‘Rick and Morty’s Story-Train.com Doesn’t Exist for a Good Reason

Rick and Morty has always been the type of show that’s rewarded sharp viewers. Questions like “Where is Tammy?” and “What is Evil Morty’s plan?” have haunted fans, lurking in the background as the show continues to cheerfully move forward. But www.Story-Train.com isn’t one of those mysteries. The gag website at the end of Rick and Morty Season 4, Episode 6 encouraging people to jump into the jaws of consumerism is just an elaborate bit. And it’s playing us all.

From its first minutes it was clear that “Never Ricking Morty” was this season’s answer to “Interdimensional Cable.” Thanks to a train full of people who either adore or despise Rick, the episode is composed of a series of bizarre vignettes about Rick and Morty adventures we’ve never seen. That’s pretty par for the course in this wild show. But as the episode goes on it becomes clear that what’s really happening is a lot more confusing and ridiculous.

It turns out this train is actually being controlled by the Story Master, a Snowpiercer-esque overlord who only cares about constructing the best story imaginable. Huge moments happen, like Tammy fighting Summer with a light saber, that Rick explains away as being either non-canon or possibly canon. After Rick and Morty defeat Story Master using the story of Jesus, the truth is revealed. They were never our main Rick and Morty or even an arguably real Rick and Morty. Instead they were actually story devices trapped on a toy called the Story Train.

True to Dan Harmon’s love of fake commercials, the ending bumper for “Never Ricking Morty” is an advertisement for the Story Train toy. But despite the commercial’s insistence that viewers feed the beast that is capitalism, http://www.Story-Train.com doesn’t exist. It’s a dead link, and it’s been confusing fans ever since the episode’s premiere.

As much fun as it would be to own your own Story Train it will likely never happen. Why? Because thoughtlessly buying merchandise was never the point of the episode. Mocking the very success of Rick and Morty itself was.

Just the idea of the Story Train and its circular track is a meta jab at the show. Harmon has long been outspoken about the Circle Theory of Story, the writing method he has long used to crack every show, episode, movie, or anything else he’s written. That self-mockery continues even further, showing fans a plethora of action-packed, exciting scenes that were heavily featured in the trailer for these new episodes. Ever since people started analyzing Rick and Morty‘s opening credits, Harmon and Justin Roiland have told fans not to take anything in their show too seriously. What would drive that point home better than literally trapping Rick and Morty inside of an anthology episode?

Rick’s drunken rant about the necessity of blind capitalism fits into that mockery as well. This show was created by the man who once wrote a character on Community who legally changed his name to Subway. Skewering capitalism while also conforming to it has long been part of Harmon’s ethos. And with the truly bonkers amount of shirts, toys, games, underwear, and Rick-on-wheels trucks Adult Swim has pumped out for this show, it was about time for these co-creators to mock their own intense merchandising.

So what did the writers of this weird and painfully smart show do? They wrote an episode pointing out all of their tropes and narrative shortcuts. They then turned that episode into a long, complicated commercial for a toy as a nod to their own show’s rampant consumerism. Warner, which owns Adult Swim, then registered the domain for http://www.Story-Train.com. And we all clicked.

Rick and Morty has owned us all. But at the end of all of this, it’s hard to get too mad. Without any analysis, protesting, or second guessing, owning a Story Train would have been pretty cool.

Update: Looks like story-train.com officially redirects to the Rick and Morty site. And you better believe that you can buy swag on there and feed the capitalist monster.

New episodes of Rick and Morty premiere on Adult Swim Sundays at 11:30/10:30c p.m.

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