While Rick and Morty has featured plenty of gags that went too far, there is one infamous plot twist that the show has never managed to outdo in the years since its arrival. Every season of Rick and Morty has its ups and downs, and the show’s weaker episodes have an undeniable tendency to rely on edgy humor.

Particularly in its early seasons, Rick and Morty was known to use shock value to keep middling storylines afloat, but the series fortunately moved away from this approach as the show continued. As Rick and Morty spent more time with their main characters, the show began to take their internal lives more seriously.

The series gained a little more maturity as a result, and its cringe-inducing gags became less frequent. Few of Rick and Morty’s many imitators managed to capture the balance of gross-out humor and genuine sweetness found in the original show, since the Adult Swim hit did an impressive job of giving its heroes some heart.

Rick and Morty Season 4’s Giant Incest Baby Was A Misjudged Twist

That was why it was such an unwelcome surprise when season 5, episode 4, “Rickdependence Spray,” undid all of this hard work with one ill-judged storyline. When Rick accidentally creates gigantic, monstrous sperm out of Morty’s bodily fluids, his mortified grandson hides any evidence of his involvement in the catastrophe from his grandfather.

As the sperm rampage through America, the US Army teams up with CHUDs to take them down. Eventually, the government places a giant human egg in space in the hopes of attracting the sperm to kill them. One sperm manages to reach the egg and fertilize it, only for a horrified Morty to learn that the egg was from his sister, Summer.

As evidenced by the terrible IMDb rating of “Rickdependence Spray,” the episode is typically viewed as one of Rick and Morty’s worst outings. The entire storyline centers around one fairly immature joke, as Morty’s masturbation causes a bigger problem than he could possibly have anticipated and ends up leading to a global crisis.

However, it was the episode’s finale that sparked most fan criticism online. The idea of Morty’s sperm fertilizing Summer’s egg, regardless of how unintentional and absurd the circumstances, was a bridge too far for some viewers, and the episode remains divisive as a result.

Rick and Morty Season 4 Doubled Down On Its Worst Gag

Image courtesy of Everett Collection

It did not help that Rick and Morty’s best replacement show, Inside Job, arrived around the same time and offered a sci-fi sitcom that was just as R-rated and edgy, but not as grotesque. However, Rick and Morty season 5 did not make matters easier for itself when the show continued.

For some inexplicable reason, season 5, episode 7, “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion” opted to bring back the Giant Incest Baby as a pivotal plot point only a few episodes later. Summer naming the baby “Naruto” doesn’t do much to make the gag less creepy, and the entire storyline ends up feeling like a misstep upon a re-watch.

Rick and Morty has made some shocking jokes both before and since, and the show’s penchant for dark humor has never gone away entirely in the years since “Rickdependence Spray” and “Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion” aired. However, there is a reason that neither outing shows up on lists of Rick and Morty’s best episodes.

The Giant Incest Baby plot is undoubtedly a gross and shocking twist, but it doesn’t do much outside of provoking disgust in the viewer. Most of Rick and Morty’s darkest gags serve a plot purpose, whether they are illustrating the depths of Rick’s self-hatred, the pitiless nature of the show’s universe, or the unintended consequences of Morty’s well-meaning actions.

In season 7, episode 4, “That’s Amorte,” Morty is disgusted to discover that Rick’s famous spaghetti is made from the bodies of people who took their own lives, and he spends the entire episode searching for a more ethical alternative. His failure to find one results in a punchline that is cynical as it is funny, but the gag feels earned.

Rick and Morty Has Avoided Extreme Gross-Out Jokes Since Season 4’s Misstep

The Giant Incest Baby joke feels more like a transparent attempt to shock viewers than a genuinely surprising plot twist or funny character choice. While later seasons of Rick and Morty still include gross-out moments, the show has rarely touched on anything as outright shocking as this season 5 surprise.

There are still some disgusting moments, but nothing anywhere near as grotesque as the Giant Incest Baby, which is a testament to the show’s improvement. As Rick and Morty becomes a better cartoon comedy, it has dropped gags that do nothing but put viewers off in favor of more grounded moments of equally goofy yet immature gross-out humor.

While Rick and Morty’s later seasons are not short on disgusting gags, these jokes are more justified in terms of storytelling. This ensures that Rick and Morty's creators have learned from past mistakes so that they have never hit a low point worse than season 5’s “Rickdependence Spray.”