Over the weekend, fans of Rick and Morty were blessed with the news that the show’s fourth season would be returning next month.
Not only that, but we were treated to a sneak peek of exactly what we could expect, as television network Adult Swim shared a brand new trailer with us.
The trailer, although action-packed and full of the titular characters’ usual misadventures, did little to distract us from the sneaky disclaimer placed at the very end though – that the new season will only be five episodes long.
Take a look for yourselves if you don’t believe me:
Yep, you heard me right. Five episodes long (or short). In other words, an entire five episodes less than seasons two and three, and six episodes short of season one’s 11.
Which begs the question, why? Well, apparently five episodes is all Adult Swim could handle for the time being. As per the trailer: ‘Half the season you deserve, all the season we could handle.’
Regardless, the trailer promises a lot of action in those five short episodes – primarily the return of Mr. Poopybutthole, a character commonly associated with the show’s long hiatuses over recent years and one many didn’t expect to see return.
In the trailer, Poopybutthole can be seen taking an unsuspecting person down quite epically, challenging him with a cane and proving he picked the wrong yellow hot-dog-looking thing to mess with.
No matter how short, the upcoming season has been a long time coming; as per IndieWire, it’s been an entire two years (!) since the finale of season three (The Rickchurian Mortydate) aired on October 1, 2017.
Fans worrying that such a long pause could await us following the fourth season need not worry though, as just last year co-creator Justin Roiland announced the show had been confirmed for multiple upcoming seasons, ensuring the show’s security and with it, some sense of regularity.
Roiland spoke to Polygon about the team’s plans to shorten the length of time between seasons:
We’re super excited that, for the first time ever, we’re locked in, we know what the future is, we have job security.
Harmon is in great spirits, we have a great writer’s room. We want the episodes to stay good, but we do also want to try to turn them around a little quicker now that we have this big order, I think it gives us the ability to be faster.
We’re not going to do these long breaks, these chasms in between seasons anymore. We’re going to schedule vacation time and just keep the machine going. It’s going to be really cool.
It’s only fair I guess, if we’re sacrificing the number of episodes we get per season. I just hope they’re worth the wait!
The fourth season of Rick and Morty will be available to watch from Sunday, November 10.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).