The 2013 science fiction cartoon series “Rick and Morty” made its debut on Adult Swim. Initially a crass parody of Doc Brown and Marty McFly from “Back to the Future,” Rick and Morty quickly grew to become their own uniquely relatable characters. The firing of co-creator Justin Roiland, due to allegations of serious social misconduct, left many fans wondering about the future status of the program. Adult Swim, producer of the show, quickly announced that Roiland would be replaced, and the show would go on without him. “Rick and Morty’s” seventh season is set to air in September 2023 and our list of the top five best “Rick and Morty” episodes could be a useful primer for new fans looking to get into the show as well as long-time fans wanting to revisit their old favorites.
“Rick and Morty’s” early seasons relied on vulgarity and shock humor for laughs, but later seasons would trade this in for thoughtful writing about mental anguish. At face value, this odd combination might not seem possible, but as viewers get to know Rick Sanchez, they learn about a very talented man who is often his own worst enemy. In the context of the show, Rick is the smartest man in the universe and creator of a portal gun that lets him travel the multiverse. At first, audiences are led to believe that his only goal in trans-dimensional travels are exotic drugs and sexual deviancy. As his narrative progresses, it is instead revealed that the show’s primary version of Rick Sanchez, typically referred to as C-137, once actively hunted down Ricks from other dimensions seeking the Rick that caused the death of his wife and daughter. Rick is a haunted, emotionally broken man, that lives with a multi-dimensional copy of his dead daughter’s family, the Smiths.
It is from the Smith family that audiences are introduced to Morty. He is an awkward 14-year old at the start of the show that is suddenly whisked away on wild adventures by his crazy, and until recently, absent grandfather. Morty’s mother Beth, cringe-inducing dad Jerry, and kick-ass sister Summer round out the Smith branch of Rick’s family tree. Morty is a typical teen boy: self-righteous, whiny, and a bit of a pervert. Despite the unflattering descriptions, Rick and Morty are somehow entirely relatable characters. In episode eight of season one titled, “Rixty Minutes,” Morty says “Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV.” This line sums up the humor of “Rick and Morty” as well as the show’s indelible appeal to its target millennial and Generation Z audiences.
The huge popularity of the show continues today, and our list of the top five best “Rick and Morty” episodes contains some true gems of the series. Our sources were vital in establishing the rank for the most memorable moments in this beloved cartoon. Did we miss out on one of the best? Let us know your favorite episodes in the comments below!
The List: Best “Rick and Morty” Episodes, According to Fans
1. “Total Rickall” Season 2, Episode 4
Often cited as the best in show, “Total Rickall” is an absurd parade of outlandish characters created by a mind-eating parasite. Included in the bunch are a hamurai, an Amish cyborg, and of course Mr. Poopybutthole. GameRant explains this episode in greater detail, “Each new character that shows up is more preposterous than the last, yet there’s never a point where it stops being funny. That it’s ultimately their terrible treatment of each other that saves the Smith family is a great and unexpected twist, while the revelation that Mr. Poopybutthole was real all along serves as the perfect punchline to the episode’s peculiar plot.”
The Smith family stepped in something in this #RickandMorty ep. #TotalRickall, as psychic parasites that spread by infecting happy memories threaten Earth. We talk catchphrases, complicated Nintendo scams, and raw Thomas the Tank Engine raps.https://t.co/HwsUkjXH4S pic.twitter.com/nnwvWRcHE9
— Bald Move (@BaldMove) August 23, 2019
“‘Total Rickall’ truly captures everything that makes ‘Rick and Morty’ great. Its premise is ridiculously clever, with the Smith household invaded by an alien parasite that takes root in the hosts’ memories. It features a terrific slate of one-off side characters, from Hamurai to Sleepy Gary to Photography Raptor. And it quickly veers from amusement to crushing emotional drama as the Smiths feel the full impact of their memories being torn to shreds. But compared to Mr. Poopybutthole, they got off light,” fondly relates IGN.
“Whether you watch it on its own or in the context of the show, no other ‘Rick and Morty’ episode distills what the show does best better than this memory-induced free-for-all. Rick, surrounded ‘Where’s Waldo’ style by a battalion of imaginary creatures waving at the audience is a textbook example of the show overflowing with so much detail that one viewing is never going to be enough,” raves IndieWire.
2. “Pickle Rick” Season 3, Episode 3
“I’m Pickle Riiiiiiiiiick!” is the unlikely catch phrase of this episode. Rick transforms himself into a pickled cucumber to avoid family therapy, but he quickly learns that he can’t avoid his problems forever. Collider writes “Little did we know that ‘Pickle Rick’ would actually be one of the heaviest and most insightful episodes of ‘Rick and Morty’ ever made. The pickle conceit is executed brilliantly, using physical comedy to really dial into the laughs that can be drawn from Rick turning himself into a pickle… ‘Pickle Rick’ is as much about mental health—and the stigma of mental health issues—as it is about Rick going on a murderous [rampage] as a pickle, and that’s a pretty perfect encapsulation of what ‘Rick and Morty,’ at its very best, can be.”
