Top 20 Most Evil Rick Moments in Rick and Morty

“Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender”
Rick and Morty are called to adventure by the Vindicators and Rick is less than thrilled about it. He can’t even pretend to hide his contempt for the group. Their attempt to stop the threat of Worldender is quickly extinguished by a drunken Rick who then creates “Saw” type scenarios for the Vindicators to solve. In a pre-recorded message Rick asks for the superteam to place the only thing he values that they have. Morty assumes it’s him and that this is Rick’s way of showing vulnerability. Morty’s taken away to an underground layer where he finds out his grandfather was talking about Noob Noob. Obviously, Morty’s incredibly hurt and that Rick once again doesn’t care about his family.

“Morty's Mind Blowers”
This may not seem so bad if Morty had asked Rick to remove a traumatic memory. At least that’s how Rick tries to frame his actions at first but we soon find out that he’s been removing anything that paints him in a bad light from Morty’s mind. Understandably, Morty is angry when he finds out what Rick’s been doing. When they both get their memories erased, Morty tries to figure out who they are. Sadly, he comes to the conclusion that life isn’t worth living because he’s controlled by Rick. It’s a pretty dire realization that Morty based on Rick’s actions.

“The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy”
It’s no secret that Rick isn’t a big fan of Jerry, to put it mildly. When the pair are at a resort, Jerry is approached by Risotto Groupon to lure Rick into a trap so he can be killed. Jerry initially refuses to take part in such a plan but changes his mind when he’s reminded that Rick is partially responsible for Jerry being separated from Beth. Rick survives the attempt on his life and seemingly leaves Jerry to be attacked by a giant snake-like monster only to be used as bait for another creature. The back to back death scenarios he put Jerry through is beyond cruel.

“Pickle Rick”
Rick completes the amazing task of turning himself into a pickle. He tries to frame it as though it’s an amazing feat but everyone can clearly see it was his attempt to get out having to go to family therapy. To make matters worse, when he’s directly confronted about it, he denies his transformation has anything to do with going to therapy. Given the disruption Rick has created in everyone’s lives, it’s pretty despicable that he wouldn’t support his family as they begin their healing process. When Rick finally does show up to therapy and he’s called out by Dr. Wong, he doubles down on his position. It really highlights his selfish way of thinking and how he continues to hurt his family.

“One Crew Over The Crewcoo's Morty”
Rick really doesn’t like heists. So when Morty takes an interest in them, Rick sets in motion a series of events to show how formulaic and contrived they are. At first it just seems like Rick is trying to prove his point when he develops Heistotron and Randotron. But his actions are much more insidious when it’s revealed that Morty has begun writing a script for a heist movie and will pitch it to Netflix. Upset that this would take Morty away from their adventures, Rick’s plan was really to make Morty disillusioned with his dreams to the point that he’ll only want to do whatever Rick wants.

“The Vat Of Acid Episode”
Morty is fed up with having his ideas ignored by Rick. With a little prodding he gets Rick to build a reset button, where a person can jump back to a set point in time. With the device in hand Morty commits a bunch of deeds and undoes them. He reaches a point where he comes to understand that he needs to have consequences in order to learn and grow from them. Rick informs him that his action did indeed have consequences. Everything Morty did happened in another dimension along with that dimension’s Morty dying. Not only did Rick cause immense pain and suffering to all those Mortys, he did it because Morty his vat of acid was a bad idea.

“Morty's Mind Blowers”
When Rick and Morty find themselves trapped in a menagerie, Morty is desperate to get out of their cage. He implores Rick to get them out regardless of consequence which is not something you should say around Rick. He’s able to rig a system that transmits a signal to a NASA lab back on Earth with instructions on how to build an interstellar vehicle. Two unnamed scientists pilot the vehicle back to Rick and Morty’s location. Rick presents himself and Morty as otherworldly beings in human form and strand the newcomers in the menagerie. We understand that Rick wanted to escape but he led two strangers to believe they were making a discovery of a lifetime just to be abandoned in some type of zoo.

“Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri”
Rick gave Beth the option of abandoning her family so she could live a different life and her family wouldn’t know because she’d be replaced with a clone. She left the decision up to her dad to know if he wanted her in his life or not. Rick decided to go ahead and clone his daughter and not tell either Beth the reality of their situations and plant bombs in them. To make the whole situation worse, he removed the memory of who is the clone and who is the original. Initially both Beths want to know who is who but in the end they’re so disgusted by Rick’s actions they decide they don’t even want to be part of his machinations.

“Promortyus”
After breaking from the control of a parasitic species of facehugger called Glorzo, Rick and Morty make a daring escape. Of course, it wasn’t so much daring as a complete massacre of Glorzo. They find their actions to be therapeutic and guilt free. When they come across two skyscrapers they decline on attacking the buildings considering it to be a cheap shot but they soon find a military station and they destroy it, comparing it to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s bad enough that Rick is enjoying the destruction he’s causing but he also actively encourages Morty to do the same. When they recount they’re exploits to Beth, she had the same reaction as us, complete disgust.

“Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort”
To save Birdperson from his comatose state, Rick enters his mind. Things are complicated when Birdperson’s conscious mind evades Rick at every turn. When Rick finally confronts him, he reveals that he died on his wedding day and is waiting for his body to catch up. In order to convince BP to change his mind, Rick reveals that he and Tammy had a child but the memory has been suppressed by the Federation. Once out of the coma, Birdperson asks Rick point blank if he would have kept that information hidden had it not been necessary to save his own skin. Once again manipulative and self-centered nature alienates those around him.

