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On making the show in the wake of Mendel’s death, Harmon said, “There was a transitional period during Season 5, we had to focus on the job itself.” He is seemingly inferring that rather than focusing their energy toward the writing, performance, and otherwise purely creative aspects of making “Rick and Morty,” they had to prioritize day-to-day procedural operations. This likely left little headspace to cultivate a cohesive fifth season. “I would compare [making Season 5] to a shopping spree after the death of a loved one,” he continued, “where you’re determined to make life normal, but you’re actually behaving kind of insanely.”
On the online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the show’s 10-episode fifth season holds a series-low critic score of 86%, while its audience score has a “rotten” 58%. The site’s critical consensus summarizes, “‘Rick and Morty’ starts showing signs of fatigue with an uneven batch of adventures that are often more crude than clever…” Early audience reviews on the website reveal some expected fanaticism and predictable issues with “political” content, but there’s also a surprising number of users taking umbrage with the season’s perceived “immature” sense of humor. This may be referring to the dragon-fetish adventure “Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim’s Morty,” or the bizarre, fluid-focused episode “Rickdependence Spray” — both of which rank in the bottom five “Rick and Morty” episodes reviewed on IMDb.
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“I think Season 6 is better than Season 5, to talk in cynical fan language…” Harmon admitted to Newsweek. “You can feel that energy in Season 5, and it’s not there in Season 6. There’s a stability to it, and we’re moving forward again.” Thankfully, Season 6 of “Rick and Morty” has received generally positive reviews.
