Spoilers below for Rick and Morty’s latest Season 7 adventure, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched!
After tapping into some canon-changing HBO vibes with Season 7’s “Unmortricken,” Rick and Morty settled back into a familiar groove with “Rickfending Your Mort,” which introduced a race of geode-esque Observers who are prone to witnessing others’ worst and/or most sinful moments. Which, naturally, allowed room for the show’s creative team to put the duo’s notorious Space Jam: A New Legacy cameo on blast, and also introduced the instantly adoration-worthy new character (and possible nemesis) Churry. Now get in the ship so we can celebrate these highlights, Morty.
No Love For That Space Jam: A New Legacy Cameo
It’s somehow only been less than three years since Space Jam: A New Legacy hit the big screen with all kinds of wild Warner Bros. tie-ins that didn’t exactly win audiences over. Amidst all the Looney Tunes characters mixing it up with references to DC heroes, Game of Thrones characters and more, Rick and Morty’s central duo made their shocking arrival in the PG movie to drop off the Tasmanian Devil. It was fine enough, though the barbed joke made in Season 7’s latest ep will probably be a more memorable pop culture moment in the long run.
As they were being held captive while facing trial on the Observers’ home planet, Rick and Morty attempted to prove themselves non-malicious entities, saying they’d never purposefully hurt other people. Which is obviously the hottest of bullshit where Rick is concerned, and there are no doubt plenty of moments the aliens could have introduced to the (basketball) court here, but what did they show? The day when Rick popped through the portal with two professionally wrapped corpses of different sizes, and had this exchange with his grandson:
- Rick: I did it, Morty! I killed the versions of us that were in Space Jam! Help me with the bodies.
- Morty: Wow! How'd you do it, Rick?
- Rick: It was easy, Morty. The welcomed death! They wanted out, Morty!
The show's creative team not only pulled off a funny moment there, but they also seemed to solidify that the Rick and Morty who made their presence known in Space Jam: A New Legacy were not the Morty Prime or Rick C-137 that we're most familiar with. (Get yourself some new canon, LeBron James!) While it's certainly no surprise that the Adult Swim show would take such shots, it's almost surprising that the Powers that Be at Warner Bros. were cool with the animated comedy delivering that lethal roast. I guess this is one of those "bad publicity is still publicity" situations.
I Heart Churry
Like many other Rick and Morty fans, I am a total sucker for every instance where an adorable new character is introduced under the best of circumstances, only for their existences to quickly give way to torment, trauma and other dismal fates. Sadly but surely, that was also the case for Churry, a normal churro forced into sentience entirely so that Morty would have someone to hang out with, only to be fooled and abandoned once their day-venture was over. Heartbreaking!
Or at least it might have been if Churry was weak and frail-willed and felt sorry for itself. But no, this is the Churry that reeled in a whopper of a catch while out at sea, and the Churry who rode the amusement park’s big slide without fear, and the one who found the fireman to save Morty from suffocating to death inside the crane game. And thus, it is now also the former snack food that will serve as a presumably minor and rarely seen nemesis for Morty going forward.
After being dropped off on a planet under the guise of meeting its "real" family — a bunch of non-sentient churros sticking out of the ground — Churry declared its vengeful motivations in a way that hints at future appearances. In its cinammon-dusted words:
Mark my words, Morty! I shall leave you as you left me! On a barren planet praying for death!
While it's obviously hard to know if or when Rick and Morty will ever bring Churry back to get his revenge, the post-credits scene already confirmed a few questionable details. The churro somehow found its way off of that barren planet, traveled back to Earth, learned where Morty when to school, made its way into the school unseen (while holding a bag of brown sugar), found out how to break open a locker, set up the "Soon" message, and left. So obviously we need it to come back so we can learn how all that shit happened. And maybe see Churry partner up with one “Leg Ri-i-i-i-i-ick” or the other.
Rick and Morty has three episodes left in Season 7, which air Sunday nights on Adult Swim at 11:30, and are available to stream with a Max subscription.
