The Citadel of Ricks is a space station where thousands of versions of Rick Sanchez from across the multiverse live together, each with a Morty, under a ruling Council of Ricks. Dimension C-137 is the Council's label for the reality the show's own Rick comes from, which is why they call him Rick C-137. Evil Morty is the Morty who outplays them all: he runs for president of the Citadel, wins, and uses it to escape the walled-off corner of the multiverse that Ricks built for themselves.
This covers the animated series from its first season to its seventh, with episode names so you can find each moment. Every design on the Rick and Morty shelf comes from it. Spoilers throughout.
What Dimension C-137 means
In an infinite multiverse there are infinite Ricks, so the Council tags each by home dimension. The first season's tenth episode, "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind", names our Rick as Rick C-137.
Season five's finale, "Rickmurai Jack", shows why he left home. In C-137, Rick was a scientist with a wife, Diane, and a young daughter, Beth. Another Rick appeared and offered him portal technology; he refused, and that Rick killed Diane and Beth with a bomb. Rick worked out portal travel on his own and spent years hunting the killer, later called Rick Prime, across dimensions, killing Rick after Rick.
The Beth he eventually moved in with, years later, was not his own daughter. "Solaricks", the season six opener, reveals that her dimension was Rick Prime's home, and that Rick settled there in case Prime ever came back.
Then, in season one's "Rick Potion #9", Rick and Morty wreck that world, turning almost everyone into monsters. They move into a near-identical dimension whose Rick and Morty have just died, bury their own bodies and carry on. So the Morty at Rick's side was never from C-137, and the family on screen has been a replacement since the sixth episode. Rick finally kills Rick Prime in season seven's "Unmortricken".
The Citadel of Ricks
The Citadel is a hidden station run by and for Ricks, with Mortys everywhere. The reason the show gives: a Rick's genius gives off a distinctive brainwave that enemies can track, and a Morty's brainwaves mask it, so a Rick with a Morty beside him is harder to find.
Our Rick holds the place in contempt. In "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind" the Council arrests him for murders he did not commit. In the third season's opener, "The Rickshank Rickdemption", he breaks out of a galactic prison and wipes out the Council.
"The Ricklantis Mixup", later in season three, shows the rebuilt Citadel as an ordinary, unequal city: Ricks with jobs and money worries, Mortys at the bottom, and an election for a new president. "Rickmurai Jack" adds that our Rick helped found it: his hunt for his family's killer set him against the other Ricks, and when they made peace, he helped them design and build the Citadel.
Evil Morty explained
Evil Morty first appears in "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind" as an eyepatched Morty beside a scarred "Evil Rick". The twist is that the Morty is in charge: he has been controlling the Rick all along. He slips away unidentified.
In "The Ricklantis Mixup" he runs for president of the Citadel as Candidate Morty, promising Mortys a better deal, and wins. Once elected, he has the shadow council of Ricks who ran the place behind the scenes killed, all but two of them.
In "Rickmurai Jack" he explains the Central Finite Curve: a wall the Ricks built around every reality in which Rick is the smartest being alive. Evil Morty breaks through it and leaves for the wider multiverse, and the Citadel is destroyed in the process. He returns in "Unmortricken", is pulled into the hunt for Rick Prime and helps bring him down, then leaves again for his own life beyond the Curve. Portal Ink and Genius and Idiot put him face to face with Rick.
On the shelf
Pickle Rick
In the third season's "Pickle Rick", Rick turns himself into a pickle on the morning the family is due at a therapy session, so he cannot be made to go. Beth takes the serum that would turn him back.
A pickle cannot move, so things go badly at once. Rick ends up in the sewer, builds himself a working body from the parts of cockroaches and then rats, as in Rat Suit, and fights his way out through a heavily guarded building. He arrives at the therapy session anyway, covered in blood, where the therapist takes him apart in a single speech.
"I'm Pickle Riiick!" is how he announces it. Brine Time has him in pickle form.
What wubba lubba dub dub means, and the Cromulons
"Wubba lubba dub dub" is Rick's party catchphrase. In the first season's "Ricksy Business", his old friend Birdperson explains that in his people's language it means "I am in great pain, please help me". Rick's happiest line is a cry for help, which says most of what the show thinks about him.
The Cromulons are giant floating heads from the second season's "Get Schwifty". They appear over Earth and make it compete in an interplanetary music contest; planets that lose are destroyed. Rick and Morty improvise their way through the contest, and in the end a new song of theirs wins it and keeps Earth alive. Wubba Lubba has a Cromulon with Rick and Morty.
On the shelf
On the back of a tee
Rick, his Mortys and his enemies are on the Rick and Morty shelf, drawn from canon reference art, along with Inner Peace, which is Rick alone. Check the size guide before you pick a size.
Why it works on the back: the show's look is simple shapes, wobbly lines and that green portal swirl, so a single Rick or a pickle reads clearly from across a room.
Read next: Treehouse of Horror, El Barto and Krusty explained and Piltover, Zaun, Hextech and Shimmer: Arcane explained.
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