Cool Motive, Still A Crime

• Main
• Laconic
• Playing With
• All Subpages
• Create New

"It was a crime of love!" "Cool motive, still murder." —Jake Peralta, Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Here you have it. A villain or a hero in a jerk moment claims they are like this because of something that happened in their past. A Freudian Excuse can justify their actions and make them sympathetic. Surely that means they have the high moral ground.

"Not so fast!" Another character says. "Just because you had a crappy moment in your life doesn't mean you get to act like a big jerk!"

There is a moment, a Beat. Sometimes the villain or hero will realize this is true. Or they engage in an Ignored Epiphany. Regardless, the emperor has no clothes.

Cool Motive, Still A Crime is when the work acknowledges that someone's tragic past, present trauma or so forth does not justify their actions. They're called out and told they still have to take responsibility for their actions.

This trope still applies if the character in question gives this speech to themselves. It can be a sign of Character Development or a Jerkass Realization. If the trauma happened when the character was a teen or an adult, it still counts.

Compare with Shut UP, Hannibal.

Examples of Cool Motive, Still A Crime include:

Anime and Manga

• Fullmetal Alchemist and the Brotherhood anime
  • Edward Elric has this opinion of Scar, the Ishvalan anti-alchemist. Scar didn't make a good first impression on him by chasing him and his brother down trying to kill them, shortly after he killed Nina. Ed is used to people hating him, but the ones trying to kill him usually have a clear reason to hate Ed Elric. Roy is more sympathetic after rescuing the brothers, explaining that Scar was a survivor of genocide and hates the alchemists which inflicted it on the Ishvalans. Ed asserts that Scar is using senseless violence as an excuse to mask his pain. He may have a point, given that Ed and Al were too young to have participated in the Ishvalan genocide. There's also the fact that he killed Winry's parents after they saved his life, albeit in this case it was a Freak-Out and Scar himself says he had no reason to do it, with visible regret. A group of survivor Ishvalans say the same thing to Scar, that he is adding more pain to the world and using their deaths to justifying it.
  • Riza reveals to Ed that Roy intends to ensure that they both pay for their crimes against the Ishvalans and their part in the war. Ed protests that from what she told him, the homunculi and Fuhrer manipulated them into starting the war, and dethroning the Fuhrer would surely be atonement enough. Riza says that's not an excuse; she cites how Alex Armstrong refused to hurt the Ishvalans and tried to secretly evacuate them during the war. He failed, but that he made the attempt showed he was the better man than either Riza or Roy.
• Inverted in One Piece regarding Nami's backstory. She hates pirates, and reveals that she only joined Luffy's crew to steal from them. Her sister Nojiko tells the crew why: a pirate named Arlong invaded their city, killed their foster mother when she gave up the money she had to save them and not herself, and blackmailed Nami into working for him. He put a high ransom on the town, and Nami has spent years stealing from pirates to secure the funds. Nojiko and Nami herself insist that she doesn't need pity or help, there is no excuse for her actions and she would rather own what she is rather than endanger another person. Sanji and the crew immediately disagree; they say that this is not a situation that Nami can handle alone and strive to help free her. Luffy doesn't hear this tragic backstory; when Nami tearfully begs him for help after the villagers march on Arlong, when he uses a corrupt Marine to steal the ransom money from her, he goes to challenge Arlong without hesitation.

