My Favorite Andrzej Wajda Film

I don't think there's been a Polish filmmaker who has been as focused on Polish culture, politics, history, and national identity throughout his long career as Andrzej Wajda.  So though I was initially going to write this entry about "Danton," one of the great movies about the Reign of Terror, I feel it's far more appropriate to write about a Wajda film examining a period of Polish history through the lens of an investigation into the life of a fictional Polish hero.

"Man of Marble," like many other Wajda films, is about disillusionment and living in a corrupt system.  It follows a filmmaker named Agnieszka in the present day and her subject Mateusz Birkut in the past simultaneously, intercutting between their stories.  It emerges that Birkut was built up as a hero for propaganda purposes during Poland's Communist era, but once he actually undertook a heroic action in defense of a friend, he was brought to ruin by those in power.  "Man of Marble," made in the 1970s, was particularly notable for reflecting the social discontent of the Polish populace at the time of release, alluding to events that would be central to Poland's workers' movement of the 1980s.  "Man of Marble" would be followed by a sequel further exploring these themes, "Man of Iron."  Set five years later, it reveals the fates of several characters in "Man of Marble."  The political climate by that point was in such tumult that Wajda had to work outside of Poland for the next few years.

These two films are often discussed as a pair, but "Man of Marble" is more interesting for me for the way it engages with and is critical of Polish media.  The format of the film is similar to "Citizen Kane," with our heroine conducting interviews with people from Birkut's life, uncovering a little more about him with each encounter.  However, she is also working with researchers who unearth old films and newsreels about Birkut, many of them suppressed, censored, or never released at all.  The accounts of Birkut's life that they offer are usually deeply misleading.  Agnieszka even finds the director of the propaganda film that helped to lionize Birkut's image, who offers a more nuanced version of events.  However, there are also rare segments that contain fascinating glimpses of the truth.  Wajda created all of these archival materials himself in the style of the Communist  propaganda of the 1950s, highlighting their manipulative nature, and allowing him to contrast their narrative style with his own.

Wajda's frustrations as a filmmaker were also evident in the way he portrayed Agnieszka's struggles to make her film.  She has to fight for everything - funds, equipment, access to materials, approval of subject matter, and control of the project.  Agnieszka is played by Krystyna Janda in her debut role, this wonderfully modern, confident woman who struts through the opening sequence with determination and purpose.  I immediately sat up and took notice.  I appreciate that as much as the film is about Birkut, this forgotten hero figure who represents all the noble values of the Polish workers of his generation, it's also about Agnieszka, who resists the coverup and seems to embody all of Wajda's hopes for his country's future.  And it's her decision to keep going with her work, despite apparent defeat, that allows Wajda to end "Man of Marble" on a hopeful note.            

Andrzej Wajda isn't well known outside of his native Poland, despite being very highly regarded.  His work was a regular presence at the major European film festivals for decades, and four of his features nabbed Oscar nominations, most recently in 2007.  Many of his contemporaries like Roman Polanski and Krzysztof Kieslowski, however, are far more popular.  I suspect that this is because the degree of difficulty that comes with watching Wajda's films is higher - they are more culturally specific, more political, more ideological, and often very lengthy.  I confess that I watched "Ashes and Diamonds" and "Kanal" a few decades ago and didn't finish the trilogy until this year.

Finally, I should acknowledge that 35mm.online featured Wajda in 2026 for his centennial, and put several of his films online for free over the summer.  Without them, this entry would not be possible.   

