Rick And Morty Season 6 Answers An Age-Old Star Wars Question
"Rick and Morty" season 6 just wrapped up, and it was one of the show's best seasons yet. With the portal broken for most of the season and Rick and Morty unable to go on any multiversal adventures, the show was forced to dial back the high concepts a bit and focus more on character work.
That approach made the season more consistent in cleverness and laughs. Sure, there was no single episode as brilliant as the vat of acid episode or the clone wars episode. Still, we also didn't get anything as bad as the incest baby episode — though the season did get close, unfortunately. Instead, it doubled down on allowing the characters to grow and evolve, from Rick finally going to therapy willingly and deciding to aid others, to even Jerry, Beth, and Summer getting over some trauma and learning to be more confident. Then there's Morty, who has slowly but surely matured into not letting Rick roll over him and has begun to speak out for himself, which even made Rick promise to be 22% nicer.
Indeed, season 6 of "Rick and Morty" was firing on all cylinders, and that didn't stop with the finale. It not only answered some fascinating questions about Rick and set up for a potentially very different season 7 (and beyond), but even gave us an answer to an age-old "Star Wars" question ... what happens when you drop a lightsaber perfectly vertically?
An age-old question
No, really — what does happen? For decades, people have joked and made a meme out of Luke Skywalker pointing a lightsaber directly at his face, but we've forgotten to ask the more important question: What happens when you drop a lightsaber with the blade facing down? If a lightsaber can cut through anything, does it ever stop going down? Turns out, the answer is a lot like the blood of a xenomorph touching the ground.
The finale, titled "Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation," starts with Rick giving everyone Christmas presents. For Morty, his "number one number two," he gives an actual, functional, trademark lightsaber, with the sound effects and everything.
"Rick and Morty" has never shied away from "Star Wars" references. Season 4 ended with a huge homage to George Lucas' franchise far, far away, including a conflict on a death star. In situations like those, however, the show tended to use original designs and joke about how they resemble things from the movies (like the aforementioned death star). This time, the lightsaber looks just like Luke Skywalker's, and Morty is unsurprisingly beyond himself with joy, especially when Rick surprises him in the garage with a cart full of fruit that he can cut down. Rick even pulls an Obi-Wan and asks Morty to strike him down before he disappears into thin air, leaving only his clothes behind.
Everything is well and good until Morty accidentally drops his lightsaber, and it falls down in a perfectly vertical position straight into the ground, cutting through the floor and continuing to go down, and down, and down. It's the kind of thing one always wonders about as a kid but stops thinking about because, well, if the movies don't care to answer that question, why should you?
Why only Jedi have lightsabers
Yes, "Robot Chicken" did already explore this situation 15 years ago, but what makes "Rick and Morty" special is how the show is able to take an absurd joke and run with it to its most ridiculous conclusion. Dropping a lightsaber and it breaking the floor below you is funny, but what makes the episode hysterical is how much of a global crisis it becomes, because if the lightsaber makes it to the Earth's core, it will explode and blow up the whole planet.
The episode also shows why exactly it is that you need a Force user to use such an elegant weapon. Not because of finesse or some religious appreciation for the tool, but because it is mighty useful to be able to use the Force to pull the saber back up if you drop it.