‘Rick And Morty’ Season 3 Release Date, Spoilers: Adult Swim Series Return With 14 Episodes

Rick and Morty Season 3, dubbed by co-creator Dan Harmon as the “most epic” season to date, is reportedly set for release this 2016. While its premiere date has yet to be confirmed, with some reports claiming that the hit Adult Swim series could return by March, 2017, fans have been incessantly campaigning on social media to push the release date at an earlier time.

According to Movie News Guide, fans of Rick and Morty have been asking creators to at least release the official trailer for Season 3 a little earlier. The outlet also reported that there had been several predictions as to when the third season will air. While some claimed that Rick and Morty Season 3 could air by December of this year, others believed that a 2017 release date is more plausible. Harmon has since shut down rumors that the series will return this August.

During Rick and Morty‘s San Diego Comic-Con panel, Dan Harmon admitted that the show’s success inevitably brought more pressure to its production team. He told Den of Geek that while Adult Swim gave them the liberty to “do anything they want” with the show, they still made the conscious decision to put out the best episode possible every time.

Harmon recounted an instance wherein the animators themselves almost decided to scrap an entire episode, Episode 304, as they were unhappy with the output. He shared that when he watched its thumbnail animatic, he was willing to move forward with it, but Ryan Ridley, a Rick and Morty staff writer, insisted that they were not satisfied with what they’ve come up with. Even if they were behind schedule, they just couldn’t bear releasing an episode they were not proud of.

“[The animators] have to bear the brunt of the schedule, they have to work weekends. They are the ones that wanted to do it. There’s a weird higher calling there and it’s not an endless perfectionism because you know when something finally clicks and you go ‘this is a good episode of TV.’ But it’s not just me and I was very happy to find that out,” Harmon shared.

Dan Harmon also promised fans that the emotional cliffhanger back in Rick and Morty Season 2 would be resolved in as few episodes as possible. Even though he refused to reveal more details, the co-creator promised that questions would be answered early in Season 3.

“I don’t think anybody wants to do a third season that simply spends a whole bunch of episodes dealing with a situation that we created at the end of the second season. So I think that’s a non-spoiler way of saying things should be okay pretty quickly.”

Rick and Morty Season 3 will have 14 episodes, longer than Season 1, which had 11 episodes and Season 2, which was cut down to 10. Over at Reddit, user hippiechan asked fans what they thought about the additional number of episodes this season.

“14 episodes to the season, but we have to wait 4 episodes worth of production time longer to get any episodes. Worth it y/n?” he asked.

In general, most fans were happy that Rick and Morty would have more episodes this time around, joking that it gave them another reason to continue living. Some were even hoping that the network could bump the show to 20 plus episodes. Others, however, were in favor of having shorter episodes if it would mean less time between seasons.

“Of course then you have to wonder if the 4 more episodes really matter at all considering maybe season 4 would be here 4 episode productions faster had they only done 10 for season 3… and so on,” Redditor whacafan pointed out.

[Image via Adult Swim]