Dethroning Moment / Rick and Morty

Rick & Morty: (suffer an emotional breakdown)
Rick: (sighs) Fuck...AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH HO-HO, FUCK! Fuck! Ah...Ugh...
Morty: I can't fucking do this anymore!
Rick: That was seriously fucked up! We almost got cancelled!
Morty: So you agree?!
Rick: Fuck yes! That wa-th-th-th-This was insane! That was pure shit! I was not in control of that situation AT ALL!
Morty: (bawling uncontrollably)
Rick: Look at this, Morty! Look at my fucking hands! Look at this shit!
Morty: Why do you keep doing this to us?!
Rick: I don't know, Morty. Maybe I hate myself, maybe I think we deserve to lose our fans, I-I-I-I don't-I-I-I don't know! We need a vacation.

Not even Jerry can screw up like this.

Keep in mind:

• Sign your entries.
• One moment per work to a troper. If multiple entries are signed to the same troper the more recent one will be cut.
• Moments only, no "just everything he said," or "This entire show," or "This entire series" entries.
• No contesting entries. This is subjective and the entry is their opinion.
• No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
• Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment of Suck.
• No Real Life examples, including Executive Meddling. It only invites a flame war.
• No ALLCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.

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Season 1

• SWF Max: I love Rick and Morty—in fact, it's my favourite show. But there's one part that annoys me: in the episode "Raising Gazorpazorp", Rick says that men and women are treated equally in the United States, and Summer objects, saying that women make 70% of the salary that men make for the same job. I'm not sure if the writers were using Summer as a Straw Feminist or if they were using her to voice their opinion, but either way, it doesn't sit well with me. If they were using her as a Straw Feminist, then that's a Critical Research Failure, as very few if any feminists have ever claimed that. The only thing I've ever heard from a feminist about women being paid less than men in the United States is that women make 77-78% of the salary that men make for the same job. Newsflash: 70% does not equal 77%, nor does it equal 78%. So, if they were using her as a Straw Feminist, they failed, in my opinion, as very few if any feminists have made the claim that Summer has made. Now, if they were using her to voice their opinion, that's also stupid, because apparently, they didn't bother to look up basic statistics. As I mentioned earlier, even feminists rarely if ever claim that women make 70% of the salary that men make for the same job. They claim that it's 77% or 78%. All in all, no matter for what reason the writers had Summer say that, it was a Critical Research Failure. (For the record, I am a feminist and I do believe that the wage gap in the United States exists, but that in itself is not why I consider this to be a DMoS, even if they were using Summer as a Straw Feminist. It's not the presence of a Straw Feminist in a work that bothers me, it's the presence of a poorly-written Straw Feminist in a work that bothers me.)

Season 2

• Animeking 1108: I had a problem with Total Rickall, particularly how Morty realizes that Rick wasn't a parasite. He figured it out because he had a lot of bad memories with Rick. Now, that's understandable. However, it gets ruined by a montage of Rick ignoring Morty when he's in life-threatening situations and pantsing him in school and pushing him down the stairs. What made Rick a likable character was that despite his flaws, he cares about Morty and all of the moments that should be bad memories were usually unintentional on Rick's part.
• Zuxtron: "Rixty Minutes" is one of the best episodes in the show, perfectly combining wacky, random comedy with serious, down-to-earth drama. Sadly, "Interdimensional Cable II" fails to live up to its predecessor. While the idea of having improvised comedy bits interspersed throughout an episode was unique enough to work the first time, using it again for a second episode makes it come off as forced. In the end, it feels like the normally very creative writers of the show had run out of ideas and had to resort to remaking an older episode to pad out the season. Even Justin Roiland himself was unhappy with the result, telling us several weeks in advance to not get our hopes up.
  • InTheGallbladder: Particularly lousy was the How It's Made parody. It could have been an excellent joke—had they bothered to write or even cast it. Instead, they pawned the premise off on some internet kind-of-a-big-deal who maybe took one informal improv course, then wrote him a blank check. Despite so much of his speech consisting of nonsense-words, he still struggles the whole way through to come up with lines—it's pretty obvious they actually had to edit his monologue into something halfway salvageable.

