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| “ | WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB! | „ |
| ~ Rick Sanchez. |
| “ | I'M PICKLE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK! | „ |
| ~ Rick after being transformed into a pickle. |
Rick Sanchez (also known as Earth Rick Sanchez C-137 to other Ricks) is one of the two titular main protagonists of the science fiction adult animated comedy series Rick and Morty. He is the grandfather of Mortimer "Morty" Smith and Summer Smith, ex-husband of Diane Sanchez, father of Beth Sanchez-Smith and father-in-law of Jerry Smith.
Despite being one of the main protagonists and loving and cherishing his daughter and grandchildren he has a very complex set of morals as he is a complete drunkard and negative influence on the family who places them in dangerous situations and looks down on them, especially his son-in-law. He is a parody of Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Bert and the Doctor.
He is voiced by Justin Roiland who also voiced the Earl of Lemongrab. Roiland also voices other characters in the show including his and his grandson's alternate selves.
Appearance
Rick is a man whose current biological body possibly makes him in his late 50s, 60s or older with a sometimes-hunched pose from poring over his scientific endeavors. He has slight eyebags, a unibrow accompanied by a crease on his forehead and the bottom of his lips are usually covered in green drool from his near-constant intoxication. He has grayish-blue hair with a bald spot on the back of his head and dirty gray skin. He dominantly wears a short-sleeve light blue shirt tucked into brown pants held up by a black belt with a gold buckle, a long-sleeve white coat, white socks and black shoes.
Personality
Rick's personality is overall complicated. It is implied he suffers intense trauma, self-loathing and loneliness he copes with through his abuse of substances and destructive tendencies. Rick is incredibly paranoid, sardonic, revolutionary, cold, grumpy, nihilistic, violent, anarchic, fatalistic, narcissistic and blunt. These traits are acuter when intoxicated as after getting drunk he acts partially-asleep and crazier than he may usually seem. He has often displayed a more laid-back, carefree and omni-rationalized approach to life compared to the rest of his family, something that makes him rightfully appear uncaring and apathetic.
While he cares very little for even himself he does genuinely love most of his family and the two closest friends from his rebellion days despite the typical attitudes he shows them. He very rarely treats anyone with slight-to-moderate decency, respect or politeness, specializing in belittling, taunting or putting down others and throwing his unwanted two-cents in. One of the few things that really make Rick lose his temper are the theft of his works, having harm come to his family and friends and double-crossing him; strangely enough he rarely holds grudges for specific actions, even the aforementioned ones.
Rick's moral standing is even more complex. He will not hesitate to break any laws to get what he wants although he has no problem staying within legal boundaries if to his benefit. However, Rick does seem to be sickened by unnecessary violence though he will usually not attempt to stop it. He noticeably lacks a firm moral compass in all situations and will take advantage of the slightest potential openings in an instant. Because of his dislike for work Rick had no formal occupation. Most of his vehicles and workshops were self-powered and he typically retrieved anything using his portal gun. However, when money was needed Rick would act as a paid killer, take advantage of golden opportunities (removing curses from items for a price, patenting the cure for "Space AIDS", etc.) or sell his creations to those willing to buy.
The only aspects of Rick relatable to most is that he acknowledges a woman's consent and usually does not resort to double-crossing himself. According to alternate versions from other dimensions Rick actually sits roughly in the middle of all his counterparts in terms of good and evil and is possibly one of the only surviving Ricks to actually care about his loved ones as people and not just tools.
Rick has a relatively negative and gray view of life and lacks religious tendencies. He does manage to enjoy himself every now and then, particularly with his family and friends. Despite this not even they are safe from his habitual reproach upon the mistakes and shortcomings of others which he doles out in a quasi- or pseudo-cathartic manner.