What I've Seen - Andrzej Wajda

A Generation (1955)

Kanał (1957)

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

Innocent Sorcerers (1960)

Everything For Sale (1969)

The Wedding (1972)

The Promised Land (1975)

Man of Marble (1977)

The Maids of Wilko (1979)

Man of Iron (1981)

Danton (1983)

Katyn (2007)

---

"Frieren" and Friends

A common anime trope is the cute, girlish character who is actually decades or centuries older than she appears.  These are often pretty flat characters built for easy laughs or guilt-free titillation, and rarely examined in much depth.  So imagine my surprise when I came across "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."  The title character, Frieren (Atsumi Tanezaki), is a long-lived elven mage who inhabits a swords-and-sorcery universe.  The series begins where most fantasy stories end, in the aftermath of Frieren and her adventuring party having defeated a mighty Demon King, beginning a new era of peace.  They all go their separate ways, but Frieren comes back to visit a few decades later, and is shocked to find her companions at or near the end of their lives, while time has barely passed for her.  Contemplating her relationships to humankind and the passage of time, Frieren sets out on a new journey with an apprentice mage Fern (Kana Ichinose), and a young warrior, Stark (Chiaki Kobayashi).

From what I'd heard about the series, I'd assumed that "Frieren" was a slower-paced slice of life show, where the adventures are fairly low stakes and the tone is kept very light.  This is sometimes true, as Frieren and her friends spend the introductory episodes slowly retracing the steps of the original adventuring party, doing small missions for local villagers, bonding over shared experiences, and collecting bits of new magic as they go.  And its all very pleasant and charming.  However, "Frieren" also fits the mold of a more traditional fantasy adventure series, having Frieren fight surviving allies of the Demon King for a string of episodes, or putting them in other dire situations that tend to end in spectacular fight scenes and the use of showy magic spells.  To allow them to travel through a more dangerous region, Frieren and Fern decide to take a mage certification exam that pits them against a slew of other powerful magic users, which takes up about a third of the show's first season.  However, there are still slower episodes between these arcs.  "Frieren" is able to take its time building up its characters and its lovely fantasy world, explaining the different types of magic and gradually digging into past events.

And the chief reason to watch the show is the character of Frieren, this detached, aloof being of immense power who has come to realize that she does value her connections to others, and wants to find ways to deepen them.  Though largely unspoken, her chief reason for going on this journey is to learn how to be more present for the people she values, and trying to reckon with her past and her regrets.  Himmel the Hero (Nobuhiko Okamoto), her warrior friend from the original party, dies in the first episode but his memory is a constant presence, and flashbacks to Frieren's time with him are common.  I like that the series will show Frieren struggling over small, day-to-day concerns, like choosing a birthday present, or spend a whole episode on a minor spat between Fern and Stark, because these dilemmas can be as confounding for the group as trying to slay the monster of the week.  The characters are pretty typical animal creations - Frieren is a lazy slob in private, of course, and Fern is the fussy rule-enforcer type - but they really grow on you.

The production values of the anime are very high, with animation by Madhouse Inc.  The appealing character designs work in both comedic and melodramatic contexts, and look great in motion.  I especially like their habit of using wordless montages to skip ahead in time, which will often use more character animation than all the scenes around them.  The limited animation of the anime style is utilized very well, with good editing and shot design making the stillness look more natural.  And the scenes that do feature lots of action look spectacular.  

"Frieren" is based on an ongoing manga, and a third season is in production for release sometime next year.  I'm a little wary of getting attached to another long series with no end in sight, but "Frieren" is good enough that I'll be happy to catch up with her again in the future.  

---

My Top Ten Episodes of 2003-2004

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2003-2004 television season below, in no particular order.  A few spoilers lie ahead, including for one of the more upsetting episodes of "The Sopranos."

Wonderfalls, "Wax Lion" - Let's start with the premiere episode of "Wonderfalls," the short-lived fantasy series from Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland, starring a wonderfully deadpan Caroline Dhavernas as a twenty-something in post-grad purgatory who starts hearing voices.  Only four episodes ever aired in the US - the back nine were Canadian exclusives - but I never forgot about this collection of characters and the weird, fanciful little universe that they inhabited.  

"Battlestar Galactica" - The miniseries that kicked off the reboot aired in 2003, and remains my favorite part of the whole saga.  The destruction of Caprica and the hurried escape mean plenty of action and incident, quickly setting expectations and showing us how this version of "Galactica" is different from the original.  The Cylons are more human, more intelligent, and more dangerous, while the depictions of space travel and warfare are far bleaker and more harrowing.   

