Editor's note: The below article contains spoilers for Rick and Morty, Season 6, Episode 1, “Solaricks.”

One of the main complaints about Season 5 of Rick and Morty is that the show became ever more uncoupled from its canon storyline, with most of the episodes dedicated to wacky one-shot concepts that might be fun but don’t pack the same emotional punch. Season 6’s premiere, “Solaricks,” is here to show fans that the Rick and Morty crew understood the fair criticism and is ready to steer the new season's boat on a different course.

In Season 6, Episode 1, not only do we get a direct follow-up to the multiverse-crushing Season 5 finale, “Rickmurai Jack,” but we also earn some deep cuts on previous seasons — and not in the “let’s make some jokes and move on” kind of way, as the new season’s premiere really ties up a lot of loose ends and puts the Smith family at the center of a new storyline. On top of that, we meet the true villain of the whole series, the man responsible for Rick (voiced by Justin Roiland) becoming a ruthless, drunk, egomaniac asshole. There’s a lot to unpack in “Solaricks,” for sure, and people who just jumped into the series for Season 6 will be completely lost. But that’s part of what makes Rick and Morty such an interesting experience, as the series allows its characters to grow amidst the most chaotic sci-fi storylines.

RELATED: 'Rick and Morty' Season 6 Review: Get Ready for Another Ricktastic Adventure

It’s a Brand New Multiverse

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At the end of Season 5, we learn the reason why every reality has one genius Rick. Many decades before the series started, the Council of Ricks, with the help of Rick C-137, built walls around the multiverse to isolate only the realities where Rick is the smartest man alive. Called the Central Finite Curve, this collection of realities also had as a side effect the damnation of every Morty (voiced by Roiland), as Rick’s grandson is reduced to a decoy in the realities of this section of the Multiverse. Season 5’s finale also reveals the ultimate plan of Evil Morty: break down the Central Finite Curve and escape to a reality where Rick doesn’t rule.

Season 6, Episode 1, takes us back to the shattered Citadel. There, Rick and Morty contemplate their death, after being left stranded in space by Evil Morty. They are incapable of using Rick's Portal Gun to jump through dimensions, since the destruction of the Central Finite Curve messes around with coordinates— and even the Rickiest Rick cannot think of a way to escape his death. So, the first major thing the new season’s premiere confirms is that, yes, Morty beat the Rick we think might be the smartest and most capable of all the Ricks. And he did it alone. That’s important to underline how the Multiverse status-quo is about to change, especially since now beings from realities outside the Central Finite Curve can challenge Rick in new and exciting ways.

Although Season 5 opened the door to even wackier concepts being explored in Rick and Morty, Season 6’s premiere focused on first cleaning up the house. Of course, Rick and Morty don’t die in the Citadel, as Space Beth (voiced by Sarah Chalke) comes to their rescue.

Once they get home, Rick tries to reset the traveling coordinates, a hard reboot that might allow the Portal Gun to work as intended once again. Unfortunately, Rick makes a mistake and resets travelers instead. That means every variant that’s lost in the universe gets teleported to their original reality. In the case of the series’ main cast, Rick, Morty, and Jerry (voiced by Chris Parnell) will go on solo adventures. Meanwhile, Family Beth, Space Beth, and Summer (voiced by Spencer Grammer) go to the Citadel to find a way to bring everybody back to their reality.

Sins of the Past

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Image via Adult Swim

The reason why Jerry is teleported in Season 6's premiere is that there was a Jerry mix-up at Jerryboree, an interdimensional daycare introduced in Season 2's Episode 2, “Mortynight Run.” The Jerryboree is the place Ricks leave their Jerrys when they want to adventure in space and do not have the time to drop their dead weight of a son-in-law back on Earth. In Season 2, Morty loses the retrieval ticket for their Jerry, leading them to retrieve a Jerry that might not be their own. “Solaricks” confirms the mix-up, with the series’ main Jerry going back to his original reality. There, he realizes his marriage with Beth would still be in ruins if they had not spent some time separated. It’s clear for Jerry that shared experiences are what binds people together, not their original reality. This theme will also resonate with Morty’s and Rick’s solo adventures.

Morty goes back to the Cronenberg Earth, a reality Rick and he destroyed in Season 1, Episode 6, “Rick Potion #9.” In that episode, an experiment gone wrong transforms almost all life on the planet into deformed bloodthirsty creatures. Rick and Morty escape that reality by finding a new universe where their other selves just died. However, they leave the rest of the Smiths behind. Without Rick and Morty, the Smiths build a happy life in the apocalypse, proving that the duo is responsible for most of the family’s grievances. This happy, and savage, Smith family showed up again in Season 3, Episode 1, “The Rickshank Rickdemption,” when the regular Morty and Summer visit the Cronenberg dimension while trying to break Rick out of prison. The Cronenberg dimension Smith gets frozen by Citadel Ricks that come to capture regular Morty and Summer, and is left behind to face a cold death.

