Last night, shortly before the stroke of midnight on Adult Swim, the first lengthy look at Rick and Morty’s long-awaited fourth season suddenly appeared. And it’s a messy one. Goop is flying everywhere throughout the footage; purple, yellow, green and blue, whether the guts be alien or human in origin, they are airborne.
At first glance it looks like things are back to basics for the demented genius and his hapless grandson; most of the clips follow the Season One formula of “Rick causes chaos; Morty suffers” and beloved and absent characters like Mr. Meeseeks (LOOK AT ME!) finally reappear. Harmon and Roiland have promised a couple changes though. Increased serialization elements were hinted at back at their SDCC panel.
But perhaps nothing was more shocking than this revelation: the season will be just five episodes long. A two-year wait for just five episodes…talk about begging for scraps. What we’re not sure of is if this is the intended full season (making for a pretty skimpy Blu-Ray set) or if this is merely Season 4A and will be followed by the rest in early 2020. Adult Swim won’t say either way, but calls the microseason “Half the season you deserve, all the season Adult Swim could handle.”
At least, unlike Morty, we can sleep at night….because we know a whopping 70 episodes have been locked down and there are 65 more to come. Rick and Morty return to Earth November 10 on Adult Swim. 23 months down, just one more to go. And hey, while you’re waiting, don’t forget to watch Primal tonight.