Paranoia Agent, "Happy Family Planning" - Satoshi Kon's anthology series about a group of troubled people who end up participating in a mass delusion is one of the best things to have ever come out of anime.  The "Happy Family Planning" episode is one of the least connected to the main plot, following the adventures of three strangers, who have formed a suicide pact, as they seek to kill themselves together.  It is dark, surprising, and in the end strangely touching.  

Mythbusters, "Stinky Car" - The early episodes of "Mythbusters" were so much fun.  The show hadn't really settled on any particular formula yet, and the experiments could get really gnarly.  I don't know why anyone thought testing a myth about cleaning a car after bodies decomposed in it would be a good idea, but it made for some incredible - and disgusting television.  Seeing the aftermath of two pig carcasses on a Corvette was fascinating and really, really gross.

The Sopranos, "Long Term Parking" - Final spoiler warnings here.  We have to talk about Adriana.  I knew that her exit was coming long in advance, and Christopher was obviously going to betray her, but so much of the effectiveness of her death comes from the hit still feeling like it comes out of nowhere.  The sequence of events from Christopher losing his nerve at the gas station, to the call from Tony, to Adriana in the car with Silvio is so fast that you don't really have time to react.

The Wire, "All Prologue" - This is the one where they put Omar on the stand as a witness for the DA.  He proceeds to take over the court room, clap back against attempts to cross-examine him, and deliver a fantastic monologue about how he views the American legal system.  I still have no idea whether he lied on the stand or not.  However, the episode ends on a dark note with the death of D'Angelo, ending his tragic arc and our time with one of the show's best characters.  

Carnivale, "Babylon" - This is my favorite episode of the series, one that has little to do with the larger storylines, but profoundly impacts several characters.  It's simply a brief stopover at a creepy, seemingly abandoned town, where a tragedy occurs and the troupe ends up leaving something behind.  Like the best ghost stories, it's more melancholy and unnerving than actually frightening.  The funeral sequence and the chilling final scene have stayed with me ever since.  

Arrested Development, "Top Banana" - This was only the second episode of the show, but it was already firing on all cylinders.  The amount of quotable lines is nuts.  "There's always money in the banana stand."  "No touching."  Tobias trying to do Steve Martin.  GOB trying to mail a letter.  Patrice O'Neal as T-Bone.  Also, I have to give a shoutout to one of the best visual gags I've ever seen, the "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" bag.  Really, Michael.  What did you expect?

Futurama, "Farnsworth Parabox" - I am such a nerd, and this episode is for the nerds.  The story involves parallel universe theory, which means everyone rapidly encountering all these different versions of themselves from gold Bender to hippie Professor Farnsworth to that one universe where everyone has giant bobble heads.  The interactions are priceless stuff - sometimes you can only truly know yourself when you actually have to spend time with yourself.  

Angel, "Not Fade Away" - The end of the Buffyverse is a mixed bag, but I do love that it goes out with all the surviving good guys about to go into battle against the monsters, intent on fighting their good fight all the way to the end.  It's an hour full of exits, big and small, leaving the door open for a sixth season that never came.  I'm glad in a way, because some of these goodbyes were too good not to stick.  That last scene with Wesley seeing Fred again in particular.  

---

Aang and Grogu Get New Movies

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to pair these two features together.  "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender" and "The Mandalorian and Grogu" are both movies that are spinoffs from popular and beloved series designed for younger viewers.  They are both intended to be watchable for people who haven't seen their respective shows, so they both feel a little detached from anything else in their franchises.  However, getting the feature treatment means that the creators get to do things that they never could in a television or web series format.

