Rick Sanchez once described love as "just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed," but that hasn't stopped him from seeking companionship throughout Rick and Morty. Occasionally he's shown affection for his family and a few friends, but there have been rare times in his life when he pursued a romantic relationship and other times a one-night stand.
Every single one of Rick's love interests is totally different from one another in appearance, personality and species. With accounting for character memorability and their impact on Rick's character, here is a ranking of each of his love interests from most significant to least.
6. Kiara
While Kiara is a great character, she's at the bottom of Rick's list of love interests because the audience doesn't get to see them together. Kiara is remembered more for being Jerry's rebound girlfriend in "The ABC's of Beth," and she nearly killed Morty and Summer when seeing them as a threat to their soul-bonding. Eventually, Jerry has to break up with Kiara to save his kids and admit that she was a rebound. However, it turns out that Jerry was a rebound for her as well.
Though Rick and Kiara don't share screen time, they interact in a hilarious post-credits scene featuring only Jerry's voice-answering machine. The machine plays a series of voicemails revealing that Jerry was still sending sexual messages to Kiara, angering her new boyfriend. The boyfriend leaves a message saying he's coming to kill Jerry, followed by Rick's message that he killed that same alien about to hunt his son-in-law. Immediately after that voicemail, Rick leaves another telling Jerry he had intercourse with Kiara while being right next to her while saying it. One can only imagine how Rick charmed Kiara after killing her new boyfriend.
5. Daphne
Season 5's "A Rickconvenient Mort" sees Rick and Summer visit a series of planets before their annihilation to party like it's Mardi Gras. Even though Rick promised he wouldn't get attached to anyone on a doomed planet, he breaks his own rule by taking Daphne from the planet Morglutz over to the other end-of-world parties.
Daphne becomes the third wheel in Rick and Summer's series of raves. Although Summer is convinced Rick will dump her eventually and Daphne is only using him for her survival, Rick continues to grow attached to her. In order to prove that Daphne's using him, Summer takes the ship and destroys the asteroid about to hit the planet Ferkus 9. Daphne instantly dumps Rick to his shock. Daphne may be the most unlikable of Rick's love interests, but she shows that even Rick can't resist the temptation of elbow breasts.
4. Princess Poñeta
While the Season 5 episode "Rickdependence Spray" polarized the fans, one of the forgotten highlights was Rick had his first son. The episode reveals that the human race has been at war with the Chuds, a horse-human hybrid species who live underground for centuries.
In the middle of Rick and Morty's weird adventure involving sperm, they are captured by the King of the Chuds because it turns out Rick slept with his daughter Princess Poñeta. Thankfully, the princess intervenes before the duo's execution by revealing that she is in love with Rick and is pregnant with their child. This encourages the King to set them free since he's pleased to have an heir to the throne. Later on, Poñeta gives birth to a foal who definitely resembles Rick. She explains that Chud foals are ready to be on their own as soon as they are born, meaning Rick doesn't need to do any parenting. Although they go separate ways after that, Rick and Poneta's story might not be finished since their son can easily make a return.
3. Gaia
Some will say that Gaia shouldn't count as a love interest for Rick because Gaia is, well, a planet. But that's what makes Gaia such a fascinating partner for Rick. At the start of Season 4's "Childrick of Mort," Gaia manages to text Rick, revealing that she is pregnant. The rest of the Smith family finds out and makes Rick see who they think is a pregnant ex-girlfriend. To their shock and bewilderment, the expecting mother of Rick's child is actually a planet. Beth and Rick do their best to take care of this new breed of sentient species Gaia gives birth to by creating a society for them. However, a Zeus-like god named Reggie enters the picture, claiming he is the father. In return, Gaia admits she doesn't know who the father really is. This leads to a massive fight between Rick and Reggi, causing the destruction of the Ricklets' new society. Gaia and Rick are officially done by the episode's end, but Rick is still online still looking for new planets to see in the post-credits scene.
2. Unity
Out of all of Rick's love interests throughout Rick and Morty, Unity is the one who matches his wit and power. Christina Hendricks of Mad Men and Good Girls fame voices the hive mind in the Season 2 episode "Auto Erotic Assimilation," and it's revealed at the start that they used to date. Unity had taken over the minds of an entire planet's population, making every single individual on it think alike.
When seeing each other again, Rick and Unity rekindle their relationship and party hard but bring out the worst in each other. Even though they love having fun together, Unity realizes it has no choice but to leave Rick again because it's attracted to him the same way it can't be with him. She leaves him a series of notes explaining why she needs to get away, writing, "I know how it goes with us. I lose who I am and become a part of you. Because in a strange way, you're better at what I do without even trying." This cold dose of reality breaks Rick and leads to probably the darkest episode ending in Rick and Morty's history.
1. Diane Sanchez
Only one Rick Sanchez love interest can top this list, and that has to be his wife and mother of Beth, Diane Sanchez. Although fans don't know a lot about Diane, she was the source of innocence for one of the most jaded and nihilistic characters in modern television history.
Very few details about Rick and Diane's relationship have been revealed, but the audience has learned that she's no longer around at the start of the show, and Rick left her and Beth at some point. In the Season 3 premiere, "The Rickshank Redemption," Rick's memories are accessed and showed a scene where Diane and a young Beth are killed by a Rick from another dimension, but then Rick claims to the Galactic Federation agents that the memory was fake. However, in the Season 5 finale "Rickmurai Jack," Morty accesses Rick's real memories, and it turns out that the event actually happened, driving a grief-stricken Rick C-137 on an endless quest for revenge. Rick was nothing like the madman he's known and loved for when Diane was alive, and her loss completely changed him forever.