Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland served up a piece of concept art from Rick and Morty Season 3 that alludes to one of the most popular plot threads from the show’s first season. The sneak preview he posted depicts Rick, or a Rick, pointing off toward the horizon, with three contented Mortys at his side. Rather than capturing an action moment from a Season 3 episode, the drawing seems to be of some sort of museum display, depicting a consequential moment in the Rick and Morty history. The new Season 3 concept art got lost amongst a hurricane of fan anger and misunderstanding over the Season 3 release date (short answer: maybe April, but no one knows). Check it out:
Also: yes- I'm working on S3 while here. Hard at work. Hustling. Sneak preview: pic.twitter.com/md2aSlasCH
— Justin Roiland (@JustinRoiland) January 22, 2017
While the concept of parallel dimensions — with parallel Ricks and parallel Mortys — was explored in earlier episodes, particularly “Rick Potion #9,” the Season 1 episode “Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind” introduced the Council of Ricks: a governing body of Ricks and their pet-like Mortys united across a vast swath of the “central finite curve.” The events of the episode hinged on a villain that used hundreds of kidnapped Mortys to evade detection and an uprising led by our Morty, of Dimension C-137. Though the Ricks seem to have a low appraisal of the worth of any individual Morty, the episode’s end reveals that this particular conspiracy was orchestrated by a genius “Evil Morty.”
Evil Morty has not been seen in an episode of Rick and Morty since then. He’s one of the most asked-about characters.
And now we know, thanks to this concept art, that at least one Season 3 episode will deal with multidimensional, multiple Morty scenarios. For example, this sneak preview could be of a Rick and Morty museum inside the Citadel of Ricks, from which the Council of Ricks govern.
This Season 3 preview doesn’t prove anything concrete about the plot of a Season 3 episode, but it does suggest that the transdimensional alliance of Rick and Mortys will come up in some form. Whether or not that means the return of Evil Morty remains to be seen.
