Season 6 of Rick and Morty is upping the ante, and maybe even dialing back its signature nihilism.
Last season ended with mad scientist Rick Sanchez and his eternal optimist grandson Morty dissolving their toxic and co-dependent relationship. But in doing so countless clones are eliminated, and so the duo’s reliance on do-overs may have come to an end.
Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s dark sci-fi comedy is headed back to our screens next month, and will hopefully continue to blow (and confuse) our minds. An official teaser, released this past week, suggests we’ll get some clarity about what exactly went down in Episode 10 of Season 5, “Rickmurai Jack.”
Adult Swim recently announced that Rick and Morty Season 6 would “premiere globally and across the multiverse” on Sunday, September 4 at 11 pm EST. That statement implies we’ll be hanging out with plenty of variants of the Smith family and breaking through the boundaries of the finite number of Rick-verses we’ve seen over the show’s existence.
The trailer also suggests that Season 6 will be more serialized than episodic, building off of Season 5’s finale rather than kicking off with more zany standalone adventures.
We see flashbacks from previous seasons while a voiceover urges us to care a teensy bit more about everything that’s happened throughout Rick and Morty’s existence, even though we were told we didn’t have to care a whole lot about the arcs and dynamics and storylines by the characters themselves. We’re also told that the universe as we’ve known it has ended but that shouldn’t get us down, showing us “our” Morty alive and well while Evil Morty jumps into a portal.
The Inverse Analysis— When the Citadel was destroyed at the end of Rick and Morty Season 5, Evil Morty appears to have departed the show as we’ve known it. Now, Evil Morty can apparently teleport himself to different realities and is free to roam the entire expanse of the multiverse.
However, the surviving Ricks and Mortys were left with no portal tech fluid to join in on the timeline and planet-hopping shenanigans. That problem could easily be solved, but Season 6 may be less preoccupied with self-contained antics and more focused on how Rick and Morty will mend their relationship. Still, we bet things are going to get a little weird.
Rick and Morty Season 6 premieres September 4 on Adult Swim.