Let's start with "Aang," which follows up the three-season "Avatar: the Last Airbender" Nickelodeon series.  A now adult Aang (Eric Nam) unexpectedly comes across another member of his nearly extinct clan named Tagah (Dave Bautista), who sends him on a quest to retrieve a magical relic.  This means reuniting with his friends Katara (Jessica Matten), Sokka (Roman Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Zuko (Steven Yuen) for the adventure.  The voice cast is entirely new, and so is most of the crew, though one of the animation outfits involved, Studio Mir, previously worked on "Avatar" sequel series, "The Legend of Korra."  The series creators have story credits, but otherwise "Aang" feels a lot like the baton has been passed to an entirely different creative team.  The movie they've made looks absolutely fantastic, especially the epic scale action sequences with much more fluid and impressive animation.

However, as someone who has seen a lot of this series, because I have multiple younger relatives currently obsessed with it, "Aang" comes off as a little bland.  There are a couple of good character moments, and I have no complaints about any of the voice cast, but it's difficult to connect these versions of the characters with the ones from the show.  By making this a stand-alone adventure, the movie takes place well outside of the original narrative and sidesteps any potentially difficult questions about dangling plot threads and what's happened since the series finale.  Everyone is feeling a little adrift.  If this is the first time they've been together in a while, shouldn't they all be catching up?  Maybe resolving a few cliffhangers? And where is the rest of Aang's friend group?  Notably, all the secondary characters, including love interests, evil sisters, and beloved uncles are completely missing and never remarked on.  

The new Tagah storyline is also exactly the kind of throwaway, one-off plot that makes for a lot of great spectacle, but offers little in the way of expanding the "Avatar" universe, or offering any compelling stakes.  Aang learns an important lesson, but it's a lesson that we've seen him learn before, and there's none of the character growth and interesting worldbuilding that the franchise is known for.  Adult Aang seems nice, but he doesn't get much of a chance to display much personality.  Neither do any of the other heroes, except in the broadest terms - Sokka's still dropping one-liners, of course.  The "Aang" movie is lovely, and might be a good starting point for another series, but I didn't get much out of it.

 On to "The Mandalorian and Grogu," which I was happy to discover is firmly a "Star Wars" children's film.  Well, it's for children who are okay watching the hero constantly fighting sci-fi monsters and shooting enemies for over two hours, but still.  This is a creature feature full of aliens and robots and travelling around in cool spaceships to a bunch of different planets.  It's also got an incredibly simple plot.  The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, with doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder) and his adopted son, the green toddler Grogu, hunt down baddies for the New Republic, represented by a nice administrator played by Sigourney Weaver.  There are some complications involving hidden villains, double crosses, and Jabba the Hutt's angsty son Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), but for the most part we're just watching this duo travel the galaxy, getting into and out of trouble wherever they go.

This could be a short arc from the "Mandalorian " television show, since there is absolutely no change to the status quo or any character progression, except for Grogu being slightly better at controlling the Force.  Like "Aang," you could absolutely watch this without having seen the series at all.  However, amusingly, the movie does assume you've watched "Return of the Jedi" and know who Jabba the Hutt is.  Classic movie fans will also notice the influence of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" samurai adventure series is more pronounced than ever.  Director Jon Favreau and his collaborators seem to have decided to use this as an opportunity to do some of the more expensive characters that they couldn't justify appearing previously, like the Hutts, and experiment with the format a little.  Ludwig Gorransson's soundtrack gets the space to expand a bit, with the theme music getting a new electronica remix.  There are also noticeably a lot of puppets and practical effects being used here, especially little Grogu getting the spotlight for some major sequences.

And it's all very charming and very much in the vein of the "Star Wars" that I grew up with, but the film has been ignored by most audiences because it's definitely not the kind of "Star Wars" movie people have come to expect.  Between the lackluster marketing and the reluctance to deviate from the existing formula of the show at all, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" feels too much like an extension of the series that everyone can watch at home.  There are no ties to the rest of the "Star Wars" universe, but also no attempt to deepen the characters, or give them any new challenges. And aside from Sigourney Weaver and Martin Scorsese lending his voice to a new minor alien character, there aren't even any big names dropping in for cameos.  "Aang" has a more star-studded cast list than this!

