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Awesome moments in Rick and Morty.

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.


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    General 
  • An out-of-show example, [adult swim] premiered an entire episode of Rick and Morty three days before it aired on Instagram... in about 110 individual 15-second clips. This is the first show to do so period, and it's probably one of the finest (and most elaborate) displays of viral marketing ever.
  • Rick & Morty getting their own Simpsons Couch Gag. A huge honor.
  • The show getting to use multiple licensed songs is pretty awesome, considering that several years before, when The Venture Bros. wanted to use Rozalla's "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" in the Season 2 premiere, it cost a huge chunk of that entire season's budget just to afford that one song. It really shows how far Adult Swim has come. Similarly, being one of the first AS shows able to use the word "shit" unbleeped is pretty cool, too.
  • The show is one of the highest-rated IMDB shows ever.
  • Rick Sanchez. Is he a sociopath? Yes. Is he willing to use his family for his own selfish reason? Also, yes. Is he a beyond awesome Gadgeteer Genius who has nearly Seen It All. Hell yeah.
  • Morty Smith. During the course of the series, he becomes increasingly more mature and observant, to the point of becoming arguably one of the smartest and self-aware characters in the show. In season 3 we see him become more badass to the point where he is more than capable of standing up to Rick.
  • Anytime Evil Morty is given screentime; set up as the main antagonist of the show, he is shown to be just as intelligent (perhaps even moreso) than Rick himself and every one of his plans seem to go his way.

    Season 1 
Anatomy Park
  • Morty showing he's smarter than he looks, and coming up with the idea to destroy the gonorrhea virus by igniting Reuben's intestinal gas in "Anatomy Park".
  • Jerry gets a minor one in "Anatomy Park." When he goes around collecting the family's electronics, Summer doesn't want to give him her phone. His response: "Put it in the stocking, Summer, or I'm joining Facebook." Summer gasps and puts the phone in the stocking without hesitation. The smile Jerry has as he says it is what really makes it awesome.

M. Night Shaym-Aliens!

  • "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!" has one for Rick. The aliens have just managed to trick Rick into giving them the recipe for concentrated Dark Matter through a long, complex Batman Gambit. They send Rick and Jerry back home, while the aliens begin to make the Dark Matter. Suddenly, BOOM! Revealing that Rick did not gave them the correct formula at all.
    Jerry: What happened back there?
    Rick: Why don't you ask the smartest people in the universe, Jerry? (drinks from his flask) Oh yeah, you can't. They blew up.
  • Rick knowing from the first moment that he's in a simulation, that Morty is a fake, and that the aliens are trying a multi-level simulation fakeout.

Meeseeks and Destroy

  • He gets another moment of awesome in "Meeseeks and Destroy", where as the two are finally going home, he nonchalantly sticks his arm out the portal, and shoots and kills the giant, sentient Jelly Bean who tried to rape Morty in the tavern bathroom. As stated on the heartwarming page, Rick may have questionable principles, but if you ever, ever mess with or hurt his grandson, he will end you.
    • Props to Morty himself, who beats the perverted freak to a pulp beforehand. By the time Rick finishes him off he is too dishevelled to really respond.
    • It gets even more awesome after taking The Stinger into consideration, where it's revealed that the Jellybean King had a box full of inappropriate and disturbing pictures of children, implying that Morty was by no means the first child he tried to rape/molest/etc. So not only did Rick kill the thing that tried to rape his grandson, he also put an end to a corrupt ruler who abused his power in order to harm children.
    • It pales in comparison to everything Rick and Morty did during the episode, but Jerry pulling himself together (with Beth's help) and demonstrating his improved golf game to the murderous Meeseeks certainly seemed epic. (Thanks in no small part to the music that accompanied it). A stickler Meeseeks wants to see his short game, Jerry steps up again and shows the Meeseeks that he has really improved. Even better is that Jerry uses an onion to demonstrate his putting ability, something that does not roll easily.

Rick Potion #9

  • 80% of everything Jerry says and does during the episode. With a crowbar.
    Mantis Monster: Who are you?
    Jerry: My name's Mr. Crowbar. And this is my friend, who is also a crowbar.
    Mantis Monster: That's stupid.
    Jerry: [brains him with a crowbar] Yeah, well, look where being smart got you.
  • Rick calling out Morty for wanting to have a Love Potion in the first place. Considering forcing someone to fall in love with you just because you're in love with them is very creepy, and this is one of the few shows to actually address that (instead of acting like love potions are only bad if they go wrong). Even if you take into account that Rick created the potion and was fine with giving it to Morty, the speech itself hits some salient points on the very nature of the love potion trope. Morty admits to his mistake, but points out that just because he's at fault, that doesn't mean that Rick himself is absolved from all blame and that he still needs to clean up after himself.

Raising Gazorpazorp

  • Rick going full Papa Wolf when the male Gazorpazorpians attack Summer, gunning them all down in the span of a few seconds. He later keeps them away from Summer with one hand while repairing his portal gun. Despite clearly being annoyed at Summer's actions, he seems to have the same protectiveness that he does for Morty: mess with his grandchildren, and he will END you.
  • When it becomes clear that they can't just leave, Rick goes to Plan B: take over the planet. And treats it like it's a minor nuisance that he has to go through the hassle.

Rixty Minutes

  • The writers get one for the Turbulent Juice advertisement. They seriously managed to make an ad that honestly could go either way as to what it's advertising.
    Rick: Sex Sells, Morty.
    Morty: Sex sells what? Was that a movie, or like, does it clean stuff?
  • Morty gets a pretty great speech to talk Summer out of running away after she discovers she was an unwanted pregnancy.
    Morty: That out there? That's my grave. [...] On one of our adventures, Rick and I basically destroyed the whole world, so we bailed on that reality and we came to this one, because in this one, the world wasn't destroyed, and in this one, we were dead, so we came here, and we buried ourselves, and we took their place. And every morning, Summer, I eat breakfast 20 yards away from my own rotting corpse.
    Summer: So... you're not my brother?
    Morty: I'm better than your brother. I'm a version of your brother you can trust when he says "don't run". Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV?

Something Ricked This Way Comes

  • Summer calls Rick out on his lazy jerkass behavior and saying how he doesn't do anything except make gadgets and mooch off the family.
  • At the end of the episode, Rick and Summer bulk up and beat up the Devil, who scammed Summer out of her money. And then they beat up some bully who pants/pushed ice cream to someone, a person pulling a dog harshly, a neo-nazi, and a WBC protester at The Stinger, all to the sweet tune of DMX's X Gon' Give It to Ya.
  • Rick uses his intellect to rid all of the cursed objects of their curses, making a business out of it and causing the Devil, the owner of the store to try and kill himself. He drives the Devil to suicide, then responds: [happy] Seriously? [concerned] Holy crap. [happy again] Holy crap!

Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind

  • In "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" Evil!Rick turns out to be a Controlled Cyborg Rick manipulated by an Evil!Morty: the awesomeness was that he was able to outsmart all the Ricks from the council of Ricks.
  • Morty leading the whole army of Mortys to set free the tortured Mortys and to defeat Evil!Rick.

Ricksy Business

  • Rick and Summer's party was a huge hit. Everyone on-screen was fine with all the aliens and Earth teenagers hanging out together except for Summer, who thought she would be embarrassed, and Morty, who was against the whole concept of a party to begin with. The party continues off-screen, too.
  • It's the Rick Dance!
  • Beth saving Jerry from getting raped at gunpoint by Lucy.

    Season 2 
A Rickle In Time
  • Rick makes a reference to Redgren Grumbholdt and Morty and Summer laugh awkwardly. Rick then immediately tells them that there's no Redgren Grumbholdt and that they should be thinking for themselves rather than following a crowd.
  • When one of Morty's potential selves accidentally desyncs the possible Ricks, what do the Ricks do? Put their time crystals onto a gun and get into a cross-temporal firefight with themselves, only ending when all the Potential Mortys knock out all the Potential Ricks, resynching the timeline.
  • 1/64th of the Ricks performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save Morty, then managing to subvert it by getting lucky and saving himself anyway.
  • Jerry of all people ends up getting one in the B-Plot by cashing in on a favor from a local Cold Stone Creamery for a couple employees to pose as being from an organization dedicated to saving deer in order to con a hunter and his lawyer out of ownership of an injured buck and managing to arrange it so that Beth could ultimately be the one to save its life.
  • Rick manages to outsmart the Time Cop alien using simple logic to turn its own fourth-dimensional nature against itself. By following the fact that the alien experiences all parts of their timeline simultaneously, and infinitely, they will eventually do every conceivable action, which includes turning around and not looking at him. The alien agrees with that logic and turns around, at which point Rick smacks him with a hammer.
    Rick: OK, now hear me out on this. You're immortal, right? Which means your life is infinite. Well then that means there's a 100% chance that you will eventually do everything, INCLUDING turning around to look behind you.
    Time Cop: I cannot argue with that. (turns around)
    Rick: (proceeds to attack Time Cop)
  • Rick beating the shit out of the Time Cop, a four-dimensional entity that exists outside of time, or rather inside all of time, by simply rupturing the timeline into 32 uncertain copies and ganging up on him with himself.
  • After being mistaken for Rick and getting the testicle-cop beating meant for him, Albert Einstein messes with time just to spite them.
  • The fact they got Key & Peele to guest appear as the testicle cops, making an already hilarious episode all the better.

