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Rick and Morty Season 8: Adult Swim Releases Early First Look (VIDEO)

With the Adult Swim series returning in 2025, here's an early first-look preview of Rick and Morty Season 8 that screened during NYCC 2024.

While we still don't have a return window on the calendar for the eighth season of Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, series co-creator/EP Dan Harmon, showrunner/EP Scott Marder, and voice actors Harry Belden, Ian Cardoni, Sarah Chalke, Spencer Grammer, and Chris Parnell had a whole lot to offer fans just short of that earlier today during their New York Comic Con 2024 (NYCC 2024) panel presentation. Along with more seasons being ordered, we were also treated to an animatics preview of Season 8, where the combination of Morty's morality and Rick's need to grift collide, creating serious trouble for them aboard a spaceship of folks escaping their dying planet and in hibernation.

What else did we learn about the Emmy Award-winning animated series during the NYCC 2024 panel? Beyond Season 8, Marder shared that the team was "almost done writing the first pass of Season 10." And as we previously reported, Rick and Morty will be back for Seasons 11 and 12. In terms of the panel itself, there were a number of interesting teases, previews, and updates. Grammer teased that we will be seeing a Summer-focused episode – and another new side to the character. Parnell confirmed a Jerry-focused episode and teased that a holiday will be spotlighted that usually doesn't get a lot of attention. Cardoni teased some new versions of Rick, while Chalke dropped that she got to play a third type of Beth in the second episode. Belden and Cardoni then segue into an impromptu exchange between Rick and Morty as Morty tries to resist entering "The Vault of Spoilers" (nicely representing just how cautious everyone was about possibly even getting close to a spoiler.

Rick and Morty Season 8: Evil Morty, Mr. Poopybutthole Theory & More

If you appreciated how Seasons 6 and 7 were able to maintain a proper balance between canon/mythology episodes and those standalone "classic Rick and Morty adventures," then you'll like what's in store for Season 8. "There's obviously been a lot of shakeups and transitions that have happened that are luckily coinciding with some of these canonical storylines being resolved. If I could set a framework for fans of the show, it's the old characters and all these things, but it's like, this is an opportunity for a rebirth," Harmon explained during an interview from earlier this year. "I mean, the kind of canonical things like searching for Rick Prime, these are things that come out of the ether, and then they acquire this gravity, and then they become a canonical serialized story. I think people should expect more random embers shooting off of that fire and turning into organically gigantic serialized things of their own."

But with Harmon being a fan of the standalone adventures, viewers shouldn't be expecting them to be going anywhere anytime soon. "I will always target the episodic personally. Because, like, your job is to fight gravity. And gravity is serialization. That's what happens organically; gravity is a great thing. But you're supposed to want to fly." Marder reaffirmed that the eighth season will be looking to strike the episodic balance that the previous two seasons achieved. "Eight will have a lot of similar flow and vibes to six and seven, which is like a cool balance of silly and one-up canonical stuff. That's the stuff I want as a fan. And that's the stuff that Harmon and I work on all jammed together. I'm really proud of these last couple of seasons; they're sort of the perfect blend of what I look for as a fan," he added.

Could that include the return of Evil Morty at some point? Most definitely – in case anyone thought his ominous warning before departing our dimension (with one serious ultimate weapon) in "Unmortricken" would be the last that we would hear from him. "We can expect to see him in the future. We certainly have plans and grand designs with him, for sure," Marder shared – though not confirming that his return would happen during the eighth season.

And then there is the Mr. Poopybutthole question. Like us, a lot of folks are getting a feeling that Poopybutthole's overarching storyline is lading him to becoming a major big bad for our heroes. "Shit. Well, now we can't do that, or he can sue us, right? Good job, internet! You blew it again!" Harmon joked during the interview when presented with the theory. "No, in all seriousness, I do love that guy [the person who posted the theory online] so much; I want to encourage those kinds of theories. I love, love that stuff. I love him, particularly the amount of energy he puts into that stuff," the series co-creator added. While Marder found the theory interesting, he also shared that was "not their plan for him" – adding that "I always love what fans take and run with in any show."

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