Going into season 6, it appeared potential that Rick and Morty’s foremost Rick (from universe C-137) would pull one other quick one on the viewers. Though issues appeared dire on the finish 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 flee a destructing Council of Ricks, it wouldn’t be the primary time Rick managed to return out on high. At the start of season 3 he destroyed the Galactic Federation’s complete system from inside their jail.

But the glimpse of Rick C-137’s backstory was a lot darker than we had seen up until now. C-137 Rick watched his spouse get killed by one other Rick, and — after a while spent attempting to hunt him down, killing varied Ricks, and customarily getting tousled — ultimately crash-landed himself right into a timeline the place a Rick had deserted his grown-up daughter and settled in.

It’s comprehensible when you have some disbelief that that is the backstory on Rick and Morty’s Rick, or if he nonetheless had one other trick up his sleeve within the season 6 opener. But co-creator Dan Harmon is right here to remind us to relax the fuck out.

“There’s so much more to the story,” Harmon tells Polygon. “But I’m very comfortable saying I don’t like to be coy, and in instances where we are being ambiguous, we always say we’re being ambiguous.”

For comparability he cites season 3’s “The Rickshank Rickdemption” and what he dubs the “Shoney’s Revelation,” when Rick seemed to be trapped in a tragic reminiscence to bait the Galactic Federation poking round in his mind. At the time Harmon says it was proven as probably a fabrication, however one which Harmon himself preferred as an precise backstory.

“I was happy [making it appear fake] because I myself felt that that was Rick’s backstory and I liked it. But I didn’t want to impose it, at that early stage in the show’s run,” Harmon says. “So having established at the top of season 6 what of that is accurate? I would never say to an audience, Or maybe not! I find that a little abusive to fans. I’m pretty comfortable saying that’s the truth. That’s how it was framed in the show; he showed Morty the truth, that’s what it was. And we can’t retcon that.”

Still, that’s not say there isn’t room to develop, or that the present plans on shying away from constructing that backstory out extra. But Justin Roiland — who co-created the present with Harmon and voices Rick, Morty, and a smattering of different folks in it — says the change is one thing that can hopefully impression the viewers greater than the characters themselves. With season 6 kicking off with a extra assured Morty, a Rick who’s been introduced down a peg with none portal fluid, and a brand new main universe for the entire household, Rick’s actions resonate otherwise.

“Like, how will that change how the audience thinks of him now that they know the awful shit that happened to him is real?” Roiland says. “Does it make him extra sympathetic? Well, perhaps not. Because he’s nonetheless going to be the identical man — nonetheless going to be a fucking asshole.

“He’s learned all this shit [where] he put these walls up, because he lost something really dear to him. And then he learned it didn’t matter. […] But it’s still fucking dark to carry that. So it’ll be interesting to see the fans’ reaction more so than the character.”

With Rick and Morty coming quick and livid (10 episodes a 12 months) for the foreseeable future, Harmon and Roiland say there’s extra respiratory room for them to concentrate on discovering the right ratio of canonical storytelling and the wacky, one-off adventures that the present is thought for. Rick’s backstory will likely be part of that, however they’re not planning on pulling the rug out from underneath us anytime quickly.

“There’s certainly a lot more to the story we only visually saw it all unfold,” Harmon concludes. “[But it] is basically a confirmation of the Shoney’s fake out, you know?”