Comic Books

• Maus has Art confront this about his parents. Anja is deceased, so he was able to find catharsis about her death in a one-shot comic. That comic acknowledged that he regrets his mother's passing and that he was unable to understand her, but she was still unable to hide her demons from him, and he resented the toxic codependence. Vladek Spiegelman is also a piece of work; he's a hoarder, a cheapskate and a racist, as seen with the black hitchhiker. Art asks his stepmother Mala if it's the camps that made him that way. She scoffs and reminds Art that she was also a camp survivor, and you don't see her picking up telephone wire off the street or complaining loudly about money. What's more, Mala has talked to many fellow survivors, and none of them are like Vladek.
• The Wake arc in The Sandman has Dream-Daniel confront his mother Hippolyta about this. He says that he understands that she thought he was dead and was trying to avenge him by killing the original Morpheus. Nevertheless, allowing the Furies to rampage through the Dreaming ensured that the Baby Daniel would become the next Dream. Not to mention that the murderer of the first Despair did not cause as much harm as she did, and his punishment is worse than hers. Dream-Daniel gives his mother eternal protection from Morpheus's allies and enemies, but also unofficially exiles her from the Dreaming. He hints, however, that this sentence can change. Indeed, in the sequel series Justice Society of America, Hippolyta and her resurrected husband are allowed back into the Dreaming after they both rejoin the Justice Society. Hippolyta for her part atones for the sensseless destruction.

Film

Animated

• Moana explains that the reason why Maui is so crusty to the title character, complete with trapping her on a cave while stealing her boat, is because he feels that humanity does not appreciate all the good he did for them, and he's been stranded on the island for decades. The reason why he started doing these good deeds is his parents tossed him into the ocean as a baby, something that Tamatoa reveals while thrashing both Maui and Moana during "Shiny", and Maui wanted external validation. Stealing Te Fiti's heart. When he actually faces a restored Te Fiti, however, Maui gives a sincere apology on realizing how much she suffered from his theft. He fully admits that his desire for validation from humans was selfish and not meant to help them at all. Te Fiti accepts his apology and offers him a new fishhook since he sacrificed his old one who help Moana.

Live-Action

• Catch Me If You Can, a biopic dramatizing Frank Abegnale's con artist career, has a judge spell this out when he is extradited to the United States for trial. The judge turns down his request to be tried as a minor, citing that he may have come from a broken home but showed blatant disrespect for the law while scamming airlines, a hospital and a law firm.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • You can make a drinking game for every time Heel Face Revolving Door characters Loki and Wanda Maximoff face this from protagonists and antagonists alike. Case in point:
    • The Thor trilogy makes it clear that it was very uncool of Odin to hide Loki's true parentage from him. He's forced to reveal to Loki, after the latter's skin turns blue from touching the Cube, that he basically kidnapped him from Jotunheim and raised him as his son. His intention was that Loki could be a peacemaker between the two enemy races, but both Thor and Loki were raised to see the Jotuns as monsters, something that Loki brings up tearfully. Nevertheless, when Thor finds out, he makes it clear that he doesn't care if Loki is not related to him; they are brothers, and thus Loki has no excuse for his trauma-induced actions. The first movie has Thor call out Loki for sending a Destroyer on Earth to finish him and endanger innocents in the process, and Odin while saving Loki while falling off the Bifrost says he knows that Loki didn't enact this scheme of wiping out the Jotuns to please his adopted father. In the second movie, Odin puts Loki on trial for attempting to invade Earth while allied with Thanos and killing innocents; he says the only reason Loki is not facing the usual sentence of execution is Frigga interceded on his behalf. Thor Ragnorak has Thor point out, after tazing Loki for a betrayal attempt, that Loki chooses to be a chronic backstabber rather than the hero he was meant to be. Loki takes this to heart by helping Thor fight Hela, and later sacrifices his life in a longshot attempt to assassinate Thanos before he can kill Thor. The Loki series has an alternate Loki watch his prime self's death with a tearful expression, and later apologize to a hologram of Sif for his actions.
    • Meanwhile, Wanda's backstory is tragic. She and her brother Pietro lost their parents in a bombing, and Stark missiles destroyed their apartment. When Hydra recruited them, Wanda takes the opportunity to Mind Rape Tony after he storms their compound, determined to make him suffer as much as she did. Her selfishness leads to Tony creating Ultron, and Ultron going rogue. Pietro was the more reasonable of the siblings, suggesting they just kill him while he's incapacitated and they get their revenge. She does the same to the rest of the team, which leads to Hulk rampaging in Johannesburg while mind-raped. Tony feels guilty on learning why Wanda hates him, but Bruce is not sympathetic when he revives and she tries to stop him from putting Jarvis into the Ultron body they stole from Ultron; he says he doesn't need to turn green to snap her neck and nearly acts on that threat by putting her in a chokehold. Wanda herself gets a horrible Heel Realization on learning that Ultron is going to wipe out everyone in Sokovia in his quest to make the world perfect, meaning she enabled him to cause much worse collateral damage than Tony ever did directly or indirectly. Clint has a more evenhanded approach when she freezes up during the final battle on sensing Pietro's death; he tells Wanda she has a choice to make, to either stay out of the fight to avoid being a liability or step in to make up for her past harm. In Civil War, General Ross says that he knows Wanda didn't mean to cause a fire in Lagos but still injured innocents and that is why the Avengers need accountability. Following the battle with Thanos, losing Vision and attempting to create an idyllic sitcom-style life where she has children with him and brings back Pietro backfires horribly; Agatha of all people makes Wanda review her life and ask what her excuse is for imprisoning a bunch of people who would have legitimately become her neighbors. She admires the power. Later installments from Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness had Strange himself call out Wanda for her rampage in an attempt to find her children.