“Mortynight Run”
For Rick, morality is a pretty subjective term – and by subjective, we mean it’s for suckers. In the second episode of Season 2, Rick takes Morty with him for a little business transaction. More specifically, he sells a dangerous weapon to hyper-enthusiastic assassin Krombopulos Michael. And just what did he want the money for? To fund research? To aid in a quest to overthrow the tyranny of the intergalactic government? Nope, just to get tokens for his favorite interstellar videogame arcade, “Blitz and Chitz”. A hilarious bit of nihilism, sure, but also pretty twisted when you think about it.

“The Wedding Squanchers”
While Rick appears to love his family, he doesn’t hesitate to dole out insults and bust their self-esteem on a regular basis. Those kinds of mixed messages can mess a person up. The trauma of having such an explosively volatile father has already driven his daughter, Beth, into a state of high-functioning alcoholism with a heavy side of abandonment issues. And Morty is the living, breathing face of anxiety. Summer has some spine, but it’s stuff like this that chips away at a person’s psyche.

Various Episodes
Speaking of damaged family members, there is perhaps no one more put-upon than Jerry. Okay, he’s an incompetent airhead with delusions of grandeur, but he’s mostly harmless. Throughout the series, Rick picks on his daughter’s husband, making it clear that he doesn’t just dislike him… he HATES him . Of course, Beth and Jerry got together when Rick was AWOL from Beth’s life, but Rick doesn’t see it that way. A constant struggle for Jerry is unemployment, and part of this problem is his lack of confidence. But self-esteem is hard to build up when you have your father-in-law, whom your spouse defends at all costs, always degrading you in front of your kids.

“Auto Erotic Assimilation”
It’s safe to say that Rick isn’t great with one-on-one relationships. So, when it comes to one-on-a-million relationships, things get rickety-wrecked, son. After encountering an old flame, a hive-mind entity named Unity, Rick and the lady of many faces seem to rekindle the spark. However, since they’d last met, Unity has matured and is trying to responsibly govern those she conquered. But one afternoon with Rick nearly undoes it all. Realizing his bad influence before it’s too late, Unity takes off, but is shaken from the experience. Rick is too, for that matter, as the aftermath brings Rick to his lowest point in the series.

“Ricksy Business”
For series regulars, it came as no surprise that Rick would dabble at playing God. In an attempt to make a morally impartial super-leader, he combined the genes of Honest Abe Lincoln, and – ahem – Adolf Hitler. The result is Abradolf Lincler, a mixed-up clone who is … just a mess really. Always at odds with his conflicting ideologies - like Frankenstein’s monster - he seeks answers from his creator. Rick, however, does not see him for the confused individual he is, but as a failed experiment and essentially un-dumped garbage. After Lincler tracks him down and tries to redeem himself, Rick still abandons him entirely on an alien planet

“Look Who’s Purging Now”
Rick sorta had it coming when he decided to get his kicks watching a planet perform a purge (yeah, just like in the movie). Well, sucks to be him because he gets stuck there. Morty, who’s stuck with him, is justifiably horrified. Rick’s solution: do a little purging themselves. Morty must have some pent-up anger to get out, right? Instead of trying to protect his grandson, he has Summer send them some super-suits so that they can become more efficient in fighting back/killing. Before long, Morty snaps and goes on a rampage. You know, we’re thinking that there’s some therapist who’s going to bank big helping Morty unpack this emotional baggage one day.

“Pilot”
Waking Morty up in the middle of the night, Rick convinces him to go on a no-questions-asked crazy adventure. Rick is after some seedpods, and wants Morty to help carry them. But after Morty breaks his legs – which Rick takes his time to remedy – they’re forced to go through customs run by the Intergalactic Federation. Since the seeds are illegal, he tells Morty he’s got to shove those things in his butt, essentially turning his grandson into a drug mule. Oh, and on the way home, he has Morty straight up murder a Gromflomite. Geez, Rick.

“The Ricks Must Be Crazy”
Renewable energy is a great thing. However, Rick’s idea for perpetual energy was to create a mini-universe, and have the creatures that live there carry out a mindless task in perpetuity in order to create this energy. When he tries to defend his system, saying how his mini-verse people get something out of it, Morty rightfully points out that it is still slavery. Worse, when he goes inside to find out why his car battery (the thing the mini-verse is powering) isn’t working, he strong-arms the creatures back into subservience, and smashes another tiny-verse – destroying not one but TWO new universes in the process. Dark, Rick, dark.

“The Rickshank Rickdemption”
Despite what it might look on this list, Rick is a complicated character with a complicated past. But since we’ve come to know the mad scientist, it’s become clear that three things especially piss him off: Jerry, the Council of Ricks, and the Galactic Federation. After being arrested, it seems that all three have HIM out of their hair … until it’s revealed that getting arrested was part of Rick’s plan to take them all down in one fell swoop. If Jerry had another light on in the attic, perhaps he’d realize that he’s lucky to just be getting off with a divorce - the other two factions got it a bit bloodier

“Rick Potion #9”
Rick’s greatest assets, which are his abilities to rationalize and adapt, are also his greatest flaws, making him overly blasé and ultimately unfeeling. When a love potion he makes for Morty piggybacks on a flu virus, the crazy genes he mixed together infect the entire human race – and the results are ugly. But rather than work tirelessly to find a cure, save his daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law, he abandons them and the entire planet to a disgusting fate. Bringing only Morty, Rick finds a new planet in a parallel timeline, and makes it clear that people, even loved ones, are largely interchangeable and insignificant to him.

Have another Evil Rick Moment? Let us know in the comments!