Rick & Morty: 9 Times Rick Was Uncharacteristically Stupid
3. He Lost Track Of The Parasites
Rick Sanchez is no stranger to bizarre alien life forms, but even he panicked when the Smith home was invaded by shape-shifting parasites. After planting memories in their targets’ heads, they took on the form of people who were believed to be close family and friends.
Since the memories created seemed just as legitimate as genuine memories, there was at first no way of telling who was real and who was a parasite. Rick took the precaution of writing down the number 6, as that was how many people should be in the house, but this didn’t actually help at all.
There was Rick, Morty, Jerry, Beth, Mr. Poopybutthole, and Summer, but when ‘Cousin Nicky’ arrived, though Rick knew there was one more person than there was supposed to be, he had no way of knowing which was the parasite. He only got lucky when he guessed right by shooting Nicky in the shoulder.
Instead of writing down the number of people, why didn’t he take the extra 20 seconds it would have taken to write down the names of those six people? That way, whenever anyone else turned up he would know them to be the parasite for certain, and Mr. Poopybutthole would never have been shot.