The behaviors listed above left their impacts as seen with almost every version of his family: Beth shows a reluctant idolization, devotion and admiration stemming from an overall lack of presence which led to her vehemently coming to his aid at the expense of her marriage and parenthood; Jerry dislikes Rick as much as Rick does him unsuccessfully trying to convince his wife to focus on more important things; Summer hates her family and especially her mother for imitating her grandfather and being unsupportive in the end; and Morty is forced to endure things that sorely test his own sense of right and wrong on a regular basis leaving him increasingly embittered towards Rick's influence every time.
History
Little has ever been revealed of Rick's early life. Anything really known is that he married and had a daughter named Beth but left sometime after that due to arguments with Diane concerning the safety of his family and his fixation on scientific experiments. Before this he noticed nigh-psychosis in his daughter when she asked him to build numerous objects which had disturbing implicated uses; to protect the neighborhood and hopefully not have to clean up his daughter's messes he created an imaginary world called "Froopyland" she would play in until one of her friends named Thomas "Tommy" Lipkip came along and got lost thanks to her stranding him out of jealousy which unfortunately resulted in his father Joseph Lipkip somehow being convicted of cannibalizing his own son.
At one point he was part of an intergalactic terrorist group with several of his closest friends including Squanchy and Bird Person fighting to overthrow the oppressively totalitarian Galactic Federation despite its caring and friendly facade; although this wasn't necessarily the motive for rebellions. At another point he heard about the conception of his granddaughter Summer and was present for the birth and early years of his grandson Morty.
Eventually Rick came back into the life of his daughter's family after a twenty-year absence. During this time and previously Rick has been prone to repeatedly jumping through spatial and dimensional barriers, traveling to alien worlds or other unusual places in order to collect materials needed for his experiments and gadgets or make money by doing shady business. His two grandchildren were quickly recruited to help him. Although appalled at first they became corrupted by Rick adopting aspects of his callous and violent persona.
During this period they manage to destroy at least one version of Earth, nearly cause (inter)planetary chaos multiple times, take down groups such as the Federation and Council of Ricks and cause the divorce of Beth and her insecure husband Jerry who Rick never approved of and constantly degrades to which he would blatantly point out his father-in-law's toxic presence despite Beth's attempts at defending her father.
Powers and Abilities
Despite being only human Earth Rick C-137 is easily one of the most dangerous entities in both the universe and multiverse as he has defeated several powerful beings and organizations, sometimes while completely intoxicated. Although in recent times he's had help and luck Rick has survived crazy adventures for decades on end with very few allies and a lot of enemies.
Intellect
Rick is incredibly intelligent and frequently mentions to be the smartest being in any one universe. He makes countless discoveries and invents numerous gadgets and substances. He seems to specialize in advanced robotics above all else and could easily work through or around most obstacles. Long-term planning, deception and manipulation are effortless tasks for Rick when he saw through a multilayered Zigerion simulation and pretended to fall for it and simultaneously destroyed the Council, collapsed the Federation and triggered his daughter's divorce in one fell swoop.
Rick is also incredibly clever, adaptable, resourceful and capable of turning even a hopeless situation to his favor with nothing but his wits and some basic materials, the best example being him creating a biomechanical exoskeleton made of hostile rat and cockroach parts while he was nothing but a talking pickle. Rick could be surprised when something goes beyond his prior expectations; he could also not accurately predict or interpret the actions of his drunken self, alternate versions and other forms.
Physical Fitness
Despite his advanced age and unhealthy habits Rick still retains impressive strength and endurance. Rick is shown to have extensive cybernetic and bionic enhancements; however, he has went through and swapped multiple bodies so it is unlikely they were all enhanced. When in bodies not physically aged or even remotely human Rick normally displays near-superhuman physical attributes.
Combat Prowess
Rick appears to be proficient at combat and could effectively use just about any melee or projectile weapon he could get his hands on or make; he is also a magnificent and excellent trap builder.
