Dan Harmon knows that Rick and Morty jumped the shark — he planned it that way.
According to him, the “jump the shark” moment happened in the second-ever episode, when Morty’s dog Snowball is given a device to make him act like a human, evolving into a story that echoed Inception, Lawnmower Man, and Planet of the Apes. For the 13 years since, Rick and Morty has delivered increasingly over-the-top episodes, and the latest season proves they aren’t going to stop any time soon.
“We didn't do plot driven like, ‘Oh, can Rick maybe do this this time?’ It was like, ‘He can do anything,’” Harmon tells Inverse. “Whereas Stargate: Atlantis might run out of ways to use a Atlantian Stargate — never seen it — we can literally do anything. And that comes with some challenges, but it definitely allows us to sit down for a season and go, let's just pretend we're starting fresh.”
Because of this narrative freedom (and the show’s multiversal, intergalactic setting), Rick and Morty can take an approach that’s almost anthological: Rick and Morty can get up to world-shaking events in another universe, and then simply return to their home dimension. “Twilight Zone's a good model for our show,” Harmon says, “Because some of our best ones are just great bottle good sci-fi conceit.”
A great example is Episode 2, “Ricks Days, Seven Nights,” which follows Rick at his favorite vacation spot: a small town where nobody knows who he is, he goes by another name, and he has no memory of his other life. Knowing Harmon has referenced Doctor Who in the past, one might think that this premise was a reference to the Doctor Who episode “Human Nature,” which followed The Doctor as he was transformed into a human with no memory of his time traveling past. But the inspiration was a lot more terrestrial than that: a conversation Dan Harmon had on his lunch break.
“That one literally came from Harmon coming back from the bar at lunch one day and he just seemed refreshed,” showrunner Scott Marder tells Inverse. “And we're like, ‘What's up, man?’ He's like, ‘I just had the most delightful lunch, I talked to a guy who didn't know who I was and he thought I was a landscaper and we got to talk about lawns for an hour. And it was so nice to get a vacation from being myself for an hour with a guy and get to just have this nice, simple landscaping life.’ And then Harmon just started spitting this entire episode.”
And that’s just Episode 2 — in this season, there are stories inspired by evolutionary biology, kung-fu movies, summer camp movies, and even sequels to a couple previous beloved episodes. Much like Scott Marder’s other series, It’s Always Sunny On Philadelphia, this show continues to fight the odds and stay innovative.
That’s what makes Season 9 of Rick and Morty so delightful. Every episode follows its own rules and explores a new sci-fi conceit with a brand new perspective and angle, so inspiration can come from anywhere, from a discussion in a bar to a blockbuster movie and everything in between. If you have strayed from this series in the past year, this is the season to watch to get caught up.
