Rick & Morty has spent four seasons teasing the identity of Rick’s wife (Beth's mother) and hinting at her importance to both his and Beth’s characters — and season 5’s premiere proves that the show is not done trolling fans on this front just yet. Since the series began in 2013, Rick & Morty viewers have never known what to expect from the Adult Swim show. Originally a parody of family sitcoms and sci-fi television, Rick & Morty has retained this basic premise while also spinning off on some wild tangents in its first four seasons.
Ostensibly, Rick & Morty is the blackly comic story of the titular duo, a troubled scientific super-genius aided and abetted in his adventures by his dimwitted but well-meaning grandson. However, across its first four seasons, Rick & Morty has found time to spoof iconic horror author Stephen King (repeatedly), Game of Thrones, The Avengers, Prometheus, and countless other pieces of genre fare within this framework. The show has also offered meta-commentary on sitcom tropes and conventions, occasionally seeming to touch on some important backstory before retconning entire episodes on a whim, much to the frustration of some fans, and the delight of others.
For example, the mystery of who Rick’s wife (and Beth’s mother) is has beguiled fans of Rick & Morty since the series started, but the show's season 3 premiere finally offered a solid hint when the episode "The Rickshank Redemption" depicted “Diane” onscreen briefly — only to later reveal that she was a fake memory. Now, Rick & Morty’s season 5 premiere sees Rick’s nemesis ask what “Diane” would think of his behavior if she was still alive — prompting a typically teasing response that is impossible for fans to decipher. If Rick & Morty’s season 4 dismissal of Evil Morty fan theories left fans of the show frustrated, this latest tease as to the identity and importance of Rick’s wife will likely leave them fuming.
From the episode’s opening moments (which hints at realities that viewers will never see in detail) to the introduction of Rick’s enemy Mr. Nimbus, a supposed longtime nemesis who was never mentioned in series before, Rick & Morty season 5 is leaning into meta-humor even more than before. This makes the premiere’s brief mention of Rick’s wife — and the character's comical fourth-wall-breaking response — even harder for fans to untangle the meaning of when it comes to the lore of the series. The season 5 premiere opens on the eponymous pair evading a Lovecraftian-looking Cthulu knockoff (another early promise sure to frustrate longtime Rick & Morty viewers) before returning to earth as Morty makes an emergency landing in the ocean.
This all occurs before the cold open ends and prompts the arrival of Mr. Nimbus, Rick’s hitherto-unheard-of “nemesis” who the remainder of the episode’s action centers around. At one point, Mr. Nimbus implies that he and Rick have been caught at a long-standing impasse, Batman and the Joker-style, with a reference to Rick’s pre-Rick & Morty life. However, this line is met with a meta-joke that will leave many fans wishing the series would finally explain Rick’s past and its effect on Beth’s upbringing.
Mr. Nimbus asks Rick what “Diane” would think of him were she still alive today, an inquiry that seems to confirm once and for all the long-held suspicion among fans that the “imaginary” wife seen as Rick’s “fake” love interest in his season 3 premiere memory is actually his real-life wife, Beth's mother Diane. However, Rick’s response of “don’t try establishing canonical backstory with me,” is the sort of throwaway joke that could be read any number of ways. The line may be seen to confirm that Diane was his real wife, as he calls this “canonical" backstory after Mr. Nimbus uses her name. However, the line could also be read as a meta-joke confirming that Rick & Morty never intends to make the fate and identity of Rick’s unseen lost love clear one way or the other, and is laughing at the very idea of properly exploring the story.
The odds of Rick & Morty ever taking Rick’s wife seriously seem slim to none at this stage. Like Morty’s recurring crush Jessica, Rick & Morty has taken numerous chances to flesh out the character and instead used them as a misdirect to set up another unrelated storyline or punchline. Twice now, viewers have been shown that they should not expect the story of Rick’s wife to pay off dramatically, but instead to be been used as a comedic bait and switch as it was in both the third and fifth season premieres. That said, there is still one reason that Rick & Morty may finally take the plot seriously. Given how deep season 4’s finale got into Beth and Rick’s damaged father/daughter relationship, the show may need to finally address the question of Beth’s missing mom with more than a glib joke to further flesh out their dynamic and explain why Beth both admires and abhors her father.
Rick & Morty season 5 looks set to improve the family’s dynamic by bringing Beth, Jerry, and Summer into the fold of Rick and Morty’s misadventures, thus broadening the show’s focus. However, the longer the series spends exploring Beth’s relationship with her father, the less her mother’s joking non-character status will make sense in-series. To understand how the loss of her mother affected Beth and the loss of his wife affected Rick, viewers would need to actually know something about the character — and preferably something more than merely whether her name was Diane. Rick’s wife does not necessarily need to appear in the series proper, but a conversation about her between Rick and Beth could at least clarified whether she passed away, left the family, or both. This seemingly minor detail could make the character of Rick more redeemable or more monstrous, and if Rick & Morty season 5 is set to feature any big reveals, then the character of Rick’s wife should be foremost among them for the sake of both her former husband, her daughter and their family.
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