Equipment
Being a scientist and inventor among other things Rick both makes and buys an extensive and vast arsenal of various weapons, gadgets, vehicles and other creations, having something for just about any occasion. However, there are a few things he usually keeps with him more often. Most of the items he uses are sophisticated Rube Goldberg machines, something pointed out more than a few times.
Portal Gun
Rick's most infamous and coveted invention the portal gun creates a green portal that allows him and others to instantly travel to any part of a universe and other dimensions. Because of this Rick is incredibly difficult to capture or track down. The gun could also be used as a makeshift weapon if needed; opening portals inside objects would slice them in half, they could have something come out of them into the paths of pursuers or others could be transported elsewhere and the gun could be overloaded to produce a black hole-like explosion. Rick and his counterparts are the only beings who possess and could make a portal gun.
Spaceship
A ship shaped like a flying saucer that is the typical form of transportation for Rick in space. It is powered by a small universe full of slaves and has numerous weapons, gadgets and a semi-sentient onboard computer; it is implied the ship has enough armaments to wipe out a large human army without trouble. It also has an unnecessarily cruel and brutal security system which uses various forms of horrific torture involving both mental and bodily harm.
Blaster
Rick is often seen carrying alien or homemade sidearms when violence is needed.
Antagonistic Moments
- In the middle of the night Rick got drunk and built a "neutrino bomb" to destroy the world and "have a whole fresh start"; however, Morty stopped him and Rick claimed it was all a test. He later froze Morty's bully Frank Palicky which caused him to shatter in front of Summer who had a crush on him. He then had Morty painfully smuggle Mega Seeds from another dimension's planet inside his rectum; when this failed due to the Federation's Interdimensional Customs attempting to commence a scan with new equipment he had Morty run to a portal machine and shoot several Gromflomites after inadvertently making him think they were literal robots. After buttering up Morty's parents to let him stay Rick claimed to Morty that school was a waste of time and lied about Frank's death to Summer's face. In fact, because he frequently pulled Morty out he had spent only seven hours in two months of a semester at school.
- Although he had a good reason to do so Rick likely traumatized millions of Americans, if not half the world by enlarging a dead naked Reuben in space to enlarge a shrunken Morty and Annie; he reshrunk Annie even though Morty had fallen in love with her.
- He tricked the Zigerions and their leader Prince Nebulon into blowing themselves up with what they believed to be the formula for concentrated dark matter following his and Jerry's escape from an overwhelmed hard-light holographic simulation. He later threatened Morty in bed with a knife while drunk again to see if he was still a simulation's hologram.
- Rick told Morty that his parents' marriage was hanging by a thread. He had also shown disdain for Jerry because he impregnated her with Summer when the two were in high school during a prom night. Rick made a huge mistake by giving Morty a serum to make his crush Jessica love him because a flu epidemic made the serum spread throughout Morty's school and everywhere else (sans the direct relatives of Morty's family). He tried to fix it using praying mantis DNA but made things worse and accidentally transformed nearly everyone on Earth into mantis-human hybrids that wanted to mate with and then eat Morty. He used various DNA samples in one final serum to fix things but instead turned nearly everyone on Earth into horrible mutations called Cronenbergs. The mess made was seemingly irreversible so Rick went with Morty to another universe where they both died from an unfinished experiment after supposedly finding the real cure; Rick even implicitly admitted doing it several times before. Morty was traumatized over this catastrophe while Rick didn't seem to care about him and his grandson digging their own graves.
- He sold an antimatter weapon to Krombopulos Michael and used the alien currency Flurbos to play at the space arcade Blips and Chitz; when Morty prevented Michael from fulfilling his contract by accidentally running him over with the spaceship Rick berated him for "[killing his] best customer" and saving the target in question, a cloud of psychic gas self-named Fart and suggested finishing what the late assassin started multiple times. When the ship's mechanic Gearhead notified authorities Rick clogged his mouth with sticks and shoved his "gearsticles" into his face. He later assisted in destroying their pursuers and referred to Morty's name as a replacement word for "sh**" due to recent events.
