WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Rick and Morty, Season 4, Episode 4, "Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty."
"Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty" is, for the most part, a solidly funny episode of Rick and Morty. Rick's unexpected drug and pop culture memorabilia-fueled friendship with Morty's new dragon makes for some fun gags, as does Rick being forced to operate in a fantasy world where his inventions and the laws of physics don't work as they should. Even the reveal that Morty's dragon is actually an eternally horny "Slut Dragon" is hilarious.
Then, however, Morty, Rick and Summer get dragged into one of these Slut Dragon "soul orgies." It's not exactly "sex," but it is played as sexual, and as a clear violation of boundaries that leaves Morty feeling dirty and disgusted. Dragging up evocations of incest and pedophilia in the way this "orgy" scene does is the closest Rick and Morty the TV series has come to the tastelessness of Justin Roiland's original "Doc and Mharti" short.
Rick and Morty has certainly engaged in edgy, potentially offensive subject matter before. Multiple episodes have invoked the specter of attempted rape. Morty was almost molested by King Jellybean in "Meeseeks and Destroy," as was Jerry by the obsessive Titanic reenactor Lucy in "Ricksy Business." In those episodes, the threat of sexual assault was used as a way to designate characters as evil, and the villains always got their violent comeuppance at the hands of Rick or Beth. Rick might be an asshole who at times borders on becoming a villain-protagonist, but even he has standards, and he's not been one to tolerate rapists.
The "soul orgy" scene, then, feels out of character and extra wrong because rather than fighting back, Rick not only goes along with it but tells his grandchildren to keep this "adventure" secret from their parents. That blase attitude about a forced incestuous assault that clearly traumatizes Morty feels more akin to Doc in "Doc and Mharti," whose whole goal was trying to get Mharti to lick his balls, rather than the Rick we've come to know over the past three and a half seasons.
It's off-putting, and the main effect of the scene is that it just feels deeply icky without really addressing said ickiness in any meaningful way. Yes, a "soul orgy" might not be literal rape, but it sure comes close enough to be disturbing without being explicit. It's not really a joke, either, since there's no punchline beyond the disturbingness, but it's not built into the story enough to serve as a serious plotline.
For what it's worth, Justin Roiland has talked on Dan Harmon's Harmontown podcast about being a survivor of incestuous sexual assault at the hands of an older cousin while he was growing up. It's clear that dark, edgy humor around this topic is a coping mechanism for him, and that explains a lot about the nature of Rick and Morty and why it goes to disturbing places so often.
Even so, such disturbing humor is easier for wide audiences to digest when it's effectively contextualized. While past Rick and Morty episodes have done an overall good job contextualizing its most potentially offensive moments by using them to make clear points, the feeling of confusion, out-of-character writing and vague pointlessness that surrounds the climax of "Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty" just leaves the viewer feeling gross.
New episodes of Rick and Morty air Sundays at 11:30 p.m. on Adult Swim.