‘Rick and Morty’ Retired A Day-One Villain in the Most Unexpected Way Possible
After seven seasons of Gromflomite oppression, the conquest of the New Galactic Federation has finally been stopped by… peace?
Despite the title characters’ regular involvement in national, global, intergalactic and interdimensional politics, Rick and Morty isn’t exactly a show that tends toward diplomacy, except when the ship needs to keep Summer safe while also keeping Summer being, like, totally stoked about, like, the general vibe and stuff. According to series co-creator Dan Harmon, Rick is closest to an anarchist on our painfully human political spectrum, which made the conclusion of tonight’s Rick and Morty episode “Valkyrick” — as well as the seeming end of an eight-season-long power struggle — surprisingly out-of-character.
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Spoilers ahead for any Rick and Morty fans who haven’t yet watched “Valkyrick,” during which the New Galactic Federation finally calls a truce with The Defiance and ends (for now) the longest-running geopolitical conflict in the show’s history. Hell, they even gave Birdperson a medal of honor, which will really deflate Memory Rick when he learns that the Battle of Blood Ridge no longer works as his Vietnam.
In “Valkyrick,” Space Beth calls Rick for help after she fails to assassinate the Gromflomite queen and leader of the New Galactic Federation, finding that the monarch has already been assassinated by the time she got there. Rick and Space Beth uncover a conspiracy by a mad scientist who is obsessed with living rent free in people’s heads. The scientist wants to transform the Gromflomite race into a species of super mutants using an engineered fungus that briefly infects Space Beth, forcing her and her sort-of father to partner up with a Gromflomite general to find a cure.
After Space Beth, Rick, Birdperson, Birddaughter and the Gromflomite loyalists eradicate the fungus and all the mutants affected by it, the episode hastily ends with Space Beth striking a deal with the Gromflomite general to cease the hostilities between the New Galactic Federation and The Defiance, presumably putting an end to the Gromflomite’s expansionist conquest.
Considering that Rick and Morty introduced the Gromflomites and the Galactic Federation as the multiverse’s primary antagonist in the show’s very pilot, this truce, if it holds, is a landmark moment in the history of the universe as well as the canon of the show. But what’s really shocking about the possibly-not-lasting peace is that it didn’t come about from Rick single-handedly destroying the formerly fascist empire as he did in the Season Three premiere “The Rickshank Rickdemption” — instead, he helps them avoid an existential threat and allows his daughter to negotiate a treaty, despite his disdain for both governments and negotiating.
Time will tell if this unlikely end to the scourge of the Galactic Federation will actually stick, or if this is just a way for the writers to get Space Beth back in the family dynamic while the New New Galactic Federation will return in a later season to wreak havoc and get murdered en masse. After all, in Rick and Morty, no side-character, villain or running joke is ever really dead.
Well, except for Diane, that is.
