The Cringiest ‘Rick and Morty’ Scenes — So Far
Everyone familiar with Rick and Morty understands that, regardless of your evaluation of the show’s quality, the series has undeniably brought a great deal of cringe into the world. Szechuan sauce, anyone?
There is an inescapable stigma associated with being a Rick and Morty fan on the internet — images of frumpy men with shelves full of Funko Pops or fanboys screeching catch phrases like “I’m Pickle Rick!” to each other come to mind when the fandom for Adult Swim’s flagship franchise comes up in casual conversation. The show’s following is passionate, expressive and, admittedly, often ungroomed in the neck-hair department, making it a petri dish for cringeworthy content. However, Rick and Morty’s status as a cringe magnet typically comes from the culture surrounding the show, something at which the actual Rick and Morty writers regularly poke fun. Even the show’s many detractors can agree that Rick and Morty itself isn’t quite as embarrassing as those who watch it.
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However, as an unashamed and cringe-worthy Rick and Morty fan myself, I can see how certain scenes throughout the show’s seven seasons and counting can be accurately labeled as cringe — and the Rick and Morty subreddit, the largest forum for Rick and Morty fans on the internet, knows those moments better than anyone. A thread devoted to the show’s cringiest moments recently reached the top of the subreddit. Here are the fan’s picks for most embarrassing Rick and Morty scenes, starting with…
The Incest Baby
Season Five’s “Rickdependence Spray” is universally regarded as a low point in the series, and it’s all thanks to one character: Naruto Smith. If the hyper-fixation on Morty’s ejaculation wasn’t enough to put this putrid episode into cringe territory, the conclusion certainly sent it over the top as Morty and Summer created a cosmic nephew-son that made the entire Rick and Morty fandom cry out, “But why?”
All of “Amortycan Grickfitti”
Of course, this entry is intentionally cringey, as the entire premise of this Season Five banger is that, in the Rick and Morty universe, the Cenobites from Hellraiser can also feed off of the mental pain that comes from Jerry’s every cringiness. No single line better sums up the Jerry-lovers of the fandom when they see him in the next episode’s cold open than, “After a week rife with the fetor of sin, I yearn for a taste of his cringe.”
“Worse, You’re Smart”
One of the great ironies of this scene is how hard it was to find a clip of it on YouTube that used the correct “you’re.” When “The ABC's of Beth” aired in 2017, the “To Be Fair” meme was in full swing as arrogant nerds across the internet over-related to Rick Sanchez, making the lame life lesson he taught his daughter even more pretentious and navel-gazing than it still would have been otherwise.
Elon Tusk
“To be fair” to the writers of the Season Four episode “One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk wasn’t nearly as reviled in 2019 as he is today. Back then, the Tesla “founder” was still widely seen as a real-life Tony Stark — though the first rumblings of his heel-turn toward cringey reactionary crybaby were starting to sound. I wonder if those Thai kids got trapped in Elon Tusk’s dimension, too.