When Morty goes back to his original reality, the Cronenberg dimension, he finds out only Jerry is alive there. Summer and Beth really died after being frozen. So, while in Season 1 Morty was willing to ignore his sins, now they come back to haunt him and force him to realize that he is accountable for the pain he causes to other people. It’s not enough to jump between realities and forget his mistakes. That is also something Rick has to learn in his solo adventure.

In his original reality, Rick goes back to the destroyed garage where his family was brutally murdered by Evil Rick. Rick’s tearjerker origin story had been teased in “The Rickshank Rickdemption,” but it was only confirmed and expanded in the Season 5 finale. In his original reality, the main Rick keeps things just as they were on the day of the attack, as a constant reminder of his failure. Rick’s so willing to torture himself that he created a ghost of his wife to haunt him, as a voice that’s always in the next room, just out of reach. Rick also put the entire planet in a time loop, forcing everyone to repeat the day he lost his family for all eternity. So, when he decided he had to suffer for what happened, he also dragged everybody else into his personal hell. It’s a very Rick thing to do, one that shows the character was even more careless many decades ago.

While trapped in his original dimension, Rick reflects on his past mistakes and confesses to the ghost he created that he likes to share a life with his new family. Rick usually underlines how everyone is expendable and that he can get any version of the Smiths he likes from other realities. But in that moment, alone, Rick lets his guard down and admits to himself that he cares about one particular version of Morty, Summer, and Beth. His emotional breakthrough gets cut short, however, as he realizes his traveler's reset must have also trapped Evil Rick in his original dimension.

Rick’s True Nemesis Unveiled

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Image via Adult Swim

While Rick, Morty, and Jerry are having epiphanies in different universes, Space Beth, Family Beth, and Summer fight a horde of 5th dimension creatures while protecting a beacon that might guide their loved ones home. Rick uses the beacon to rescue Morty first, revealing that the Cronenberg dimension is the original home of Evil Rick. So, the reason why Rick C-137 chose that singular Morty is that his Rick is the man he’s been trying to kill for many decades. All cards are on the table right now. Rick C-137 chose Morty from Cronenberg dimension in hopes Evil Rick would try to rescue his grandson. Unfortunately, Evil Rick doesn’t care about anyone but himself, a trait Rick C-137 somewhat admires.

The reveal is made on board an invisible space station filled with death traps by Evil Rick. There, Rick and Morty even come face to face with a possible clone, while they are mocked by a recording by Evil Rick. Evil Rick wants them to put themselves at risk while trying to catch the clone, who might actually be the real deal. And Rick C-137 is willing to risk his own life if that means he gets a chance to kill his true nemesis. However, once Morty offers to go on the suicide mission, and both Beths get devoured by a 5th dimension creature and need rescue, Rick C-137 lets go of his revenge to keep his new family safe. This is a major breakthrough, as Rick can no longer hide his very human feelings. He might still be in denial, but the Smiths know that he cares about them.

Season 6, Episode 1 wraps up with another shocking twist. Jerry releases an alien creature that turns everything it touches into a version of itself. In a matter of minutes, the whole planet becomes a sentient creature. So, the Smiths need to choose between fixing things or finding a dimension where every version of themselves dies at the same time. It seems nigh impossible to fix sentient Earth, so they all move to a new dimension, burying the other Smiths’ bodies in the garden. That’s it. Everybody is displaced in the multiverse, aware of their own condition, and willing to stick together due to their shared history. Meanwhile, the multiverse is completely open and beings more intelligent than Rick might show up anytime now. It’s still too soon to know where Season 6 will take us, but after this premiere, we can be excited about Rick and Morty once again.

After the credits roll, “Solaricks” has one last surprise. As it turns out, the naked man Rick and Morty meet at the booby-trapped space station was actually Evil Rick, who used an escape pod to safely land on Cronenberg's Earth. There, he meets Savage Jerry, who uses a knife to cut Evil Rick’s throat. Unfortunately, Evil Rick has regenerative powers. And he’s not happy about being locked in his own dimension. So, it’s fair to assume Evil Rick will investigate what happened to the destruction of the Central Finite Curve and Rick C-137’s traveler reset. We can’t wait to see how this showdown will develop.

Interdimensional Lost & Found

  • The new season opening is filled with exciting peeks at new adventures, including Rick and Morty wearing base jumping suits and gliding next to a giant squirrel, and Butter Morty melting in a giant pan. As always, we also get teased with the arrival of Cthulhu. Maybe one day we’ll actually have an episode with the Lord of Madness.
  • Rick tries to hide his knowledge of Marvel properties by pretending to forget Iron Man’s name while referencing the scene at the start of Avengers: Endgame. Summer, however, embraces her nerd background by using Wolverine’s claws. And no, not the original Wolverine, but Laura, aka X-23, who recently took over the superhero’s mantle in Marvel Comics.
  • “Solaricks” keeps the long tradition of introducing wacky characters whose names start with a “Mr.” This time we had one Mr. Goldmanbachmajorian and one Mr. Frundles.

New episodes of Rick and Morty come to Adult Swim every Sunday, at 11 p.m. ET.