Adult Swim’sRick and Mortyis approaching its eighth season, having originally aired in 2013. The adventures of the wisecracking scientist Rick and his grandson Morty have grown increasingly more bizarre and unpredictable as time has gone on, and their family’s escapades show no signs of slowing down.Rick and Mortyseason 8promises plenty more laughs.
Ahead of the season 8 debut, Game Rant sat down withRick and Mortyco-creator Dan Harmon, senior writer Scott Marder, Ian Cardoni (Rick), Harry Belden (Morty), Spencer Grammer (Summer), Chris Parnell (Jerry), and Sarah Chalke (Beth). They talked about the upcoming season, what to expect, and how their characters have grown over the years.This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Rick and Morty’s Eighth Season Brings Plenty More Laughs
Q: Season eight promises to be a big moment for the series. Without going into spoiler territory, are there any kind of overarching themes or story arcs that you can tease, and if so, how will they impact the characters and the show’s trajectory?
Marder:I think season eight is still keeping an eye on the central narrative. Not every episode touches on that, but it’s not something we ignore.
Harmon:I think the theme for all the characters might be, what do you do? What do you do when you only have yourself to blame for tomorrow? You could call that adulthood. Some adults call it retirement. Some retirees call it a dream they’ll never achieve, but it’s volition. Having your own agency comes with a lot of challenges. That might be a theme that we’re exploring in eight. I know that it’s certainly by necessity a theme that we need to explore more increasingly unless we keepcreating arch villainsthat need to be destroyed in a serialized story.
Q: How difficult is it to constantly come up with new ideas to make the show fresh and relevant? Do you have a process that you use to help you get through that as seamlessly as possible?
Harmon:We have a special thing we do. We advertise online in a way that can’t be traced back to us. We say we will teach you how to write TV if you pay us $5,000 a week. Then those people write ideas for the show for us. Then we put them on a bus and we tell them it’s taking them to Hollywood, but it actually goes to the North Pole! Seriously though, my joke was actually a metaphor for how we come up with fresh ideas. We keep hiring new writers! Younger people. They’vewatchedRick and Mortyfor 10 years, so they’ve got an enthusiasm that can be sucked out of their body and put into the show!
Marder:That is a big pro to being a late-run show. The newer writers are actually fans, people who come on that know the show better than we know it. They’ve got new ideas and new enthusiasm that pump life into the show.
How Rick and Morty Balances Narrative Themes
Q: It’s a complex show with a lot of things going on. How do you balance the show’s dark humor with the Sci-Fi elements, along with the exploration of complex relationships and complex emotional themes?
Harmon:For me, the balance occurs with a cardinal rule where you don’t punish empathy. That’s not me being a noble person, just me being a crass dealer of the drug called television. I don’t want the cigarette we’re selling to burn your lungs. To me, part of that is that you never want to get tricked into believing something is really happening to the point where you are punished for believing it, if that makes sense. So fora lot of comedy that’s edgy, if it doesn’t have that rule, it doesn’t achieve that balance.
I’m not saying it’s a rule they should follow. Lots of funny people don’t have that rule, but that is how that balance ends up getting achieved. It sort of complicates the limitless, edgy ‘do anything for a laugh’ humor to then also add the rule, but we need to believe these people exist enough that the things they say to each other matter. That’s my answer to how all of that ends up getting balanced because it’s like it’s just a puzzle to solve.
Marder:I know we can feel like we’re sitting on a good idea when it feels like it’s justsomething that onlyRick and Mortycan do. When that happens, suddenly it feels like we’re in our lane, and it’s something that we need to pursue because I’m not going to see that on any other show.
Q: Whenever the show finally ends, hopefully far into the future, what would you likeRick and Mortyto be remembered for, most of all, over everything else?