Season 3

• Quilladin 206: For me, the episode that has the DMoS is none other than Pickle Rick. First off, let me say that I loved the main plot. It was very well made and had many laughable moments. What wasn't great was the sub-plot, which was the therapy part. And the main problem was Beth. This episode is the main reason I hate Beth so much. It starts with them going into therapy, without Rick (which is explained) and Jerry (which is not explained, there really is no reason he should not be included). Apparently they had to go because the principal told them to. Anyways, Beth refuses to believe that Rick did anything wrong, and whenever someone suggests that Rick became a pickle to get out of therapy, she gets pissed off, even going as far to say "Fuck you" to her own kids. She also shamed Summer for huffing enamel, which I understand cause Summer did it on purpose, but she also kept shaming Morty for wetting himself in class. He obviously didn't do it on purpose, and shaming your kid for that kinda shit isn't gonna help, it's borderline emotional abuse. I get this shit about Rick saying that love is just a chemical reaction, and Beth believing everything he fucking says cause she loves him too much to stoop to his level, but seriously, give your kids love or don't have kids at all. It amazes me that Jerry still holds the main title of The Scrappy after this bullshit.
• Brooklynguy 27: Season 3 is a mixed season in the fan base so far. Some people either like it, or consider it the worst season. However, I think the worst episode this season, and in the entire series is Vindicators 3: The Return Of Worldender. The episode starts off with Rick being a Jerkass to the Vindicators for no apparent reason. It's then revealed that Rick set up some kind of Saw-esque traps while he was drunk. Wow. The Vindicators are apparently Too Dumb to Live Jerkasses and one of them, named Supernova, killed one of them! She then attempts to murder Rick and Morty and kills one of the other Vindicators. And when she attempts to kill them, it turns out Drunk Rick set up some stupid party and everyone is there. And what happens next? Supernova gets off scot-free and gets away. What!? Supernova just crossed the Moral Event Horizon and became a Karma Houdini!? That's The Ending!? Overall, this was a terrible, boring episode where Rick was a Grade-A douchebag and the main villain got off scot-free.
  • Zenblade: Completely in agreement. The entire episode is an incredibly blunt and inept Shallow Parody of superhero comics. The episode says that all superheroes have basically the same personality and background, such as using their powers for good, never giving up, and having a tragic backstory. While a large number of heroes do have tragic backstories to give them motivation, it's certainly not all of them, as characters like Captain America, Thor, and Wonder Woman became heroes because they feel it's the right thing to do, not because of personal tragedy. And the other two traits about using their powers for good and never giving up. Without either of these traits, could you call a character a superhero? Probably not, which means the writer is pointing out characteristics that superheroes share because they're superheroes. Also where Morty says that Rick thinks heroes are useless because "good" and "evil" are abstract, constructed concepts. Yes, they are. And? Yes morality, and by extension good and evil, are abstract, constructed concepts. There's no objective standard for laws either, we base them on our personal, subjective morality and viewpoints of the world, but that doesn't make them useless. We can come to the conclusion that theft, or murder, or rape are all wrong without it being spelled out in the stars, or by the laws of physics. I'd expect a show with an anti-nihilist theme to realize this. Life has no objective meaning either, but that doesn't mean life is worthless and everyone should just die.
  • Crazy Luigi: I agree that this is probably the very worst episode of the show yet, if not the worst of Season 3 period, but I think there's one key detail that's being missed here altogether. It's the fact that there was a Vindicators 3 without any real indication of a Vindicators 1, let alone jumping directly into 3. While they do explain in a hand-waving motion as to why there wasn't any Vindicators 2 at hand (because Rick was that much of a Jerkass to bother recruiting again until more members died), it still doesn't excuse the fact that at the time of the episode's airing, there was literally nothing involving the Vindicators at all until we got into Vindicators 3! It'd be one thing if there was an episode showcasing what their first mission together was like, but just telling us that they apparently worked together once beforehand and expecting us to buy into it when it's jumped directly into a #3 of something...it just feels like a Critical Existence Failure something. The fact that even one of the creators admitted it was his personal worse episode of the series due to the rather off pacing didn't help matters either.
• Captain Tedium: Overall, the third season of Rick and Morty had its ups and downs, but my least favorite episode of this particular season would be "Rest and Ricklaxation" because of the scene where everyone else in the city had their toxic qualities revealed. I could probably live with the children at the birthday party murdering the costumed mascot entertaining them, but the specific moment that pissed me off was when Father Bob's toxic self rambled about God not being real and that they only made Him up so that they'd make a lot of money. I'm agnostic, but it still angers me when works of fiction use strawmen to portray religion or atheism as being wrong. It may be true that some religious people are dishonest or mean, but to say that all priests are hypocritical con artists who don't truly believe what they're preaching just comes off as even more insulting than the portrayal given to religion in the Family Guy episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" as only being supported by bigoted lunatics. Either way you slice it, it's simply not okay to make hasty generalizations of a group based on the worst of them. Just because some people with religious beliefs are hypocrites, jerks, or bigots doesn't mean all religious people are like that.
• Kevjro 7: Beth and Jerry getting back together in the Season 3 finale. Not only did this feel incredibly rushed, but other adult cartoons like The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, and even South Park all fall victim to the Status Quo Is God trope, and the divorce of Beth and Jerry told me that Rick and Morty was going to be different. But no, every American adult cartoon has to stay the same as it began. If the writers weren't willing to actually go through with changing the status quo, then they shouldn't have even bothered trying to make the commitment because it shows that they're afraid of change. As an added bonus, several potential future plots have been thrown out the window. At least I learned to avoid getting my hopes up for serious changes again.