Literature

• In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry discuss this about Merope Gaunt slipping a love potion to her crush Tom Riddle and drugging him for months. When she stopped drugging him, he ran for his life, leaving her destitute just as she was about to have their child. She died, and Tom Riddle Jr. aka Lord Voldemort was sent to a Muggle orphanage. They both acknowledge that she was in a bad situation, with her father and brother being abusive while treating her as unpaid labor and hexing any Muggle that so much as breathed on their property. Dumbledore asserts, however, that using a love potion on Tom Sr. was rape regardless of Merope's desperation. Tom Sr. had every right to leave her; if it had been a Muggle roofie, it would be just as horrific.
• Percy Jackson & the Olympians also has this in the last book regarding Luke and the half-bloods that sided with him. When he and Nico visit his mother to obtain her blessing, Percy certainly pities Luke on realizing that his mother lost her mind trying to be the Oracle and wasn't able to be a parent. Hermes was also no help, as is typical for the Greek gods. At the same time, Percy commits to stopping Luke because the latter has Kronos possessing him. Sure, Luke ends up making the decision to pull a Heroic Suicide when he hurts Annabeth in battle, but he himself acknowledges that he'd rather reincarnate and live a better life than face the judgement of Hades for his actions, since Hades doesn't give second chances.
• The sequel series Heroes of Olympus reveals that Aphrodite camp counselor Drew Tanaka feels this way about Silena Beauregard. Silena herself was a sympathetic traitor, confessing while she died that Luke charmed her about the camp secrets and then blackmailed her so she wouldn't have the chance to warn Percy or Mr. D about this security breach. She also redeemed himself by posing as Claire and leading the Ares cabin into battle, something that makes the real Claire burst into tears when she sees Silena dying. Drew, however, maintains that treason is still treason, and countless half-bloods died because of Silena's actions. No one in the Aphrodite cabin can contest this truth.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer had one of Buffy's childhood crushes Billy Fordham come to Sunnydale. He's entranced by how Buffy fights vampires and finds reasons to hang with her, while Angel investigates because instinct and jealousy tell him the guy is bad news. Buffy learns that Billy was going to sell her and several innocent teens called vampire worshipers out to Spike, in exchange for becoming a vampire. Billy explains he has terminal cancer, and becoming undead is the only way he can live. Buffy expresses pity for Billy, but knocks him out and rescues the worshipers from Spike's gang. She says that she can't abide by a guy that would sacrifice innocent lives for his gain.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a few opinions on the tragic excuse for characters being a jerk:
  • During the first Thanksgiving episode, Jake does all he can to extend a case on the night of Amy's Thanksgiving dinner so he doesn't have to spend time celebrating the holiday. He tells Holt that because his mom had to work two jobs as a waitress and a teacher, he was left to spend the day alone watching TV. Holt chides him because this event is important to Amy and he's dwelling on a past that no longer controls him. Jake has a change of heart, comes to Amy's celebration after Boyle saves it, and makes a sincere toast to the Nine Nine, his new family.
  • Jake tracks down a perp that committed murder. The man says, "It was a crime of love." Jake responds, "Cool motive, still murder." This has since become a meme in the fandom.
  • A softer example; after Jake gets badly injured chasing a perp, he defies Terry's orders to take a sick day and tries to track down the guy in Atlantic City. This leads to him needing hospitalization, and Terry demands answers. Jake admits that the last time he took vacation, a drug dealer he was chasing shot two civilians, and he never forgave himself for that. Terry takes a deep breath. He tells Jake that crooks get away all the time, and it wasn't his fault that taking time for himself led to people getting injured.
  • Turns out that Jake's dad was a lousy excuse for a father because his father was also the same, and Peralta garbage gets passed down to the next generation. The senior Peralta, however, admits when talking to Jake at a family reunion that it is no excuse for how he treated his son or daughter, Jake's half-sister. He hopes that Jake can break the Peralta garbage cycle with his newborn Mac.
• In The Sandman, Dream notes this about Alex Burgess. He sees when the Magus's son is still an innocent child, who grows into an empathetic teenager, and Alex is even tempted to free Dream when showing pity towards him as a teenager. Alex's father Rodrick is abusive to him, outright saying that his dead child Randall is the only heir that he recognizes and Alex is a poor replacement. However, Alex also kills Jessamy the Raven on his father's orders, and refuses to free Dream out of fear that he will be punished for his father's crimes. He ends up being right, but safe to say that the sentence would have been lighter if Dream had been freed as soon as Alex had the authority.
• Scrubs
  • Dr. Cox got this from his therapist, who then fired him as a patient. The therapist says that Dr. Cox had a hard life with an abusive father, but Cox himself refuses to put in the work or change. If Dr. Cox listened to one person, then it would show he was actually putting in the work to undo the emotional damage that makes him an ass. Dr. Cox gets a Jerkass Realization when he yells at J.D. after taking his advice to do an honest physical on Dr. Kelso, and J.D. says that he's asking Doug to replace him on rounds.
  • One new intern named Katie steals credit from Elliott and tries to manipulate her way to being seen as the best newbie. Carla sits her down for coffee and tells her off, saying the nurses see everything. Katie attempts to cry that she has emotionally abusive parents, and an alcoholic father to boot. Carla says, "Oh you poor thing," followed by "Heard it!" She says nearly everyone at the hospital has a tragic backstory, including herself and Dr. Cox. Unless Katie shapes up, the doctors and nurses will eat her alive.

