Captain Planet analogue goes crazy and kills coal workers - Morty is devastated, he agrees it’s right to feel bad the planet’s dying but the ep implies the correct answer is to do nothing.
Not even ‘subversive’ Rick and Morty could dare suggest blowing up coal/gas plants without demonising the act (it’s quite doable to do such a thing without killing workers…)
Ala a recent trend in modern blockbusters where villains are morally correct in their actions right up until they kills civilians for no reason- just to force a third act showdown, effectively negating their positive ideas.
Also there’s an opening joke that is an explicit merch promotion that isn’t even ironically done. Just a shitty shirt effectively done to camera. At least Schezuan sauce actually made sense in the show, this was just pure shit. The other eps are good, but the industry in culture industry will rear its head anytime you get big.
I love the Expanse, but the latest season really leans into this hard. Basically the OPA represented revolutionary/socialist workers struggle in the series up until the latest season where the main OPA guy is going around saying things like “The colonization of the belt must end!” And calling for rights and self determination. He organizes a revolutionary force and manages to take control of a powerful navy (built and maintained by the workers he supports), but then he just decided to drop asteroids on Africa and Philidelpia because you can’t have people arguing for rights that aren’t also mass murderers.
I found that extra dumb because by this point in the show the OPA has a small arsenal of nukes AND the fucking evil space goo bio weapon. The idea they weren’t in a good enough bargaining position with earth and had to resort to throwing rocks at them seemed fucking dumb.
Part of the drama in The Expanse revolves around people making shitty foolish choices because they overestimate their position. The OPA and Earth getting into a military exchange, and the fallout that ensues, isn’t a bad subplot on its face. Each side assumes the other will blink and… they don’t.
The conflicts and the ensuing mass migration are a big part of the story. Cut that stuff out and there’s not much of a show.
Also, I think “The OPA is socialist” is a bit of a stretch. They’re anti-Earth liberationists, but none of them seem shy about doing their own brand of localized capitalism. If any place is socialist, it’s Mars.
Mars is meh, it’s very clearly a corporate colony. Like half the dialogue about it is like “ohz your family has a monopoly on the terraformers” and “financial incentives” and shit. It’s like a South Korean military/corporate welfare type state.
The OPA people talk more about liberation using proletarian language “it is who build their ships, it is us who mine their ores and water, and we never get anything in return”. Fred Johnson is also pretty clearly an internationalist, he is big on cooperation and leveraging the Belt’s labor power to extract concessions and control over the ring gates from Earth and Mars.
The OPA is basically the IRA or the PLO. There are tons of factions within it and some are pretty clearly socialist (Fred) while others are nationalist (Marco) and others are just Mafia style mob bosses (Dawes).