Rick and Morty Finally Explains One Key Character's Absence in the Series (2024)

Rick and Morty Season 7 has finally revealed an explanation for why one of the most pivotal characters in the entire series canon has been largely absent from the series.

(SPOILERS) In "Unmortricken" Rick and Morty get an unlikely ally in Evil Morty, who lends a hand in tracking down the infamous Rick Prime for a final showdown. In the midst of that charged conflict, we learn some previously unknown details about Rick C-137's backstory.

Diane Sanchez's Death Explained

One of the biggest reveals of Rick and Morty Season 7 Episode 5 is that Rick Prime didn't stop after bombing C-137's garage, killing his version of Diane and Beth. No, Rick Prime is revealed to have developed the "Omega Device", a weapon capable of erasing a person and every one of their variants from the multiverse – which he then used to erase every version of Diane from the multiverse!

This explains why we've never seen Diane Sanchez appear in variant forms throughout the run of the show – a small but crucial detail that it doesn't seem like many viewers ever seized on tightly. It's a loss that Rick truly cannot undo or replace despite all his genius – and explains even more so why his entire life focus switched to killing Rick Prime. The haunting thing about "Unmorticken" is that instead of, say, getting the plans for the Omega Device and perhaps working out a way to reverse it, Rick lets Evil Morty escape with that intel, in favor of beating Rick Prime to death.

Why Diane's Death Is So Important to Rick and Morty

This new detail of Rick and Morty's canon actually reframes so many things about the series that even some of the most diehard fans probably hadn't considered before. First, it explains why there were so many variants of Rick roaming around the multiverse, able to form things like the Council fo Ricks, as none of them had any Dianes to anchor them any longer. It also confirms that it wasn't for purely emotional reasons that Rick C-137 didn't find a Diane variant to replace his version: he literally couldn't replace her.

Moreover, there are Easter egg clues all over this final confrontation with Rick Prime that the supposed heartless loner still has Diane on his mind – to the point of featuring her likeness in a mechanical monster he sets loose on Rick and the Mortys. Based on everything we know about Ricks at this point, it's just as likely that Rick Prime purged Diane from existence in order to exorcise his own attachment to her, more so than wanting to hurt the other Ricks.

Rick and Morty Season 7 is airing on Adult Swim.