Well here’s a bit of a surprise: the full first episode of Rick and Morty season five is available for free on YouTube with no strings attached. 

This isn’t some illegal upload or a work around, it’s just up there on the official Adult Swim YouTube channel in full HD. To make things even better there’s even full English captions, a little luxury that we rarely see even for events like this. On top of everything else there’s not even a logo or watermark. We really couldn’t ask for better.

For those who have found Rick and Morty a bit off its stride in season four this latest episode is a return to form. 

It’s very much a classic adventure for the show and, without spoiling anything, we liked the “time moves faster in a different dimension” trope that seems to be popping up a lot recently. We saw it recently in the show Invincible too which you really should have watched by now, even just for its 1999 deep cut comic references.

Like many other fast paced episodes the 22 minutes on offer don’t feel like enough. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by longer animated shows but we really feel like there could have been another 10 minutes here. 

Make sure to stick around after the credits because there’s a short scene there as usual. 

It’s unlikely that episode two of season five for Rick and Morty will also be uploaded to YouTube like this. We suspect this is just a way to get people re-invested in the show by giving everyone such a low barrier to entry. First hit is free and all that. 

International release details for the rest of the season are available in the YouTube upload description. For us in South Africa the show should pop up on Showmax, but at the time of writing, this latest episode isn’t there yet. It should be there later today, however.