What Defines the Rickest Rick and the Mortiest Morty?

 I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since 2015, and I want to cover why, in Season 1 Episode 11 (aka the most lore-heavy episode of the entire show, “Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind”); Rick refers to himself as the “Rickest Rick” and Morty as “the Moritest Morty”. 

The most obvious reason is that Rick, our Rick (that is, the Rick originating from earth dimension C-137) is one of the most, if not the most active rebel against the Council of Ricks, and because Ricks naturally hate governments, this would mean he is naturally more Rick-like than other Ricks. 

In “the Rickshank Redemption”, one of the six leaders of the Council of Ricks (dubbed “Riq IV” by the creators) tells C-137 Rick that he is irrational, passionate and loving towards his family after capturing Summer and holding her hostage. Interestingly, this is in sharp contrast to Evil Rick, who tells Rick in “Close Rick-counters” that Rick’s don’t care about Morty’s. 

Riq IV is the very same Rick who told C-137 Rick that he is “the rogue” within the “central finite curve”, an assumed setting that has yet to be elaborated upon. 

All of these imply that the thing that separates our Rick (Rick of C-137 dimension) from other Ricks is his tendency to care about others. This is shown in his interactions with his other family members:

• The fact that he shot King Jellybean out of spite and anger when Jellybean tried to rape Morty. 

• One of his fondest memories are of him holding a baby Morty, which we see in “Close Rick-counters”, and Morty appears very frequently in his memory reel when Evil Rick searches through his most prized memories. In fact, Morty, as a whole, is essentially the second half of his fondest memory reel. This is also strange, because he wasn’t even a part of Morty’s life until a few months before the show began, but I’ll get into that in a second. 

• The climax of “A Rickle in Time”, wherein he and Morty are falling through the nonexistent space and Rick gives Morty his collar, which teleports Morty to his house safely, and briefly resigns to his fate. 

• Post-Season 1, he genuinely cares about his grandkids, as evidenced by his tendency to take Summer on adventures, and the fact that most of his adventures are designed more to have fun with them. If you need an example, just remember that the entire premise of “The Ricks Must Be Crazy” is initiated when Rick sees an awesome movie with Summer and Morty and now wants to get them ice cream. 

• In “Ricksy Business”, he genuinely has Morty and Summer going on the prospect that his new catchphrase is “I love my grandkids” for a second. He appears completely genuine in this episode as well. 

• He installs blast-doors on the house in “Total Rickall” to protect the fam

• He has decoys all over the country, as seen in “Mortyplicity”

• He is shown to be distressed by the thought of not going on adventures with Morty (as evidenced by the pilot). 

• While you could make the argument that most Ricks need, to some extent or another, a Morty to go on adventures with, his genuine attempts at keeping Morty safe later in the series show that he isn’t as selfish as he may appear. 

Interestingly enough, in the Rick and Morty Comic Books (which I have read, and they are great), the whole comic takes place in a dimension seemingly identical to the one in the show (with the exception that this newer, comic book version of the Sanchez-Smith family go on more adventures). This dimension is dubbed “C-132” by the creators. 

Now, here’s the fascinating thing. We know from the show that dimensions (and their associated Ricks) have various classifications: some are referred to by titles or nicknames, as evidenced by Quantum Rick (yet another Rick-based name given by the creators) and a “scientist formerly known as Rick” (who is mentioned in “Close Rick-counters”); some are classified with Greek letters (as evidenced by Doofus Rick, aka Rick J19 Zeta 7); and some are classified using a simple system of letters and numbers (as shown in “the Rickshank Redemption”, where a Rick is addressed as D99). Therefore, for the Rick in the comics to be dubbed C-132 in relation to the mainstream C-137 Rick, and for the classifications of their universes to be so similar, the comic and TV show Rick must have an awful lot of similarities. Therefore, the final nail in the coffin to the idea that Rick genuinely cares about his family is the fact that Rick openly proclaims as such within the comic. 

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Alright, so we’ve established that Rick is the Rickest Rick because of his (somewhat) caring nature and the fact that he is more anti-government than other Ricks, but what about Morty? As Rick described, the Mortiest Morty would logically belong to the Rickest Rick (himself), but I think that there are a few deeper reasons for this. 

If you ask me, the most obvious example comes from “Close Rick-counters”, when he is dubbed “the One True Morty” by various other Morty’s for his uplifting attitude. 

