With the sixth season of Rick and Morty just days away, we don’t have to tell you how excited we are. Season 5 was considered by many, even the show’s creators, to be a low point for the series and their least favourite season.
And yet, an episode from season five, “Mort Dinner Rick Andre”, has been nominated for an Emmy this year in the ‘Outstanding Animation Category. Rick and Morty’s low point is the pinnacle that other adult animated shows strive to reach.
Last week we here are NAG were lucky enough to watch the first few episodes of season 6 of Rick and Morty early, and we can promise you – it’s every bit as load, bombastic and obnoxious as you would want. Before immersing ourselves in this new season of madness, though, we thought we should take a moment and look back at the season that’s come before and on which season 6 builds.
For those who need a little refresher (we know we did), here is what happened in the finale of Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty season 5:
The fifth season’s finale started with Rick and Morty separated – something a Rick and Morty should never be. Still, Morty was sick and tired of not feeling respected by his grandpa and Rick, being Rick, decided to underline how little he values Morty by replacing him with two crows.
As the episode progresses, we see Rick get feelings for his feathery Morty replacements, and Morty finds himself teamed up with a fellow named Nick, someone even more sick and twisted than Rick. Later, Morty proves that he is more than just a sidekick and can take care of himself without Rick’s help when he takes out Nick all on his own.
During this ordeal, Morty realises just how much he misses his grandad and reaches out to make amends. However, it’s now Rick who doesn’t want to know and seems intent on leaving his toxic relationship with Morty in the past. After trying everything else, Morty resorts to trying to guilt Rick into returning by turning himself into a sad, middle-aged man, but that does little to move Rick, and Rick seems happy without Morty in his life, for once.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOkeB4ZTjFM
Still, after Rick fails to convince bird Morty’s to join him on adventures, Rick starts becoming somewhat “bird-like” himself. Until he discovers that his two crow companions were cheating on him, pushing Rick to return to Morty once more.
However, nothing in this show can ever run smoothly, and when Rick returns, Morty is stuck as his sad, middle-aged version. In an attempt to fix him, the two head out to the Citadel, where Evil Morty is now president. During dinner with Evil Morty, Rick’s origin story is finally revealed.
After being teased at for years and season after season, it turns out that the “fabricated” version of his origin that Rick recreated during season 3 was accurate. Rick, his wife and child were all murdered by another Rick, who had figured out the technology behind portal guns before our Rick. We also learn that Rick has spent his entire life cataloguing the multiverse and murdering every other Rick he could find to avenge his family’s murder.
After years of trying and failing to find the Rick responsible, our Rick and the other Ricks decided to create a truce, and our Rick even helped design the Citadel – a breeding factory for Morty’s.
Evil Morty isn’t the idiot Rick takes him for. Foreseeing a mass exodus, Evil Morty poisoned all the portal fluid to slaughter Ricks as they attempted to escape. Evil Morty engineered the Citadel as a gigantic superweapon, built to break open the “Central Finite Curve”. And it turns out this has been Evil Morty’s plan from the get-go.
The Central Finite Curve is a subsection of the multiverse that has been walled off from the rest of infinity by Rick. It is a space where Rick is always the most intelligent being in the universe. As you can imagine, Rick doesn’t like being challenged by anyone, including his peers. He also doesn’t like the idea of beings that don’t resemble him being intelligent, but that’s not reality.
In reality, there are far more intelligent than Rick, but thanks to his insecure actions, Rick ensured that nobody could breach that boundary.
So it turns out in the end, Evil Morty’s plan wasn’t that evil after all. Sure Evil Morty might have murdered an armful of Ricks and Mortys to achieve his goal. Still, all he wanted was freedom and the chance to escape the toxicity of his grandad altogether. And if you look at the big picture, Rick’s attempt to control reality was undoubtedly worse and more “evil” than any actions of Evil Morty.
Season 5 ends on an oddly sentimental note, with Evil Morty offering Morty a place on his ship, something that even Rick advises Morty to take. If Morty doesn’t take a seat on the ship, the alternative is to stay. Staying, however, means being stuck in the same abusive cycle with Rick – Going from dangerous adventure to dangerous adventure. The choice is Mortys and Mortys alone, and he chooses… to stay.
Morty choosing to stay behind with Rick, his grandfather, means that Evil Morty is free to escape into the multiverse and, essentially, win. It’s now up to season 6 to reveal if the dynamic between Rick and Morty will be any different now that Evil Morty managed to outwit Rick and regular Morty proved his undying loyalty.
If you, like us, can’t wait for the latest season of Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty to drop, you won’t have to wait long. South Africans can binge through Season 6 starting from Monday, 5 September over on Netflix – just 24 hours after the US premiere.
To celebrate this latest season, we at NAG got to interview the voices behind Bath and Jerry, and if you missed it, you can read the entire interview here.
Are you excited for another season of Rick and Morty? Let us know in the comments below, and remember to check out the latest from #wormageddon by following the link here.