It’s been a hot minute since we last had ‘Rick and Morty’ on our television screens. The off-beat duo, who are rapidly on their way to becoming the most popular animated characters of the modern age, finished the first half of the show’s fourth season in December last year. Given everything that’s happened in the world since then, that may as well have been a lifetime ago. Millions of people all over the world need a laugh now more than ever, and so we have some good news for you – the second half of the fourth season is coming very soon.
We haven’t quite been devoid of ‘Rick and Morty‘ entertainment during the period that the show has been temporarily off the air. Just over a week ago, a bonus episode appeared on the Adult Swim episode. It may have only been five minutes long, and it was strange even by ‘Rick and Morty’ standards, but ‘Samurai and Shogun’ was just enough to keep fans ticking over until the show came back in its full form. Fans of the show who’ve already seen that short film noted that it seemed a little different in terms of presentation from your average ‘Rick and Morty’ cartoon – and they were right. In keeping with the Samurai theme, it was made by Japan’s Studio Deen entertainment team, and it took them an entire year to create it. A year’s work for five minutes’ worth of entertainment seems excessive, but they have reason to be proud of what they came up with.
The five-minute Japanese short isn’t the only unexpected piece of ‘Rick and Morty’ entertainment to find its way onto the internet in recent months. If you’re a frequent user of online slots websites, you probably won’t have failed to notice that the characters have put in an appearance in the world of digital casinos, too. The official ‘Rick and Morty Megaways’ new UK casino has proven to be a major draw at slots websites and involved some exclusive content designed by the creators of the show. It’s not the only comedy creation to be re-imagined for online slots players – ‘Ted’ has had the same treatment, and even ‘Inspector Gadget’ is in on the action – but it probably counts as the most original.
Short films and online slots can only hold the attention of fans for so long, though, and that’s why we’re very happy to be able to confirm that the first episode of the second half of season four will premiere on May 3rd. From there, it will run for a further five weeks, and based on the brief clips included in the preview, we can look forward to Rick and Morty diving headlong into acid pits, and dressing up in armor to fire laser guns and slimy-looking aliens. In short, it appears that it’s going to be business as usual from here up until the point where the season ends. We already know that there will be a fifth and sixth season because so many episodes have been pre-ordered by Adult Swim, and so the future of the show is in safe hands, but if past conduct is anything to go by we’re probably looking at a wait of one or two years before we see season 5 after this five-episode run is over and done.
If you’re new to the world of ‘Rick and Morty’ – or if you’re a fan who hasn’t had the chance to check out the earlier seasons of the show for a while – it might interest you to know that all three past seasons will be included in the offering of HBO Max when the streaming service launches in May. You should also be able to watch the show through Netflix if you’re based in Europe or Hulu if you have that service available to you. It’s thought that the show may disappear from Hulu when it launches on HBO Max, but that’s yet to be confirmed.
When the show does come back, long-time fans will be hoping for answers to some questions posed in the pre-Christmas episodes – and perhaps even answers to some questions that go back a lot further than that. As with every cult classic show, there’s a dedicated online fanbase that follows ‘Rick and Morty,’ and among that fanbase, there are a number of theories about what’s really going on with the show. Perhaps the most popular of those theories is that Rick has actually been pulling Jerry’s strings this whole time. If this theory is a new one on you, here’s how it apparently works. As we’ve seen increasingly often in recent episodes, Rick sometimes wipes people’s memories on request, or through necessity. We know that Ricky has wiped some of Jerry’s memories before, and he’s done so without requesting permission to do it. Because we’ve only seen him do this on-screen once, we assume that it’s only happened once – but what if it hasn’t?
Jerry coped quite well with his memory being wiped, and Rick was far more relaxed about the process than he usually is. To some fans, that suggests that this is a regular process for both of them, and Rick wipes Jerry’s mind whenever he feels like it. Rick has never been overly fond of Jerry, and so it could easily be the case that he wipes Rick’s mind to keep him simple and obedient and to ensure that he never becomes a match for him in terms of intelligence. We know that there’s another ‘Mind Blowers’ episode on its way during the second half of the season, so could we about to find out that Rick has had a grander plan all along? We expect the season to end on a cliffhanger, and this would definitely fit the bill.
As this is all fan speculation, we have no way of knowing whether there’s any truth to it or not, but it’s another reason to stay interested and keep watching. We know where we’ll be when the show comes back at the start of May – and we suspect we know where you’ll be, too!
