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.
There was never a McDonalds promotion. At the end of season 1, Rick mockingly exclaims his entire arc is about getting “McDonalds to being back the Szechuan Sauce” which was just supposed to be a random ass reference and imply that everything that happens in the show really is for nothing or for an inane purpose.
Then some dude went viral for mocking the shows fans threw a fit in a McDonalds and made a big scene and people watched it thinking he was an actual fan of the show and that was how they’re all being influenced to act by the show, and that this was happening all over the place.
It blew up from there with like the entirety of Reddit thinking that was how shit was going down. Didn’t help that there were plenty of online posts (some sarcastic and some real) with people acting cringe AF defending the show (“you have to have a high IQ” etc) that people could point to; and suddenly it was considered toxic to even admit to watching it.
They really did have a Szechuan sauce and it was pretty awesome. They reintroduced it for a limited time after the Rick and Morty episode and was lucky enough to get a couple of packs one night with McNuggets.