Four episodes in, season seven of Rick and Morty has already introduced new voices (who sound just like old voices), as well as packed in fan-favorite side characters and guest stars. But amid the partying, grotesque mutations, and horrifying spaghetti reveals, the biggest theme so far has been the importance of family.
The New M3-Powered iMacs Are Triggering Serious Deja Vu
io9 spoke with Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon and showrunner Scott Marder to learn more about season seven—starting with this heartfelt (well, heartfelt for Rick and Morty) focus on Rick’s connection with his daughter Beth, her husband Jerry, and their kids Summer and Morty.
“Sometimes we have big aspirations, but we sort of luck into cool themes like that,” Marder explained. “I’d say every week, we might have a set-out goal, but we end up sparking joy to a particular idea on a particular day, and that one just starts winning the day or winning the week in terms of being the next episode up on deck. So things just kind of keep surprising us and they assemble slowly into a season. Once we have all 10 [episodes], we sometimes rejigger them into a shape that gives it a little bit more of an arc that we would want to see as a fan. But we did notice that family [theme] that we tried to link a few things up to as the season went across.”
As to why that theme in particular has emerged so strongly in season seven—well, it goes back to Rick and Morty season six, and really even earlier. Fans of the show know the Smith family members hail from different dimensions (for various wild sci-fi reasons, of course), though it’s easy to forget they don’t all have the same origin. “In season six we got the sense that Rick was really seeing clearly that the family was such a mishmash of family from different dimensions—and seeing that they still all chose each other felt like it said a lot for Rick and for the family,” Marder said. “That was something that resonated for me in terms of them all moving forward together. Like, ‘You’re the guys that I choose to be the collective Smiths.’”
Harmon agreed, adding “There’s the kind of canonical decision on Rick’s part that instead of compartmentalizing what he sees is his true, kind of tragic back story from this sort of sitcom that he’s in—you know, in season six, we decided that part of his arc would be that he would now be bringing Morty in, whether he considered that to be proper canon or not. He’s going to let Morty into his life, including the hunting down of his nemesis. I think once you do that, you don’t want that to be Rick reset. You need to kind of commit to that—if that’s the case with Rick, then he must have a commitment to this family. I mean, he’s no longer just Doctor Who that lives with these people. He’s actually kind of committing to the role of grandpa, at least as much as he might have been perceived in season one or something like that.”
Speaking of Rick’s nemesis—the dreaded Rick Prime was introduced in season six, and all signs indicate he will be playing a significant part in season seven. Since Adult Swim is keeping episode five, which debuts November 12, under tight wraps… well, it’s safe to assume he’ll pop up then. Harmon and Marder wouldn’t spill any specifics, but they did talk a bit about why now was the right time for Rick to meet his match.
“The great thing about Rick and Morty is that a lot of our staff are former Rick and Morty writer’s assistants—that whole tradition goes back to Mike McMahan before he abandoned us for his Star Trek show [Lower Decks]; he was the original first Rick and Morty writer’s assistant who left us at the EP level, executive producer. We’ve continued that tradition, and that makes these people not only workhorses, but they are huge Rick and Morty fans from the get-go,” Harmon said. “I’m so grateful to have people on the show that are like, ‘Look, I’m on this show because I love this show and I’ve loved it since the beginning—and have you noticed that we haven’t given any red meat to the avid fans?’ We’ll be working on multiple seasons at once, so I won’t notice. I’ll just be like, ‘Oh, have we not done Evil Morty in a while?’ I have this general allergy to canonical stuff because I feel like it’ll happen anyway, and therefore leaning into it is like leaning into gravity and falling down when your job is to jump and soar. But yeah, I was asleep at the wheel. [It was] our passionate writers that were like, ‘No, it’s time to resurface this.’ And the fun thing is that the timing of it works out so that it’s going to be smack in the middle of this season.”
Added Marder, “I feel like Harmon can feel our enthusiasm. He greenlit us doing [episode] 510, [“Rickmurai Jack”], which was obviously a bonkers, canonical one. That one was so crazy that we felt like there was suddenly so much pressure on having to solve that cliffhanger in season six that we just kept breaking and breaking that premiere over and over again. But we eventually landed on that idea that everyone gets sucked back to their original dimension, and it felt like it created such an organic idea: the guy that originally blew up Rick’s original [wife] Diane and [daughter] Beth will get sucked back to his too, which was presenting Rick with the best opportunity to get that guy. It was just cool that we had a bad guy that had been in plain sight, that we had an organic idea that kind of helped him resurface. And we just loved that the story didn’t really need to feel like it was retconned. It was always sort of there; we just sort of brought it forward. We were excited to have that guy that was always kind of available to us.”
Everything We Know About Rick Prime | Rick and Morty | adult swim
New Rick and Morty episodes arrive Sundays at 11 p.m. ET/PT on Adult Swim.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.