Rewatching season 2, it's not as good as I remembered

In my mind, before this rewatch, season 3 and 4 were a lot worse than the golden age of season 1 and 2, and season 4 was much worse than season 3 which I liked quite bit but was not really comparable to the first two. But was rewatching the first two seasons just now and I gotta say that season 1 just hits different, it's extremely funny and I laughed out loud several times. Then I watched season 2 and noticed myself skipping several episodes, and the episodes I did watch were good but I felt like the oomph was missing.

One big thing I noticed is that Rick's personality seems to change a lot between these seasons, he's extremely whacky in the first season, and plays off of Morty really well. Best examples of this is the pilot and Rick Potion #9, which are in my opinion the strongest episodes of the entire series, although that isn't a dig on the rest of season 1 which is just banger after banger after banger, with Raising Gazorpazorp probably being my least favorite. The whole bit from when he turns the mantis people into Cronenbergs and them arguing on the rooftop is probably my favorite scene in the series.

Other problems with season 2 is that it's where the series started trying to be too deep for it's own good, you see this really start going off the rails in season 3 and 4, but you can see the cracks start forming in this one. Apparently it switched writers or something, and that's why it took this turn, but personally I'm not a fan. For example, and maybe I'm just not very sentimental, but the ending of season 2 with Rick sacrificing himself is just kinda cringe to me, and not something I feel belongs in this show. Obviously some people like it, but I wish we just got more of season 1.

But I think the main issue is that it's simply less funny, and I hate to say this, but most of the humor is pretty low brow from here on out, with the dialogue and tight writing taking a backseat with action set pieces and concept episodes taking over. And to be honest, I like that stuff as well, like the opening of season 3 is really good, I just don't prefer it and most of it is pretty hit and miss like there's an episode in season 4 that takes place in some sort of space train and I was awful.

It actually reminds me a bit of Return of the Jedi, a movie that's not really that good, and doesn't really compare to Empire or New Hope, but still has a lot of really positive qualities. And in it you can, in hindsight, see how the prequels came to be, which wouldn't have made any sense if Jedi hadn't existed and you went straight from Empire to TPM. And I just want to clarify, I don't think seasons 3 and 4 are prequel level, not even close, I just noticed the parallel, season 3 especially has a lot of episodes I revisit every now and then.