History HarsherInHindsight / RickAndMorty

*** This episode also reveals that Rick C-137 didn't crash land into Beth [[spoiler:Prime's house because he was a DeathSeeker beyond the DespairEventHorizon who was desperate for a family. All the CharacterDevelopment of the last five seasons is... hard to take, because what really happened was he had found Rick Prime's home dimension and wanted to hunt him. The CharacterDevelopment and attachment to family was all an accident. C-137 found it so easy to abandon Beth, Summer, and Jerry Prime, taking only Morty Prime with him, because they were all just part of the most hated dimension.]]

* From the first episode: Rick tells Morty to keep shooting the Galactic Federation soldiers, yelling "You have no idea what prison is like here!" It seems like a throwaway gag, but as of "Wedding Squanchers", Rick has been thrown into Maximum Security of said prison, and it's revealed to be a place where inmates are kept affixed, immobile, to giant X's. Presumably forever.

* In "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick sarcastically tells Morty that they will be easily raped in giant prison because, when they drop the soap, it'll land on them and crush their spines. Mr. Jellybean's attempt to rape Morty minutes later is [[MoodWhiplash not quite so funny]].

* Rick takes offense in "The [=ABCs=] of Beth" when Beth says that Froopy Land was a dumb name for the secret world she thought that Tommy had disappeared into when she was a kid. He tells her that he put a lot of effort into making it for her so that she would never get hurt and would remain safe. "Rickmurai Jack" confirms that our Rick [[spoiler:lost his Beth when she was a child, meaning that knowing that multiple Ricks built Froopy Land as a safeguard to ensure their daughters would reach adulthood]]. 

* Seeing the Narnia dimension devote themselves to killing Morty is funny just from the absurd lengths the aliens go to when Morty has no idea what the hell is going on. Then the season 5 finale showed that [[spoiler: something very similar happened to Rick; a stranger came from a portal, destroyed all that he held dear, and Rick devoted his life to getting vengeance, so far to no success]].
* A lot becomes downright harsher when one sees the Season 5 finale:

* The Season 6 premiere, "Solaricks", follows suit:

* In "Juricksic Mort", there's a TakeThat towards Creator/SeanPenn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who made a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own domestic abuse charges came out a few months after the episode aired, which led to his firing.

* In "Juricksic Mort", there's a TakeThat towards Creator/SeanPenn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own domestic abuse charges came out a few months after the episode aired, which led to his firing.

** In "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy", Jerry calls out Rick for ruining his life and family. Rick rebukes this by saying that Jerry's home life would have ended up rather the same even without Rick's interference due to Jerry's [[PlayingTheVictimCard victim complex]]. He also says Beth is "Rick's daughter" not "''his or my'' daughter". [[spoiler:It is revealed that the Citadel is responsible for setting up Jerries and Beths together for the sake of creating Morties and the Jerry we know is just one of the countless Jerrys that was nudged into getting their Beth pregnant. Rick's phrasing regarding Beth also foreshadows how he really isn't her father. This is also why Rick saved Jerry instead of leaving him to die. He was ''projecting'' as he knows that he indirectly caused the drugging to happen in the first place.]]

** In a more meta sense, the already distressing scene gets even worse come 2023, when Creator/JustinRoiland was accused of, among other things, sending inappropriate [=DMs=] to underage fans.

** In a more meta sense, the already distressing scene gets even worse come 2023, when Creator/JustinRoiland was accused of, among other things, sending inappropriate [=DMs=] to underage girls.

* In ''Juricksic Mort,'' there's a TakeThat towards Sean Penn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own abuse allegations came out a few months after the episode aired, which led to his firing.

** Relatedly, the plot of "Rick Potion No. 9" falls into this, with Morty wanting Rick to make a LovePotion, which not only does [[EveryoneHasStandards Rick]] [[WhatTheHellHero call him out on it]], but he even uses terms such as "roofie" and "date rape drug" to describe it.

** In a more meta sense, the already distressing scene gets even worse come 2023, when Creator/JustinRoiland was accused of, among other things, sending inappropriate [[=DMs=]] to underage girls.

* In "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick {{sarcas|mMode}}tically tells Morty that they will be easily raped in giant prison because, when they drop the soap, it'll land on them and crush their spines. Mr. Jellybean's attempt to rape Morty minutes later is [[MoodWhiplash not quite so funny]].

