Top 10 Times Rick Crossed the Line on Rick and Morty

It didn’t take long for Rick to show his true colors in the first episode of the series. Much to Jerry’s digression, Rick continually takes Morty out of school classes to go on crazy scientific adventures. In their latest mission, Rick uses Morty as a pod to help smuggle the very important “Mega Seeds” past intergalactic customs – and what better way to transport them, than in the rectum? Shootouts with bureaucratic aliens ensue, lives are lost, but the seeds make it safely back to the home garage. The start of 100 years of Rick and Morty!

With the titular duo gone on an adventure to fix their car’s battery, Rick utilizes the vehicle’s artificial intelligence to protect Summer while stranded in an alternate dimension. Rick uses protocol “Keep Summer Safe,” which sets in motion a series of extreme psychological and physical torture techniques when Summer is placed into any type of harm. This includes the literal dicing up of an innocent man, and a less than pleasant simulation of a soldier’s dead child… rough. But you know what they say: “a small price to pay for spider peace.”

While Rick has always been mysterious with his shady history, his lack of moral compass shines brightly in “Mortynight Run.” Morty realizes that Rick is selling weapons to an assassin, Krombopulos Michael, in exchange for alien currency known as Flurbos. It all comes full circle when Morty learns that Rick intends to use the currency for a fun-filled day at the intergalactic arcade, Blips and Chitz. Morty explains to Rick his actions are worse than pulling the trigger himself, but a day at an alien arcade can get your mind off of things… as long as you never go back to the carpet store.

What happens when you cleanse yourself of all your toxic elements? After spending the day at an intergalactic space spa, Rick is removed of all the qualities he deems negative of himself. However, the negative elements manifest in the creation of Toxic Rick, the literal embodiment of Rick’s anger, ego, and vengefulness. Toxic Rick puts in motion a plan to escape the toxic universe and toxify the real world, before his plan is foiled by the now selfless, wholehearted Rick. Despite Toxic Rick’s obvious ill intentions, perhaps the most heart wrenching fact is that Rick views his attachment to Morty as toxic.

The lengths people go to for a good selfie. In this Season 3 finale, Rick and Morty decide to cut ties with the President of the United States out of complete boredom. Feeling as though they “blew off” America, the President declares war on Rick and Morty. Back in the oval office, Rick promises to disappear for good, if the president fulfills Morty’s request for a selfie. When the President refuses, Rick retaliates, killing all of the White House security, before getting into a bloody battle with the President himself. If one thing rings true in this episode, Rick will sacrifice innocent lives, regardless of how trivial his pursuit is.

Being countlessly outsmarted by Rick, an alien race called the Zigerions opt to trap him in a series of simulations in order to extract the formula for concentrated dark matter. While the plan is initially deemed successful, it is revealed that Rick planted false information about dark matter’s true composition upon heading back to Earth. In their celebration, and attempt to create dark matter, the Zigerions’ space ship is instantly blown up. Perhaps the most sinister part is Rick doing the saxophone bit of Baker Street as he flies off to safety. That’s what you get when you cross the smartest man in the galaxy.

In “Morty’s Mind Blowers,” viewers are confronted with the question: if you could delete memories from your brain, would you? After Morty urges Rick to remove a traumatic experience from his brain, we learn that Rick keeps a secret room filled with all of Morty’s archived memories. It is also revealed that Rick deletes memories Morty has of his grandpa that paint him in a negative light, such as mispronouncing words or putting the duo in compromising positions. Eventually, the two lead characters scuffle, leading to their memories being wiped clean. Lucky enough, though, Summer has seen this play out too many times before, and restores them back to normal.

In order to avoid family therapy sessions, Rick manifests himself into a talking pickle. When confronted, Rick convinces Beth the whole experiment was to “challenge” himself. This quickly snowballs out of control, however, as Rick gets mixed up in a hazardous ordeal that results in death and mayhem. After a grueling journey, Rick eventually finds himself at therapy – only to be roasted by the family’s therapist – who notes that Rick’s enormous mind is literally vegetating by his own hand. However, long time fans of the show could only hope Dr. Wong’s speech is the catalyst in repairing Rick and Beth’s broken relationship.

When Rick’s car breaks down, he turns to the “Microverse,” a microscopic universe he created for the sole purpose of powering his car battery. Inside the universe, civilians spend countless hours walking on Gooble Boxes to generate power, which Morty describes as “slavery with extra steps.” Unphased by Morty’s accusations, Rick learns of competing scientist Zeep, who created his own universe to make Gooble Boxes obsolete. Rick and Zeep eventually battle it out with their fists, which ends in Rick spitting over Zeep’s bruised and battered body before returning back to his ship. The car battery goes back on, and the microverse civilians continue to stomp on their Gooble Boxes. Peace among worlds.

In this super-powered, “Avengers” meets “Saw” mash-up, a black out drunk Rick sets a trap for the galaxy’s strongest super team, the Vindicators. After defeating the world’s greatest threat, Worldender, Rick turns his attention to dismantling the Vindicators, all to prove the point that no one is special… or something like that. Watching Vance Maximus die trying to escape, Crocubot getting crushed to death, and leading the team to implode from within, Rick takes one final jab when he confesses his love for superhero misfit, Noob Noob, instead of Morty. But it’s not all bad. At least he sets up a badass Logic after party.