Rick and Morty is back for season three! Kind of! We promise this isn’t an April Fools’ prank, but it’s also kinda complicated!
Rick and Morty actually, for real, dropped its season 3 premiere on April Fools’ Day
“The Rickshank Redemption” went live on April 1. Surprise!
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.
Allow us to explain.
While it would’ve been more than understandable if you decided to spend April 1 well out of range of the internet’s expected onslaught of deceptive jokes, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim seized the opportunity to play a kind of reverse prank. Instead of teasing something fake, they actually aired the long-awaited third season premiere of Rick and Morty (“The Rickshank Rickdemption”), playing it on a loop from 8 pm to midnight on April Fools’ Day.
This sudden return was, to say the least, a surprise — especially since Dan Harmon’s beloved, twisted cartoon has been off the air since its season two finale in October 2015.
You’re not totally out of luck if you missed the surprise premiere on April Fools’ Day and want to watch the episode (and are in North America to do so), because Cartoon Network will be airing the episode every night this week at 10 pm.
In the event that you can’t do such a thing and have to wait for the show’s scheduled return in the summer, we won’t spoil “The Rickshank Redemption” here. (If you can’t watch but still want to know what happened, you can check out Zack Handlen’s eleventh-hour review at The A.V. Club.)
But those of you who have seen the episode need to let us know if you or anyone else you know has a hookup for McDonald’s Mulan-era promotional Szechuan dipping sauce, please and thank you.
You can catch the Rick and Morty marathon on Adult Swim or stream it on AdultSwim.com. The first two seasons are also available to stream on Hulu.
Updated to reflect when Cartoon Network will be re-airing the premiere.
