Rick and Morty is by far one of the craziest shows on television to date. The writers take outrageous story ideas and somehow make them into animated masterpieces.
(Spoilers Alert!)
10. Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind
This episode took the idea of there being alternate versions of our protagonists and took it to a new level of crazy. Rick and Morty are taken are arrested and taken to the Citadel of Ricks, where multiple Ricks and their Mortys live in harmony. As they escape captivity and clear their names, they end up in many weird dimensions, including one where living chairs order phones for dinner while sitting on people. We see multiple wacky versions of themselves, from Doofus Rick, the Council of Ricks, Cowboy Morty, and Hammerhead Morty. We even see an Evil Rick and Morty killing Ricks and kidnapping Mortys. In the end, the episode reveals that Evil Morty was the real mastermind behind the whole thing, setting up a storyline that has been fan-favorite for years.
9. The Ricklantis Mixup
Adult Swim
This episode takes somewhat of a break and follows the stories of the Ricks and Mortys living in the Citadel of Ricks. We see a crooked cop Morty training a Rick, a factory worker Rick rebelling against his employer, a band of Mortys searching for a “Wishing Portal,” and a Morty running for president. While this all may seem like a bunch of throwaway stories, the episode’s shocking twist ending will have you pondering about the future of the series as a whole.
8. A Rickle in Time
The Season Two premiere picks up where the previous finale left off. After Rick unfreezes time for about six months, he, Morty, and Summer end up in a void where time is fractured into different possibilities. While the episode’s B-Plot is okay, it more than makes up for it by showing multiple versions of the cast losing their minds in what is basically a “Schrodinger’s garage.” After a while, you don’t even know which part of the screen you should even focus on. We even get to see Key and Peele star as “testicular” time cops. Just watch it. You’ll know what I mean.
7. Auto Erotic Assimilation
Adult Swim
In a hilarious parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Rick and his grandkids encounter his old girlfriend, Unity, a hive-minded entity controlling an entire alien planet. Rick ends up hooking up with Unity again, which means he’s dating everyone on the planet, starting with a whole stadium of redheads. When the people finally regain control of themselves, they immediately descend into a race war over the shape of their nipples. Thus, it makes you wonder whether or not that planet was better off without free will.
6. The Ricks Must Be Crazy
Adult Swim
This episode takes the simple premise of fixing a car battery and turns it into one where Rick and Morty travel to a miniature universe created by Rick to power his car. But when Rick discovers a scientist (voiced by Stephen Colbert) created his own “mini-verse,” they come to blows as they meet another scientist inside his mini-verse with his own “teeny-verse.” They then end up trapped in a jungle for what is months for them, and Morty loses his mind living among the tree people. Meanwhile, Summer waits in the car, protected by its AI, which goes on to dicing a thug into bloody pieces, paralyzing a bystander, and tormenting a SWAT officer with a copy of his dead son. At this point, you forget that they were just on their way to get ice cream.
5. The Vat of Acid Episode
Adult Swim
When this title showed up in the opening credits, you knew this was going to be a special episode. After Rick and Morty fails to fake their deaths in a vat of acid, Morty criticizes him for coming up with a “stupid” plan. Enraged, Rick fulfills his grandson’s wish and makes him a “re-do” device that saves time like a video game checkpoint. In a montage devoid of dialogue, we see Morty go nuts with his new toy seemingly without consequence, until he meets a girl he starts a relationship. Even when they break up or crash land in the mountains together, Morty doesn’t re-do time to preserve their relationship. However, when it seems like they’ll live happily ever after, Jerry goes ahead and ruins everything by undoing their entire relationship. Things take another shocking turn when Rick reveals that Morty wasn’t re-doing time at all, but murdering alternate Mortys and taking their place. This episode’s twist is up there with that of Scott Tenorman Must Die, as we see just how cruel and petty Rick truly is. All because of a vat.
4. Total Rickall
Adult Swim
In this classic episode, the Smith family finds their house infiltrated by alien parasites that implant fake memories into their minds. We are introduced to such characters as Sleepy Gary, Pencilvester, Reverse Giraffe, and Mr. Poopybutthole. As more and more zany characters pop up out of nowhere, the Smiths lose sight of who’s real. The show goes as far as having Jerry believe he had a gay affair with Sleepy Gary.
3. Meeseeks and Destroy
Adult Swim
As one of the show’s first episodes, it made a lasting impression on audiences. To help solve his family’s problems, he gives them a device that creates Meeseeks: upbeat, blue men whose sole purpose is to fulfill a task and then die. But when Jerry can’t take two strokes off his golf game, he creates more Meeseeks until he gives up, which drives them all insane. At the same time, Rick and Morty go on a quest in a fantasy world where they are tried for a giant’s death and spend time in a bar filled with staircase people. But when a Jellybean nearly rapes Morty and the Meeseeks start killing each other, you start to think, “Boy, that escalated quickly.”
2. Pickle Rick
So far, this is the only episode that won the show an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. In this instant classic, Rick literally gets himself into a pickle by turning himself into a pickle. Rick ends up in the sewers, and what follows is his making a bionic suit out of dead rats, brutally murdering guards in a Russian compound, and getting into a bloody shootout with Danny Trejo. All Rick wanted to do was get out of family therapy, and this is what he got instead.
1. Rick Potion #9
Adult Swim
What starts as an innocent-enough love potion story quickly turns sideways in the most colossal way possible. When Rick gives Morty a love potion to make Jessica love him, it quickly spread to everyone in the world. Rick’s lazily-made cure only makes things worse, as it turns them all into hideous “Cronenberg” monsters. But when we think Rick and Morty fixed everything, we discover that they abandoned their dimension and escaped to a version of Earth where they both die. This twist ending shows that in this show, anything can happen, Morty’s traumatized expression speaks volumes. As he sits down in with a family not his own after he and Rick destroyed the world, we can’t help but feel his pain knowing that his world will never be the same again.
