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Rick and Morty has officially returned for Season 8, and the premiere episode of the new season has brought back Rick’s iconic catchphrase after fans have been missing out on it for the last few years. The wait for Rick and Morty Season 8 was a rather tough one as the series for the first time in a while did not release on a yearly schedule. Rick and Morty Season 7 wrapped up its run in 2023, and the animated series did not officially return until this Spring. But fans have been waiting for something for even longer as Rick started distancing himself from his past.
Rick and Morty originally introduced “Wubba Lubba Dub Dub” as a kind of catchphrase for Rick that was meant to be a joke about wacky character catchphrases of its kind. But over the years it’s become a genuine catchphrase for Rick, and has been used over the course of the series through many different opportunities. But surprisingly, the last time Rick actually said this catchphrase was a few years ago. With Rick and Morty Season 8’s premiere, however, Rick’s catchphrase has come back.
Rick and Morty Season 8 Goes Back to Its Roots
Rick and Morty Season 8’s premiere, “Summer of All Fears” puts fans right into the center of wacky shenanigans as Morty and Summer realize they’re in a virtual world that Rick had trapped them in when they stole his phone charger. Forgetting about them for many years’ worth of time in the matrix, Morty and Summer eventually have to figure a way out themselves and come back as entirely different people when they escape back to the real world. With Summer and Morty being much smarter (having lived a life’s worth of experiences), Morty eventually traps Rick within a matrix himself.
This doesn’t stall Rick for long, but he works his way out of the matrix by building a whole new version of it. When he does so, he celebrates with the return of his “Wubba Lubba Dub Dub” catchphrase that fans haven’t heard him use since Season 6. Even then, it hasn’t been unironically used by Rick since Season 5’s finale back in 2021. Fans have been waiting a long time for this catchphrase to return in full, and it could be a tease for where Rick and Morty Season 8 is heading next.
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What Does This Mean for Rick and Morty Season 8?
This smaller but sci-fi focused adventure teases Rick and Morty Season 8 is returning to the kinds of wild stories that fans loved from the earlier seasons. While the later seasons have their fair share of episodic fun, the Rick seen here is far less cynical in his approach to Morty and Summer. When the two of them are released back into the real world, he lets all of them come to their own decisions and largely steps out of the way until he’s inevitably needed later.
His catchphrase returning in this manner might seem like a small detail, but it’s also reflective of how Rick has changed in the last few seasons as well. Each of the major serialized moments throughout the years have come with some big changes for Rick’s character overall, and now he’s beginning to shift in such a way that he can use these previously ironic catchphrases with total sincerity and not backslide into the rougher parts of himself seen in the past. It’s little, but noticeable that he’s changing after eight seasons.