Harmon:For people who study TV in the future, serialization is now more possible than ever. I justbingedThe Pittfor 15 straight episodes. This is an example of what TV is allowed to do now that we have all this streaming, no more time slots. However, there is still a craft to it. Telling a new story every episode, a half hour at a time, is very difficult. Because we lasted this long and got to make so many episodes, maybe our legacy is that we would go in some sort of textbook about making TV when young kids in the year 2050, in a space station, are learning the difference between a sonnet and a limerick. They learn about this version of TV where you almost pretend that the audience isn’t binging and that they’re hanging out on a Saturday morning eating cereal watching one episode at a time.
Marder:I hope it will be remembered for unprecedented quality across an infinite number of episodes.
Rick and Morty’s Voice Actors Discuss Season Eight
Q: Ian, obviously Rick is a huge focal point for the series. What specific traits or quirks do you feel that you bring to Rick’s character that help to balance his vulnerable side with his sharp wit and his humor?
Cardoni:We’vedefinitely seen Rick on a journey, particularly the last few seasons. In season seven, I had just gotten married, so a lot of that was stuff that I could bring emotionally to the role, and I think that we see that continuation of his emotional life and growth into season eight, but in an exciting way, that preserves a lot of the quirks that we love about the character. It’s not perfect or linear by any means. There are plenty of adventures coming in season eight. Without spoiling too much, they brought a lot more of my own burps to the role! So we can look forward to that.
I think overall, the thing I relate most to withRick is, he’s a problem-solver, and I fancy myself as one as well. There’s a problem. You want to fix it. You see something wrong with something, you want to fix it, or somebody’s in trouble, even begrudgingly, you want to step in and do what’s right. Even if there’s a little attitude there from Rick. But I think we see the things that we love about Rick in those senses throughout season eight, and it’s a really exciting place to play in.
Q: Harry, Morty is an interesting character with lots of different sides to him, and he’s evolved a lot over the season so far. What new aspects of his personality do you feel that we see in season eight?
Belden:To be honest, I can’t think of a specific, brand-new facet of his personality that comes out in this season. I actually think we see more moments of Morty being kind of firmer with Rick. This isn’t necessarily a new thing at all, but I think we do get a little bit more of that. At this point,Morty has been on so many adventures with Rick, and he kind of knows the deal, even though things always go awry. I think he’s getting more adept at saying no and setting boundaries, which is very healthy growth.
On the other hand, I also think that we see a lot of moments of Morty just being a kid, enjoying being a 14-year-old boy, and all the good and bad things that come with that. I think we just see more of his own growth as a person. you’re able to imagine how much someone would grow going through things like that!
Rick and Morty’s Summer Has a Big Season Ahead
Q: Spencer, Summer’s character has also kind of changed significantly over the years. What new dimensions of her personality did you get to explore during season eight?
Grammer:Without spoiling too much, we see adult Summer. I enjoyed that, just exploring who she would become as an adult, having all of these things in her life, and really honing her leadership skills in her experiences. I think Morty also becomes more of a leader too in this season, in certain episodes where he takes the initiative in a more planned way than he used to. I would say that’s the biggest change I’ve seen, and I thinkthat’s also true of Summerin some ways.
She has this very semi-abusive relationship with her grandfather. It’s the balance between nature and nurture. I’m not really sure where we land on that. It’s an interesting topic to discuss in those sorts of experiences after theseeight years of Rick trying to come and join the familyand who we’ve become as people. Then how do you keep some of that stuff, even though your brain has maybe been erased a few times? Does it still stay in your memory? It turns into a genetics thing. Is our DNA forever changed? All these different versions of ourselves in all these different dimensions pose so many questions.
I’m always just amazed that the show has really brought this idea of string theory and quantum physics and mechanics to the forefront, and really changed a lot of storytelling in a palatable way. I thinkRick and Mortyhas been able to infuse this idea that there are different versions of ourselvesin the space-time continuum. We didn’t start discovering other solar systems until, I think, the 90s or 80s, right? So we could never know if there might be alien life somewhere because we didn’t even know there were systems similar to ours.
