At a screening during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland gifted fans with a new episode of the mega-popular cartoon over a week before the release of season 3. Nerdist was one of the 4,000 fans in the audience, and we can report that, like the first episode released on April Fool’s Day, the new episode was fantastic–an exploration of a new kind of Sanchez family dynamic.

“Thank you for being patient,” Harmon said, addressing the thousands of fans, and dozens of Rick cosplayers. “The slowdown was because we don’t want to let you down. We’re going to figure out how to do it faster.”

“It’s not like we’re sitting in a hot tub full of cocaine.”

Oh? Need <burp> to know more about the episode? Read on.

Spoilers for the second episode of Rick and Morty Season 3. If you don’t want to know anything, and want to be surprised–that’s great too!–go no further.

The second episode of season 3 picks up right where the first left off–the galactic government has collapsed, and the Sanchez family is figuring out how a divorced family is going to work. Jerry is moving out, Summer is acting out, and Beth doesn’t know how to feel. Apparently attempting to drown her feelings in adrenaline, Summer asks to go on a random adventure with Rick, and he obliges.

Things then make a hard left turn and veer directly into a spoof of Mad Max movies, especially Fury Road. There are spiked cars, an Immortan Joe, and a sawed-off shotgun. Summer uses said shotgun to kill their pursuers, and by the rules of the apocalypse, is invited to join the scavengers. Rick wants to bail, but seeing that the cannibals have a chunk of material that’s incredibly valuable for his various sciences, agrees to go all Thunderdome with Summer.

Wanting to cause a distraction that will allow him to grab the chunk of glowing rock, Rick then injects Morty’s arm with the genetics of a Thunderdome champion. The arm more or less takes over Morty, and pummels every competitor in sight into a bloody pulp. It seems like mindless violence at first, but then Morty begins to understand…

In the meantime, Summer, still acting out as a result of the divorce, falls for the cannibal leader. Both Summer and Morty are escaping, in their own, messed-up ways–Summer has the apocalypse, Morty has an arm with a singular goal. Eventually, both show the kids that sometimes, you just have to let go. In Morty’s case, the arm is the strong decider that Jerry isn’t, and in Summer’s the apocalypse shows her that she should never look back…a trait she wishes her dad would emulate.

Of course, Rick just wants that hunk of unobtanium, so to get around killing everyone and replacing his grandkids with robots (which he attempts), he modernizes the post-apocalyptic society using the energy harnessed from the stone. Before long (3 weeks), Summer has fallen out with her cannibal husband (oh yeah, that happened), and Rick, Morty, and Summer are just ready to go home to Beth.

Once home, Morty realizes–with the help of the giant arm he killed dozens with–that we all make our own choices, and that we have to be strong, and stand behind those decisions. Summer, having a similar breakthrough, visits Jerry at his motel. She brings him the skull of the first mutant she ever killed, a reminder to never look back.

Considering where the second episode went, we have no idea what’s next for the Sanchez family, but we know we’re along for the ride, and we’re never looking back.

The third season of Rick and Morty airs July 30th.

Images: Adult Swim