Rick and Morty Season 6 just fixed the show’s biggest sci-fi problem

If Rick and Morty Season 6 has felt a bit strange, there’s a good reason for that. As Episode 6, “Juricksic Mort” reminds us several times over, Rick’s interdimensional Portal Gun technology is still on the fritz.

Most of Season 6 has felt pretty terrestrial as a result: Rick and Jerry foiled a fortune cookie conspiracy, the family enslaved their sleep-walking selves, Beth hooked up with her own clone, and Morty spent a lifetime trapped as billions of NPCs in Roy: A Life Well-Lived. In short, we’ve all been stuck inside the new universe that the family migrated to in the Season 6 premiere. But now, the most advanced alien civilization of all has set things right.

The dinosaurs are back, and their tech is better than Rick’s.

The episode opens with Rick watching TV on a random schoolday morning, and the news anchor explains that “the mysterious rift is still there.” He’s talking about the rip in spacetime that Evil Morty used in the Season 5 finale to rocket himself to a place beyond the confines of the Central Finite Curve, which Rick had created years ago to isolate the realities where he’s the smartest man in the universe. These days, we know Rick did this to try and track down Rick Prime, but because Evil Morty also destroyed the Citadel, it also messed with Portal Gun technology in general.

Rick supposedly reset the tech in the Season 6 premiere, but as he shows Morty in Episode 6, it’s not quite functional yet. When he tries to use it, a Cthulhu-looking monster comes through the portal in the living room. So Rick has to bring Morty to school the old-fashioned way. Rick claims to have “a process,” but it’s clear he’s not actually sure how to fix it.

Enter the dinosaurs

In an obvious riff on 2016’s Arrival, several silvery monolithic ships appear at important places around the world: the Hollywood sign, the Eiffel Tower, and Harry Herpson High School, to name a few. Inside are a bunch of dinosaurs with magical helmets that seem to give them access to high-level telekinetics and psionics. And they can talk! (Friends star Lisa Kudrow voices the orange T-Rex.)

They’ve traveled the cosmos for eons transforming entire planets into utopias using their techno-magic. But now they’ve come home and are dismayed to learn about the fate of their reptilian ancestors. Dinos peacefully take over and do everything for humanity, functionally ending world hunger, poverty, and virtually every issue imaginable. (Including a better portal pistol to replace Rick’s broken device.)

Of course, the humans hate it.

After making a deal with his frenemy, the president of the United States of America, it’s up to Rick to get rid of them. With Morty in tow, Rick visits all the planets the dinosaurs previously helped and learns that wherever the dinosaurs go, an apocalyptic meteorite follows. Turns out, these meteors are actually an alien species that evolved in parallel with the dinosaurs and hate them so much they chase them across the universe.

The dinosaurs didn’t know any of this, but once Rick explains it they decide to evacuate to Mars and sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Of course, Rick shows up to insult the dinos one more time. In response, they casually command their mother ship to fix the giant rift out in space that Rick’s been ignoring. In response, he complains that the rift could have fueled enough adventures “for an entire season.”

The grand finale confirms that whatever Evil Morty did to this universe, it’s been undone. Rick fixes interdimensional travel and plans to celebrate with Morty by going on a trip to Boob World.

Essentially, we’re back to square one on Rick and Morty. This has fundamentally re-established a sense of normalcy. Evil Morty might be out of the picture for good (but we doubt it!). In all likelihood, this will mark the beginning of some bigger-picture conflict against Rick Prime, who murdered our Rick’s original wife and daughter.

New episodes of Rick and Morty will return on Sunday, November 20.