Mortynight Run

  • Everything about Krombopulos Michael. He is a ledge-running, wall-leaping, murder-loving CMOA. He sneaks into a prison and kills five guards, unarmed, and without breaking stride for more than the instant it takes to break each guard's neck.
  • Rick returning after walking away from Morty's attempt to save Fart and killing twice as many guards as Michael did with his portal gun and spaceship. He makes a dynamic entrance by creating a portal inside a guard aiming at Morty, then using two portals to first flood the room with water, then create a plug to drain the guards away.
  • When Gearhead betrays Rick, Rick kicks Gearhead in the crotch, pulls out his crotch gears, pulls off his face gears, and the replaces them with the crotch gears. In other words, he tore Gearhead's balls off then fed them to him. The sight of this makes the Gear-People police vomit uncontrollably.
    Rick: I wanna make two things clear to everybody in this room. Never betray me, and it's time to go.
  • When Morty realizes the true nature of Fart, he kills him to prevent an entire universal genocide of carbon based life forms. Even though Morty could have avoided doing it and saved the innocent lives of around a hundred carbon-based life forms if he just stayed at Blips and Chitz. The fact that he, a "mere kid", was able to trick a telepathic Reality Warper into getting distracted enough to kill him is one helluva feat, "Shaggy Dog" Story or not. Rick must be really rubbing off on him.
  • Fart getting Rick and Morty out of trouble by murdering hundreds of gear people through manipulating just one person into suicide is as impressive as it's horrifying.
  • The song "Goodbye Moonmen" is an example itself, being possibly the catchiest and most moving song about mass-genocide ever written.

Auto Erotic Assimilation

  • While looking for their weed whacker, Beth and Jerry discover Rick's subterranean lair in the garage, containing a large, slug-like alien chained to the wall. This leads to them quarreling over Rick's motives regarding the "prisoner" along with Beth's relationship with her father. The argument becomes so heated that the alien rips its chains out of the wall and steals a translation device, before proceeding to let loose on the couple in an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
    Blim Blam the Korblok: Um, first of all, hello. Uh, my name is Blim Blam the Korblok. Second of all, cards on the table, I'm a murderer that eats babies, and I came to this planet to eat babies. However, I am also carrying a highly infectious disease that I suppose you could call "Space-AIDS" as you put it. And Rick did chain me up so that he could attempt to cure it. At the same time, Rick's motivation to cure my disease was not to save my life or anyone else's, but to patent and sell the cure for billions of Blemflarcks. But you know the reason why I ripped my chains out of the wall? And do you know why I'm never coming back to this planet? Because the two of you are the fucking worst! You both hate yourselves and each other, and the idea that it has anything to do with Rick is laughable. I'd laugh, but I'm biologically incapable - that's how alien I am. And even I'm sitting here listening to the two of you and being like, "What the fuck?!" So, good luck with your shitty marriage, and tell Rick I'm sorry he has to deal with either of you. Blim Blam out! *Translation Device Drop*
  • Beth did anger Jerry for spinning it to his credit but she did have a point how impressive it was that Rick managed to build an entire underground lair himself without anyone noticing, aside from causing a $6,000 electric bill.

Total Rickall

  • Morty figuring out how to tell who's a mind parasite. Parasites can only create good memories. If there's any bad memories, the person is real. This leads to the family going on a shooting spree, killing all of the parasites.
    • The ensuing slaughter is enhanced by the family members remembering the horrible memories of each other, and using that as the crux to unite together in a Crowning Moment of Awesome that also doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Furthermore, after trying to convince the family for most of the episode that they are infested with parasites, and about to be executed for potentially being a parasite, it isn't Rick that figures out how to save the day. It's Morty. MORTY figured out something RICK couldn't, Rick's Knew It All Along moment afterward notwithstanding.. Maybe being around the Rickiest Rick is starting to rub off on the Mortiest Morty, and prove that Morty can be competent given the right motivation. Either way, it's a victory that even Rick acknowledges, in a roundabout way.
    • The parasite shooting spree also gives Summer the chance to deliver what may be the line of the episode:
      Tinkles: Summer, I've always loved you!
      Summer: Yep. (Boom, Headshot!)
    • To put things in perspective, even Rick couldn't bring himself to kill his favorite parasite, Pencilvester. Summer outsociopathed Rick!
  • Probably one of the best parts of the episode is that it was intended to be a Take That! towards Family Guy's cutaway gags.
  • The ending reveals that Beth had no negative memories of Mr. Poopy Butthole... not because he was a mind parasite, but because he was just that nice a guy.

Get Schwifty

  • Rick's sunglasses. They make him look so badass.
  • Rick and Morty head to the pentagon to help against the giants heads attacking earth.
  • When the Earth gets disqualified due to the missile launch, Ice-T comes backs just in time to block the plasma ray that is about to destroy Earth, and convinces the heads to let Rick and Morty play their song. Their performance is so good that the heads declare it the pinnacle of musicality and cancel their Planet Music show after 988 seasons. This incidentally saves a lot of planets from being disintegrated in the future.
  • In The Stinger, Ice-T returns from his exile, and is returned to his original form: Water-T. Then the Numericons attack Alphabetrium, and Water-T runs out, Guns Akimbo and ready to kick some ass.

The Ricks Must be Crazy

  • While also being incredibly disturbing, the ship's methods of dispatching potential threats to Summer's safety are brutal and awesome. The first thing it does is to dice a man into bloody chunks using a laser, Cube-style, then, after Summer tells the ship not to kill anyone it takes her literally and incapacitates a perceived threat by rendering him paraplegic. As the episode progresses the ship's methods get nastier and more amazing.
    Car: Summer is safe
  • Morty manages to basically take over the tree people in just a few months. Even Rick seems impressed. Morty then uses his authority to force Rick and Zeep to fix the situation at spearpoint.
    Morty: I don't care what it takes. You two are putting aside your bullshit, and working together to get us back home!
    Rick: No can do, Morty. I just can't.
    Zeep: I just don't see how I can—
    Morty: Ro ro donoga! (tree people draw their weapons on Rick and Zeep) You're smart; you'll figure it out.
  • Zeep. He isn't an alternate version of Rick (although they still got similar personalities) and yet he's just as smart as Rick.
  • Being stranded in the teenyverse doesn't stop both Rick and Zeep from being able to create weapons from wood and stone solely to spite each other within seconds. Plus, months later, Zeep and Rick are hunting food and fighting each other using mechs made from the same materials. The ensuing mech duel is sadly brief, but is pretty amazing.
  • The final brawl between Rick and Zeep. It's short, but Rick reminds us he's a badass with some Good Old Fisticuffs and a couple of one-liners. The moment is pictured in this folder.
    Zeep: RIIIIIIICK!
    Morty: Don't do it.
    Rick: You quit school, but you still got some learning to do.
    [after winning]
    Rick: Class dismissed.
  • Just the fact that Rick created his own universe. Talk about Sufficiently Advanced Technology.
  • As bizarre as it was, Morty transforming into a car was pretty awesome.

Big Trouble in Little Sanchez

  • Tiny Rick, Morty, and Summer casually murdering Coach Feratu and his vampire army.
  • Jerry actually managed to save the day (and possibly the universe) through his determination and resourcefulness. His attempt to rescue Beth from an amped up alien version of herself causes her to create a battalion of hyper-idealized masculine clones of her husband through the mythologization device. The ensuing battle royale climaxes with Jerry slapping the device onto one of his clones, creating a god-like psychic doppelgänger of Beth that eradicates her bestial counterpart. He realized that Beth's idealized image of himself would think of her as a perfect goddess, and so created one. Jerry saves Beth and even gets a small shot at her ego in the process.
  • Morty taking a page out of Real Rick's playbook and successfully kicking Tiny Rick's ass.
  • Summer delivering the coup de grace by forcing Tiny Rick to listen to an Elliot Smith song, completely destroying his resolve.
  • Subtle but Bill Cipher's cameo was pretty cool and done in Gravity Falls' style, even.

