Warning! The following contains spoilers for the Rick and Morty episode "Unmortricken." Read at your own risk!
There was a promise that Rick and Morty Season 7 would pick up after a slow start, and hot damn, that promise was fulfilled. After Season 6 revealed that Rick-C137 was on a vengeful hunt for Rick Prime over the death of his wife, it seemed like the Adult Swim series was setting up an eventual endgame that would wrap up years later. Little did we know that Rick, with the help of Evil Morty, would capture his nemesis and kill him midway through Season 7. Fans may worry about what could possibly come next after such a big moment, but co-creator Dan Harmon recently explained why he isn't concerned about delivering a game-changing moment so early.
Harmon had a lot to say about the future of Rick and Morty in a recent interview with Variety, and of course, the wild Succession-esque twist of killing Rick Prime randomly midway through Season 7. It felt like the end of a major canonical arc that could've gone on for seasons, so to see it end so abruptly may give some fans pause. The co-creator explained he wasn't worried about the early reveal impacting the show too heavily or for it to run out of ideas anytime soon:
This show, the least of its concerns is wearing out its canonical credit card. If the show was going to be destroyed, it would have been destroyed by any of the other Godzilla-sized problems that have happened to it, including pandemics, writers’ strikes, and other things.
Rick and Morty has overcome a lot, and yes, it's impressive the series weathered the storm of co-creator Justin Roiland's firing so well in Season 7 that I don't even think about the voice recasting. With that said, was the decision to end the Rick Prime story so early a mistake, given it now has to find additional content or a great decision by a series that has always strived to shake things up?
Ultimately, that will be up for fans to decide in the future, but it sounds like Rick and Morty is certainly headed in an interesting direction post-Rick Prime. Dan Harmon talked about where the journey has gone on so far and what this latest event sets up for the scientist going forward:
This is how far we’ve come with Rick’s journey. He is now the one who is existentially isolated. He is the one that doesn’t feel like he fits in the universe around him. Which puts him on the same level as a 14-year-old boy learning there’s multiple universes 10 show-years earlier.
Rick's defeat of Rick Prime ended a journey that he started long before the series officially began, and it seemed like the character wasn't satisfied after completing his mission. No doubt Rick likely hoped to find some measure of solace in exacting revenge for his wife and daughter's death, and if he didn't get that, his response is understandable. Now that the journey is over, what does he do now?
In addition to that question, we'll have to see how Rick can reconcile no longer being the strongest person in the multiverse. Evil Morty used Rick Prime's tech to create a device that granted him the power to take out anyone and anything if he willed it.
Evil Morty told the heroes he had no intention of ever using it, assuming he was left alone in his space beyond Rick's influence. Can Rick handle being told what not to do, or will he eventually make a move to take out the eye-patched version of his grandson?
These questions alone show that Rick and Morty still have a lot of ways it can go in future seasons. Sure, future generations will be in for a shock when watching with their Max subscription, and Rick unexpectedly pounds the main villain's face to a mashed mess, but perhaps by then, there will be something even more shocking in a future season to look forward to. For now, though, what a bonkers twist, and given what we know about Season 7, it could get even wilder.
Rick and Morty airs new episodes on Adult Swim on Sundays at 11:00 p.m. ET. There are only a handful of episodes left in the season, so strap in for what could be a very unexpected ending to the latest season.
