'Rick and Morty' Season 7, Episode 9 Preview Revealed

Rick and Morty Season 7, Episode 9 is tackling the big questions. The preview for the new episode – titled "Mort: Ragnarick" – finds Rick (Ian Cardoni) proving the existence of an afterlife and then planning to tap it for infinite energy. It's shaping up to be a heady episode when it premieres on Sunday, Dec. 10 at 11 p.m. ET on Adult Swim.

Adult Swim aired a quick 30-second teaser for Episode 9 last weekend, then a longer one at the end of the week. Finally, on Friday the network released the full cold open for the episode as usual, showing the entire scene that the earlier teasers had used. It showed Jerry (Chris Parnell) at the gates of heaven as they are usually depicted – a cloudy landscape with a gateway made of shimmering light. Jerry's grandmother was waiting for him there, but said that his grandfather wouldn't come out anymore because of all of Jerry's near-death experiences.

From there, Jerry is pulled backwards into the dark and awakens in the garage strapped to a table while Rick and Morty (Harry Belden) look at some monitors beside him. In less than a minute and a half of the show's signature dense dialogue, Rick explains a conceptual model for heaven as a massive energy source that consciousnesses return to after death and experience differently based on the way they were shaped by life.

As usual, Rick pulls no punches in mocking Jerry for the way his mind experienced this "afterlife." He says: "There's kind of a heaven. Kind of. I mean, there definitely is for a neurotypical like your father. His conscious connection to a localized cultural model of infinity functions like a wick, sucking his little mind straight towards a source of energy strong enough to support collective projection."

Morty suggests that Rick could get into this heaven if he would just "stop being an assh-," but Rick says that Morty is missing the point. He wants to tap the energy source, not experience the "projection." However, the point remains, as Rick says: "My intact consciousness is too atheistic to get channeled to any afterlife worth robbing. It's a paradox."

Rick says that his only hope of getting around this paradox is to go to Norway, likely teeing up an adventure involving Norse mythology as the episode's title suggests. At the same time, we see that Morty is already rolling his eyes at this particular adventure.

Rick and Morty has shown a lot of character development this season from Rick's ongoing work in therapy to appease his family to the climactic battle with Rick Prime, and even last week's entirely Rick-free adventure for Morty. The big question now is what will keep Rick going now that his nemesis is dead, and it seems like Morty isn't convinced this energy scheme will be it. With the season ending next week, it will be interesting to see what kind of cliffhanger we leave things on.

"Mort: Ragnarick" premieres on Sunday, Dec. 10 at 11 p.m. ET on Adult Swim. It will stream simultaneously on the Adult Swim app and will be available there afterward for users with a valid cable log-in. Otherwise, you can rent or purchase Season 7 on a digital store like Prime Video, Apple TV, or Vudu.