- Rick started a store called Curse Purge Plus! solely to anger Summer and Lucius Needful and destroy their business. He laughed when Summer stated his actions drove Lucius to attempt suicide and lit his store on fire with people inside when he grew bored of it. After Lucius inevitably betrayed Summer and took their website n33dful.com for himself she and Rick worked out while using steroids, became extremely muscular and brutalized Lucius and several other mean-spirited people.
- He assaulted several members of the Council after being accused of killing other Ricks and kidnapping other Mortys. He also revealed to his Morty that all Mortys were actually meant to serve as human cloaking devices disguising the intellect of their Ricks.
- He sent Morty, Abradolf Lincler and Nancy out to get Kalaxian Crystals on an unknown planet knowing the risk of doing so. After Morty and Nancy returned Rick didn't care about how Lincler appeared to have died during the mission since he really wanted to use the crystals as another substance to Morty's confusion and anger. At the end of the episode Rick froze time so Beth and Jerry wouldn't realize the party destroyed the house and he and his grandchildren proceeded to cause mayhem without consequences.
- It was established that at some point Rick stole a Time Crystal from the Fourth Dimension which caught the attention of interdimensional alien law enforcement-officer Shleemypants. He, Summer and Morty defeated him by creating multiple overlapping fractured timelines to beat him up in and killing his living weapon Chris.
- Although intending to save the world from the Cromulons Rick broke into the Pentagon and turned two federal agents into snakes with a watch when they approached him. At the end of the episode he did the same thing to General Nathan and killed him afterwards although the latter was attempting to shoot him, Morty and the President.
- After being dumped for good by his hive mind ex-girlfriend Unity following her realization of his true potential for corruption Rick unfroze an infantile alien creature he had kept in the garage and disintegrated it using a death ray before attempting to disintegrate his head although he failed in doing so due to passing out from prior intoxication. He later attempted to confront Unity alongside an oblivious Morty after she barricaded herself in a protected fortress with fellow hive mind Beta-Seven, mostly refusing to leave even after being threatened with destruction. In a separate instance Jerry and Beth discovered he was keeping an alien prisoner beneath the garage to study and patent the cure for its rare disease.
- Rick built and enslaved an entire miniature universe, or "Microverse" to power his vehicle's battery and set back its technological progression once he discovered the inhabitants had found a way to generate their own electricity through the work of Rick's Microverse contemporary and counterpart Zeep Xanflorp. When they went into Zeep's "Miniverse" and that universe's "Teenyverse" he and Zeep squabbled after getting stranded to Morty's frustration; Rick revealed the actual purpose of the Microverse to Zeep's horror. After they escaped with Morty he then fought Zeep and destroyed the Miniverse causing the destruction of two separate species. Before this he engaged an elaborate defense protocol on his vehicle called "Keep Summer Safe" that killed, injured and/or traumatized many people including his own granddaughter.
- Rick berated Morty's way of finding and leading an adventure when they bet he couldn't actually do so; after King Jellybean tried to rape him and Morty begged to go home Rick pieced together what happened and blasted Jellybean to pieces in front of a crowd of villagers when it turned out he was the ruler of the place they were visiting. Earlier he made another mistake by introducing his family to Mr. Meeseeks when Jerry refusing to follow up on a simple task he assigned one Meeseeks and later other Meeseeks which resulted in a Meeseeks horde holding a restaurant hostage until Jerry got "two strokes off [his] golf game".
- After transporting his mind from his Tiny Rick body back into his original body due to the toll inhabiting a younger version of himself took on him Rick decided to abandon his "Operation Phoenix" and brutally murdered his clones with an axe in front of his grandchildren. Beforehand he killed the newest teacher at Morty's school for being a vampire.
- When Bird Person's wedding to Tammy Guetermann went sour after Tammy revealed herself to be an undercover Federation agent and seemingly killed her husband Rick fled with his family and berated his grandchildren for helping convince him to go along.
