Rick and Morty Midseason Premiere Gets Meta With the Coronavirus

Rick and Morty decided to go full meta in the midseason premiere. The show decided to even get in a reference to the coronavirus pandemic as they critiqued consumer culture. Rick and Morty were on a train in the episode and when confronted by the possibility of selling it, Rick said, “nobody’s buying anything with this freaking virus going on.” Fans were really looking forward to the show’s return and they got more than they bargained for. This year’s version of Interdimensional Cable ended up actually referencing the other times they’ve used an anthology format on the show. But the madness didn’t stop there, one of the characters that the duo encountered was actually using a simulation at Blitz & Chitz. Fans probably remember the arcade from Morty’s weird experience with the Roy machine. It’s amazing to see the writers just go for it and really lean into the strange stuff from the series. There’s nothing off the table for the rest of the season and that’s amazing to think after everything that’s happened so far.

Jerry’s voice actor Chris Parnell actually said that there would be fewer waits between seasons in a recent interview. That is good news after the fanbase will be flying blind after this week’s episode. It would seem that a lot of the footage in the promo was just from this episode.

“[Dan and Justin] wanted some job security, and they wanted to know that the show was going to be around for a while so that they and the writers could get into some sort of momentum,” Parnell said to TV Line. “We’ll see less lengthy breaks between seasons going forward because of that. And it’s very gratifying to know we’re going to have all those episodes. Hopefully, Jerry will be around for the duration. You never know.”

San Diego Comic-Con 2019 saw series creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland tell EW that the fifth season was already in production. During that conversation, they also urged fans to be patient as they are sick of the long layoffs too.

“I think it’s safe to say without fear of being wrong that the gap between seasons 3 and 4 will be the longest and last time that it’s ever so long that it’s ridiculous,” Harmon explained. “I don’t know how fast we can do it, but I know it will never be this long again. There were so many things that had to be settled before we even started season 4, and it’s really safe to say — as Justin says — we’re literally writing season 5 while finishing season 4 just to force ourselves to commit to a certain schedule.

What was your favorite part of this week’s episode? Let us know in the comments!