Rick And Morty Fans Are Divided Over The Rick Prime Storyline In Season 6's Finale

The following article contains spoilers for "Rick and Morty" Season 6, Episode 10 — "Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation."

"Rick and Morty" fans have had some mixed thoughts about the roller coaster ride that has been Season 6. In a block of episodes that take us even deeper into the hows and whys of the show's galaxy-hopping and cloning techniques, audiences have learned a lot about how precisely Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) operates.

The Season 6 finale, "Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation," starts out with Morty's (Also Roiland) attempt at trying to prevent the "Star Wars"-accurate Lightsaber his Grandpa Rick gave him as a gift from causing catastrophic damage. Along the way, he finds Rick's secret, hidden, subterranean lab — and quickly learns that the grandfather he's been spending much of the episode with is a robot who's been programmed to be 22% nicer to him after the events of Episode 9. Rick himself has been busy trying to find Rick Prime, who continues to be a fugitive from justice, and whom he promised to stop pursuing during the Season 5 finale. The revelation that Rick is still pursuing Rick Prime definitely puts a fresh spin on the events of Season 6 and has drawn mixed reviews from fans posting to Reddit, especially when it comes to Rick's character development.

Fans posting their thoughts to the Rick and Morty subreddit either really liked the twist or thought it said unfortunate things about Rick and his permanent, if understandable, vendetta against Rick Prime. u/Kgirrs expressed their disappointment that Rick is determined to keep chasing his rival. "Is killing Prime going to make up for all the lost time and effort? Killing him isn't going to bring his wife and daughter back," they noted. A number of fans noted that they saw the plot twist coming due to Robot Rick's kindness, but others said that Rick has shown some decent character growth during Season 6. It's given them hope for the future, specifically that the relationship between himself and his grandson can grow.

Fans debated about what this twist meant for Season 6 at large and what it might mean for Season 7. U/martito101 remarked that the show made very little progress in its arc over the course of Season 6, as Rick's obsession continues to consume him, and Rick Prime is still on the loose. Others want the show to avoid talking about Rick Prime at all during Season 7 and were glad the episode didn't wholly revolve around him, while some were upset he didn't show up at all. But users like u/Thereisnocomp2 felt that this outing represented Rick and Morty's finest hour. "The writers really understood us for the first time in what feels like years/- we LOVE solo adventures but we do also LOVE some canon sprinkled in and that is OK," they enthused. Season 7 will soon prove them right — or wrong — about that.