Look Who's Purging Now

  • For the first half of the episode, Rick and Morty are stranded on a hostile planet with countless aliens out to kill them. Rick and Morty (mostly Rick) are able to fend them off with all sorts of improvised weaponry. Then they get advanced suits of power armor...
  • Morty kills the man who runs the lighthouse after getting tired of his insults. After that, he just goes totally insane and starts purging. For someone who is normally such a passive character, it's pretty awesome seeing him stand up for himself for once, even if he takes it too far.
  • Rick and Arthricia completely decimating the rich people who organized the Purge in the first place. And then dancing in their blood once they're done to "Feels Good" by Tony! Toni! Toné!.
    Rick: Here's the deal, I'm not here to judge. I'm just a guy from another planet. But this girl is one of your poor people, and I guess you guys felt like it was okay to subject her to inhuman conditions because there was no chance of it ever hurting you. It's sort of the sociopolitical equivalent of, say, a suit of power armor around you? But now things are evened out so... Arthricia?
    Arthricia: (walks up, severs the leader's head, and starts killing them all)

The Wedding Squanchers

  • Rick and Squanchy fighting off the federation at the reception.
  • Beth stabbing Tammy's robot "mom" in the eye and kicking her out of the flying van just as the latter was about to attack Summer.
  • Rick turning himself over to the Galactic Police so his family can live on Earth, and is taken by the federation and into his cell without so much as flinching. The guards look up his record, which continuously scrolls screen after screen of crimes, enough to make the guards turn to each other in amazement.
  • A minor one, but throughout the party, Jerry angers Beth with his terrible socializing. He does however get along with Squanchy, even mastering his Smurfing to get a laugh out of him, compared to Beth's complete fail to grasp the language.
  • A minor one — Summer not taking Rick's Never My Fault bullshit and making it known that he was the reason that Tammy befriended her.
  • A rare one for Jerry, when he calls his family, most especially Beth, for constantly making excuses for Rick's behavior and for all the crap he's put them through. The fact that he actually finally got Beth to own up to her own selfish reasons for doing so can count as a small victory on his part. And then "The Rickshank Redemption" happens, revealing that Jerry deciding to grow a spine (and even suggesting turning Rick in) is what led to Rick getting Beth to divorce Jerry.
    • But as of "Solaricks", we know this actually improved Jerry and the whole family in the long run. Beth and Jerry's brief divorced time helped them become less toxic to each other, and the whole family became more independent of Rick's poisonous influence, improving the whole family and even Rick himself. This is well reflected on when Jerry spends some time in a "Season 2" dimension where everyone was toxic to each other.

    Season 3 
The Rickshank Redemption
  • One for Adult Swim for airing the premiere on repeat for April Fools 2017. Until it interrupted premieres for Samurai Jack and Dragon Ball Super.
  • Rick gets one for the entire episode. His plan to escape from the Federation via body-surfing and get high clearance, destroying the Council of Ricks by teleporting their Citadel into the Federation prison which they screwed up his attempt to access, then using the chaos to kill the council and dismantle the entire Federation by making their currency worthless. No wonder he's considered the smartest being in the universe.
    • Rick making up an elaborate tragic backstory involving the loss of a second wife and daughter, just to trick the mind-reading goverment agent into uploading a hijacking virus into the simulation database, allowing Rick to escape.
    • Both Morty and Summer make some pretty good Rick-like guesses for Rick's plan to destroying the galactic goverment. Summer guesses he's going to reprogram their nukes to target each other, and Morty thinks he's going to make their hyperdrives disintergrate their ships when used. Rick even tells them so.
      Rick: Good pitches kids! I'm almost proud. But watch as Grandpa topples a galactic empire by changing a 1 to a 0!
  • Summer's first awesome moment of the episode is to dig up the long-dead Rick of her universe to get his portal device to try and rescue Rick. This one is in response to Morty's brutal take-down of Rick's reputation for being able to figure a solution to any problem, by reminding Beth that Rick has abandoned his family before when it was convenient, and that the only version of her grandfather never to leave her is the one buried in the backyard. To hammer his point home, Morty takes Beth to Rick and Morty's original universe, where Rick's actual granddaughter lives in the Cronenberged wasteland that Rick left in his wake two seasons before.
  • Summer gets another one by telling the entire Council of Ricks to go collectively fuck themselves when they want her to denounce Rick. Morty also gets one in the scene as he reaffirms his belief in Rick and reminds the council what they have to fear.
    Morty: If you think my Rick's dead, he's alive. And if you think you're safe, he's coming for you!
  • When one of the Council Ricks holds Summer hostage, Rick seemingly slides back into his usual asshole ways and tells his counterpart that they have basically infinite grandkids, so holding one hostage means nothing to him. This angers Morty and the two end up in a huge argument that ends with Morty SHOOTING RICK IN THE HEAD. However, it turns out this was a Batman Gambit by Rick; he'd given Morty a fake gun just in case this situation arose. Though, Morty didn't know this; he hadn't read the note Rick put on the gun.
  • The fact that all of Rick's actions weren't just to destroy the Federation and the Council of Ricks but to get Beth to divorce Jerry as revenge for Jerry attempting to sell him out to the Federation. He happily informs Morty that he's usurped Jerry as head of the family and now he and Morty (and sometimes Summer and/or Beth) will be able to go on even crazier and darker adventures. And if Morty tries to say a word no one will believe him.
    • Of course, he follows this up by saying his master plan is to find a discontinued McDonald's dipping sauce, so it's unclear how much of his rant is him just making stuff up.
    • This in itself becomes a little bit of awesome, since finding said discontinued sauce became a meme days after the episode aired. To the point that McDonald's sent an ENTIRE JUG of the sauce to Justin Roiland with a personalized, Rick and Morty-related message on the label.
  • The way Rick defeats the Galactic Federation: He changes the number one to the number zero, thus rendering any form of currency that the Galactic Federation has worthless.

Pickle Rick

  • Rick, as an immobile talking pickle, gets washed into the sewer. He then proceeds to make himself limbs using cockroaches he kills with his teeth, make Powered Armor out of scavenged bone and muscle from rats, and then go on a killing spree inside a diplomatic compound. He even goes toe-to-toe with some sort of super-soldier.
    • He also makes a series of deadly booby traps, including a spiked pit and a remote detonated explosive in a very short time. He also had time to make a fully-functioning laser powerful enough to burn through three human heads that is powered by triple-A batteries.'' While a pickle, and without access to his lab or tools, in 10 minutes.
  • We have Dr. Wong, the therapist the family needs to see and she was able to read them like a book. She proceeded to call out Beth for her unhealthy relationship with Rick and how both would rather "die than be bored" and thus why they put little effort into maintaining their relationship. All without raising her voice or seeming even remotely annoyed by Rick and Beth's hostile behavior. That is definitely awesome. Her being unfazed by Rick being a pickle and such also gets her brownie points.
    Dr. Wong: Why didn't you want to come here?
    Rick: Because I don't respect therapy. Because I'm a scientist. Because I invent, transform, create and destroy for a living, and when I don't like something about the world I change it. And I don't think going to a rented office in a strip mall to listen to some agent of averageness explain which words mean which feelings has ever helped anyone do anything. I think it's helped a lot of people get comfortable and stop panicking, which is a state of mind we value in the animals we eat, but not something I want for myself. I'm not a cow. I'm a pickle. When I feel like it! So... You asked...
    Dr. Wong: Rick, the only connection between your unquestionable intelligence and the sickness destroying your family is that everyone in your family, you included, use intelligence to justify sickness. You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it's because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control. You chose to come here. You chose to talk—to belittle my vocation. Just as you chose to become a pickle. You are the master of your universe, and yet you are dripping with rat blood and feces. Your enormous mind literally vegetating by your own hand. I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is, it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work, and some people... Well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose.
    (Rick glowers at her silently)
    • While her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Rick is still no less a tearjerker, it is still somewhat cool that, even if Rick ignores her, Dr. Wong actually might have out-smarted Rick.
    • It's also awesome that someone, who almost certainly doesn't have Rick's raw staggering I.Q., has his number in terms of personality. She's basically told Rick the ultimate truth: that he isn't as complicated as he thinks he is, and that his refusal to try and change himself for the better is one of, if not the most significant source of his and his family's misery. Rick didn't even have a single retort to cut her down, because as a scientist, he simply cannot deny the truth. He can ignore it, or forget about it, but he can't deny or refute it.
  • Rick and his new ally JAGUAR taking down a sinister agency. Jaguar in particular is doing it to rescue his daughter while Rick just stumbles upon the organization in his pickle form.
  • Despite the episode putting her complete dependence on Rick on display, Beth does at least get one moment of defiance. When Rick denies turning into a pickle to avoid therapy, Beth calls his bluff and sabotages the blatant timed device to grant him the antidote to the transformation, essentially leaving him to stew as punishment.
  • Despite doing many evil things, including killing his own subordinates to cover his theft, the Agency Director manages to have his own moment of awesome. When he realizes he has been outwitted and is about to be killed in a giant explosion, he simply acknowledges his defeat, quietly says farewell to Rick and waits to die with a fair amount of dignity.

Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender

  • Rick killing Worldender while blackout drunk and setting up his test-of-character traps in Worldender's lair to one-up the Vindicators.
  • Morty throughout the whole adventure is basically an inversion of The Load, being the only one who figures out how to get past all of the traps and actually make a successful effort to do so, all the while being treated as The Load by the Vindicators and Rick, the former of whom are too busy infighting and proving Rick right to be the heroes that Morty looked up to.
  • When confronted with a neutrino bomb made by Rick while black-out drunk, Morty is more annoyed than anything at having to disarm it, noting there's a 40% chance it's just a dud.
    Rick: Wait, Morty how many—?
    Morty: Too many, Rick! Too many.
    • Morty now carries his own tools to deal with Rick's casual genocide.
  • Morty brutally (and constantly) calling out Rick in this episode for his asshole behavior. This line in particular:
    Rick: Thank you, I appreciate it, Morty. I knew you were sucking the Kool-Aid out of the Vindicator's dick, so the fact that I was right must be pretty hard to admit.
    Morty: Yeah, it is. You know why Rick? Because when you're an asshole, it doesn't matter how right you are, nobody wants to give you the satisfaction!
  • How does Rick destroy 2 turrets? By using a complex robot to plug their barrels and ammo deposits, so when they shoot at Rick, they fill up with their own ammo and explode violently. It's the high-tech equivalent to Finger in a Barrel, and Rick hops in front of the guns with his arms outstretched like a Looney Tunes character when he's ready for them to fire.

