Rick’s alcoholism has been a Rick and Morty undercurrent since the very beginning — the pilot’s cold open ends with Rick passed out on a pile of beer bottles, leaving Morty alone with a ticking neutrino bomb. But it’s always been more of a character trait than a plot point (as much as fans like to theorize about the possible plot implications of Rick’s flask). That might change in Season 3, which will feature two episodes directly addressing Rick’s alcoholism. And thanks to a new behind-the-scenes video, we know that Rick gets drunker than ever in Season 3 episode 4.
We already know, thanks to last summer’s Rick and Morty Comic-Con panel, that two episodes of Season 3 are complementary stories dealing (or pointedly not dealing) with Rick’s alcoholism. Co-creator Dan Harmon described one of the episodes as about Rick’s alcoholism, without ever mentioning alcohol. The other is overstuffed with Rick getting loaded, though the episode isn’t thematically about alcoholism.
“I’m proud, most of all, in Season 3, one of the episodes — I didn’t even realize until we were in the edit bay — we do an episode that’s entirely about alcoholism without mentioning alcohol a single time, particularly functional alcoholism, as per Rick’s curse, without mentioning booze once,” Harmon said. “And then we do another episode that’s totally steeped in how much Rick is drinking, but it’s not about his drinking, it’s about something else entirely.”
One of the two episodes is the Pickle Rick episode we’ve already seen some footage from:
This is probably the episode thematically about alcoholism. And now we know the fourth episode of Rick and Morty Season 3 will be the other, because Justin Roiland, co-creator and voice of both Rick and Morty, got totally wasted doing the voicework for it. “The character of Rick is a very high-functioning alcoholic,” Harmon says at the beginning of the video. “In episode 304 we need to see him get especially drunk, so I encouraged Justin to method act.”
Four shots of tequila later…
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The video doesn’t reveal much from the upcoming episode, mostly dealing with Justin’s increasing inability to get work done as Associate Producer Sydney Ryan tries to keep him in line.
Here are the Rick lines we hear (though who knows if any of these readings make the final cut):
- “Ah-ha! This little baby guy!”
- “I’m going to tell you where to stick it, because…”
- “Here to explain, is it a little bo-bo-bo-bo…”
- “Here to explain is little baby princess woe-bo-bo-whoa…”
Okay, so that’s not really all that revealing as to what’s going down in the fourth episode of Season 3. But it does reveal just how much of Rick and Morty happens in the recording booth, with Roiland going off-script for some Rick rambling.
New episodes of Rick and Morty Season 3 still don’t have a release date, but Adult Swim promises Season 3 will have its full roll-out “this summer.”
