The episode was pretty funny. “Pickle Rick” is a mild example of “L0l Randumz Xd” humor, because the reaction of literally every other character is that it’s underwhelming and unfunny. the rest of the episode has good jokes, references, super fluid action and gore.
Edit: I don’t want this on the front page while US-Iran stuff is going down.
It was more a response to the R&M fandom at the time than the show itself, IIRC. The fandom and hatedoms both grew together in a symbiotic way until the szechuan sauce thing happened, so every meme among the fans was mirrored by the anti-fans and this was one of them.