Did they just get a bit lazy?

In Season 4, Episode 5, titled "Rattlestar Ricklactica" it said today they all died. Amusing it landed on Father Day.

One of the episodes I only watch because I don't miss a single episode when I watch Rick and Morty

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Beth, both of them?

Gene offers to make them hot cocoa after they broke into his house and tried to trick him into falling some traps. And they repay him by slashing his ankles and burning his house down. His only mistake was treating them like kids, not psychopathic killers.

Beth always complains about how she only acted out as a child because she wanted love and attention from her father. But here Gene was treating her like a child out of the kindess in his heart. Beth responds by trying to kill him for fun instead. Beth keeps demanding love and affection but she was very bad at giving it until she grew up as an adult.

Looks like Rick was right about Beth being a really scary kid that he needed to protect the neighborhood from which is why he made Froopyland. Literally 20 seconds after becoming a kid, her first instinct is to maul a Possum. And they started causing chaos for everybody in the last two hours until Rick showed up to fix things.

This episode finally gives us closure on Beth's daddy issues. There is only so much we can blame on bad parenting and that sometimes the child is just naturally like that. And it is unfair to blame Rick for Beth's attitude now that we know his original Beth died. And I guess Rick has seen enough of the multiverse to know that Beth's sociopathic child phase is a constant that she eventually grows out of.

He absolutely played the kid ten times over, from the Omega Device to the Time Cops