The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy

  • Morty giving Beth a harsh but needed speech on how her trying to please Rick is doing more harm than good.
    Morty: I tricked Rick into taking Dad on an adventure because I thought I could get a break from this kind of shit! But no! Like father like goddamned daughter! You wanna be like Rick!? Congratulations! You're just as arrogant and just as irresponsible! {...} Kissing Rick's ass isn't going to keep him around, Mom. But it will help you lose everyone else!
  • Rick calling Jerry out on the fact that his and Beth's marriage was doomed long before Rick moved in (granted, it's mitigated by earlier episodes showing Jerry's not wholly at fault.)
    Jerry: You self-righteous piece of shit! You took my family!
    Rick: I took your family!? Who took more when you shot 20 CC's of liquid dream killer into my daughter? She was Rick's daughter, Jerry! She had options!
    Snake: (while eating Jerry) Oof!
    Rick: That all ended because she felt sorry for you! (snatches an alien fly from the air and crushes it) You act like prey, but you're a predator! You use pity to lure in your victims! It's how you survive! I survive because I know everything, that snake survives because children wander off, and you survive because people think "Oh, this poor piece of shit! He never gets a break! I can't stand the deafening silent wails of his wilting soul! I guess I'll hire him, or marry him!"
  • Morty figures out to work Rick's tech on his own and...
    Morty: You made my sister cry, Ethan. You messed with her body image.
    Ethan: Look. Morty, I—
    Morty: Shhh. Careful Ethan. (Death Glare) Your s'more is burning... (Turns on the Morphizer)
  • Jerry gets one by earning Rick's respect. After two seasons of getting shit on it's quite an accomplishment.
  • Jerry deciding not to use his bruises to get pity from Beth and his kids. He actually took Rick's criticism to heart and takes a step towards improving himself.
  • Jerry gets another when Risotto Groupon has grabbed him and is taunting him by telling him that Jerry is only going to pretend to fight back so he can say that he did. Jerry responds by biting Risotto as hard as he can, causing Risotto to drop him.
  • When going through a security checkpoint Rick is found to have cybernetics and gets his intellect dampened, which reduces him to barely being able to speak and makes him incapable of negative emotion. Jerry trolls Rick while he's in this state and actually escapes consequences for antagonizing Rick.

Rest and Ricklaxation

  • The opening sequence where Rick and Morty work together to destroy an alien armada by blowing up the core of their mothership with a laser. Quickly delves into Tear Jerker territory when they have a complete breakdown afterwards, though...
  • Toxic Rick re-developing the laws of physics within the toxic environment, even though the place is a wasteland with no tools or resources, just toxic slime and monsters everywhere. Within days, he develops a faster-than-light interstellar communicator. His unhinged ranting has more than a kernel of truth to it:
    Toxic Rick: Guess who just discovered a new element?! Think you could do that, Morty? Think anyone but me could do that, ever, in a billion years?! You think if God existed, he could do it? The answer is NO. If God exists, it's fucking ME!
  • Toxic Rick and Healthy Rick fighting in the living room with all sorts of weapons and gadgets hidden throughout, such as Toxic Rick using a tiny furry critter that quickly matures into a killer beast that he sics on Healthy Rick, and a device that Healthy Rick uses to rebirth himself from Toxic Rick's corpse.
  • Healthy Rick using Toxic Rick's hidden love for Morty against him in order to get him to merge back with him.

The Ricklantis Mixup

  • The episode in general - the writers managed to create a distinctive, fleshed-out group of characters... who are all technically the same two characters, voiced by the same person proving Chuck Jones' point (as in Duck Amuck) that characterization in animation is something deeper and more invisible than mere appearance and voice. Justin Roiland's work in the episode shows his true depth of range playing multiple Ricks and Mortys, proving he can be a corrupt cop, ghetto kids, Rick as a Wide-Eyed Idealist, and a Doctor Doom/Lex Luthor style villain.
  • Against all odds and overwhelming opposition, a Morty manages to become the first democratically elected president of the Citadel by reaching out to the hearts and minds of Ricks and Mortys alike.
    • Then President Morty's true colors are revealed when he casually executes a powerful group of Ricks that claim he'll be their Puppet King and has their bodies ejected into space. He lampshades the idea of giving a sinister speech while having a drink, but then decides now is a time for action, not speeches. As the camera pans over the bodies of the Ricks and Mortys floating in space that he had killed or were killed by others throughout the episode, "For the Damaged Coda" by Blonde Redhead begins playing. Evil Morty has returned, and the Citadel is his.
      President/Evil Morty: This seems like a good time for a drink, and a cold, calculated speech with sinister overtones. A speech about politics. About order. Brotherhood. Power! But speeches are for campaigning. Now is the time for action.
    • His campaign is amazing because he more or less didn't have to do any special schemes. He took one look at the establishment after C-137 Rick toppled the Council and saw it as easy pickings and ran a competent, efficient, campaign and genuinely good public speaking skills, as well as undeniable insight into the situation of the Citadel to win.
    • It's even possible that the one thing that did go wrong with his campaign, his identity leaking, was intentional. A scorned employee learns of a sordid past, takes a shot, and President Morty 'miraculously' survives and ends up a lock for the presidency. It's hard to put anything past him, and engineering a Bullet Bump would be well within his means. Incredibly risky, but just as incredibly ingenious, impressive, and evil.

Morty's Mindblowers

  • After years of abuse, it's incredibly cathartic seeing Morty, finally sick of Rick's shit, cut loose and physically start attacking him.
    Morty: I fucking knew it, you piece of shit! Y-y-y-y-You're a fucking asshole, Rick!
    Rick: Morty, calm down! Just relax!
    Morty: No I'm not gonna fucking relax! Come here!
  • We get to see a number of Morty's small victories that Rick has erased from Morty's mind, including Morty defeating Rick at Checkers and correcting his rather extreme misunderstanding of the phrase "taken for granted." He also manages to get Rick to fall for a distraction while he investigates the red memories, and does so after barely a second of thought without putting in any real effort.
  • Summer not only realizing almost immediately what is going on when she sees Rick and Morty in the middle of a suicide pact but executing Rick's contingency plan to reverse the damage while casually finishing a popsicle. If only she'd remembered to follow the last step...

The ABC's of Beth

  • Morty is already familiar with Kiara's culture, and even casually greets her in her native language. Nice to see all of his travels with Rick have had some positive benefits.
  • Even if it was basically forced out of him, it's great to see Jerry owning up to his flaws to break up with Kiara.
  • The background fight between Kiara and the monster her kind hunts.
  • Rick killing Kiara's ex offscreen. Considering what their race has shown to be capable of, it's telling how casual Rick sounds when he brings it up.
    Rick: Lookin' out for ya, buddy.
  • This reply Summer gives to Beth when the latter starts "true crime bragging" and thinks Summer's generation has never been traumatized.
    Summer: Bitch, my generation gets traumatized for breakfast.
  • Summer and Morty not putting up with Jerry's Manchild shit and telling him he needs to break up with Kiara on his own.
  • Jerry, Summer, and Morty going hunting with Kiara. Not one is panicking or traumatized, they just go for the kill.
  • Even though it technically counts as a Start of Darkness, Beth finally coming to terms with herself is a grand thing to watch.
    [Horrified] "Oh my God, I'm my father." [Again, awed] "Oh my God, I'm my father!"
    [Bloody rampage ensues]
  • There's also a more subtle moment earlier in the episode when Beth, on the basis of very limited evidence, makes a very detailed, specific and Motor Mouth deduction that is immediately proven right. Yep. She's Rick's daughter, she is.
  • Even though he has gone nuts from his time in Froopyland, Tommy still has enough sense to rightfully call out Beth on her selfish and petty behavior, and demands an apology for what she did to him. Unfortunately, it doesn't go well for him in the end...
    Beth: Oh suck it up, Princess Incest! You fell into some honey.
    Tommy: Well, tends to happen when one is pushed into honey.
    Beth: I... respect your right to believe I've pushed you.
    Tommy: Oh, do I get to have that? Is my reality a like a little side of fries? A little Kwanzai you're willing to slide my way?
    Beth: Yes, because I'm focused on saving your father's life because I'm not petty piece of shit.
    Tommy: ...so then it should be pretty easy to say "sorry I pushed you."
    Beth: Real easy and not unnecessary since you coming home will see her dad's life whereas nothing is changed stroking your batshit crazy ego.
    Tommy: Sorry forgive me, I've been in Froopyland for quite a while: have apologies changed!?

