Review: Rick And Morty, "Air Force Wong" | Season 7, Episode Three
In which an old friend returns and makes several thousand new friends
Is Rick really worth it? That’s the question I kept asking myself during “Air Force Wong,” in part because the episode didn’t really require me to ask much else. Unity, the alien who assimilates entire civilizations, is back, and the President has the hots for Dr. Wong, Rick’s psychiatrist. Much silliness follows, a lot of it pretty funny, but the emotional core of the episode is Unity’s concern for Rick, a concern that drove her to take over the entire state commonwealth1 of Virginia when he won’t answer her voice mails. Again, Rick grudgingly recognizes that people care about him, and again, he realizes it too late for it to matter much, although Unity does leave Earth in peace.
There’s also the bit about the President and Dr. Wong, but before we get to that, I ask again: is Rick really worth any of this? It’s a question the show seems to believe we’ll take on faith. The story needed a reason for Unity to be around, it’s more interesting if she’s non-threatening (as she largely was in…