One of the nice things about having access to inter-dimensional travel is that you can find the movies you’ve always dreamed of seeing playing on a big-screen somewhere. And yes, that alternate universe may have other problems like mankind being at war with a race of giant telepathic spiders but the trade-off is so worth it! Especially when the best ice cream in the multiverse is just waiting to be had there!

Of course it’s all fun and games until the engine of Rick’s reality-hopping spaceship drops dead. Fixing the problem requires that he and Morty enter the battery while Summer waits in the car.  Well, actually Summer isn’t required to wait with the car. Rick is just kind of a jerk about keeping his science-related adventures “boys only”.

While they’re away, Summer will be kept safe by the car’s AI-based alarm system. Unfortunately, the car has some rather militant ideas about how to best insure Summer’s safety. And by militant, we mean the military will literally be called out to deal with the car’s destructive nature.

Meanwhile, Morty learns the power source of Rick’s super-car – a miniature universe whose entire population has been put to work generating electricity!  Yes, some of it goes to provide for their civilization but most of it goes to charging Rick’s car and phone. Until today, when the microverse’s greatest scientist, Zeep Xanflorp, has unveiled his greatest invention yet – a miniature universe whose population has been put to work generating all the electricity their civilization will ever need and no more!

Faced with a mind that is as brilliantly immoral as his own, Rick will enter into a battle of wits and a race against time. For his efforts at subtly manipulating Zeep lead to both scientists being stranded in a primitive miniature universe located inside another slightly more advanced miniature universe… and so on. Can both scientists work together long enough to survive until one of them commits a sudden but inevitable act of treachery?

The Ricks Must Be Crazy proves a welcome return to form after the lackluster Get Schwifty. Justin Roiland said that this episode was his favorite of the second season and it’s not hard to see why. Every joke in this episode fires perfectly and I had to pause my recording several times because I was laughing so hard.

The voice acting is as grand as ever. Guest Star Stephen Colbert gives a masterful performance in the role of Zeep Xanflorp. Of course Colbert is no stranger when it comes to playing amoral scientists and his performance here is reminiscent of his role as Professor Impossible on The Venture Bros., though the tone and delivery are totally different yet still recognizable as Colbert’s voice.

As usual, there’s a plethora of references to both real-world science and classic science-fiction. The whole episode is built around the idea of pocket universes and there’s a number of references to Avatar, Stargate and Starship Troopers. More importantly, this episode has Rick back to his usual bastardly self, complete with a number of random gags that make it clear just how little of a damn Rick gives about almost everything.

If you know people who have yet to be introduced to the mad multiverse of Rick And Morty, The Ricks Must Be Crazy would be a fine episode for that purpose. You can’t really call any episode of this show “typical” but this one could be said to a fair representation of the level of quality one might expect on a regular basis. Because “average” is just too small a word.