Rick and Morty: What That 70 Episode Order Means for the Future of the Show

When Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland announced on Twitter that Adult Swim has ordered 70 more episodes (aka about 7 more seasons) of the series, he had to believe that that represented a hell of a lot more sci-fi rigamarole and untold multiverses to explore! And just think of the various food products Rick might mention as a joke that people in real life will lose their damn minds over!

According to Roiland, the job security afforded by the 70-episode order, should mean the Rick and Morty factory will run more smoothly. “[Co-creator Dan] Harmon is in great spirits, we have a great writer’s room,” he told Polygon. “We want the episodes to stay good, but we do also want to try to turn them around a little quicker now that we have this big order, I think it gives us the ability to be faster. We’re not going to do these long breaks, these chasms in-between seasons anymore. We’re going to schedule vacation time and just keep the machine going. It’s going to be really cool.”

Oh, the possibilities are endless! With that in mind, here’s what 70 more episodes of Rick and Morty could mean for the show’s future, based entirely on me making it up.

WORLDBUILDING, WORLDBUILDING, WORLDBUILDING!

With so many episodes on the horizon, the crew has a vast, long-term canvas to work with and the luxury to set stuff up early on with the intent of it paying off way the hell down the line. So we might get some massive, crazy, mind-blowing, multi-season Evil Morty arc. Wowee-zowee!

Or not!

Co-creator Dan Harmon tried to do a full-season arc back on his first sitcom, Community, and ultimately deemed it a failed experiment. As such, on Rick and Morty he’s pushed for more self-contained episodes and seasons, meaning that worldbuilding thing I just said is a load of hooey and they’re probably going to keep writing by the seat of their pants.

Still, with so much bandwidth, they don’t have to worry about bringing back fan-favorite side characters (Mr. Meeseeks, Mr. PoopyButthole, Phoenixperson, et al) with any urgency because they can just have them pop back up whenever it feels natural. So that’s nice.

Rick and Morty will meet Doc and Mharti

Assuming they can tiptoe around the questionably intellectual-property-infringing aspects of this, the grandpa/grandson duo will eventually have to come face-to-face with their selves from the original short Justin Roiland made where they were just two filthy parodies of Doc and Marty from Back to the Future. They’ve already been drawn into the background a bunch of times so this seems awfully plausible and, with endless universes and endless Ricks and Mortys, it seems like a no-brainer plot device.

Rick and Morty will survive long enough to pledge their undying allegiance to Supreme Leader Trump

As you may or may not know, a few years ago the United States held its final, sort-of-democratic election. It’s now abundantly apparent that the world is, for the foreseeable future, governed by the whims of a sloppy pile of Alzheimer’s that shrieks racial epithets. It may seem anathema to Rick’s character, but, as all media will eventually, by law, be pro-Trump, around season 6 or so, the series will change focus and Rick and Morty will go on adventures exclusively with the goal of making the Big Boy in Charge grin and giggle and slap his fat, meaty paws together. Splap, splap, splap. Like that.

Also, the show will be retitled Fox & Friends and it will be the only show on TV all the time.

It will not be 100 years Rick and Morty

At least not yet. With the addition of seven more seasons, it will be like 10 years total, which is 90 years less than a hundred.

The show will have plenty of time to get really shitty

Look, Dan and Justin aren’t the types to phone it in. That’s why the seasons so far have taken so long to come out. But the sad state of American television is such that it does its darnedest to bleed every last drop of creativity from every show by having it persist long past its sell-by date.

But hopefully that won’t happen and it’ll stay good. Dan Harmon originally said he wanted the series to be Adult Swim’s The Simpsons. Here’s hoping that parallel only lines up so far.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 10, 2018

Kanye west will watch every episode at least 5 times each

I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

A version of this article was published in May 2018.