Rick and Morty Co-Creator Shares New Approach Amid Season Eight Finale

San Diego, California — As the animated series “Rick and Morty” prepares to wrap up its eighth season with a finale on Sunday, co-creator Dan Harmon is feeling optimistic and less stressed about future episodes than in previous years. During a recent video interview at San Diego Comic-Con, Harmon reflected on his experience this season.

“I’m really bad at keeping track these days because we’re so on schedule that we’re ahead of schedule,” Harmon said, admitting that he sometimes loses track of the episodes. He mentioned an upcoming table read of the sixth episode, titled “The Two Beths,” and humorously noted, “Maybe I should punch that script up,” only to be reminded by executive producer Steve Levy that it had already aired.

This newfound confidence marks a shift for Harmon, who has previously expressed struggles with perfectionism. “Definitely very new, very alien,” he acknowledged about being ahead of schedule. “I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat going, ‘How do I destroy everything? How do I slow it down?’ The answer is, I can’t.”

The series, now guided by showrunner Scott Marder, has already started recording voice work for its ninth season and has plans in motion for season ten. Harmon revealed, “There are episodes of season 10 that I’m already so excited about, and that’s a frustrating thing of being on schedule in animation: ‘Can we fast-forward time so people can get a look at this bad boy?'”

He also mentioned that while the show has the freedom to explore new ideas ahead of time, it may not lend itself to timely social commentary. “I don’t know if that’s sad for the listeners to hear. They’re like, ‘Why are you three years ahead?’ That means that you’re not going to get that amazing Jeffrey Epstein episode. We’re not going to have hot-topic stuff. We stay timeless,” he explained.

In its eighth season, guest appearances from filmmakers James Gunn and Zack Snyder caught the audience’s attention. Harmon jokingly noted, “Zack Snyder wants to be a regular. All of his sequences will be dreams. He’ll always exist in a Snyder cut of every episode.”

The balance between serialized storytelling and episodic adventures remains a challenge for the writing team. Harmon stated, “I’ll just always insist on the modular one-off thing. That is harder to pull off and therefore requires more energy. Serialization is a glorious thing that happens automatically to a show that people love.”

He highlighted the importance of the younger staff who help track the show’s multiverse and characters, saying, “We do have younger, smarter people on the staff whose very job is to remember which Rick is from which dimension. They make great advocates for fantastic and canonical mythical episodes.”

Fans eagerly await the finale as Harmon and his team prepare to share more adventures in the vibrant world of “Rick and Morty.”