YOLO Creator Michael Cusack Talks Returning for Season 3, New Vibes and More

YOLO is ready for its return to Adult Swim later this weekend with its third season, and we got to talk with the creator behind it all before its premiere. YOLO: Crystal Fantasy was a wild series for Adult Swim as the Michael Cusack created project introduced fans to two women, Rachel and Sarah, who are just trying to have a good time. But in every episode, the two of tem end up in wacky adventures that they never could have predicted. The series continued with a second successful season, YOLO: Silver Destiny, and now is back in action with a third, YOLO: Rainbow Trinity.

YOLO: Silver Destiny seemed like a finale for the animated series, so it was a surprise to see it return with the upcoming YOLO: Rainbow Trinity. But unlike the second season that had more of a serialized story behind it, YOLO: Rainbow Trinity is returning to more of the wacky adventures that fans loved seeing in the first season.

Speaking to series creator Michael Cusack about the upcoming third season premiering on Sunday, March 9th at midnight, Cusack opened up about the new vibes for the season, balancing its humor with Smiling Friends, and more. Read on for our full interview with YOLO: Rainbow Trinity creator Michael Cusack below (which has been edited for length and clarity).

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: First, I have to start by asking about the new title. A lot of the times when you get a subtitle like this, especially with some of the Adult Swim series like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, they don’t mean anything. But “Silver Destiny” ended up having a very real meaning by the end of YOLO Season 2. Is that something we could expect from Rainbow Trinity? Or is it just more for the vibes?

MICHAEL CUSACK: It’s more the vibes. Because Silver Destiny was a bit more serialized in the sense that there was more of a plot going on with Lucas trying to make the love potion, and Sarah and Rachel’s conflict with each other. It was Crystal Fantasy, Silver Destiny, Rainbow Trinity, that me and [Todor Manojlovic], who plays Rachel, we came up with those on the same day when we were trying to think of, like stupid titles against YOLO, similar to Pokemon, or an anime, or something like that just to possess it up a little bit more. Silver Destiny, I just tried to make the story get there some way in the end.

But with Season Three, there was more of a feeling to go back to see the energy of season one where it’s more contained episodes and not serializing it. And I’d say Rainbow Trinity, if anything, maybe it carved out a little bit of a vibe for the season in a subtle way to help write it, but not much more than that. Maybe a rainbow turns up here and there, but, no. It’s basically just a title that means nothing.

It funny how you mentioned the anime of it all because there are a few anime style gags in the episodes I’ve seen. Then there’s like a Tex Avery, Looney Tunes adjacent character, and one big design that I don’t wanna spoil. Were those ideas that you wanted to do in previous seasons that you finally got to do in Season Three?

Not really, they just more came out when writing on the fly. Because it’s not much as planned for YOLO until I break the season in a writer’s room, then I go away and get these scripts done. A lot of it is just coming up with those when you’ve decided to write it. So there wasn’t much where it was on the shelf to put into this season. If anything, there was maybe some premises like the festival episode. I’ve been trying to do a festival episode for ages, but it never worked. So this was a place to do that. There’s little things like that, but not much. It was mainly just on the fly.

That that kinda goes into the Sarah and Rachel of it all. You did kind of answer this a little bit where you mentioned that return to episodic storytelling, but their dynamic is a little different. It is noticeably different after Season Two. What goes into writing them now that you’ve returned to these episodic stories, but still have to keep in mind what happened in Season Two?

It’s retconned fully. Retconned to a point where it’s almost on the nose, in Season One, Episode One. That’s a bit of a beauty with a show that’s so, on purpose, “experimental.” I guess I keep saying “experimental.” It’s more just unconventional or doesn’t take itself too seriously because you kind of can wreck it, and it doesn’t matter. It is such a great therapeutic outlet for me to just be like, “You know what? We’ll do this now. We’ll do that this time.”

As long as you do it with care and purpose, then it kind of works out. At least for me, people could also hate that. I don’t really care, seems to work. I like the show. But, yeah, it’s been retconned. The Season Two stuff, it happened, but it just came back. It’s still happened canonically in the show, but it very much went back to basics at the start of Season Three and forgot about it.

I liked seeing more of Sarah’s parents too. We get to see a little bit more of them with their wedding in the winery episode, were they characters you wanted to flesh out more?

They’re my favorite characters in a way because of just how you can get out all those stupid boomer jokes. Like Aussie parents are so specific with how they talk. They’ve slowly been getting bigger parts as the seasons have been going on. Especially in Season Two, they had their own little musical episode. They feel like they’re probably more prominent than Lucas at this point, which is interesting.

What’s going on with Lucas? I know you’ve mentioned you’re retconning from Season Two, but I was kind of hoping Normal Lucas would stick around for longer than an episode.

Yeah, you know what it was? It was because Season Two I thought was the end. So it was like a way to wrap up his story. But, obviously, now that we got Season Three, Normal Lucas, it didn’t feel like you could get much out of him because it was more of a gag really. Sometimes shows do this right? I didn’t want to make that mistake of like changing a character to something else when the other version is better. So it just felt right to be like, “Look, you know what we went through.” Just go back to Normal Lucas and he could have a overarching arc because of how he’s set up to come back to Normal Lucas, but we’ll see. I’ve left that a little bit open, but I’ve got ideas of where they can go.

Yeah, like what’s going on with that fedora.

Right, the fedora and the anime guy that appears in his mind. It doesn’t feel the right time to fully explore that.

As a final question, I do have to ask about the other Season Three you’re working on right now. Smiling Friends, how’s that coming along?

Really good. Really good. We’re in such a great stride right now. Seeing as we’ve had two seasons to work up to this, we know the characters so much more now. It’s going really well. I’m trying to be careful not to spoil anything, but I won’t because I’m a professional. But, no. It’s good. It’s going very, very well. Zach [Hadel] and I are writing, and we’re in production. YOLO doesn’t slow it down at all because I can go back and forth. I can run between shows very quickly. So, we’re going well.

That’s I was wondering about too. Do you have certain jokes in mind that you decide are more suited for YOLO than they would be for Smiling Friends?

That usually is the other way around. A lot of the time, I’ll come up with an idea for YOLO and everything is vetoed in my mind of, like, “Would this be better in Smiling Friends?” It’s kind of a challenge. It was much harder earlier on in Season One, making both seasons at the same time. You didn’t want to subconsciously do anything that you’re doing in Smiling Friends, and had to be very careful about that. But now I can divide it more in my mind as it gets like a muscle that you get better at. But yeah, it still happens quite a bit.

You’ll be like, “You know what, this is more Smiling Friends.” Even doing mixed media. Sometimes you’ll be like, “Oh, this will be great to do mixed media in YOLO.” But I have to hold back on that so YOLO doesn’t become too mixed media. Because Smiling Friends, really, that’s where to do it. So I do it very sparingly in YOLO even though I love that stuff. The good thing about YOLO is it’s more of the Aussie humor you get out there, so it’s pretty distinguished and different.

YOLO: Rainbow Trinity premieres with Adult Swim on Sunday, March 9th at midnight, and will be streaming with Max the next day.