Newspaper Comics

• In Calvin and Hobbes, this trope is played for laughs. Calvin likes finding any excuse to avoid responsibility for his actions and justify being an asshole. In one case, he told his dad that he felt he wasn't being supported enough and should be given more; his dad sends him outside to shovel snow and build "character". In another, Calvin quotes psychobabble that he is part of a dysfunctional family with parents who never empower him, meaning nothing he ever does is his fault. Hobbes snarks, "One of us needs to dunk our heads in ice water."
• For Better or For Worse has this with Kortney, a shop employee. She has Elly wrapped around her thumb by crying about how she needs this job, and apologizing when she has a major screwup like letting model trains be stolen right under her nose. As a result, Elly gives her more leeway than she gives to April, her own daughter, who helps out in the shop part-time when not doing schoolwork. When April catches Kortney on sexy chatrooms during work hours, Kortney threatens to knock her teeth out if she tells her mother; April tells Grandpa Jim, who insists that Elly needs to do something because threats are not acceptable. Even John agrees with this, asserting to Elly that she can't employe someone that physically threatened their daughter. Kortney gets a second chance by apologizing to Elly but not to April, and saying that she doesn't have any role models in her life. Elly buys this, but her assistant Moira doesn't. She warns Kortney that any further funny behavior, and she's out of time. Sure enough, Moira and April find out later that Kortney was stealing inventory and covering it up with forgery checks and phony donation letters to churches; she stole the checks from a neighbor. Moira takes the initiative to fire her while Elly is on vacation with John. The train theft was also not an accident; the thief was actually Kortney's boyfriend at the time. Kortney deliberately left the display case unlocked so he could steal it. Elly starts sobbing Tears of Remorse as Moira and April gently say I Told You So, that Kortney used excuses to get away with bad behavior. To prove their point, Kortney tries filing a suit of wrongful termination, but she loses because the cops link her to the train theft.