Season 4

• Two-Way Tad: "Promortyus": When Rick and Morty are escaping from an alien planet, they come across two towers that are extremely similar to the Twin Towers. They look at each other and agree not to do anything about that...and then they proceed to bomb a structure that's similar to Pearl Harbor. The last time I saw an adult animated show tastelessly mirror 9/11, it was South Park, and as a result, this is the death knell for adult animation for me. Since when was making fun of Pearl Harbor fair game? Isn't that and 9/11 still events that are far too soon to make fun of? Not every single adult animated cartoon has to be Family Guy or South Park in terms of offending people just for the sake of offending people. And if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that this wasn't the first time that 9/11 was mentioned in the show. I expected better respect for Roiland and Harmon, but it looks like they're starting to give up like Parker and Stone.
• Miracle @ St. Olaf: For me, it was that mean-spirited, wholly unnecessary jab at part of the fandom in "Edge of Tomorty" when Fascist Morty demands to go on a "classic Rick & Morty adventure" without any politics. Yeah, I got it, and that's real fucking cute, guys. First, implying someone is a Nazi —a rather grave assault on someone's character if they aren't actually one— simply because they don't want to be preached at through their entertainment is kind of a cowardly, piece-of-shit move in any context. Lots of people don't need their entertainment to constantly validate their personal views, and they seek out entertainment in part because they desperately crave a break from the exhausting, ceaseless bickering over politics that now saturates our culture; wanting this does not make them an embodiment of worldly evil, and damn you for making it necessary to state something so obvious. Second, Rick & Morty has never really been all that political to begin with, and when it has lightly dipped its toes into that pool it's gone after both sides equally (showrunner Dan Harmon is of Libertarian bent and isn't a fan of whoever's in charge, whether they wear a blue tie or a red tie), so it's not really a complaint many fans have been able to level at the show. In all, it comes off not just as a needlessly insulting pre-emptive shot across the bow at fans, but also an attack against a strawman argument that nobody was really making in the first place, and it's not a good sign for the series going forward if this is the sort of attitude the writers have towards any part of their audience.
• Rebel Falcon: I never thought I would have to make an entry for this series, but here it is. Star Mort Rickturn Of The Jerri sucked. The A-Plot with the clone Beth keeps dragging its feet in regards to which is the real Beth and ends on a rather unjustified What the Hell, Hero? for Rick. Rick is a Villain Protagonist who has committed plenty of atrocities, yes. Making a clone of Beth isn't one of them. Back in "The ABCs of Beth", while he made the offer to her to make a clone, it was supposed to be her choice. Yet here turns out she not only decided to make Rick make the choice for her, but both Beth's now despise him for a decision one of them was supposed to make. Rick is blamed for wiping his memories and even the writers say it's meant to be seen as him making a non-decision, except by that logic, Beth made the very same non-decision by making Rick make the choice, and it's never addressed that Rick not wanting to know which was the clone might be because he didn't want to treat the clone Beth any differently, since one of his redeeming points has been that he does care for Beth, and he showed care for both of them. It's also not helped that Space Beth is pretty much absolved of actually abandoning her family and only coming back so she could kill Rick, no they just choose to shit on Rick more. The B-Plot isn't much better, making Morty and Summer more unlikable by having them fight over an invisibility belt they want to use to perv on others, before suddenly deciding it's an arc for them that they even admit was half-assed. The only parts actually good were Jerry finally contributing positively to an adventure, and the Rick and Phoenixperson fight. But the rest of this episode felt like an unjustified calling out of Rick. If you're gonna call him out, call him out for something his fault, like his actions in The Vat of Acid Episode or in One Crew Over the Crewcoos Morty, not something partially his fault at best while whitewashing Beth. It's sad to say but outside of Jerry, the Smith-Sanchez family are nothing but horrible people. At least Rick can be entertaining, but after this episode, the same can't be said for Morty, Summer, or either of the Beth's anymore.