The Rickchurian Mortydate

  • Morty demonstrates just how far he's come from Season 1: he considers hunting an alien pest in a secret underground tunnel in the White House to be just as boring as Rick does, he gives the President of the United States a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, telling him that he has no authority over them (calling him "Commander in Queef" in the process, making Rick laugh), and later he steals Rick's portal gun to hide his mother from Rick, as Beth suspects that she is a clone and becoming self-aware, and Rick may deem it necessary to kill her. He also stands his ground when Rick wants to skip out on the current universe to find a new one after becoming an enemy of the President, and refuses to go with him, forcing Rick to fix everything by masquerading as Fly Fishing Rick and offering the President help whenever asked.
  • Rick brokers a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Palestine in one day. Moreover, he does it purely out of spite, just to show up the President. He even names the agreement "The Pretty Obvious, If You Think About It Accords".
  • Rick's fight with the President. It involves mini-mechas with machine guns, brainwashed Tyke Bomb ninja children, impenetrable shield-bubbles, rocket launchers, hologram Rick clones, satellite lasers and an invisible SWAT team.
    • The fact that the President, whom Morty made fun of earlier for being a Non-Action Guy, was one of the few people to actually hold a pretty even match against Rick.
    • He also casually mentions having imprisoned Poseidon, god of the seas in Area 51.
  • The fact that the Smith family is looking to be happier with or without Rick's influence.
  • Jerry gets one when Rick finally gives up and admits that Jerry is better at being the patriarch of the family than he is. What makes it even more awesome is that while Rick often gets what he wants through manipulating his family to his will, Jerry manages to get his family back just by being himself.
    Rick: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You win, Jerry. You win! No amount of genius can stop your dumb mediocre vacuous roots from digging into everything and everyone around you and draining them of any ability to fend you off.
    Jerry: Well, it couldn't have been easy for you to say that. I appreciate it.

    Season 4 
Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat
  • Rick demonstrates how the death crystals can be used to outwit someone trying to kill you: First, he realizes he and Morty are about to be attacked by crystal poachers when his various uncertain deaths change to just one option: being shot in the back while he mines for the crystals; he ducks and pulls Morty to safety behind a rock. Then he figures out when the poachers are going to reload (giving him an opening to shoot them) based on when the crystal's death options change from "certain death when I peek out from behind this rock to shoot and get gunned down" back to "many uncertain deaths", and successfully uses this to kill all three poachers.
  • Even though it overlaps with Nightmare Fuel, something has to be said for the normally-wimpy Morty's battle against the bullies and then the cops. While he's using Rick's weapons and doing what he does through the guidance of the death crystal, he still has to act quickly to avoid being hurt or killed and proves to be a complete One-Man Army against them.
  • Holo-Rick gains physical form thanks to the ferrofluid, grows to giant size, and tries to kill Rick, Morty, and Wasp Rick. Though Holo-Rick knocks out the former two successfully, the latter quickly dispatches him by stinging him in the eyes and injecting it with larvae, which fill up his head and cause it to burst from the inside out.

The Old Man and the Seat

  • Crossing over with Funny, Morty and Jerry successfully disarming an intern (Who had a gun, can't stress that enough) before making their escape into the ship. All the while, their captor is conversing with his wife, fully aware of what's going on. Showing both how Morty has grown since Season 1, and how (when the moment calls for it) Jerry can be capable in a dangerous situation.
  • This episode demonstrates that Beth really is dedicated to being a better mom in her unrelenting pursuit to stop Summer from running off with her "True loves" courtesy of the app because all of Summer's possibly lovers are all too old for her. Beth even gets in a fight with Summer once she declares she will "Mother the shit out of Summer until Summer's 18."

Claw And Hoarder - Special Victims Morty

  • Morty becoming a badass spellcaster when they enter the dimension where magic is real, and Summer becoming a badass archer.
  • Rick trapping the Talking Cat to figure out exactly what his deal is. What makes this moment of inquiry stand out is that both Rick and Jerry seem to be on the same wavelength as tired of the Cat's crap, determined to get to the bottom of its nature and shutting down any attempt it has to weasel away.
    Talking Cat: (panicked) Look, you are overthinking it! The point of a talking cat is to have fun.
    Rick: I find the insinuation that that I can't ask questions and have fun condesending insulting. Do you find it condensending Jerry?
    Jerry: (With a scowl at the Cat) Yes.
    Talking Cat: Alright, I'm from outer space, happy?
    Jerry: No.
  • Whatever the past is of the Talking Cat, it's so disturbing that Rick begs Jerry not to view it, but Jerry insists. It immediately traumatizes him, but he insists on remembering because it's so bad that someone has to. Rick wipes his memory regardless, but Jerry being willing to risk his mental health like that for the sake of humanity is super impressive.
    • After Jerry says "someone has to remember", Rick says "someone will" as he's wiping Jerry's memory, implying he's still walking around with the memory of whatever the hell happened with the Talking Cat.

Rattlestar Ricklactica

  • Even if it's a situation he managed to get himself into, how Jerry handled being thrust into the open air, floating uncontrollably along, is impressive considering it's Jerry. First by weighing himself down enough with rainwater gathered in his pants so he could grab a tree and climb down, anchoring himself with mud and then a rock, and even when on the verge of giving in to admitting to Beth that he fucked up, finds the resolve to keep going by grabbing onto a passing airplane, and after his gravity returns to normal, gripping to the bottom by the edge of his fingernails until the plane comes crashing down.
    Jerry: I AM THE JESUS CHRIST OF CHRISTMAS!!!
  • How competent Beth and Summer are at slaughtering the time-travelling snakes almost certainly counts. Especially with Beth not asking questions about the snakes appearing, she simply grabs one of Rick's guns and starts blasting away.

Never Ricking Morty

  • A villainous example: up until now, Rick has managed to win most of the physical brawls he ends up in. Here, however, both the "Tickets Please" Guy and Story Lord manage to utterly curb-stomp him. He only defeats the former by causing their train car to undergo Continuous Decompression, and straight-up loses to the latter along with Morty and gets strapped into his machine.
  • Rick and Morty defeating Story Lord by doing something thing they would never really do: praying to Jesus Christ. It's a literal Deus ex Machina!

Promortyus

  • Summer's "toothpicking" actually ends up saving her from being possessed by facehuggers. She then manages to influence the entire Glorzo civilization into evolving to become a functional society, and becomes their Empress.
    • Since the Glorzo life-cycle is quickly laying an egg in their host, which kills them both, the fact that Summer immediately came up with the idea to convince them to industrialize to prevent the parasites from killing Rick and Morty is a testament to her quick thinking.
  • Rick and Morty going full Voltron/Mobile Suit Gundam, and using their awesome suits and BFS to curb-stomp the Glorzos who attack them.

Childrick of Mort

  • Summer's and Morty's Achievements in Ignorance of rebooting an alien spaceship, causing it to go out of control while they're tossed around helplessly...and somehow managing to fly it right into Reggie's brain and kill him in time to save Rick—and live to tell about it—all while high as kites.
  • Rick Vs Reggie. A no-holds-barred brawl between man and god in the middle of Space.
    • For those who'd like to see Rick taken down a peg, Reggie was winning the fight. He was already several times bigger than him and shrunk down to Rick's size at his request to make the fight even. While the fight itself was even initially, Rick was beaten bloody, Reggie barely had a scratch on him and he only switched back to giant form just to finish him off. He would have literally snapped Rick like a twig were it not for Morty and Summer crashing into his skull.
    • On that note, Morty and Summer killed a god by accident while high as hell.
  • Jerry is surprisingly successful in this episode. He is able to use his camping skills to successfully raise the "Unproductives" into a primitive but functioning society. Reggie the Zeus bestows magic powers onto them, which actually gives them the edge in their battle against Beth and the "productive" members of the society she built with Rick. When Reggie comes crashing back down onto Gaia's surface and Beth almost falls to her death, Jerry successfully rescues her and they make up; she denies him sex because his camping lifestyle has left him smelling terrible, but still sticks up for him and takes his side later when Rick insults him.

Star Mort: Rickturn of the Jerri

  • A villainous one goes to Tammy, who accurately calls out Rick's selfish apathy by informing him the new Galactic Federation doesn't give a shit about him. Specifically, they know Rick's not a threat to them so long as he's left alone and if they did conquer Earth, he'd abandon it and move to another universe. As far as they're concerned, he's not important.
  • Rick finishing off Tammy.
    Rick: You made me go to a wedding. (shoots her in the head) And you killed my best friend. (somewhat ashamed, to Summer) I should have said that one first.
  • Not to mention the poetic justice of Summer (who Tammy used to get close to Rick and cause all of the misery she caused) being the one to grab and break Tammy's knee, setting her up for Rick to finish the job.
  • Everything involving Rick and Phoenix Person's battle on the ship.
  • Morty and Summer destroying the ship’s laser by jamming it with Morty’s pants.
  • Jerry actually manages to save the day this time. Using the invisibility belt, he distracts Phoenix Person from murdering Rick, Beth and "clone" Beth by puppeteering Tammy's corpse — with just enough time for Beth to turn him off before he kills everyone.
  • Both Beths rejecting Rick's offer to see the deleted memory showing which of them is the original and which is the clone, because both of them are happy with their lives as they are, and neither of them needs his validation anymore. It's a very cathartic Calling the Old Man Out moment after being Well Done Daughter Gals for most of their lives.
    Beth: I'm sure you'd love for us to need that from you, but I don't care what's in that vial.
    Space Beth: Yeah, me neither. You're a piece of shit either way.
    Rick: So what after all this, you don't want to know the truth?!
    Space Beth: The truth is we have more important shit to do, like raise our kids and stamp out the Federation, neither of which seem like they want anything to do with you.
    Space Beth pretends to throw a punch at Rick, making him flinch, causing both Beths to walk away laughing.
  • Morty, unarmed and without pants, manages to kill two Gromflomites offscreen.

