Rick and Morty’s Season 6 Premiere Picked Up Right After That Massive Finale

Rick and Morty Season 6 has finally aired its very first episode, so here’s everything that went down during “Solaricks!” The fifth season of the series saw Evil Morty enact his grand scheme of using all of the remaining portal fluid, destroying the Citadel, and changing the multiverse as the series knows it forever in order to escape from the clutches of Rick’s Central Finite Curve. This had left the titular duo floating through space stuck in the broken part of the Citadel they had managed to save following Evil Morty’s big exit. But this really was just the beginning.

With Season 6 picking up immediately from this cliffhanger and needing to explore the immediate aftermath of it all before heading into new adventures, “Solaricks” has a lot of ground to cover. Here’s a breakdown of everything important that happened during Rick and Morty’s big Season 6 premiere: 

• The episode begins with Rick giving a breakdown of the situation as he and Morty are still trapped in the broken off piece of the Citadel and are floating through space. It’s been some time since the end of the fifth season, the portal gun is broken, and the duo is running out of options in terms of food, water, and energy. The two of them are ready for their deaths when all of a sudden Space Beth arrives on a ship to save them. After some back and forth, Rick and Morty are saved. 
• Bringing the two of them back home, Rick explains that he needs to reboot the portal index in order to hop multiverses again but it doesn’t really work as he instead resets portal travelers (rather than travel). It’s here that Rick, Morty, and Jerry are warped back to their original universes while Rick tasks Summer with helping them return to the C-137 universe. It’s here Beth and Space Beth learn about the dead Rick and Morty in the backyard. 
• Summer recruits Space Beth for the next adventure to save Rick, and it’s awkward for her a bit and both Beths eventually agree to go with Summer. Rick returns to his original universe, which was seen during his origin story as highlighted in the third and fifth seasons. It’s revealed that he’s created a version of his dead wife Diane as an A.I. that haunts him (that’s always one room away to keep him from having any closure or comfort), and Morty is transported to his original universe, which had been “Cronenberged” back in the first season as fans might remember. 
• Making his way through the Cronenberg universe, Morty ends up meeting back up with the Cronenberg universe Jerry. Cutting back to Summer and the two Beths, Summer is trying her best to have fun with her cool new mom while Beth awkwardly makes her way through the missing. It’s then revealed in Rick’s original universe that everyone else is trapped in a time loop that’s been stuck in the very same day as when Rick’s original Diane and Beth had died. It’s left all the people continually aging while their minds reset themselves. 
• Rick then reveals that the Rick he’s been searching for since the Season 5 flashback is one that he won’t be able to find. Bidding goodbye to the ghost of Diane he had made, Rick then travels through to another universe in a much more reckless way by heading into a wormhole. Cutting back to Morty, it’s revealed that Cronenberg universe’s Beth and Summer had died since last seeing them, and Jerry has since evolved into a survivor that has been able to live at the cost of the remaining pieces of his humanity. He then steals all of Morty’s stuff and escapes. 
• Catching up with Jerry, Morty tries to reason with him but Jerry is angry over the fact that Morty had abandoned him and left the entire universe to die. Morty tries to offer him escape to another universe, but Jerry declines this and moves on. Summer is able to catch onto Rick’s location in the middle of his wormhole, and it’s here he realizes that if he’s having so much trouble getting away from his original universe than the same could be said for the Rick he’s hunting down as well. Reuniting with Morty, Rick completely shifts gears to searching for Morty’s Rick. 
• He explains that Cronenberg universe’s Morty’s original Rick (that killed his family) did not die, but instead just left Morty behind. Rick had chosen this Morty in particular hoping that the Rick he was after would return. Tracking down the Rick’s location to a sphere hidden in space, this other Rick (who is later revealed to be “Rick Prime”, as this recap will refer to him from here on out) taunts C-137 Rick by actually appearing in front of him (but also maybe not) as part of an elaborate trap he had set up to mess with any Ricks that could find him. 
• Rick wants to continue chasing after Rick Prime, but Morty argues against it. Appealing to the fact that they have been on so many adventures together, they are (for all intents and purposes) grandfather and grandson. Meanwhile the two Beths fight over Summer’s affection, but she talks them back to Earth by the fact that she really just wanted to hang out more without being obsessive about it. Rick and Morty then save the Beths and Summer, and go search out Jerry in his original universe (after he had swapped out at the Jerryboree). 
• It’s revealed that Jerry’s original universe is basically stuck in Season 2 as the Smith Family continues fighting and never evolved over the seasons we have seen (such as Beth and Jerry’s time spent divorced, Rick growing to appreciate Jerry and much more). Jerry gets a win over his original family by flipping the bird and the family gets back together. But when they get back to their universe, the Season 2 Jerry there mistakenly unleashes “Mr. Frundles,” a cutesy alien creature that instantly bites and infects nearby objects and the entire universe into more Frundleses. 
• Heading to a new timeline where the Smith family (and Space Beth) have been killed, this time the entire family buries their older selves in the backyard. The only drawback of this new universe is they say “Parmesan” weird, and Rick explains to Morty that he’s not really bait as Prime Rick doesn’t really care about him or anybody. Unlike what Rick tries to say, this Rick does not feel anything for anyone at all. 
• The post-credits scene for the episode reveals that Prime Rick really was the Rick we had seen in the sphere early, and he approaches Cronenberg universe Jerry about talking with a kid or someone who looked like him. Jerry then proposes a team up and when Rick Prime refuses, Jerry tries to cut his neck. Rick Prime’s neck instantly heals and he kills Jerry for it. As Jerry dies he asks why Rick Prime is there, and it’s something this Rick has been trying to figure out himself. 

What did you think of Rick and Morty’s Season 6 premiere? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!