  • Coda Fett: The DMOS for me on this episode is how quickly and anticlimactically they decided to kill of Tammy and destroy the Federation fleet. Like really? You gave her a stinger in last season's premiere just for this shameful display? Obviously the writers in season 4 went out of their way to make fun of all fan theories floating around about her, Phoenix Person, Evil Morty and who was going to be main villain, but here's the kicker fellas: You are the ones who made such big deals about returning villains in stingers. Maybe don't do that if you hate all the over analyzing? Anyway, Tammy was a Anti-Villain and/or Hero Antagonist who had some potential besides showing up and getting her head blown off for a couple of jokes. And as my good chum above said, the episode itself wasn't that great to start with because the Clone Beth drama was the main story and the Federation goons was just a convenient enemy to throw out.
• Melancholy Utopia: "The Vat of Acid" episode was to me forgettable at worst and mediocre at best. However, that in and of itself is not my DMoS, but rather The Stinger. One of the policemen who got splashed by Rick's fake acid believes he's immune to actual acid and thus (wrongly) concludes he's immortal. So he goes on a TV show to prove it to everyone by being slowly lowered into a vat of real acid, and I really do mean slowly. As he is, he screams in agony until he's completely corroded. The TV show host says something "funny" and...that's it. That was the joke. Haha I'm splitting my sides. A person slowly dying in pure agony is comedy gold. The writers poorly attempted to alleviate the drama by having the policeman be a douchenozzle to everyone, but it still doesn't warrant in the gruesome fate he met. Please, R&M writers, don't resort to cheap shock value when I know you can do much better. You're not Family Guy.

Season 7

• Regulas 314: Two words: "That's Amorte"… this might just be one of the most ghoulish, fucked up things I’ve ever seen from any cartoon. It barely even tries to be fun with its blanket parody of metaphorical late-stage capitalism -slash- Soylent Green parody. That the residents of the "Spaghetti Planet" are basically the same as humans in everything but their organs congealing when they take their own lives only makes what they are doing worse. That the episode ONCE AGAIN wants to shame Morty for knowing how something works and for having a moral compass… here’s the thing: pulling back the curtain, knowing how shit works? That’s a Good thing, always! Even if it ends up horrifying. It’s better to know the truth than live a lie. Especially when it’s this SOYLENT GREEN SHIT! It was a GOOD THING when Dorothy and her friends uncovered Professor Marvel for the sniveling coward he is. Exposing Rick for taking advantage of alien biology has a lot of neat applications, but it never treats Rick as wrong for serving his family what amounts to PEOPLE! I get it, sometimes you really should not stick your nose into business you know nothing about, but even so? This entire episode is just confused with what it's trying to say and how it handles a very very serious topic. Being someone who has had these thoughts the episode greatly offended me. Then it tries to pull an insightful and thought-provoking moment by showing us the life of that guy before he died? It was nice I suppose, but it didn’t distract from how Rick just kept this going and going willingly until it reached this point when he KNOWS he can ethically synthesize whatever infinitely without the need to end lives.

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