Rick and Morty season 8 showrunner explains that sometimes, an idea is just too good to not be an episode: "You can't unhear it once you've heard it"

Animated sci-fi adventure series Rick and Morty notably and frequently plays around with its own structure. Some episodes are entirely their own, some tie into a larger narrative, some are mostly the former with some of the latter. According to showrunner Scott Marder, this mixture is thanks in part to an inability to ignore killer ideas.

For Marder, a "complete season" is one that does both episodic storytelling and serial narratives. "I think there's always an eye on doing all of it in a season," he says. But that doesn't mean everything always goes exactly to plan.

"There's just no ignoring that we could be starting off a day trying to tackle something," says Marder, "and then someone will throw out an idea that is so inescapable, and it'll excite Dan [Harmon], and it'll excite me so much that we don't even need to articulate that we're moving on to this for now, because it is sparking so much joy."

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"You didn't come in on a Tuesday expecting to hear it, and you can't unhear it once you've heard it, and suddenly that's episode eight," he continues. "They all just sort of assemble, and then we find a method to the madness and a shape to a season that makes it feel like we broke it in the order that you're seeing it in, but it's really just finding the things that we find most attractive and most compelling and get the most sort of excitement going in a room on any given moment."

Rick and Morty season 8 is set to premiere on Sunday, May 25, 2025, on Adult Swim at 11pm ET/PT. Looking to catch up before then? Be sure to watch the best Rick and Morty episodes.