Rick and Morty Season 2: 10 Characters We Want to See Again

Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon continues to say all the right things about the show’s upcoming second season, which debuts July 26. At San Diego Comic-Con, Harmon said they would not be bringing many characters from season 1 back for season 2 as he didn’t want Rick and Morty to become and “inside-joke heavy” show like Harmon’s other big success story: Community. He specifically identified Hitler/Lincoln hybrid Abradolf Lincler (Noo!) and Mr. Meseeks (Noooooooo!) as characters that would not be returning. He did at least hint at a return for Gearhead and the somber Bird-Person.

Harmon and fellow creator Justin Roiland are smart for not turning the second season of a show they presumably hope will run for years to come into just a “greatest hits” callback fest of season one. Good comedic TV creates new fan favorites instead of merely indulging the old ones. Having said that, however, we’re not creators of a tremendously well-done and reasonably successful TV show. We’re the Internet. And the Internet demands some familiarity. Why else would coming up with drinking game ideas for televised entertainment be so much fun?

Excluding the confirmed to be omitted Lincler and Meseeks and excluding the confirmed to be included Gearhead and Bird-Person, here are ten other characters we would like to see pop up in Rick and Morty season two. These are not demands and we are not an entirely unreasonable Internet. Just…give us a few, Roiland.

Snuffles/Snowball

The Smith family dog, Snowball (Snuffles is his slave name) provided perhaps the first truly great moment of Rick and Morty’s run when he woke up Summer in the middle of the night and demanded to know where his testicles were. He is a precocious little dog whose fur is soft and white (you know, like snow) and with access to machinery that makes him and his dog army uncommonly intelligent. Snowball left our Earth to find a new world where he could create his own dog society. There’s no reason season two can’t make a brief pitstop in Dog-World to see how things are going. Hopefully they’ve found all the testicles they need.

Scary Terry 

Scary Terry first appeared in the same episode as Snowball, “Lawnmower Dog.” He’s a patent law-proof look-alike of another popular horror villain who causes havoc in people’s dreams*. What sets him aside, however, is a penchant for saying “bitch” that would make even Jesse Pinkman swoon. He’s also secretly a big old softy. He’s just trying to get through his 9-to-5 just like the rest of us so he can get home to his scary wife and scary child. Since he, Rick and Morty are such good friends, it would be nice to see them all reconnect and kick it with one another in dreamworld.

*Yes, Leonardo Dicaprio in Inception.

Cronenberg Rick and Morty 

At the end of “Rick Potion #9” Rick has to resort to one of his most desperate measures: completely abandoning his reality for another one. Why do he and Morty have to abandon this reality? Nuclear war? Global pandemic? Nope. Rick got the ingredients wrong on a few love potions. Subsequently every human being on Earth turned into misshapen monsters that look like they were created by The Fly director David Cronenberg. Then we discover that there have been Cronenberg Rick and Morty’s living in yet another reality and move onto another reality where everyone is a Cronenberg monster all along (this show can get confusing if you pay too much attention). Cronenberg Rick and Morty are by and large happy, go-lucky dudes. When Rick and Morty are at their most stressed in season two, it would be nice to get back to the Cronenberg versions of them happily trucking along in their Cronenberg world.

Morty Smith Jr. 

As suggested by his name, Morty Jr. is Morty’s son. Conceived during Morty’s masturbatory experiments on an alien sex-bot gone awry, Morty Jr. is a male Gazorpazorp – one of the most dangerous creatures in the universe. Morty does his best to raise Morty Jr. but Morty Jr. is too preoccupied by death and destruction and goes on a rampage when he realizes that Morty has been keeping him locked inside his whole life. Thankfully, Morty Jr. is able to channel his violent impulses into becoming a creative, like Marmaduke creator Brad Anderson tells him to. Since his first book, an autobiography about his awful father, was such a smash, we’d love to see Morty Smith Jr. turn up in season two to be the official or unofficial chronicler of a Rick and Morty adventure.

Ants in My Eyes Johnson 

Ants in My Eyes Johnson appears for less than a minute of screen time but oh what a splendid “less-than-a-minute” it is. I don’t know what it is about the guy. Maybe it’s the pit-stains. Maybe it’s the selling of outdated appliances. Maybe it’s the complete inability to experience the sense of touch. Or it just might be the titular ants in his eyes. But the sum total of all of this is an absolute gem of a character. You could barely even call him a character. He’s almost a comedic prop. Whatever he is, I want him back. He’s presumably dead after being burned alive by a stove but that doesn’t mean that Rick and Morty can’t come across hours and hours of more Ants-in-My-Eyes Johnson b-roll in a warehouse somewhere.

Two Brothers

There’s only one team you can call when in the middle of a “cross attack” from cat-monsters, Mexican armadas and old women. That team is the Two Brothers. Sure, they may be fictional, even within the already fictional universe of Rick and Morty. But we need to see more. Any movie franchise that begins with tomato goes shooting at Mexican armadas has to go to even crazier heights in a second installment. Moon already crashed into Earth. Let’s crash Mars into it next. Two Brothers can handle it. 

The Devil

The Devil was defeated about as soundly as any character can be in an animated show. Being brutally beaten by a roided-out grandfather and his roided-out granddaughter while DMX’s “X Gon Give it To Ya” plays is the new ACME rocket. Still, The Devil deserves another shot for two reasons. The first reason is that he’s played by Alfred Molina. I like Alfred Molina. You like Alfred Molina. We all like Alfred Molina. The second reason is that maybe…just maybe we can get another DMX steroid training montage. I don’t care if The Devil is being beaten, doing the beating or just watching.

Evil Morty

Rick’s Moriarty-style ultimate villain has been hiding in plain sight all along. It’s Morty. Or at least the evil version of Morty. In the underrated “Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind” we are introduced to a council of Ricks from alternate realities that periodically meet to make sure the universe remains safe for all Rick-kind. Then when a series of Ricks turn up dead, the Council assumes an Evil Rick is behind it. And at first it seems they’re right. At the end of the multi-verse is an evil Rick who has built a dome of Morty’s being tortured to elude detection. But it’s not really the Rick who is the mastermind behind the sceme at all, it’s his seemingly innocuous, eye-patch wearing Morty. Evil Morty is a great one-off sight gag and episode-ending twist for sure. He’s also, however, the best opportunity Rick and Morty has for a series-long big bad. Rick and Morty isn’t necessarily the kind of show that would require the services of such a villain but at the very least Evil Morty can pop up here and there.

Squanch

Rick’s house party in the finale, “Ricksy Business” featured most interesting characters than any other episode of the show. Thankfully, it’s already been confirmed that Gearhead and Bird-Person will be returning in season two. The show should go ahead and bring Squanch back while it’s at it. Squanch is Smarf before Smarf was cool. Instead of pressing a button to save reality, however, Squanch spends his time Squanching. And Squanching by all appearances is just attempting autoerotic asphyxiation. That belongs in the Rick and Morty universe.