Rick-and-morty-season-6

Rick Sanchez, Morty Smith, and their family stand in the snow. What does this image have to do with the episode? Nothing. But beneath this are spoilers. Credit: ...

In Season 2, episode 2, "Mortynight Run," Rick and Morty leave Jerry at a daycare for off-planet Jerries, so the doddering dads won't die in an adventure. He risked the lives of his Beths for a showdown in a stealth space station. In that episode, as here, Summer was trusted with the instructions and devices to save Rick and Morty from their dumb choices. He was taking the killer's place to lie in wait, and for all the time he's been adventuring with Morty, Killer Rick never came back. When the Citadel sent Ricks to reclaim C-137's portal gun from Morty and Summer in "Rickshank Redemption," they froze the surviving Smiths. In "Solaricks," a bearded, badass Jerry informs Morty that this ice killed "Hunger Games Summer" and made Beth fatally ill. In "Rick Potion #9," a love potion gone wrong turned everyone not related to Morty into a "Cronenberg" monster, hungry for Smith family flesh. Season 6 picks up with Rick and Morty stranded in space in a broken-down escape saucer. In ravenous grief, Rick C-137 set out across the dimensions, slaughtering any version of himself that he could find to kill the Rick who killed his family. Rick and Morty were left behind in the crumbling Citadel of Ricks, from which they narrowly escaped after his portal gun fluid was contaminated by Evil Morty. Season 5 built the canon for Rick Sanchez with a pair of intense episodes. Rick and Morty has returned with a bonkers premiere episode, "Solaricks."

'Rick and Morty' co-creator Dan Harmon breaks down the Season 6 premiere's revelations about Rick's past and Morty's grandpa.

And we did amazing work, but as far as the embrace of “Rick and Morty” as this massive franchise with a natural canon and serialization to it, that spoke of drama to me on an emotional level, and in the midst of all this tumult, I think there was an unconscious desire to avoid that. So the long answer to your question is then, going into Season 6, when there was a little bit more stability, a little feeling of getting to start now, again, in a post-Mendel world, I think the first thing that came up was, are we going to tell an overarching story here about Rick’s one-armed man and his “Fugitive” kind of thing? We lost our father figure, Mike Mendel, who was the master over at “The Simpsons,” and then he was the reason why “Rick and Morty,” in spite of its kind of punk rock-ness, was still able to compete in an adult business. Rick Prime and Morty Prime have been together ever since, though they did abandon Murder Rick’s world for an exact replica when it was Cronenberg-ed half way through “Rick and Morty” Season 1. Well, their grandpa died and they’re going to Bed, Bath & Beyond because they don’t want to deal with it and they’re sorting those candles in kind of a crazy way. He was very much the dad to everybody in that office and then he was gone, and no one, not even him, could have predicted it.