Vindicators 3: The Return Of Worldender (Rick And Morty)

"Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender" is the fourth episode of the third season of Rick and Morty. It is the 25th episode of the series overall.

Plot
Rick and Morty get called upon by the Vindicators to help them stop Worldender after he returns.

Why This Vindicator Didn't Return

 * 1) Misleading Title: The title of this episode states that the villain Worldender would appear and be heavily focused on as the villain, but he does not appear alive at all instead his corpse is shown, because Rick kills him offscreen.
 * 2) The episode seems nothing more than a vicious lash out at the superhero genre and superhero shows and movies such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Teen Titans Go! However, the criticisms of these works are poorly executed due to the level of hypocrisy the episode has.
 * 3) This episode was also seemingly made in response to criticism made towards the show for its tendency to treat any character who is not a part of the Smith-Sanchez family-like complete garbage, often killing off such characters within their first appearance or completely forgetting about them if they survive.  These kinds of episodes usually do this to at least one to two characters per episode but this episode wastes the potential of not just one but seven characters.  This shows that the writers are refusing to listen to the criticism.
 * 4) The plot goes completely off the rails as after the vindicators are introduced and infiltrated to Worldender’s headquarters, they get forcefully dragged into a torture gauntlet that parodies the SAW franchise and ends with a dance party ending that comes out of nowhere.
 * 5) The gauntlet portion of the plot becomes very repetitive and formulaic as it mainly consists of the cast coming across a trap, having the trap easily disarmed by Morty, and one of the five Vindicators getting killed off. This goes on and on until the ending as by then only Supernova survives.
 * 6) Rick is at one of his absolute worst in this episode as he gets blackout drunk and sets up a series of traps to put the vindicators and Morty in grave danger.  Rick never helps the vindicators escape and instead stands doing nothing while leaving Morty to disarm the traps.
 * 7) False Advertising: A promotional video for the episode teases that world-ender is going to be one of the evilest villains in Rick And Morty as well as one of the darkest villains in the history of adult animation, but Worldender does not only barely appear in the episode but he is easily dealt with by drunk Rick
 * 8) The episode tries way too hard to make all of the Vindicators unlikable, as it tries to portray them all as jerks who insult others, destroy planets to stop elusive villains, and cheat on their significant others with other people.
 * 9) The dance party ending that happens, in the end, comes completely out of nowhere, and it only exists to stop Supernova from killing Rick and Morty and therefore significantly altering the status quo of the show.
 * 10) Rick and Supernova do not receive any repercussions for their crimes in this episode.
 * 11) Hypocrisy: while this episode was seemingly made to make fun of and to support criticisms made towards Teen Titans Go!, the episode shows that the Rick and Morty writers can’t take criticism well by themselves.
 * 12) Gearhead appears near the very end but some viewers are already annoyed with him for his constant appearances from the previous two seasons.
 * 13) The episode has too many gross-out moments, ranging from the gory deaths of most of the vindicators and world-ender to Rick having diarrhea and defecating all over the Vindicators' conference hall in a drunken stupor.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Morty is still a likable character in the episode as he does try to help the Vindicators by disarming the traps they are put in.
 * 2) The stinger post-credit scene for the episode indicates that this would be the last time Gearhead would appear and he falls apart at the end (even though an alternate version of him would make an appearance in Season 4.

Reception
Even though this episode got an 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb, show creator Dan Harmon admitted that he regretted making this episode.

Videos
