Beware: there are spoilers for the Season 7 finale of Rick and Morty ahead.
Nearly as quickly as it began, Season 7 of Rick and Morty has come to an end — but you know our favorite screwball sci-fi adventure comedy wouldn’t go out with anything less than a bang. The season’s tenth episode “Fear No Mort” sees our dynamic duo encountering a hole in the floor of the bathroom of a Denny’s that forces the person who enters it to face their greatest fear.
The set-up leads Rick and Morty to do just that, some of which includes Rick’s dead wife and Morty’s grandmother, Diane. And, as to be expected, it makes for a killer closing episode. In fact, fans seemed to be in almost unanimous agreement that this episode is one of the most standout, both of the season and of the series as a whole. “This has been the best episode in years,” one Reddit user gushed, while another added, “Solid episode to end the season on a strong note.” Another Redditor raved, “Pretty f—king certain I just watched one of the best episodes of Rick and Morty.”
Another commenter noted they came into the episode “with medium expectations” but “came out the hole happy with the execution. Great episode from start to finish, 10/10, and an instant favorite.” One person wrote that “actual tears were shed over this episode. 11/10, f—king stellar.” A third fan also made a point to highlight the episode’s writer for a job well done. “Give Heather Anne Campbell a whole damn season!” they wrote.
Many folks even went as far as to place the episode in the top five or top three of the entire seven season run so far. “My fear is overreacting and saying that was a top 5 episode in the series,” one r/RickAndMorty member wrote, while another noted similarly, “S-Tier episode, even better than the Prime Rick one to me. Cracks the top 5.” Another commenter declared, “Top 3 episode of R&M, argue with a wall.”
A lot of fans were taken by the idea of having Diane brought into the fold of the episode, an emotional device that seemed to pay off for the show. “When they showed Diane my jaw dropped for the next few minutes,” one user wrote. “I’m glad the writers decided to show us what she was like for context.” A few fans went back and forth on whether or not the episode’s representation of Diane would be accurate based on what we know about the ending of the episode.
“Diane only appears in 10/10 episodes,” another fan gushed. A third user was equally as thrilled with her appearance: “I audibly gasped when Diane appeared. I wish she would’ve been real!” One person even noted something that makes me kind of sad to realize: “Diane is sooo likeable, it’s kinda crazy how we’re actually never gonna have her as a character and we have to accept that.” It’s true, and what a bummer, especially after the moments we do get with her in this finale.
The inclusion of Diane wasn’t the episode’s only emotional gut-punch, though. The episode’s final seconds saw Rick add a photo of Morty from his own wallet to a collection of images of people who have survived the hole. “Aww, Rick having a photo of Morty in his wallet,” one person commented, to which another Redditor replied, “To him, Morty really is irreplaceable. Very heartwarming.” A second fan gushed that they “f—king screamed when Rick pulled out the photo, I didn't expect that ??”
That said, not everyone was on board with the finale, with some folks being particularly peeved by the potential gimmicks that could come out of the introduction of the fear hole. “This is gonna be the most annoying new thing from now on,” one detractor on Reddit wrote. “Every damn episode forever ‘ARE THEY STILL IN THE FEAR HOLE?’”Another fan replied, “It will be even more annoying since they [already made a] joke about it [on] the episode, something like ‘Are we gonna have to worry about this 2 seasons from now or something?’”
Sentiment to Season 7 Overall
Overall, it seems as though the general sentiment about Season 7 has shifted a bit from the original mixed reception of the season opener. “Really dug the season, even the lower rated eps like Numbericons while maybe not having a lot of rewatchability were still enjoyable to me,” one user wrote, then added about new lead voices Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden, “Cardoni and Belden knocked it out of the park, I can't believe people still complain about the voices, they were really good for a majority of the season.”
“Amazing season, certainly the best one there’s been in a while,” another hyped fan gushed, while a Redditor added, “I’ve never felt so many strong feelings about a tv show like this. This episode was a work of art and honestly this entire season has just been such a breath of fresh air.”
In fact, the majority of the Reddit community seems extremely satisfied with the way things have concluded this time. “F—k I'm sappy now. I'm so proud of this series and these characters. What a perfect way to end a great season,” one commenter gushed. “This was exactly the episode I wanted to see to cash in on all of Morty and Rick's growth and demonstrate how much the show has developed too. I love this so much.”
Ultimately, though, it seems that Season 7 wouldn’t have been the hit it turned out to be without this finale. “This kind of episode is one of my favorite kinds of Rick and Morty episodes,” one insightful fan wrote about the finale. “[The kind] that deals with philosophical themes and has commentary on emotions that make us human.” Sums up this finale — and this season — quite nicely, honestly.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