I'm not worried about the state of the franchise, because the budget here was fairly modest and "Stafighter" is coming next year, but I still feel compelled to defend "The Mandalorian and Grogu." It's very slight, but perfectly fine for what it is, and I enjoyed it.  I expect that it'll work especially well for younger viewers looking for an entry point for "Star Wars." The youngest kids, who might be scared by little Grogu being menaced by scary aliens, and loud blaster fire, however, should stay home.

---

American Anime in 2026

I read through some of the older parts of this blog recently, and I realized that I'd spent quite a few entries talking about the bumpy attempts of Hollywood to reckon with the popularity of anime, which are not unlike their bumpy attempts to reckon with the popularity of gaming.  There were so many plans for adaptations of titles like "Akira" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" that all fell through, but there were a few successes too, like the recent "One Piece" live action series.  It's been a few years, so I thought these posts deserved an update.  Also, "Naruto" is next in line for an attempt, with a live action film adaptation directed by Daniel Destin Cretton currently undergoing a casting search.  So, this topic is back in the popular consciousness again.

The influence of anime on the American youth shows no sign of slowing down, though all the popular titles are different since I was an otaku twenty years ago.  The new "Demon Slayer" movie crossed $100 million at the North American box office last year, the latest in a steady string of animated hits from overseas.  Former anime pirate site Crunchyroll is in the top ten US streaming sites by subscriber count, with over 20 million subscribers.  Netflix, the home of the "Castlevania" franchise, has become a major driver of anime production, with 50% of their viewers reported to be watching anime on the platform.  They recently announced a partnership with MAPPA, the studio behind "Chainsaw Man" and "Jujutsu Kaisen," which has sparked a lively debate about the potential threat of the streamers to the Japanese production committee system that produces most anime, as well as physical media and appointment viewing - a bigger deal in the anime world than in other parts of the media landscape.

American creators have been trying to capitalize on the popularity of anime through co-productions with anime studios for a long time, but the results were often very hit-or-miss.  Early attempts like "Afro Samurai" and "IGPX" didn't quite work, probably because of mismatched expectations and the unfamiliarity with the different production cultures.  After a few decades of experimenting, it's gotten better.  This summer the third season of the "My Adventures With Superman" cartoon and the new "Avatar: the Last Airbender" movie, both heavily anime influenced, hit the streamers.  One was animated in Korea and the other largely in Australia, but they both clearly had roots in shonen anime.  It's not just the designs or the animation style that made these projects work, but the use of anime visual language, character tropes (genki girl Lois Lane), and storytelling choices that have become familiar to global audiences.  "Star Wars" and "Scooby Doo" are also on the list of franchises getting the anime treatment.  "The Ninth Jedi" will probably be out by the time this is published.  There are still regular stumbles, however.  "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" feature film was a bad match of IP and anime aesthetic that didn't manage to appeal to anybody.

A culture shift has definitely happened.  Most of the people working in animation now grew up on anime, or are at least much more familiar with anime than they were in the '90s.  You don't see many conspiracy theories about Western shows stealing from anime these days - the homages are everywhere and they're proudly highlighted by their creators.  I'm of two minds about this.  On the one hand, I'm absolutely convinced that the boom in Western animated shows being made for YA and adult audiences owes a lot to the influence of anime.  "Arcane," "Blue Eye Samurai," and so many more great series wouldn't exist otherwise.  However, I've also seen some of anime's bad habits migrate to Western animation too, particularly in the projects that are really trying to go after the anime audience.

Personally, I'm taking it slow with anime.  I watch a series or two a year, and even if I enjoy them, I don't feel the way I used to when I was watching anime in my twenties.  I'm out of the target audience for the popular stuff, and a lot of the old tropes don't work for me anymore.  And, boy are the old tropes still in circulation.  The "Demon Slayer" and "Chainsaw Man" movies did not make me want to track down more.  Still, nostalgia and old habits compel me to keep a friendly eye on the anime world.  And every once in a while you can still find a "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."  But more on that another time.