    Season 5 
Mort Dinner With Andre
  • We see just how adept Morty has become when the episode opens with him carrying a heavily wounded Rick back to the ship, then navigates the ship back to Earth through a closing portal while a giant monster chases them, and even scores a date with Jessica that motivates him to land the burning ship safely. Later, when he gets fed up with Hoovy's children firing on him just because he wants a bottle of wine to share with Jessica, he suits up with Rick's gear and proceeds to mow them down and blow up their castle before grabbing the wine.
    Morty: Okay, Narnia! Let’s go! Let’s fucking go!
  • Morty has none of it when Rick goes Ungrateful Bastard and tells him off for "touching the ocean". He says that he didn't even know that Rick had an archnemesis or was forbidden from messing with the oceans and Grandpa Rick should have told him if it was that important. It's a far cry from how Morty usually accepts the same amount of abuse and Rick or the narrative punishes him for questioning the "smartest guy in the universe". This time, he's proven right when telling Rick to just talk to Mr. Nimbus like a normal person and stop trying to pick fights with everyone. If Rick had done just that, he would have reached a peaceful solution. 
  • Most of Rick's nemesis go for the violent approach first and ask questions later. Or they're outsmarted. We see that Mr. Nimbus takes a different approach, more akin to the President of the United States. He's willing to renegotiate the treaty over dinner since Morty admitted that he didn't know about the treaty, and doesn't want to fight unless it's necessary.  It's only when Rick and Summer inadvertently reveal that they violated Sacred Hospitality to depower Mr. Nimbus that he goes on the offensive. We find out that he was holding back the whole time. 
  • Mr. Nimbus proves he’s worthy of being called Rick’s nemesis not just by calling out his assholish behavior, but also kicking Rick’s ass and getting him arrested with no repercussions whatsoever. This is a far cry from most of Rick’s enemies who end up either humiliated or dead.
    • Plus, seeing how Rick treated Morty like shit after saving their lives from their last adventure among other things, it can be cathartic for some viewers to see Rick gets his just desserts for being a dick.
  • To show that Mr. Nimbus is the better person— well fish-man— compared to Rick, he shows no hard feelings towards Beth, Jerry or Morty after learning about the deception. He saves Morty's life and keeps the invitation open for the Smith parents to join him in a threesome. Mr. Nimbus says that he respects people who stand up for themselves, as when Jerry mocked Rick for being afraid of a fish-man. 
  • The Hoovans are pretty impressive on their own. In just a single generation, they advance from a farmstead to a (relatively) advanced fortress. Then, once they get their hand on one of Rick's weapons, their technological advancement skyrockets, going to a futuristic society in a century or two, then evolves beyond the need for physical shape soon after.
  • A minor one, but on many occasions in past seasons, Jerry would usually say or try something that would be very cringe-worthy or downright embarrassing to his family, making him seem very insecure and pathetic; a loser basically. This episode does not display any of that and with him being in total agreement with Beth on Mr. Nimbus's offer for a threesome. Quite a positive spin for Jerry after everything he has been through, emotionally, mentally, and literally.
  • Jessica gets several in her first episode of actually being directly involved in an adventure. First, she's the first one to go on the offensive against Adam, the assassin from 'Narnia', by stabbing him in the breathing tube, killing him instantly. This causes her to be dragged into the portal and temporally frozen for what implies to be thousands of years. Rather than Go Mad from the Isolation while watching an entire civilization live and die, she achieves a state of enlightenment, learns to take greater agency in her life, and dumps Morty. She caps it all off by using her Character Development to shut down a creep.
    Creep: Hey, how's it going?

Mortyplicity

  • One for the writing team where they take the Earth!Beth vs Space!Beth situation from the finale and turns into an episode-long run of clones (sorry "Decoys") fighting and killing each other.
  • As his dying act, a Squid Decoy Jerry throws a live grenade at the feet of the Smith Family that had just killed him.
  • The final battle between the last two decoy families contains quite possibly Rick's best Blasphemous Boast yet.
    Decoy Rick #1: Fuck you! I-I'm real! I'm the smartest man in the universe!
    Decoy Rick #2: Probably not even wrong. But that's just it: I'm not a man. I'm God. You're just made in my image.

A Rickonvenient Mort

  • The "Tina-teers" are selfish, greedy bastards who plan to sell off Planetina as a slave, and Eddie intends to maim Morty so Planetina won't care about him. Big mistake. Morty manages to free himself, bite off Eddie's ring finger, then immolate him with his own ring. He then confronts the remaining Tina-teers and kills them by systematically stealing their rings and turning their own powers on them. Looks like all those adventures with Rick have sharpened him up something fierce.
    • He kills the final Tina-teer by mixing the fire and earth rings to consume the guy in a flow of lava that seems to be under Morty's control given how it looks to be shaping itself to perfectly leave his ring open to Morty.
    • Morty also kills the Arab the Tina-teers were going to sell Planetina to by knocking him into a glass case filled with baby seals, which tear him apart once they get free.
    • Unlike other times Morty has had to go it alone, this time he doesn't have access to Rick or his inventions. This time it was all Morty, taking control of a bad situation and turning it to his advantage through sheer determination.
  • Despite being a pretty depressing episode, the sight of Morty finally tearing into Beth for being an uptight shrew is pure Catharsis Factor.
  • After Rick breaks his promise of their party train being about no strings attached hookups Summer eventually has enough and takes Rick's ship to destroy the meteor that was going to destroy the final planet they stopped at. While Rick is furious he can't help but admit that it was a very "Rick" move of Summer to pull, giving his respect to her for it.
  • Though it's mostly a Tear Jerker, Morty breaking up with Planetina after she goes off the deep end. Until now, every relationship he's had was ended by circumstances outside his control. This time, after seeing that he and Planetina cannot be together, he is the one who makes the hard decision to end things, even though he still loves her. He knew that it would be painful, but it had to be done. That takes a lot of courage, and the fact that he breaks down shortly after doesn't take away from that.

Rickdependence Spray

  • As weird and gross as this episode is, it's still pretty damn awesome to see the CHUD's epic battle against the killer sperm and the Vegas entertainers also kicking ass despite their lack of combat experience.
  • As the presidents men are being overrun by the sperm, Summer, having been ignored for the entire episode and having her idea taken credit for by a man finally has enough and her Beth jump into action and hijack a sperm and ride it killing a bunch of other sperm.
    Summer: Let's Nancy Reagan this bitch!
  • Sticky(the sperm that Morty rescues from a rock)saving Rick and Morty from the sperm queen and killing her at the end.

Amortycan Grickfitti

  • After a failed attempt to get Rick's Ship to lose her virginity, the Changeformers mock her upon seeing that she is a ship with passengers and not also a Changeformer.
    Rick's Ship: You're right, assholes, here's my true form!
    (she sets all the Changeformers on fire before flying away with Morty, Summer, and Bruce)
    • The Car also rescues the kids in style after they get arrested by alien police.
    Rick's Ship: Blowing the place up was always an option. I just thought you guys would enjoy a less violent plan.
  • Morty and Summer refuse to use Bruce as The Scapegoat, recognizing that he didn't really do much and whatever happened was their own fault.
  • When Jerry discovers he was being used, he makes his displeasure very clear, starting with one demon who asked him about his dreams. And when the demon was ready to physically retaliate for the insult, Jerry, as opposed to backing down like he normally would, looked ready for a fight too before Rick intervened.
    Jerry: "Yeah, I dreamt I fucked your mother."
    • Jerry manages to get a number of good lines at Rick's expense in this episode:
    Jerry: "I'm not your pal. I'm your punchline."
    Jerry: "That's your solution. Humiliating me more?"
    • That last one actually prompts Rick to finally apologize to Jerry.
    • Jerry also calls out Beth for being in on it and acting weak-willed around her father again:
    Jerry: This was low, Rick, but I guess my wife can go even lower.
  • Some viewers felt like this episode was really calling out the fans who think themselves Rick and use "Jerry" as an insult for anyone they don't like, and truly respect how they managed to capture how truly fucking cringe the whole 'Uses a name as an insult' thing really is.

