No one was more excited to attend the funeral of my cousin Ricky than I was. This was the most anticipated event in our family in years. But Ricky: Funeral, was unable to live up to its predecessors Ricky The Child Years, Ricky, and Ricky: Adulthood. It was more in line with the much malign prequel, Ricky: Birthing Video. 

Simply put, with a runtime of 90 minutes, Ricky’s funeral was a long sludge of fan service and unoriginality. I was hoping this final installment of Ricky’s story would delve into previously untapped areas of Ricky’s life. But what we got was closer to a clip show of Ricky’s greatest moments. And while I realize that there is a select group of fanboys, namely his mother and Aunt Sally, who were only there to relive the things they love about Ricky, I found it unoriginal and boring. The worst part is that we know what a conflicted and interesting life he led. The whole thing did a disservice to the previous events in Ricky’s life. Give me a closer look into his struggle with addiction that was so prevalent in Ricky: Adulthood and then led to his eventual relapse. Can you believe the service didn’t even mention how he died? Instead, we get a list of his accomplishments and catch-phrases: 1999 T-ball Champion, 60 days sober; “It was like that when I found it,” “Can I borrow your car?”

Don’t get me wrong, the set dressing was beautiful, the music was on point, and the performance from his girlfriend was electric. In fact, I think Ricky’s girlfriend will have a future in this family, and, hopefully, she will speak at a few other future family funerals. I just wish the material was worthy of her performance. The whole thing was filled with historical inaccuracies and plot holes. During the eulogy, his sister indicated how Ricky was the greatest person she has ever met, but she didn’t mention the time he stole from that charity or the time he pushed me into the pool while my phone was in my pocket. I was also really confused when Ricky appeared as a hologram and addressed the crowd. We were given no indication that Ricky knew he was going to die, prompting him to record the projection or that he even had access to hologram projection technology. Again, the whole thing felt forced for the fanboys.   

And guys, come on, it’s 2020. It’s a little weird that all the principal players were white. His mom, his sister, the organist: all white. You think they would have included a little diversity into the proceedings.  The funeral director should have noticed this. He should have made a casting change, maybe an Asian priest or a Hispanic mother. You have to do better with such an important function like this.

I don’t know, maybe I went into with too high expectations, maybe I went into it with low expectation and this review suffers from confirmation bias, or maybe I’m just bitter I wasn’t asked to be a pallbearer. All-in-all, a disappointing conclusion in the franchise. I just hope that they don’t try to reboot Ricky with some contrived plot twist. If in 5 years we find out that Ricky had a secret love child, I’m not going to be happy. 

Verdict: 5/10 Caskets