Video Games

• In Omori, Kel confronts Aubrey about this on the Main Route. She's become a giant jerk in the real world and a bully. Aubrey says she has every right to go after Basil after what he did, and that the friend group abandoned her after Mari died. Kel calls bullshit; he points out that she's not the only one who lost Mari. They all did, including Basil.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has this from time to time.
  • Heroes and Fire Nation individuals frequently acknowledges that Zuko is a tragic Anti-Villain. Anyone whose father burned their face and exiled them for refusing to face them in an Agni Kai would have issues. Zuko becomes very conflicted when helping Azula take over Ba Sing Se and letting her kill Aang leads to his exile behind rescinded. He shouts during "The Beach" that he should be happy because he got what he wanted. Instead, he spends most of the vacation grumping and getting jealous over guys talking to Mai. She calls him out for this during the campfire scene, and he tries to justify it by saying his life was hard. Mai and Ty Lee respond that it's no excuse for being a jerk during their vacation time.
  • Quite ironically, Azula says that she resents that her mother thought she was a monster. "She was right, but it still hurts!" Azula responds cheerfully. Azula pretends that by being aware of her issues, it means that she has complete control over her actions. Azula's hallucination of Ursa in the series finale says she loved Azula, always, as Azula's sanity frays following Ty Le and Mai's betrayals. The Search would confirm that Ursa loved Azula when she begged to take both Azula and Zuko into exile after helping Ozai kill Azulon.
  • Later when Zuko attempts to switch sides and join Team Avatar, most of them say no. Toph is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because she sensed he was telling the truth from her lie detector abilities. She also sympathizes with the fact that living as part of a rich elite family means conforming to arbitrary rules, having been in that situation. Katara says sarcastically let's give him an award for not being as big of a jerk. She reminds Zuko at the end of the episode, when he's accepted on probation as part of the Gaang, that she's watching him for any backsliding
• BoJack Horseman has a running motif for most of the characters that try to lean on their tragic backstories:
  • BoJack himself has a few moments. He hopes that by opening up to Diane about his traumatic childhood, after she encourages him to give a real story for his ghostwritten biography, that it means they have become closer. Instead, it makes Diane realize he is a big jerk, and she puts that in her book One Trick Pony. Later, Todd after suffering two seasons of abuse from BoJack hits his Rage Breaking Point in "It's You" after learning that BoJack slept with his crush Emily. BoJack blames it on the drugs and Oscar stress while apologizing. Todd spells it out: BoJack can't keep blaming his actions on his addictions or bad childhood. In the end, it's him. He has to take responsibility for his actions. "Fuck man, what else is there to say?".
  • BoJack at his mother's funeral acknowledges that Beatrice Horseman had a hard life. She had him when she was too young to know better, and didn't have the resources that his generation did to talk about independence, mental health, divorce, or self-actualization. As he discusses while popping pills, that his mother suffered does not excuse the way that she treated him as a kid, or how she poisoned Hollyhock with diet pills to "help" her lose weight.
• Infinity Train has heroes and villains which discuss this trope. Facing it allows their numbers to go down.
  • Tulip is a jerk, who resents her parents for divorcing. She blames them for ruining her life. Then a tape in the Cat's Car gives her the courage to see what really happened, without her Nostalgia Filter or catastrophizing; her parents were actually fighting all the time, she just blocked it out and ignored the red flags. During the actual scene where they break the news, they also were as broken up over the separation as she was, and it wasn't their intent to ruin her life. Tulip leaves the tape with a Jerkass Realization that she needs to go easier on her parents when she gets home.
  • When Tulip sees Amelia's tape, she acknowledges that it is traumatic to lose the love of your life. Amelia had a breakdown after Alrick died, planning to jump off the roof of their complex if not for the Train. Tulip, however, also calls out Amelia for turning Atticus into a Ghom for the crime of helping Tulip achieve her quest and protecting One-One. She says that change is possible, but it has to come with facing the future.