- Rick intended to take over his clan by getting rid of Jerry, hoping Beth would choose to divorce him. Rick did so because he felt betrayed since Jerry tried to turn him in to the Federation first so Rick wanted to get rid of both of them. This later led to Jerry suffering an unemployed, low-class single life in a rundown condo. He also virtually eliminated both the Federation and Council before indirectly revealing Jerry's betrayal to Beth causing her divorce.
- Rick took his grandkids with him to post-apocalyptic dimension as a way of dealing with their parents' divorce; while Summer ruthlessly murdered people Rick got Morty involved in a fighting arena by injecting him with the muscle memories of a dead villager nicknamed Armothy. Rick later helped his grandchildren fight off and kill the dimension's inhabitants and forced Morty to drown the slave trader responsible for Armothy's demise by assisting in his murder.
- Rick took enjoyment in murdering numerous Cat People when they tried to attack him, Morty and a Cat Person named Arthricia during a The Purge-style event on another world, telling Morty they were justified due to trying to save an innocent girl; he even had his family send over advanced equipment to increase their effectiveness in combat. He and Arthricia also killed the higher-class Cat People for orchestrating the event in the first place and cursed her for shooting him in the liver when she took his vehicle with the intent of eliminating her world's rulers.
- Rick felt jealous about Morty idolizing the Marvel/DC-style superhero group the Vindicators so he went out for a drink to pull himself together. However, this caused Rick to become so intoxicated resulting in a more sinister version of himself called Drunk Rick; he thus wound up being the main antagonist of the episode alongside Supernova. This led to him setting up a dangerous Jigsaw-esque game he, Morty and the Vindicators ended up in after he succeeded in killing their greatest enemy Worldender and his followers and resulted in the Vindicators except Supernova being destroyed after infighting and personal breakdowns. After Morty solved the puzzles he received another message from Drunk Rick intended for Noob-Noob (the only one to laugh at his jokes) rather than Morty much to the latter's outrage; adding insult to injury he forgot all about Noob-Noob and allowed Supernova to escape.
- He accidentally poisoned Jerry with mixed alien substances hidden in ice cream and blasted Jerry's doctor after he was sent into an uncontrollable rage caused by Jerry coughing and throwing up on him.
- Rick tried to get out of family therapy sessions ordered by his grandchildren's school by turning himself into the form of a talking pickle named Pickle Rick or Solen'ya and convincing Beth he was trying something new. After getting lost in the local drainage systems he killed multiple sewer rats using a suit crafted out of rat and cockroach body parts. He soon engaged in a battle of wits with a European terrorist organization's agency director, murdering most of his employees with improvised weapons and the director himself with a cache of set explosives after befriending a prisoner named Jaguar. He later outright stated his reasons for avoiding therapy to his family's therapist Doctor Wong, saying he didn't have any respect for people such as her.
- Rick decided to take Jerry on his next adventure since Morty was worried his father might eventually commit suicide; after realizing Jerry accepted a deal from assassins led by Risotto Groupon to have him destroyed on the Whirly Dirly ride Rick felt betrayed yet again and left him to be eaten by an alien snake after they accidentally deactivated and brought down the surrounding immortality field. Groupon had told Jerry the story of how he and his kingdom were overthrown by other aliens using technology sold by Rick who then playfully reminded Jerry of his breakup with Beth following the collapse of the Federation and Council which goaded him into going on the ride in the first place. When Jerry scolded Rick for stealing the family calling him a "self-righteous piece of sh**" Rick volleyed back letting Jerry know he was "a predator" who used his cowardice and pitiful ways to make others feel sorry for him like when he got Beth pregnant with Summer at 17 years of age causing her to give up her life goals. Rick rescued Jerry but only because he needed organic bait to have an alien creature take them back to the resort they had left. He later blasted Groupon who had attempted to kill him and spare Jerry before they were caught up in hallucinations from a spaceship's energies which made Groupon question his actions and when Jerry protested Rick said he was "talking himself into it".
