Rick and Morty season 3 came to a somewhat abrupt end last October, but fans didn’t really start freaking out until they realized that a fourth season wasn’t immediately on the way. Rick and Morty may be one of Adult Swim‘s most popular shows, but it’s always a bad idea to let this fan base down. And if you need a reminder of that, remember how wild it got at McDonald’s across the country when they couldn’t provide the freakin’ Szechuan Sauce. Now, series co-creator Dan Harmon is shedding some light on why the renewal took so long. Today’s Nerdist News is firing up our portal guns to bring you the answers!

Join host and the only woman on the Council of Ricks, Jessica Chobot, as she goes over Harmon’s recent comments about the show. While speaking to GQ before the renewal was finalized, Harmon revealed that he and co-creator Justin Roiland intentionally held up the production until Adult Swim delivered a massive renewal that would allow them to focus only the fourth season. As opposed to taking on several side gigs while waiting for each episode order to come in.

On the plus side, Harmon and Roiland’s gambit obviously worked, and it gave them the job security that they wanted. Now, they can be secure in the knowledge that Rick and Morty has multiple seasons lined up and they will be able to simply move from one season to the next. Potentially, this could even speed up the production of the show.

The downside is that the excess number of episodes could also lead the show’s quality to take a dive. Even spread out over seven years or so, it’s going to take a Herculean effort to make sure that the new installments live up to the standards set by the earlier seasons of the show. Plenty of lesser series have run out of steam long before they hit that mark, and we don’t want to see the same fate befall Rick and Morty.

For now, we’re hopefully that Harmon and Roiland can avoid that scenario and give us a fourth season as soon as possible. We just don’t know how long it’s going to take.

How do you feel about Rick and Morty‘s massive renewal? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: Adult Swim

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