It appeared likely that Rick, the main Rick of Rick and Morty (from universe C-137), would unleash another fast one on the audience. Though things seemed to be bleak at the end of season 5, with Evil Morty blowing up the multiverse as we knew it and leaving the titular Rick and Morty in limbo as they tried to escape a destructing Council of Ricks, it wouldnt be the first time Rick managed to destroy the Galactic Federations whole system from inside their prison.
Rick C-137's backstory was much darker than we've seen till now. After some time spent attempting to track him down, killing numerous Ricks, and generally getting messed up, Rick crashed into a timeline in which a Rick had abandoned his grown-up daughter and settled in.
If you are unsure whether or not this is the main story behind Rick and Mortys Rick, or if he still had another trick up his sleeve in the season 6 opener, co-creator Dan Harmon is here to remind us to take a breather.
Harmon tells Polygon that there's a lot more to the story. I'm very comfortable saying that I don't like to be coy, and in situations where we're being ambiguous, we always say we're being ambiguous.
Harmon compares season 3's The Rickshank Rickdemption to what he calls the Shoneys Revelation, when Rick appeared to be trapped in a tragic memory to bait the Galactic Federation in his head. At the time, Harmon claims it was shown as a possible fabrication but one that he himself liked.
Harmon says she wanted to keep Rick's backstory hidden at that early stage in the series' run. So having established at the top of season 6, what of that is correct? I would never say to an audience, Or maybe not! He showed Morty the truth, that's what it was. We can't retcon that.
Justin Roiland, who co-created the show with Harmon and plays Rick, Morty, and a smattering of other characters in it, believes the shift will benefit the audience more than the characters themselves. Ricks actions resonate differently.
Now that they know the awful shit that happened to him is real, how will that alter how the audience reacts to him? Does it make him more sympathetic? Maybe not. Because he's still going to be a fucking idiot.
He learned all this shady stuff [where] he put these walls up, because he lost something enormously important to him. [...] But he still finds it difficult to carry this around. So it'll be interesting to see the fans' reactions more so than the character.
Harmon and Roiland say there's more breathing room for them to focus on achieving the perfect balance of canonical storytelling and the wacky, one-off adventures that the show is known for. They're not intending to pull the rug out of under us anytime soon.
Harmon concludes that there is certainly a lot more to the story than we saw initially. [But] it's basically a confirmation that the Shoneys are not in trouble.