While infamously hated Giant Incest Baby plot proving that the show was not afraid of alienating even its loyal fans. However, one of the most surprising decisions that Rick & Morty’s creators made in season 5 was secretly a genius move.
In the season 5 finale, Rick & Morty got rid of the show’s version of the multiverse. The Central Finite Curve was a reality-warping plot device that allowed Rick and Morty to jump between different realities and provided a convenient out whenever any episode’s plot got too complicated. It was destroyed in the finale’s shocking ending. This means that Rick & Morty season 6 won’t be able to pull off the show’s cavalier approach to canon, and the decision couldn’t have been better timed.
One common Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse relying on the idea of bouncing between alternate versions of the story’s reality, Rick & Morty couldn’t have picked a better time to get rid of the Finite Central Curve. Just as massive mainstream sci-fi franchises started to explore the multiverse, Rick & Morty moved on and allowed the show to raise its stakes, drop the show's easy method of jumping between realities, and avoid overt similarities to its competitors.
The existence of Rick & Morty’s superhero spinoff The Vindicators proves that the franchise is not above cashing in on trends, with subversive parodies of the genre being increasingly commonplace in the last few years. However, Rick & Morty destroying its multiverse lets the show avoid this issue. Rather than playing it safe, the show is taking a bold new step toward more serialized storytelling while many rival franchises are only beginning to explore the creative possibilities of parallel realities.
Since Rick & Morty has been playing with the idea of alternate versions of the titles characters for five seasons now, the show had little to gain from continuing to explore this idea. Not only that, but multiverses becoming an increasingly popular plot device left the story device feeling tired, particularly when Rick & Morty’s reality-jumping was always depicted as something of a storytelling cop-out by the series. With this in mind, there is no better time for Rick & Morty to give more weight to the show’s reality just as other major sci-fi hits start to expand theirs.