* In ''Juricksic Mort,'' there's a TakeThat towards Sean Penn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own abuse allegations came out a few months after the episode aired, which led to his firing.
* In "Meeseeks And Destroy", Morty almost gets raped by Mister Jellybean, something that was clearly incredibly traumatic (even by the standards of their usual adventures), and afterwards, Rick displayed [[EvenEvilHasStandards genuine disgust and uncharacteristic concern for Morty]]. Come January 2023, when after Justin Roiland (the duo's voice actor and show's co-creator) was faced with domestic abuse charges, former female fans came out and confessed that Roiland had a history of DM-ing them with very perverted messages when they were still minors. This made the entire sequence of events a lot more awkward to watch.

* In ''Juricksic Mort,'' there's a TakeThat towards Sean Penn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own abuse allegations came out a few months after the episode aired, which led to his firing.

* In ''Juricksic Mort,'' there's a TakeThat towards Sean Penn's alleged history of abuse when Rick claims that someone who a grave mistake like his would virtue signal as hard as he did. This becomes harder to laugh at after Justin Roiland's own abuse allegations came out a few months after the episode aired.

** On that note, [[spoiler:the same episode that confirms that the current Main Jerry is the show's third version of him also kills off ''both'' of the previous two versions. As mentioned above, Hermit Jerry (the first one) is killed by Rick Prime, and "Season 2 Jerry" (the second one) dies when he's bitten and assimilated by Mr. Frundles, who then takes over the whole planet. Essentially, if one were to rewatch any Season 1 episode, no matter which one it is, or the Season 2 premiere, the Jerry who appears in it is now dead.]]

** This episode also confirms the long-standing fan theory that the second Main Jerry, the one the audience follows from the end of "Rick Potion #9", was accidentally swapped for a different Jerry at the Jerryboree in "Mortynight Run". [[spoiler:We see here that the new version of the Smith family that he ended up with never went through the same character development as the versions that the audience follows. This means that all of the bonding moments Jerry had with Beth and other characters for the second half of Season 1 and beginning of Season 2--like in "Rixty Minutes", "Close Rick-Counters", "Ricksy Business", and "A Rickle in Time"--turned out to be completely for naught for him, since he ended up with a version of the family that remained unhappy and resentful of each other, and this Jerry (known as "Season 2 Jerry") likewise stagnated in character development once he left the main family (through no fault of his own, just a mix-up) and became part of this alternate one.]]
** On that note, [[spoiler:the same episode that confirms that the current Main Jerry is the show's third version of him also kills off ''both'' of the previous two versions. As mentioned above, Hermit Jerry (the first one) is killed by Rick Prime, and "Season 2 Jerry" (the second one) dies when he's bitten and assimilated by Mr. Frundles, who then takes over the whole planet. Essentially, if one were to rewatch any Season 1 episode, no matter which one it is, or the Season 2 premiere, the Jerry who appears in it is now dead.[[labelnote:*]]The current Main Jerry did at least experience most of the same events that happened in those episodes, but the point still stands.[[/labelnote]]]]

** In "The Rickshank Redemption", Morty takes Summer to his original Cronenberged dimension, and after his original family breaks their portal gun, a team of Ricks from the Citadel arrive and freeze all three of them (original Summer, Beth, and Jerry) in ice while arresting the main Morty and Summer. [[spoiler:When Morty is forced back to his home universe in "Solaricks", he finds only Jerry still alive there, who reveals that Beth and Summer both ''died'' as a result of this, completely averting HarmlessFreezing.]]

** In "The Rickshank Redemption", Morty takes Summer his original Cronenberged dimension, and after his original family breaks their portal gun, a team of Ricks from the Citadel arrive and freeze all three of them (original Summer, Beth, and Jerry) in ice while arresting the main Morty and Summer. [[spoiler:When Morty is forced back to his home universe in "Solaricks", he finds only Jerry still alive there, who reveals that Beth and Summer both ''died'' as a result of this, completely averting HarmlessFreezing.]]
*** On a related note, [[spoiler:Hermit Jerry (the show's original Jerry mentioned above) is also killed in TheStinger by Rick Prime, meaning that, out of the five original main characters that we see for the first six episodes of the show, only the titular Rick and Morty are still alive.]]

