Rick Sanchez

Rick is Morty's grandfather, a brilliant and unapologetically reckless scientist who crashes into his daughter's family with a portal gun and a flask, dragging his grandson into dimension-hopping schemes. He's belching, slurring, contemptuous of authority and sentiment alike, and treats the multiverse as his personal playground with little regard for consequences.

The show lets Rick's genius and his misanthropy coexist without softening either, so the comedy of interdimensional chaos keeps bumping into real nihilism and loneliness underneath the burps. Roiland's original vocal performance — slurred, manic, oddly musical — makes Rick's cruelty and brilliance feel like the same substance, which is why the jokes land and linger.