Rick And Morty Season 3 Delayed Because Of 'Perfectionism' Says Co-Creator

Rick and Morty creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon have responded to rampant and completely bullshit rumors that Season 3 has been cancelled due to ‘bad blood’ between them.

It all began with bottom-feeder content sites trumping up months-old stories from the Rick and Morty writers’ room to speculate that Season 3 will never air — that it all fell apart. Adult Swim responded, tweeting, “Most things that float around the internet are turds.”

Back in January, Harmon and Roiland discussed the difficulty they had writing Rick and Morty Season 3, but there was never any question of cancellation. And while Harmon described “fighting” to an audience at the Sundance Film Festival, he later clarified on Twitter, writing, “I tell you, as a self destructively honest guy, Justin and I have literally never fought. Season 3 isn’t late because of ‘fighting.’”

But none of that has stopped the Rick and Morty click squad from fabricating reasons for the lengthy Season 3 wait. On Saturday, both Harmon and Roiland responded.

Harmon posted a lengthy Twitter thread explaining the delay.

You can click through to the full thread, but compiling it all leads to a more legible sense of what’s going on here:

“Justin and I are very regretful about the season taking way too long. I want to explain ‘what happened’ because it’s way less dramatic than you might ever imagine. Post internet TV audiences are so used to finding out that there’s an intriguing/confusing/intense reason 4 delays — and Christ knows if you’ve ever seen MY name on the internet I’ve only got myself to blame for an association with intrigue/confusion/drama — but the truth in this case is so very boring. I will put it to you as objectively as I can, though we aren’t talking about an auto plant.

The reason S3 took long is because it took long to write, because it was S3 of a show that we were scared to make worse than S2 or S1. It’s a common yet odd phenomenon. Tail-chasing, perfectionism, overthinking? One prob is that any description you pick for it is going to have a falseness. If I say ‘we overthought’ someone else could say ‘well, no, we thought the right amount,’ it’s like talking about religion or something. It feels I think, to writers, sacrilegious and ineffective to open the creative process and poke and label. But don’t worry about the content, because the reason overthought slows you down is, you just do way more versions of stuff than needed. You usually end up back where you started.

So far as I can tell, although I’m too close to it, it’s just another good season of RAM that took way too fucking long to write because it just seems like the same stuff that took way less time to write. That’s it. Boring answer.

As I speak, more articles are coming out about me and Justin fighting. Because it’s a less boring reason for a series to take long and because I’m Dan Harmon, so it’s a smart fucking first guess, it just happens to be hilariously not true even in the slightest. If you do know of me at all you know that if Justin and I HAD ever fought, not only wouldn’t we be able to keep it secret, we’d be all too eager to share it with you. Also, that’s not what would make the show slow down! Fighting probably would have been a good idea, it might have sped us up.

So that’s it. I shouldn’t have started a thread when I need to pack for airport, but that’s it. We took too long writing. Totes regrets. And we look back and we talk to each other about how we can avoid it happening again and I’m pretty sure the reason it won’t is cuz it happened. That’s how it works. You do something you don’t know you’re doing and then you’re like oh I did that and then you do otherwise.

I don’t know if any danger to the show itself that comes from you believing Justin and I are fighting and the show is gone forever, BUT like I said it breaks my heart to think of some kid reading one of these clickbait pieces after all the energy that kid has put into fandom. The show, by my metric, which is people seeing my tee shirts and saying ‘I love that show’ has like the craziest reach of anything I’ve been a part of. So… it makes sense that when you take something that loved and delay it this long and let the internet simmer, you get this stuff. And we’re flattered by it and thankful to you and can’t wait for you to see S3 and also JUSTIN IS A PIECE OF SHIT I’M GOING TO FIST FIGHT.”

In another tweet, Harmon predicted that their current working relationship could carry the show to 2040:

It may not be the “forever and forever, a hundred years Rick and Morty” promised by Rick in the Rick and Morty pilot, but most fans would probably be satisfied with 26 seasons.