Nah. The Rickest Rick would still be, you know, smart.

Hell, even when she was tasked with being Cinderella’s step-sister who surprisingly wasn’t a horrible person, she still will handily steal the scene.

I don’t know that there’s really a conspiracy here.

Right? Like, way back when the two had their huge season 3 spat, I felt like a pretty consistent picture was painted that the source of the issue was that Harmon wanted to make the show more structured and planned out, and Roiland just wanted to endlessly riff and not be made to plan things out.

Hey, it was a good tangent to go on. I think it was a pretty insightful breakdown for why Harmon seems to have navigated the same choppy waters that Roiland seems to currently insist on drowning in.

So I’m realizing all of a sudden that King Jellybean was basically an unintentional stand-in for Roiland this whole time.

That sounds like an excellent idea, and very within the R&M wheelhouse. I could just imagine the audience reactions: “Wait. A rerun! I thought this was going to be a new episode!” and then “Hold on, that’s not how it went originally” before they eventually realize it’s totally different.

(gestures toward Harvey Weinstein)

I also have plenty of female friends who like the show.

...and he’ll be missed even less if they find good voice actors for Rick and Morty to replace him.

Right? There’s plenty of people who are creative out of their ass, but they still recognize that they’re part of a team and, you know, try to pull their weight.

Unfortunately, I think the self-awareness to recognize just how cush of a situation he had creatively would have also required him to be self-aware about what a creep he should stop being.

Yeah, like, it was funny and kind of refreshingly lo-fi on the initial two interdimensional cable episodes, but then you’d start hearing it creep into, say, songs on the soundtrack, or just about anywhere he would lend a voice and after a while it stopped feeling the loose riffings of a comic professional and instead…

Precisely. Especially since, if the article’s reportings are accurate, Harmon’s already been the primary showrunner since season 2, essentially.

Honestly, this shocks me very little. You hop from Community and Rick & Morty, and it seems pretty clear which of the R&M creators has a consistent voice and level of quality. Whereas Roiland’s stuff is all over the map. I’m frankly amazed (though grateful) the two even partnered up in the first place.

I dunno, once you see his first short film, Home Base, about a guy who reacts to being dumped by starting a sexual relationship with his ex’s mother just so he can gleefully rub it in his ex’s face... I think you might agree that the dude is less than pedestrian. He frankly sucks.

This is why I like our chats with each other, Collex. Even when we disagree and have strongly opposed interpretations on the same movie, I feel like we’re still able to glean insights from each other.

Exactly. Up to and including refusing to be an enabler any more when Bruce practically leaps at the chance to play caped crusader again in a deeply unhealthy way.

Exactly. He would be a great element for finally get the Conan movie that the first Schwarzenegger film was TRYING to be: a moving, thoughtful meditation on Manliness (and all that shit).