---

Getting Through "Disclosure Day"

Spoilers ahead, but the big ones will be clearly marked.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is my favorite Steven Spielberg movie, and one of my favorite movies period.  When I learned that Spielberg was making a new movie about aliens and conspiracies, I was excited but also full of trepidation.  I haven't connected to many of Spielberg's most recent films in the last few years, especially the genre efforts like "Ready Player One" and "The BFG."  Was "Disclosure Day" going to have any of the old Spielberg cinematic magic from his older classics?  Was I simply too old and jaded?  Were his filmmaking sensibilities now too nostalgia-driven and schmaltzy for me?

I'm sorry to report that "Disclosure Day" is a deeply mediocre effort for a Spielberg film, one where every issue I've ever had with Spielberg's work feels magnified.  As advertised, "Disclosure Day" is about a group of people trying to reveal the truth about alien activity on earth.  It turns out that all significant evidence and information about aliens is being suppressed by a government contractor, Wardex, led by the ruthless Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), that has grown into a malignant, unchecked entity with too much power.  One of the employees, a cybersecurity expert named Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), steals information with the intent to release it to the public.  He and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) go on the run, with help from another Wardex defector, Hugo (Colman Domingo).  Meanwhile, a Kansas City weather lady, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), mysteriously starts speaking in different languages and displaying strange powers.  She and her skeptical boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) also start being chased by Wardex operatives.

Written by David Koepp, who has often collaborated with Steven Soderberg in recent years, "Disclosure Day" feels like a film of a much older, less cynical era.  There are earnest declarations of wild concepts ("sometimes they take the forms of animals"), plot holes everywhere you look, and big, important questions raised without much expectation of trying to answer them.  Most of the plot boils down to getting characters from point A to point B, juggling Macguffins, and getting into improbable action set pieces.  And some of those action set pieces are very good, like one involving a car getting dragged alongside a train.  An extremely effective suspense sequence in the first act involves Scanlon using a mysterious device to eerily interrogate and control Jane from a distance.  Spielberg has always been good about creating images we haven't seen before and I loved some of the individual shots here - soldiers crashing through an invisible window, or a throng of camera lights through a windowpane looking like a starfield.

However, the storytelling is often very heavy-handed, with every emotional beat underlined by a far too noticeable John Williams score that is not doing the movie any favors.  The main characters were so credulous in such a mannered way that it kept taking me out of the picture.  Every time Emily Blunt did a Jedi mind trick, I wanted to roll my eyes - not at her, but at the overly reverent presentation of it.  I sat through two hours of "Disclosure Day" knowing how every single scene would play out, admiring the committed work of all the actors and crew involved, but being completely emotionally unengaged with anything onscreen.  I was ready to throw in the towel and write this off as a handsome, well-intentioned disappointment.

And then the last fifteen minutes of the movie happened, and suddenly everything worked.  Here I will spoil the ending, because I can't talk about it unless I do.  The news broadcast production control room sequence, where we watch the footage being sent nationwide, is absolutely extraordinary.  Suddenly we're in a room full of strangers, reacting to this stream of images that everyone is seeing for the first time together.  The mood shifts.  An NBC news presenter played by Courtney Grace offers live commentary, her stunned and emotional reactions accompanying the montage of audience reactions we watch unfold.  And I realized Spielberg had orchestrated a beautiful moment of shared global viewership and unity that I hadn't felt in decades.  I knew it was fictional, but it hit me so hard.

Yes, there's a lot about the movie that doesn't make logical sense.  And it's unapologetically hokey and bright-eyed, and don't think that I didn't notice the cutesy "Snow White" references paralleling the "Pinocchio" ones from "Close Encounters."  But I had a Spielberg moment with this film, a real taste of cinematic wonder for the first time in I don't know how long.  And my head says the movie fundamentally doesn't work and is a terrible slog, and my heart says that the last fifteen minutes was still worth it.

