Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon talked a lot about Season 3 in a recent reddit AMA. It’s fascinating reading generally, with a number of details about upcoming Rick and Morty episodes peppered among confessional answers about the nature of TV writing and his other work.
First, Harmon confirmed Keith David would return as the President of the United States in Season 3, which we wrote about as a strong possibility all the way back in April. “I literally just came to this AMA from a record session with Keith David reprising his role as the U.S. President,” Harmon said, which additionally confirms that the President isn’t likely to appear until later episodes in the season (since Episode 1 is complete).
Harmon also confirmed another guest voice, telling reddit, “Joel McHale is in an RAM season 3 episode.”
But Harmon’s answer that’s most likely to stir fans to a state of vibrating, fluorescent ecstasy is the dangled possibility that Birdperson might return in Rick and Morty Season 3. Asked whether the feathery personage would return after his murder in Season 2, Harmon said, “it has been a challenging season for Birdperson. But you never know…”
But while there’s now the slim possibility of Birdperson’s return, Harmon stated definitively that the Ball Fondlers will not be back.
Harmon also spoke at length about how Rick and Morty Season 3 developed behind-the-scenes. For example, here’s how characters get developed:
“A lot of times it's like a crazy person running up to a whiteboard in the writers room and drawing a turd monster with breasts for testicles. And that crazy person's name is Justin Roiland, or, as I call him, Li'l Goldmine!”
Sounds like close kin to Titty Long Balls.
But the most interesting developments in Rick and Morty Season 3 may be due to the reconstituted writers room, which, after two seasons of your typical Adult Swim boys’ club, became a gender-balanced team. Harmon described the new dynamic:
“It was different. Because there were women in the room, we were able to talk about Summer and Beth without feeling like we might be somehow off the mark. And because there was an equal number of women and men, none of the women or men felt like they represented any particular gender, so the end result was, all the characters and subject matters had equal potential for exploration and I think we have a very interesting Beth this season but who knows, maybe that's just my dumb perception.”
Sounds like an intervention just in time, as Beth and Jerry’s “will-they-won’t-they-divorce” plotting sometimes left the family half of Rick and Morty lacking compared to the intergalactic, dimension-hopping side. Beth and Summer both became more fleshed out characters in Rick and Morty Season 2 and it sounds like Season 3 will enrich the complete Smith family ensemble even more.
Those are most of the consequential details Harmon let loose about Rick and Morty Season 3, but the whole AMA is genuinely worth a read.
