Rick and Morty Team Explains the Real Heart of Season 5's Voltron Episode

The team behind Rick and Morty opened up about the real heart of Season 5's Voltron based episode! After brushing with anime at several times in the past, Rick and Morty finally launched a full episode with anime such as Voltron (otherwise known as Beast King GoLion in Japan) at the forefront. Not only that, but the franchise branched out with another full anime short thereafter taking this premise even further with Tower of God director Takeshi Sano. But as fans saw in the episode, the real heart of it all was Summer.

Rick and Summer have been progressively getting closer to one another in the fifth season, and "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion" really put this to the test as Summer enabled Rick's new Gotron obsession and addiction throughout the episode in order to earn his love. As producer Steve Levy, director Jacob Hair, co-creator Dan Harmon and writer John Harris explain in a special video for the episode with Adult Swim, this was the main core they wanted to focus around.

As director Jacob Hair opened about tackling Gotron in the first place, he was initially scared when getting the script because it meant not only the single Gotron mecha, but the gathering of many mechas together to form the GoGotron because it meant keeping track of all of the different Smith families they had needed to design. But as co-creator Dan Harmon explained, the issue then became forming a story from the initial idea of the Voltron parody.

Harmon and writer John Harris then revealed the main idea of Summer enabling Rick's additions, and how Summer went to such extremes to get Rick (who they mention is obstensibly a "sociopath") and became something not her but what she believed Rick had wanted. In the end, the main question then became whether or not any of it was even necessary beyond entertaining Rick for a brief time.

The fifth season has not been particularly heavy in terms of any major canonical threads or references, but there have been some notable character shifts tying each episode together. Episode 7 alone proved that the series' events are taking place in a singular canon with the debut of "Naruto," and this connection between Summer and Rick is one of the throughlines as he tries to get closer with the rest of his family.

So while this episode was definitely different than the others, the heart of it does align with the rest of the season so far. But what did you think of Rick and Morty's newest episode? How are you liking the fifth season so far? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!