The ability to learn that technology allows us to say, by default, we would therefore know that there must be alien life only because we know that we exist. We know that other systems like ours exist, so I think we bridge that gap with this idea there might be other life, other worlds bigger than our own. Then that ties into how that makes us feel important, or maybe, how that makes us feel completely insignificant. We know so much now about what’s going on beyond our world that we didn’t know even 10 years ago. How does that influence us as a society, and how much dowe need shows likeRick and Mortyto help us kind of process that information?
How Morty’s Emotional Demands Are Met
Q: Morty obviously regularly goes through trauma and stress, and he’s quite an emotional person. Harry, how do you handle the emotional demands of having to tap into that so regularly?
Belden:Great question! It certainly explains why I leave the recording booth so emotionally drained. I mean, it’s acting, right? That’s sort of the whole job, putting yourself in these emotional circumstances and dealing with it, and, if possible, relating it to your own life. To be honest, I sometimes hope that I can’t relate to some of the stuff Morty goes through! But yeah, I think at the end of the day, to give the boring answer, it’s acting. It’s all the things that we know, that we train for, and that we have classes for. It’s challenging. To do it on a regular basis for hours at a time is draining. I can tell you at the end of a recording day, I can’t do anything else but just go home. I just rest my voice and tune out. I pass out and end up napping on the couch!
Jerry and Beth’s Character Arcs Explored
Q: Chris, Jerry’s insecurities are a recurring theme in the show. His inadequacy, his general insecurity. Do we see any sides of that in Jerry that we perhaps haven’t seen before this season?
Chris:Absolutely! We are always bringing different aspects of Jerry’s personality out. It’s always fun to see where they take him.
Q: Sarah, Beth’s complex relationships with all of her family members are one of the central aspects of the show. How do these relationships evolve throughout season eight?
Chalke:Season eight is one of my favorite seasons. One of the cool parts about being part of a show that goes this many seasons is you really have this unique opportunity to get super deep into these relationships and learn so much more about the characters, and I feel like that really continues in season eight. I got the opportunity to playsome more versions of Beth. You learn more about Beth’s relationship with her dad, and kind of why she is how she is. It’s so fun! Getting to play your character, but then also your character and another version of them is something you don’t really get to do. It’s not normal. It’s a challenge to try and make them unique from each other, while also being the same character.
Q: You’ve been doing this for a while now. Do you still sometimes look at the scripts and get surprised by things your characters do or say? Or would you say now that you know your characters well enough that actually nothing surprises you?
Chris:The scripts definitely still catch me off guard. I guess I’m not surprised at the degree to which they’re able to surprise me. There are so many moments when I’m reading a script, and I’ll just be like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ It’s always exciting to see what they’re doing with Jerry and where he’s going. A lot of the time, it’s Jerry in his normal mode, and that’s a lot of fun to play. But then there are variations on that too, and you get toexplore more of Jerry’s personality, which is great.
Chalke:We have been so blown away by these scripts for the past 12 years. I can’t believe that even, after all this time, no one episode’s like any other episode. It blows my mind that there’s this bottomless well of incredibly creative, interesting, unique ideas that they keep coming up with. It’s such a fun thing when you get anew episode ofRick and Mortyin your inbox because you have absolutely no idea what’s coming.
Q: Chris, how do you balance Jerry’s sort of humor with his more vulnerable moments? And what do you think makes him so relatable to audiences?
Parnell:Well,Jerry’s a bit of an everyman, so his foibles, his weaknesses, and his humanity are on full display most of the time. He’s gained some confidence throughout the show, so we’re able to see him stand up for himself more than he used to be able to. He’s become a little more of a rounded person. He can find happiness in his life for the most part, or at least contentment anyway, if not happiness. People can relate to these things.
Q: Sarah, what do you think is the main factor behind Beth’s motivations? What drives her above all else?
Chalke:I don’t know what Dan and Scott would say as the writers, but I feel like it comes from her relationship with Rick as a child. I think she’s trying to kind of unpack that a little bit. I think that drives a lot of things for her.
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