Beyond this, he has been known to be more fearless, kind and willing to question Rick then other Morty’s (at least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe):

1. He shoots Rick, only a second of hesitation, in the head, with a gun he thought was real, in “the Rickshank Redemption”. This is also massive character growth from the pilot, when he was basically traumatized by shooting a random alien in the leg

2. He makes several smartass comments towards Ricks methods in “A Rickle in Time”, one of which causes the various splinter-realities to become out-of-sync

3. Even earlier in the show, in “Meeseeks and Destroy”, he calls out Rick’s reckless nature and challenges him to a bet

4. He acts furious during “Look Who’s Purging Now” (in Season 2, Episode 9), killing dozens of innocent bystanders and purgers alike, a far cry from the Morty in Season 1

5. He’s acted kinder to Summer over the episodes: he treats her like a nuisance on several occasions and vice-versa (notably during “A Rickle in Time” and “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez”), but the moments when he’s stood up for or helped her (like in “the Rickshank Redemption” and “Rixty Minutes”) demonstrate his genuine caring attitude towards her

6. He was responsible enough to raise a child himself, despite his neglectful parents, in “Raising Gazorpazorp”

7. He gains the courage to ask Jessica to the in “Rick Potion #9” (despite being interrupted by Brad) and later actually dances with her in “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez”, implying his social skills are greater than what his family assumes them to be. This relationship with Jessica is taken to the furthest extent in the Season 5 premier, where they actually kiss and want to date, only for Jessica to get swept up in some crazy shenaniganry and become a time god of sorts. (Damn, this show is weird.) 

8. He seems to have a closer bond with his dad then what is implied, as shown with him going to Jerry for romantic advice in “Rick Potion #9”

Seasons 3 and onwards have portrayed a lot more of this ruthless, charismatic, independent side of Morty. He’s had several successful (if short-lived) relationships, such as with Captain Planetina and the unnamed girl from the “Vat of Acid Episode.” These weren’t exactly flings either, both episodes were meant to show that Morty is fundamentally capable of forming long-lasting relationships, something he obviously wasn’t at the start of the show. 

But at the same time, he can be cutthroat when the time calls for it. That pushover side is still there—as Evil Morty points out in the Season 5 finale—but he’s much more willing to take action against those that disrespect or threaten him and his loved ones. Season 3 provided an early example of that, with him shooting Rick in the head (albeit with a fake gun) and disfiguring Ethan in “The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy,” and it's been a recurring motif ever since then. 

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What’s most interesting to me is that the traits that make Morty the “Mortiest Morty” are the ones he deems healthy and idolizes, which is probably why the other Morty’s instinctively looked up to him and deemed him the “One True Morty.” Yet, the traits that make Rick “the Rickest Rick” are viewed as unhealthy, which is why he’s deemed a threat in the same episode. 

In the episode “Rest and Ricklaxation,” they have their bodies split in two: a Toxic half, and a Healthy half. However, the distinction between the two is based on what the user thinks is toxic and unhealthy. 

In Morty’s case, those traits---independence, charisma, ruthlessness, and a willingness to get involved in relationships---are amped up to 11. Morty has slowly become a more independent person in the show overall (with Seasons 4 and 5 emphasizing this the most), but this episode was still the furthest he’s ever gone in that direction. Why? Because he views all of those as healthy, even though in actuality, those traits made him fickle, unfocused and hedonistic. 

In Rick’s case, the traits that I mentioned earlier---passion, anger and hatred, but also an irrational desire to protect his family---are separated into his Toxic half, because he views them as unhealthy. Rick has been shown time and time again to care more about his family than he really lets on: he cheers Summer up after a breakup by taking her to parties in “A Rickconvenient Mort,” has fun with his grandkids when he freezes time at the end of Season 1, takes Jerry to an intergalactic amusement park, and more. 

It makes sense that Rick views passion, anger and irrational, bitter hatred as “toxic” traits, but the fact that he views protectiveness as a trait in the same way is interesting to me. It tells me that Rick doesn’t want to be as protective of his family as he sometimes can be, but he feels like he has to be. He’s trying to be a logical, completely 100% rational self-centered asshole because that’s how he was for 20 years. But he knows he’s not. He’s human, like the rest of us, and he’s trying to reconcile the emotional and protective half of himself with the cold and logical half. 

His protectiveness is rooted in emotion, not logic, which is why it doesn’t make any sense to anyone else. This is why, for example, he’s completely willing to leave one family to die in “Rick Potion #9” but then immediately has a new family take their place (and he’s now even more protective of this one); and it’s also why he doesn’t see any distinction between killing his family and killing identical decoys of his family. 

And that is what makes him the Rickest Rick, because that passion and protectiveness is fundamentally unpredictable, and it makes him dangerous in a way that can’t be anticipated by other Ricks. And, as the show goes on more and more, it’s clear that this unpredictable passion scares him, too.