/Film adds: “Rick’s gruesome journey is just as meaningful as the destination: the sofa where Rick and the Smith family receive an epic talk from their therapist, who dissects Rick’s reluctance to repair his relationships. Therapy is Rick’s worst nightmare because an honest conversation will force him to dig into the vinegary innards of his denial. Given that Rick is a man who witnesses — and often instigates — death on a daily basis, perhaps it’s the idea of non-lethal normalcy that frightens him so badly.”
“If this Season 3 episode merely followed Rick from pickle to rat exoskeleton demigod, it would be top tier. Even if it stopped with Rick’s faceoff against Jaguar, it would still be iconic. But ‘Pickle Rick’ just keeps giving, only wrapping things up after Dr. Wong (Susan Sarandon) gives Rick a full therapist-approved beatdown. This is one of those rare episodes of television that’s so sharply insightful that it forces you to look at yourself,” writes Decider.
3. “Rickmurai Jack” Season 5, Episode 10
The title of this episode refers to another Adult Swim classic, Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Samurai Jack.” This episode explores Rick’s co-dependance with Morty and how toxic it had become for both characters. Moreover, it features a sharply-written anime parody called “Rick and Two Crows.” Gaming Gorilla says, “The emotional development of the characters gets more airtime than usual, although that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of carnage and death liberally interspersed throughout the episode. It concludes the storyline which began in ‘Forgetting Sarick Mortshall’ nicely, leaving fans of the show eagerly anticipating new episodes to come.”
The Post adds, “‘Rickmurai Jack’ is arguably the best episode in the entire series because of its thrilling storytelling. It starts with Rick fully accepting his new crow sidekicks, using them as a replacement for Morty. However, Morty still wants to be Rick’s sidekick, and emotionally blackmails him to join Morty once again. However, the blackmail required Morty to use a serum that he got from a citadel full of alternative universe Ricks. This citadel is full of plot points and suspense, more so than any other episode in the series.
CBR also chimes in with a description of this episode’s unlikely pathos: “‘Rickmurai Jack’ has the most impressive season finale cliffhanger in ‘Rick & Morty,’ which involves Evil Morty watching all universes in the Central Finite Curve before stepping through a gold portal. The post-credit-scene is quite emotional, too, as it involves Mr. Poopybutthole as he laments about the failure of his relationship after losing his job. The moment is definitely one that many can relate to, and it’s made even better by Mr. Poopybutthole advising viewers to always care for those that mean everything to them.”
4. “The Vat of Acid Episode” Season 4, Episode 8
This existential episode breaks Morty’s character down by having him find true love only to destroy it as a result of his own hubris. Rick is particularly cruel in this episode, allowing Morty to learn very hard lessons about himself. In the end, rather than being angry at Rick, Morty accepts his own culpability in the chain of events. Decider ranks this episode as number one, “Typically, this show’s unflinching criticism focuses on one character’s flaws per episode. Not the case with this Season 4 gem, which dives into the depths of Rick’s pettiness and Morty’s secret depravity. It all culminates in a near-perfect episode of television. If you want to introduce someone to this wild show, this is the episode that will hook them.”
“‘The Vat Of Acid Episode’ sees Morty criticize Rick’s escape plan and then goading his grandfather into creating a save point button that allows Morty to rewind time. Just as Rick had hoped though, the device ends up causing Morty more pain than pleasure and ultimately leads to Morty having to concede that Rick’s earlier idea wasn’t terrible. The lengths that Rick is willing to go to in order to prove a point are insane and show that while the Smith family may have changed, Rick remains very much the same,” according to GameRant.
“Featuring alien gangsters and lots of double-crossing plot twists, the episode won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 2020, and for good reason. The episode unravels at breakneck speed, with Rick throwing Morty into an existential crisis yet again, mostly because he finds it amusing. ‘The Vat of Acid Episode’ shows Rick at his most demented, and the jokes are deliciously dark and twisted throughout,” claims Gaming Gorilla.
5. “Rattlestar Ricklactica” Season 4, Episode 5
Early on in the show’s run co-creator Dan Harmon stated that although “Rick and Morty” was inspired by “Back to the Future” there would be no time travel owing in part to the show’s focus on dimension-hopping. This went out the window with this one-of-a-kind time travel episode. Den of Geek ranks “Rattlestar Ricklactica” as the best of all. Why? “This episode is number one because it’s almost impossible to watch it and not have a good time. Between Morty’s guilt creating snake Terminators and a convoluted timeline, no one believing in Jerry’s ability to put up lights on his own or wear shoes like a normal person, the holiday vibes, and the music, this episode has almost everything you could ask for.”
“After killing a snake in space, Morty tries to replace it with a random Earth snake, thereby triggering a paradox full of snake time travel, snake Terminators, and snake Hitler. Roiland and Harmon have long said that they won’t do time travel episodes because time travel never makes any sense. Over the course of 22 glorious minutes, this episode proves them right,” offers Decider.
Collider also states, “This is an incredibly high concept episode, with stretches playing out entirely on a snake planet with snake characters, and it’s mostly pretty great. Like some ‘Rick and Morty’ episodes it loses the plot a little bit towards the end, but more often than not it’s inspired. The B story with Jerry losing a gravity shoe and spending the entire episode refusing to ask for help is wonderfully ridiculous, with Chris Parnell once again proving he’s this show’s secret weapon.”
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