Rick & Morty's Thanksploitation Spectacular

  • This is a mixture of heartwarming as well, but kudos to Beth for standing up for her son after the President called Morty a bitch and a booger eater. Not only that, but she gives him and Rick an ultimatum to either put aside their differences and eat dinner with the family or, in her words, continue to argue at the corner bar.
  • Unlike in "The Rickchurian Mortydate", the President is suprisingly on the ball when figuring out Rick's plans. He saw through all the tricks Rick attempted to getting the pardon. Even Rick is flabbergasted when he got outsmarted by him.
  • Rick and Morty's wordless teamwork against FDR; Rick gives Morty a single instruction and Morty knows straightaway what to do.

Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion

  • When Beth tried to uses the giant incest baby as an excuse not to do a family activity together, Summer rightfully gave a rather scathing retort.
    Summer: Oh my god, we made a giant incest baby. Oh my god, you might be a clone. I exist cuz you guys failed to abort me. We get the family we get, not the family we want. And if you want to keep the one you got, get your asses into some anime spacesuits!!
    • How the creator made a sort-of pseudo-sequel/Dueling Works feel in the form of the anime short "Summer Meets God (Rick Meets Evil)".
  • Morty being the only one of his family to remain unaffected by the Go Tron Craze and nonetheless sticking by them.
  • Naruto and the Smith family saving Rick.

Rickternal Friendshine of the Rickless Mort

  • Birdperson's and Tammy's child is just minding her own business even when an adult alien aggressively approached her. It isn't until said alien slaps her food away does she beat the ever loving tar out of someone around four times her size. Pretty impressive for someone that should be around preschool age.

Forgetting Sarick Mortshall

  • The plot of the episode kicks off with the reveal that Morty makes it a habit to return to universes where Rick has wreaked havoc and fix everything he can. We see Morty foiling an assassination attempt, saving a flooded town, and stopping a giant lava monster, all without much difficulty.
  • Morty trapping Nick in an infinite portal by allowing a train to cut off his hand and putting it in the portal in Nick's leg, complete with a one-liner. It's like Morty has become a full-on badass this season.
    Nick: What the fuck did you just do?!
    Morty: Cut you out of my life. *drops the hand in the portal with the most "I'm done with this shit" look on his face.*

Rickmurai Jack

  • Rick and his two crows's adventures in the Cold Opening. There is even an anime style opening where they have their own companions.
  • Everything from when Rick goes with Morty to eat lunch with Evil Morty to the credits. Words do not even begin to describe it.
    • Rick curb-stomping the entirety of Evil Morty's guards with none of the damage.
    • One moment in particular is Rick, utterly wasted, easily killing every Rick that portals onto his driveway, aiming at the portal before it appears and shooting them in the head the moment they step out.
    • Rick suddenly invading the proto-citadel and destroying everybody and everything around him. Let's remember Ricks are the top dogs of their universes... and yet Rick C-137 defeats them so hard they end up kneeling and begging for mercy.
  • Morty insisting that Rick tell him the truth about his backstory and standing firm when Rick initially refuses to give him answers. It perfectly shows the lack of power imbalance between them.
  • Evil Morty finally putting The Plan into action is made of Crowning Moments of Awesome.
    • He pre-emptively countered every escape plan the other Ricks and their Mortys might attempt; he sabotages their portal gun fluid to open on dimensions full of death traps or monsters that come through kill them the second the portal opens, and he hijacks "Project Phoenix" so any resurrected clones of the two are rerouted into blenders that chews them up into bloody goo, which he uses to power his machine to destroy the Central Finite Curve. The only way Rick C-137 and his Morty escape is by ejecting part of the Citadel, and even that barely works since the Citadel self-destructs behind them and the chaos creates a black hole that almost consumes them.
    • Although Rick was critical to his plan, Evil Morty made sure to not get him involved in things until it was too late for Rick to stop him: after their initial encounter where he partially scanned Rick's memories, Evil Morty went on with his plan to take over the Citadel and began sabotaging it. He only brought Rick back into things when he absolutely needed him. In short, he invoked You Can't Thwart Stage One on Rick by making sure he didn't know there even was a "Stage One" to some evil plan, working behind the scenes covertly and never revealing himself until this episode.
    • Even when Rick assumes that "President Morty" is evil, he's able to subtly manipulate the conversation to keep it going while he scans Rick's memories. While Rick points out that they haven't been there long enough to scan his entire brain, Evil Morty blindsides him with the reminder his brain was already partially scanned a long time ago, and he just had to complete the last few pieces.
    • As smart, resourceful, and Crazy-Prepared as all the Ricks were, they were destroyed by a Morty, a single Morty who was able to take control of the Citadel and destroy it and all it stood for, and take out countless Ricks and Mortys with it. And few, if any of them, realized what he plans was or that he was even plotting against them, since he carefully cultivated the image of a Villain with Good Publicity to placate them. In the end, The Bad Guy Wins, but he does it in such spectacular fashion that you cheer for him.
    • To abridge everything Evil Morty accomplishes in a single episode, in one fell swoop: he made Rick and Morty play seamlessly into his hands, he pulled the veil off with finality on Rick's true nature, his origins and what he's really done to get where he is, he irreparably fractured the fleeting trust between them with solid proof whereas until now Morty's only been able to have suspicions, he brought down the Citadel that had long since maintained the Ricks' absolute authority, he killed every last alternate Rick and Morty who were on the Citadel with no chance for escape, he broke the Central Finite Curve which has provided the existential grounding for the series's entire premise, and he left Rick and Morty stranded in the depths of space with no portal fluid to get home. To cap it all off, he gets exactly what he wanted: to enter the greater multiverse beyond. He escapes scot-free, got everything he wanted, suffered not the slightest repercussions, and left the entire series's foundations shattered behind him. The bad guy doesn't just win, he wins in a way that cannot be undone and ensured everyone else's loss.

    Season 6 
Solaricks
  • After the big Reveal in the Season 5 finale, fans would be excused if it would be a while before the "Rick who killed Main Ricks's family" storyline would be revisited again. WRONG. After his screw-up causes everyone to return to their home universe, Rick realizes that the broken portal tech means "Weird Rick" the man he's been hunting for decades is now trapped. After grabbing Morty, Rick tracks him down to his hideout...which is filled to the brim with traps, a (pre-recorded) message meant to taunt Main!Rick, and set to explode. His comment in the end implies he built the place specifically for the man that's been hunting him all these decades.
  • Morty finds his Jerry is still alive back in the cronenberged dimension now a wandering hermit. He thinks they can just forget about the apocalypse he caused but Hermit Jerry won’t. He brutally rips into Morty for his callousness and bailing on his own dimension twice. The kid is left in tears but it is so satisfying for anyone who thinks Morty should’ve faced the consequences for abandoning his own family. Don’t forget, he’s the one who caused the cronenberg dimension in the first place all because he couldn’t just man up and ask Jessica to the dance.
  • The Sanchez-Smith women (Summer, Beth, and Space Beth) travel to the Citadel to create a beacon to allow Rick, Morty, and Jerry to get home. Summer implies that she regularly does work for him in exchange for cool stuff like gloves that give her "Wolverine claws" (though technically being a woman with two claws means she's more like X-23).
    • Following the two Beths have a "sitcom fight" for most of the episode, Summer calls out them both for their motivations for their actions: Space Beth for being "Rick-like", aloof and uncaring about having an adventure together, while Mom Beth is trying to be "cool" out of fear of being supplanted by Space Beth. This actually has them have a cordial conversation with the two getting along better and Space Beth asking for permission to visit occasionally which is appreciated.
  • The episode continues to show that Jerry can be a badass by having the Main Jerry telling off his original "Season 2" family after seeing that they have stagnated in their development, while the family he has been with has grown and gotten closer, declaring that he's become an interdimensional traveler and they can kiss his ass. And right before this, he displays a startling bit of introspection by admitting to his version of Beth that being divorced for a season turned out to be a good thing.
    • And then Cronenburg!Jerry shows it by getting the drop on Rick Prime, by flawlessly going from his typical harmless, awkward Jerry self to Cronenburg Killer Jerry in an instant and slitting his damn throat in the time it takes him to blink. This would've killed even a highly trained "normal person", but this is the "Rickest Rick" we're talking about, so of course he has a counter-measure that allows him to quite literally laugh it off, but it really did hurt him for real, he needed to heal from it. And this actually impresses Rick Prime enough that he takes a moment to genuinely call him "badass" for it.

Rick: A Mort Well Lived

  • Rick shows his genius prowess quite well in the A plot, by singlehandedly pushing the world in the "Roy: A Life Well lived" video game into the space age as Roy within about a decade.
  • Throughout the entire episode as a B plot, Summer is "doing a Die Hard" while terrorists have taken over Blitz And Chitz, wounding the leader and killing several of the terrorists. This is all done without support, as Rick and Morty are out of commission for most of the episode. Funnily enough the terrorists more or less base their entire operation on the movie and have tactics to defend against what John McClane would do, which don't work on Summer as she has never even seen the movie.