  • Season 3 brings us Grace, the leader of the cultist children the Apex. Simon traps her in a loop of her worst memories when believing that Grace betrayed him by lying about Hazel's origins. Hazel left with a reformed Amelia because she felt the worst Amelia would do is experiment on her, while Simon clearly had murderous intentions towards the "null" Hazel. Grace had neglectful parents that gave her everything they wanted but refused to see her was she was; she shoplifted to get their attention. They didn't even notice when the Train entered indoors and she boarded it. A Hazel hallucination calls out Grace for how she used her fear of neglect to gain power over the other kids, and let Simon kill Tuba, Hazel's protector. She says Grace's past was no excuse for the pain she caused in the present.
• The Legend of Korra would continue this trend with some of the heroes and villains:
  • When we learn Amon's real backstory, that his father abused him and his brother Tarlok by training them to become weapons against the Avatar, Korra says she has never heard such a sad story. Mako and she resolve nevertheless to use this information to stop Amon and save Republic City, because he's trying to wipe out all the benders.
  • Asami calls out her father Hiroshi Sato for falling victim to this. They lost his wife, Asami's mother, to a Firebending gang. As a result, Hiroshi has been supplying the Equalists with the mechas and tech they need to take over Republic City. When they fight in the climax in season one, Asami calls out her father for becoming the exact kind of monster that her mother hated, because Mrs. Sato wouldn't have advocated for genocide. It takes a few years, and a stint in jail, but Hiroshi belatedly realizes the grave error that he made. He reaches out to Asami as she takes over the family company and saves it from ruin, apologizing for his crimes. She takes time to mend their bond, but the new Gaang remains suspicious of him. Korra even ponders if he's feigning remorse to manipulate Asami. Asami asks Korra to trust her, genuinely hurt about the possibility, and Korra apologizes for voicing that thought.
  • Lin and Suyin are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but they agree on one thing: that their mother hated her rigid life as a Beifong was no excuse for how she treated them. They wanted a mom; instead, they got an absent parental figure that let them do what they wanted. Suyin tells Korra that she rebelled out of a need for Toph to actually step up and be a mom, to get her approval or any sign of attention. (Lin herself says that this was no excuse for Suyin's delinquent behavior and holds a grudge against her for the scar on her cheek.) While Suyin and Toph talked this out offscreen and reconciled, Lin is much brusquer when confronting her mother in season 4; Toph reverts to her irreverent behavior, and Lin tells her that bullshit is why they never talked for several decades. Toph herself is forced to acknowledge she was not a good parent, though she is proud of both her girls.
  • Sweet Opal in a flashback said this about Kuvira according to the graphic novel Ruins of the Empire. When they were kids, Suyin took in Kuvira after the latter's parents dropped her off at Zaofu. Kuvira and Opal were taking turns with a dollhouse, and Kuvira destroyed it out of spite when Opal said it was still her turn. Opal told Suyin, who asked Kuvira for an explanation. Kuvira had none and stalked away. Suyin said they should stay patient with Kuvira because of her parents not wanting her, and she's now a sister to Opal. Opal scoffs and says lots of people at Zaofu are orphans, and they aren't jerks like Kuvira. She goes on to say Kuvira's parents probably gave her up because of her behavior. It was true, but Kuvira overheard and felt devastated.
• Phineas and Ferb had this Played for Laughs with Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who had many tragic details in his backstory:
  • Parodied in one instance. In Across The 2nd Dimension, Dr. D meets his successful counterpart who has taken over the tri-state area. This Alternate Dr. D reveals that he became evil because he lost his toy train as a child. After a Beat, Prime Dr. D goes, "That's it?!" He rants about how he suffered so much more, and none of that helped him take over the tri-state area. He also ends up saving Phineas, Ferb and Perry by finding his train, which he never lost, and giving it to Alternate Dr. D. This leads to Alternate Dr. D stopping his robot invasion and buying time for the resistance to arrest him.