** What's more, [[spoiler:said original dad, Rick Prime, is one of the most sociopathic versions of Rick seen in the show so far, who not only doesn't give a shit about her or anyone else, but, when he's forcibly shunted back to their universe by the events of "Solaricks", murders Jerry, her husband, whom she had grown to deeply love in this universe up to her death.]]
** A bit in-universe for Morty as well. [[spoiler:Even after confirming in the previous episode that Rick isn't his original version, since Rick doesn't even ''have'' his own native grandkids in his dimension, Morty assumed that Rick chose the former's original home dimension to settle down in because the native Rick there was dead. Once Rick tells him the truth--that he came there because it was Rick Prime's dimension--Morty becomes worried that Rick may have only seen him as bait all this time rather than actually caring about him. Rick reassures him that it's not the case, and while that's pretty clearly true ''now'', it does beg the question of how long it took before Rick stopped considering Morty to be someone he could use in any way to help him get revenge, and whether Rick bringing Morty and nobody else with him in "Rick Potion #9" had anything to do with said revenge.]]

** What's more, [[spoiler:said original dad Rick, yone else, but, when he's forcibly shunted back to their universe by the events of "Solaricks", murders Jerry, her husband, whom she had grown to deeply love in this universe up to her death.]]

* In "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick {{sarcas|mMode}}tically tells Morty that they will be easily raped in giant prison because, when they drop the soap, it'll land on them and crush their spines. :Mr. Jellybean's attempt to rape Morty minutes later is [[MoodWhiplash not quite so funny]].

* Rick in "The Rickshaw Redemption" claimed that he made up a memory just to get Szechuan Sauce from [=MacDonald=]'s that was cancelled in the 1990s. "Rickmurai Jack" [[spoiler:confirms that the memory was real, meaning Rick actually relived his daughter and wife's death as a means to escape]].

** On a related note, [[spoiler:Hermit Jerry (the show's original Jerry mentioned above) is killed in TheStinger by Rick Prime, meaning that, out of the five original main characters that we see for the first six episodes of the show, only the titular Rick and Morty are still alive.]]
** Like the current Beth, the original Beth of the first six episodes had a whole bunch of emotional issues due to being abandoned by her dad when she was a kid. [[spoiler:Her Rick, Rick Prime, is one of the most sociopathic versions of Rick seen in the show so far, who not only doesn't give a shit about her or anyone else, but, when he's forcibly shunted back to their universe by the events of "Solaricks", murders Jerry, her husband, whom she had grown to deeply love in this universe up to her death.]]
** Original Beth believed that she got her father back when Main Rick showed up at her home not too long before the start of the series, as confirmed in the flashback in "Rickmurai Jack", as she didn't realize that he wasn't her original Rick, and was overjoyed to have him there. [[spoiler:It turns out Rick only came there because it was Rick Prime's home dimension and he was hoping the latter would return someday so he could take revenge on him. He did end up sincerely bonding with Morty and kept him with him when he switched dimensions in "Rick Potion #9", but left the other family members there, meaning that Beth was abandoned ''again'' by a second, completely different version of her father, who, in the end, wasn't all that much more attached to her than her original, sociopathic dad was.]]

* From the first episode: Rick tells Morty to keep shooting the Galactic Federation soldiers, yelling "You have no idea what prison is like here!" It seems like a throwaway gag, but as of "Wedding Squanchers", [[spoiler:Rick has been thrown into Maximum Security of said prison, and it's revealed to be a place where inmates are kept affixed, immobile, to giant X's. Presumably forever.]]
* In "Meeseeks and Destroy", Rick {{sarcasm|Mode}}tically tells Morty that they will be easily raped in giant prison because, when they drop the soap, it'll land on them and crush their spines. [[spoiler:Mr. Jellybean's attempts to rape Morty minutes later are [[MoodWhiplash not quite so funny]].]]

* Seeing the Vindicators [[spoiler: getting killed off]] in their "third" big adventure can sting a bit if [[spoiler: you've had to see your favourite character die]] in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. Ironically, [[spoiler: the founding members all survived]] in that one.

** On that note, [[spoiler:the same episode that confirms that the current Main Jerry is the show's third version of him also kills off ''both'' of the previous two versions. As mentioned above, Hermit Jerry (the first one) is killed by Rick Prime, and "Season 2 Jerry" (the second one) dies when he's bitten and assimilated by Mr. Frundles, who then takes over the whole planet. Essentially, if one were to rewatch any Season 1 episode, no matter which one it is, or the Season 2 premiere, the Jerry who appears in it is now dead. The current Main Jerry did at least experience most of the same events that happened in those episodes, but the point still stands.]]