Bethic Twinstinct

  • Jerry showing some major growth after Space Beth reveals that she had sex with Earth Beth and they both loved it. While Jerry's initial response is to curl up into his "pillbug defense" that Rick installed for him, he later comes out of it on his own and calls out the Beths for their behavior. While he admits he shouldn't have used his Thanksgiving speech to say he'd kill himself if something were to happen to his marriage and apologizes for it, he very clearly makes it known to both Beths that they shouldn't have lied to him. He's not upset that the Beths slept together, he's upset they didn't keep him in the loop. This leads into Jerry bluntly goading the Beths into having sex while he watches, which is implied to turn into a threesome. Jerry not only held his ground for being treated poorly, he successfully played with Beth's superiority complex to have both of them make love while he watched which, to make things better, he joins in on later.

Night Family

  • Night!Summer manages to say one step ahead of the Sanchezes, seeing through their plan and getting them right where she wants them.
  • Jerry manages to single-handedly saved the Sachez family thanks to his friendship with Night!Jerry, sneaking him a note asking for help. Even more impressive, he did this completely unprompted.
  • The car chase against the Night Family, with Beth perfectly drifting in an ordinary station wagon.
  • And later, when one of the Night Family's robots attacks the car, Rick jumps from the hood of the police car that Summer's driving over to the roof of the family car, shooting and destroying the robot with a shotgun, in midair, with just one hand.

Final Desmithation

  • Rick has a lot of awesome moments in this action-filled episode, such as taking on and nearly killing every single person in a meth ring and killing a ton of armed guards, the latter of which received a power-up in the form of altering their probability to the point of having superpowers... Including immortality.
  • The primary antagonist of this episode is functionally immortal due to how their Fortune works, as in as long as they don't achieve it, they cannot be killed in any way. As she reveals hers is to be the most successful businesswoman in the world, in the span of about 10 seconds, Rick hacks into the Goldman Sachs bank account and transfers over all their funds to her company, making her the most successful businesswoman on the planet and foiling any and all plans she had. To add insult to injury, as she angrily yells at him for another second or two, he undoes it and transfers over all her money as well.

Juricksic Mort

  • The Dinosaurs turning Earth into a utopia, no strings attached, fixing all the world's problems that humans never could and establishing themselves as benevolent gods.
  • In the end, the Dinosaurs effortlessly desecrate Evil Morty's Villainous Legacy by patching up the rift left by his escape into the Multiverse, enabling Rick to fix the portal gun once and for all.
  • And for that matter, the grand return of the portal gun. Rick celebrates this by bringing Morty to Boob World off-screen.

Full Meta Jackrick

  • Rick appears to be the only one to not be fooled by Previous Leon's hijacking of one's life like others do, which includes Morty, the rest of the family and Jesus Christ.
  • A villanous moment of awesome, but the Story Lord manages to get himself out of his fictional universe into meta-reality with a literal Deus ex Machina.
  • Morty is the one who saves himself and Rick from Mr. Twist after the latter captures them with a Smash Cut grenade; while tied to a chair, he lunges at Mr. Twist in a seemingly-failed attempt to attack him and falls to the floor...only to reveal that he succeeded in his real goal of using his teeth to pull the pin on a smash cut grenade on Mr. Twist's belt, which detonates and cuts to the next scene where Rick and Morty have escaped.

Analyze Piss

  • Pissmaster learns the hard way that you do not make sexualized comments about Summer in front of Jerry. While the ensuing fight isn't exactly spectacular, the fact that a nobody like Jerry was able to break the spirit of a supervillain loosely based on the Green Goblin is a massive leap in character development for what was once a textbook example of milquetoast.
    Summer: That's my dad! That's my fucking dad!
    • What's more, unlike previous times where Jerry tried to put up a physical fight only to immediately back down and cower when he was inevitably overpowered, this time, despite being knocked to the ground several times, he absolutely refuses to stay down, pushing himself right back up every time until he defeats Pissmaster. He then insists that the latter say sorry to Summer for what he said about her.
    • Even better, despite the fact that Jerry eventually gains Acquired Situational Narcissism after becoming a hero, gaining fame and recognition was not an ulterior motive to his actions; he was fighting for entirely the right reasons, as a selfless Papa Wolf determined to stick up for his daughter, and doesn't even look up and notice his family or the other neighbors observing the skirmish until after he's won.
    • Morty also gets a quick moment when he silently prevents his mom from attempting to intervene, in favor of giving his dad a chance to handle things on his own.
  • Jerry using Rick's suit to harness the orb's power and easily take down the entire planet hosting the various Space Hitlers. Though this might have been a lot less awesome if there were other, innocent people living there (which Jerry lampshades), the fact that there aren't means that Jerry just destroyed some of the most evil leaders in the galaxy with minimal effort and no loss of innocent life.
  • While Rick deserves credit for actually going to Dr. Wong of his own volition, Dr. Wong continues her trend of absolutely having Rick’s number. When he seems reluctant to follow her advice, she frames it in terms he’ll follow: if he follows the advice, and she’s wrong, that’s empirical evidence that her “racket”, as he puts it, is fake. Not bad for someone who’s talked to Rick all of three times.

A Rick in King Mortur's Mort

  • In regards to Rick's far kinder behavior to Morty in this episode:
    • Morty insults Rick, does something Rick told him not to at least partly to spite him, and ends up in over his head for it. In previous seasons (3 and 4 especially), Rick would have never let Morty hear the end of this, possibly even setting up a huge revenge scheme to teach him a lesson. This time, though, continuing the running theme of Rick genuinely trying to be a better person in Season 6, he uses this opportunity to reflect on his issues, decides to correct his behavior and be a more supportive grandfather to Morty, and actually follows through on it—no conditions, no "I told you so", no twist of any kind—showing a level of growth that early seasons asserted that Rick wasn't capable of.
    • It's a small moment for Morty to a lesser extent, but he is having none of Rick's usual sour attitude at the beginning of the episode and doesn't hesitate to call him out on it. And in a testament to how well he's served as Rick's Morality Pet in the last couple of seasons, it works, and prompts Rick's aforementioned efforts to improve.
  • Rick decides to be more helpful and supportive to Morty in this episode, and actually does help out a lot: he gives Morty an AI sword he made with Blade moves that helps him win a duel, builds three fake penises for Morty to use in the "Stem Stumping" ceremony (though they're Out-Gambitted on that one), and has a "vat of acid" trick ready to go as a backup plan for them to fake their deaths, which works just as planned.
  • Morty initially suggests abandoning their current universe when the Solar War gets out of hand, but when Rick encourages him to stay and fix things and promises to help, he agrees. He's willing to offer to go through with cutting off his penis to get the Knights of the Sun to come back (even if he's quick to take Rick up on finding ways to avoid this), and when everything else fails and they're forced to fake committing a sacrifice by jumping into the Sun, Morty doesn't complain about using the "fake vat of acid" trick, which he'd previously scorned, to do so. All of which prompts Rick to tell Morty that he's proud of him for trying to solve his own mess.
  • Special Agent Mongo Bongo in The Stinger rescues the sentient hotdogs seen in the cold open of this episode, who were revealed to be victims of illegal trafficking. even goes further and rescues some more after hunting down one of the people responsible, and finally frees the hotdogs.

Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation

  • Morty and President Curtis pilot a super-fast drill to intercept the lightsaber that Morty dropped through the Earth. The President lunges for it but misses, only for Morty to successfully grab it and save the day.
  • Continuing the theme of the previous episode: Morty caused the problem again, but this time, doesn't even consider abandoning this reality for another one, and while he does receive some help, he's the one who solves the problem by catching the lightsaber. It contrasts him neatly with Curtis, who creates the exact same crisis again later, but rather than owning up to it or trying to stop it, he pins the blame on Morty and launches himself into space to save his own life and let the Earth perish.
  • The Smiths learn with the rest of the world that Earth is going to blow up because the lightsaber is once again heading to the core (after Curtis dropped it), and they don't have the drill stop it because the government took it and Rick (who helped build the previous one) isn't around. Summer gets the idea of reviving Rickbot to help them. Though their actions afterwards are an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, it works, and they save the planet once again.
  • Morty (along with Rickbot) bursting into the President's White House spaceship with an awesome one-liner, and proceeds to use his lightsaber to easily cut through all of the drones and robots that the President sends after them, handily defeating the same guy who, with his White House technology, gave Rick some trouble three seasons ago.
    Morty: Hey, Mr. P.! Drop something?!

    Season 7 
The Jerrick Trap
  • Unnerving as they might be, Jerricky is a powerful fighter whose multiple arms and gadgets makes mince meat out of the alien mob.

Air Force Wong

  • While needing her to clean up the mess Rick accidentally enabled, Unity manages to unleash her hordes to overpower the president's new hive mind in less than a day.

Unmortricken

Rise of the Numericons: the Movie

  • Magma T manages to do what he promised to do to 8: shoot an energy gun sideways into his dick.

Mort: Ragnarick

  • Bigfoot manages to pretend to mourn rick so to get Morty to open the blast shield and kill him.
  • As smart and technically savvy as he is, the hard truth of the matter is that Rick, Morty and Bigfoot cannot defeat The Pope who has infinite energy to throw at them.

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