  • Perry the Platypus delivers a silent version in "This Is Your Backstory". Dr. D's latest inator causes him to become a monster with every piece of trauma he remembers. He prepares to rip apart Perry. Perry grabs his wallet and shows that he's kept pictures of himself and Dr. D, showing that he cares about the scientist and that he has plenty of good memories to go with the bad. This depowers Dr. Doofenshmirtz, allowing Perry to defeat him. Vanessa also visits, telling her dad You Are Not Alone.
• This comes up a lot more seriously in Rick and Morty with all of the Smiths and Rick himself:
  • "Pickle Rick" has the family attending school-mandated therapy with a psychiatrist interested in their screwed-up dynamics; Rick turns himself into a pickle to avoid therapy, which leads to his Humiliation Conga throughout the episode. Beth at first tries to blame Morty and Summer for their dysfunctions that led to their teacher's concern because she resents having to be at therapy in the first place. Dr Wong is not phased; she pinpoints that Beth's underlying issues from her relationship with Rick may be passing on the stress to the kids so they act out in unhealthy ways following her divorcing Jerry and making Rick the family patriarch. Beth responds, "Fuck you, lady," much to her kids' shock. Their session ends with the family being emotionally honest with each other for the first time in ages, and season 4 confirms Beth continued to see Dr. Wong after ending the episode insulting her in the car while talking to Rick.
  • Rick is never impressed when Beth tries to blame her daddy issues on him abandoning her as a kid. "The ABCs of Beth" actually goes into this when he calls her out for leaving her best friend Tommy to die in Froopy Land, the one place that every Rick designed to prevent her from wrecking havoc on the neighbors. Tommy says in a play reenactment it's because Beth resented that Tommy's father liked him, while Beth mutters, "Fake news." Beth has a mild point in that Rick built this place to avoid spending time with her, something Rick doesn't contest, but Rick retorts he made the whole place childproof so she wouldn't get hurt, killed or drowned. Beth keeps claiming that she didn't leave Tommy stuck in a honey swamp on purpose, but a grown Tommy who has become the Froopy Land king knows better.
  • "Mort Dinner Rick Andre"
    • Nimbus, Rick's archnemesis that we never heard of prior to this episode, calls out Rick for this. He says that Diane, Rick's wife, wouldn't have liked the man that Rick became: a bitter cynic that pretends to care about nothing. Rick has no retort to this apart from saying that Nimbus shouldn't establish canonical backstory. Morty also asks why Rick has to pick a fight with everyone, why he can't just get along and be a normal human being for once.
    • The B plot has Morty also call out the Hoovians for this; he accidentally started a generational saga of Hoovians wanting him dead while getting wine to drink with Jessica from their Narnia-like dimension. For context, decades in their world pass in minutes on Morty's world, thus their society evolves every time Morty nips down to the basement portal to get another wine bottle and either gets attacked or retaliates with Rick's armory. When their latest attempt to assassinate him gets Jessica kidnapped, his rescue leads with the robots that defeated the Hoovians capturing him. Morty revives in their lab and says, "I just took some wine! I already apologized! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Jessica was definitely an innocent party in this fiasco.
  • The season five finale reveals that the tragic backstory that Rick presented to the Citadel was real and not made-up as he claimed at the time. A rogue Rick did kill his Beth and Diane using a bomb, when his Beth was a little girl, and Rick spent months both coming up with the interdimensional formula and recovering from his injuries. He never abandoned any Beth before she was old enough to have Summer and Morty. When Morty comes out of the memory gun flashback, he apologizes to Rick for what happened. Then Evil Morty holds them at gunpoint; he says that all Ricks try to justify their actions based on tragic backstories, and Morty's Rick is no different. He may have a point; this was this same Rick that went on a rampage to kill dozens of Ricks trying to avenge his family, leading to the Citadel and Council of Ricks being formed.