director & Harmon. Cardoni does the best with the challenging character of Rick. The main failure of this premiere is the lack of joy that the actors are bringing to the roles, even some of the regulars.

The animation is still stellar, so I'm giving the episode 5 stars for that, but some of the POVs are still questionable, such as one shot involving Mr. PB that undercuts the suspense of a life-threatening situation necessary for the subsequent joke.

I'm pretty bummed that this show's quality is seeming to suffer yet again. This feels a lot like the Season 4 dragon episode, and I'm wondering if this is just an intentional passive drop in quality to help the show get canceled.

I really don't mind Justin Roiland being replaced, it seems as though the new voice actors are at least an 8.5/10 in their efforts, so that's great.

The problem is the writing and the flow though. There seems to be something very off with episode 1 of this new season. It's like the show's IQ has lost about 20 points.

It lacks the rapid fire genius of delivery. Everything seems to be slowed down or just not quite hitting the spot.

Rick and Morty is unique as an animated show. And for whatever reason it feels very vanilla today.

Maybe somebody smarter than myself can dive into it and explain why.

It feels like something is missing and it has nothing to do with the voices. The voices are fine. Things change. It feels odd sometimes and it initially feels weird to hear the slight differences but it doesn't impact on the show. What does seem to be missing though, is the improvisational nature of the delivery, which the show has been built on from season 1. It has been fading over the last few seasons but it's completely gone now and it's clearly something we would only ever get from Justin Roiland. This isn't a terrible episode but it's a weak opener. They really needed to prove a point with this episode and they didn't do that. It feels like a mid-season filler episode, billed as some kind of comeback. Hopefully they can play to their strengths, going forward, rather than trying so hard to prove they don't need Justin Roiland to be a success.

The voices sounded kinda similar to me. But they all blended together, like they're cut from the same boring cloth. No energy, no spark. Felt like I was stuck in some robot chat room with no escape button.

The episode itself on the other hand was aweful. It had potential - could've been this epic tale with old Rick's gang getting into some wild antics for a mate. But no, it was a swing and a miss.

Super shallow story. It's like they weren't even trying. Honestly, it felt like they just threw it together last minute. Hopefully the next episodes will be better than this, or people will definitely just bail.

It goes far beyond the new voices. Rick felt like an entirely new character, Morty was barely even in the episode, and the plot was irrelevant to the main story line. After all the setup from last seasons finale and the fact that Rick and Morty premiers usually advance the plot the most, I was super bummed out when I began to realize this was just a lame story about Mr PoopyButthole getting his wife back (which he didn't even, she hated him afterwards). I'd be lying if I said I don't fear for the future of this show; everyone was so caught up by the fact that Rick and Morty were gonna sound different that they completely disregarded Roilands influence on the show itself. Feels like it's making a shift towards a more pg-13 demographic and my god does it suck.