Rick Sanchez is the sort of person who thinks being smart is worse than being evil, which pretty much means his deeds are a lot worse than the usual evils of mankind. Of course, for Rick, everything is a grey area, meaning evil is subjective to him. As such, no person or being in the universe is exempted from Rick’s bad and abusive behavior– not even his own family.
While Morty usually takes the brunt of Rick’s worst actions, Summer, Beth, and Jerry– especially Jerry have had their fair share. Rick has done many inexcusable things to the Smith family; some amount to fun adventures and results in family bonding (regardless of how dangerous they are) while others are just plain deplorable in hindsight. Here are 10 examples of Rick being the worst grandfather ever for the Smiths.
ABANDONED BETH
It’s where it all began. Rick and Morty never really dedicated an episode for this particular background story but this simple predicament essentially led to Morty and many other people being taken advantage of by Rick. Apparently, Rick abandoned Beth and her mother during the latter’s childhood, exacting a heavy toll on Beth’s psyche.
The result is Beth failing to be a decent human being where she sometimes shared her father’s psychotic tendencies. Moreover, Beth ended up with Jerry because of the abandonment issues and both of them “accidentally” conceived Summer and had to get married despite their incompatibility. Rick knows this and he usually takes advantage of Beth’s disposition.
CAUSED BETH AND JERRY’S DIVORCE
Rick only returned to Beth years later after she had already settled with Jerry and had two kids. As we all know, nothing is ever a coincidence when Rick suddenly just appears. Turns out his plan all along was to manipulate Beth into getting a divorce with Jerry.
This was done regardless of how it would affect Morty and the whole family, which it did. It took Rick more than two seasons to get his daughter to divorce Jerry all because he regards Jerry as a lower form of human life due to his “below average” intelligence. That, or maybe he’s just being too diabolically overprotective of Beth.
TOOK OVER THE FAMILY
Another viable reason why Rick wanted Jerry out of the picture was that he wanted full control. With Jerry out, Rick essentially had a free pass to grab and use Morty for any shady business he wants without anyone protesting. Of course, Rick did also take over the Smith family after Jerry’s exit, further feeding on Beth’s insecurities and psychological issues.
Then there’s the reason that Rick himself declared on why he took over the family: he merely wanted a taste of that phased-out Mulan McNugget Szechuan sauce. He went through all the trouble of putting his grandkids in constant danger, waging war against the Galactic Federation, killing the Council of Ricks, and destroying his family, all for that Szechuan sauce.
NEEDLESSLY MEAN BEHAVIOR
Of course, let’s not forget one of Rick’s most constant displays of transgressions against the whole Smith family: his intentionally mean behavior. This includes everything from the gross disrespect, verbal abuse, derogatory terms, and offensive deconstruction of any abstract human concept which usually offers a blanket of mental comfort for most human beings.
Rick usually makes it his mission to demoralize, disillusion, and sadden everyone in his family and he does it all casually. Morty tends to receive the worst insults but lately, Jerry has been a hot target for many of Rick’s spiteful actions and decisions.
HARMED JERRY
Apart from causing Jerry great emotional and mental pain due to the divorce, he’s also experienced physical pain thanks to Rick’s intentions. The first notable physical harm which came to Jerry because of Rick was the food poisoning during the “Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” episode.
There, Rick stored strong mutant bacteria in a Cherry Garcia ice cream. Jerry ate it and had to undergo treatment at an intergalactic hospital where his sex organ even got threatened to be removed. In another episode, called “The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy,” Rick used Jerry as a bait where he also nearly died.
PLANNED TO KILL JERRY
As if causing life-threatening harm to Jerry wasn’t enough, Rick also planned to actually kill Jerry at one point during the show. This happened during the “Rickchurian Mortydate” episode where Jerry and Beth actually got back together again after quite some time apart.
Rick, feeling defeated and dejected, came up with a rather simple plan compared to what he usually concocts: shoot and kill Jerry, apparently, that’s the only thing that he hasn’t tried yet. However, upon confronting the whole family, Beth stood up to Rick for the first time whereupon Rick finally conceded to Jerry.
MORTY REPLACEMENT VOUCHER
Rick, despite how toxic he may be, actually cares much for Morty. Still, he does consider his attachment with Morty or any other member of the Smith family as toxic. That’s why he can still be callous when it comes to his grandson and even fully accepts the fact that he might lose Morty in an adventure at any time.
That brings us to another wicked way of Rick-think, which is an insurance for Morty. Rick is basically given a free replacement voucher as a reward. This was revealed in “Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind.” Needless to say, Morty is very much expendable and replaceable with another one, regardless of how his parents think or feel, family be damned.
BROUGHT IN SPACE PARASITES
One of the worst things Rick did to the whole household was accidentally bringing in parasites who implant fake memories to pose as family members before they take over the world in “Total Rickall.” Yes, it was confirmed that it was Rick who brought them in despite him diverting the attention to Summer for a contagious pink eye infection.
While that episode sounded like a lot of fun for the whole family since it involved shooting aliens and lots of bonding, there were many moments where the Smiths could have killed one another based on suspicion alone. Plus, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if only Rick knew to disinfect. Thankfully, the only casualty was Mr. Poopybutthole and his trust for Beth.
STOLE ANOTHER REALITY
You know what’s messed up? The Rick and Morty we’re watching right now are merely squatters from another dimension. The two of them merely stole that dimension and they were originally from dimension C-137 which got practically destroyed (we’ll talk about that later).
Basically, the Smiths of the replacement dimension were interacting and living not with the real Rick and Morty of their dimension since those two died. Morty even revealed this fact to Summer though he never disclosed it to his parents. Meanwhile, Rick doesn’t mind nor does he care; for all we know, dimension C-137 was not even where he originally came from.
CRONENBERG APOCALYPSE
Speaking of Earth C-137, Rick managed to destroy it inadvertently thanks to Morty’s puberty urges. In “Rick Potion,” Morty wanted Rick to make Jessica fall in love with him, so he made him a potion. This potion ended up ruining all of mankind and led to everyone except for the Smiths and Rick turning into a Cronenberg being.
Rick probably could have fixed it, but it seems he was too lazy so he just stole another dimension for him and Morty to live in. Too bad the same cannot be said for Summer, Beth, and Jerry in C-137; all three of them were left behind to live in the madness of the Cronenberg apocalypse. Funny thing is, that matters and it also doesn’t at the same time due to the infinite universes, pick your poison.