- Rick killed a baby alien.
- Rick erased Morty's memories of him screwing up so he would continue to appear infallible in Morty's eyes; Morty's discovery of this resulted in a brawl that ended with both their memories wiped clean before Summer managed to restore them. He and Morty later got angry at Summer for supposedly letting them fall asleep during Interdimensional Cable.
- He showed Beth the imaginary world he created for her when she was younger and described his actions as having been done for the safety of their family's neighborhood, stating "[she was] a scary f***ing kid". When Beth questioned her purpose in existing Rick offered to make a realistic clone of her while she left to travel beyond her home without the rest of her family's knowledge. He later left Jerry a voicemail message saying he had intercourse with his ex-girlfriend Keara following her breakup with Jerry and her next boyfriend Carmox's death at Rick's hands.
- He and Morty cut all ties relating to the President to which war was declared on both of them. In the climax he single-handedly killed several government Secret Service agents without even touching them and several more using his gadgets; he requested a selfie from the President himself and got into a battle after he refused. He later stated he would have attempted to kill Jerry with a loaded machine gun after he and Beth reconciled their differences.
- He and Heistotron engaged in a heist-off in which they recruited others to help them in their heists (which included Heistotron stealing Earth) and spent the entire episode out-heisting one another; however, the whole thing was a complicated scheme to get Morty to give up on his dream of pitching a heist movie to Netflix.
Quotes
| “ | Rick's not that complicated, he's just a huge asshole. | „ |
| ~ Morty to Bird Person about Rick. |
| “ | So why don't you do us both a favor and pull the trigger?!?! Do it!! Do it motherf***er!! Pull the f***ing trigger!! | „ |
| ~ Rick showing his suicidal tendencies. |
| “ | Well, he's not a villain, Summer, but... he shouldn't be your hero. He's more like a demon or a—super f***ed-up god. | „ |
| ~ Morty to Summer on Rick's nature. |
| “ | Don't think about it! | „ |
| ~ Rick on living life. |
Gallery
Images
Videos
Trivia
- Although his actions affect Earth multiple times he somehow manages to evade authorities or keep them ignorant about his activities. The only authorities that actually try to grab him by the throat are the Galactic Federation and Council of Ricks.
- In "The Rickchurian Mortydate" the President explained that the government avoid trying to arrest Rick and Morty because they have saved the world on numerous occasions.
- Unlike the stereotypical genius that hides their intelligence from family members in most fictional works his family is well-aware of his activities and even actively participates in his (mis)adventures, especially his grandchildren.
- According to the Federation in "Wedding Squanchers" Rick Sanchez C-137 has committed over 7,150,792 crimes and offenses.
- Rick seems to have developed apathy towards his family members as Beth stated in "The ABCs of Beth" she is one of infinite Beths with infinite fathers in the infinite universes showing that for Rick the family is replaceable.
- This also hinted through multiple fan theories at him being the one responsible for the existence of Evil Morty since he already went through a number of different versions of his grandson who all died, of which Evil Morty was the only survivor left to seek vengeance on all Ricks from the Central Finite Curve.
- Rick is obsessed with the Szechuan teriyaki dipping sauce McDonald's used to promote the original Mulan in 1998.
- Rick hints at being autistic in "The Rickchurian Mortydate" as while playing Minecraft with Morty he asked if autistic people loved the game and stated that he did. However, this is unlikely and most definitely a stereotype of indie game fans so Rick could've lied.
- "A Rickle in Time" also established that like one of the characters who inspired him most Ricks resembles Albert Einstein. Jerry even nicknamed him Albert Ein-Douche in "Pilot".
External links
- Rick Sanchez on the Heroes Wiki.
- Rick Sanchez on the Rick And Morty Wiki.
 Villains
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