---

"Rick and Morty" Mellowed

It's been five years since I last posted an entry about "Rick and Morty," which was shortly after the fifth season wrapped up.  A lot has happened.  In fact, so much has happened that I keep forgetting that I haven't addressed any of it.  First, we should talk about the production changes.  Justin Roiland was fired from the show in 2023 after some legal troubles and a long history of misconduct.  Rick has been voiced by Ian Cardoni, and Morty by Harry Belden since the seventh season, and I honestly can't tell the difference.  The show's other creator, Dan Harmon, is still around, but has definitely taken a backseat.  Scott Marder has been the only credited showrunner for a while and Harmon hasn't had a writing credit on any episodes since the third season.  Keith David's President Curtis also got a spinoff series, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

However, "Rick and Morty" hasn't lost a step.  Arguably, it's improved since I last wrote about it in 2021.   If you haven't seen "Rick and Morty" in a while, the changes in the most recent episodes might take some time to notice, but they're there.  Rick is still an asshole, but he's more responsive to his family and genuinely seems to care about them now.  Morty has become a more assertive teenager who will not only stand up to Rick, but regularly has to be the responsible one to get them out of scrapes.  There's still plenty of guts and gruesomeness, but the nihilistic bleakness of the early seasons has been turned way, way down.  Happy endings are still rare, but there's no longer the feeling that the creators are being mean to the characters just to be mean to them.  Back in the fifth season, I remarked that it felt like the show was growing stale and running out of ways to shock us.  In the ninth season, it's clear that they're no longer trying.  

Despite the show's initial reluctance, we've now seen pretty much all of Rick's past and complicated relationships with his wife and daughter.  And Rick, often in the most complicated and weird ways possible, has been slowly but surely processing some of his unresolved issues and improving his mental health.  A major recurring storyline involving an Evil Rick was resolved in season seven, forcing him to self-reflect and move on.  He's gotten to the point where he recognizes that many of his evil scientist coping mechanisms are self-destructive and will sometimes take measures to limit them.  He's also managed to maintain a much healthier relationship with Beth (and Space Beth).  This might initialllook like a situation where a once badass character has been defanged and Flanderized, but this has actually been a very well-considered character arc for Rick Sanchez, and I'd argue that it's paying off some valuable dividends.  

"Rick and Morty," for all its science-fiction chaos, is a family sitcom.  Many of the episodes regularly have A and B plots with different members of the family, and the humor is very character based.  Frankly, Rick works better as a sitcom character when  he's on a more even playing field with Morty and the rest of the Smiths.  Sitcoms also generally work better when everyone can return to something resembling a neutral status quo at the end instead of the kind of feel-bad, downer resolutions that stopped feeling innovative and daring by season three.  This means that a lot of the later episodes are silly and absurd and amount to the characters getting into a bunch of sci-fi enabled hijinks with no deeper meaning behind them.  And that works for "Rick and Morty" better than you'd think.  There's a recent kung-fu parody episode involving the Hawaiian Punch mascot, Punchy, that's just sublimely ridiculous. 

I also appreciate that the show has also moved on from some of its other early schtick.  I haven't seen Morty's crush Jessica (Kari Wahlgren) in a significant appearance in a couple of seasons.  Since Morty is now a hyper-competent, and much more self-assured character, who finally did go on a real date with her in the fifth season, Jessica doesn't serve much of a purpose anymore.  Kari Wahlgren went on to voice Rick's new love interest BugAnne instead.  He's clearly not ready for another relationship, but even a  friends-with-benefits sitch is a good sign.    

Frankly, the great thing about sitcoms was always that you got to know and care about  a group of characters over time.  And as that inevitably happened with "Rick and Morty," the show had to change.  I'm sure that many of the fans prefer the angrier, more subversive earlier seasons, but it wasn't something that was sustainable over a hundred episodes - and we're getting very close to that mark.  And "Rick and Morty" is doing just fine.    

---