The sixth season of the American

adult animated An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majori ...

television series ''

Rick and Morty {{Infobox television , image = Rick and Morty title card (cropped).png , alt = , caption = , genre = {{Plainlist, * Animated sitcom * Adult animation * Science fiction * Black comedy * ...

'' premiered on September 4, 2022. Starring

Justin Roiland Mark Justin Roiland (born February 21, 1980) is an American voice actor, animator, writer, producer, and director. He is best known as the co-creator of Adult Swim's ''Rick and Morty'' and its subsequent Rick and Morty (franchise), franchise. H ...

as both titular characters,

Rick Sanchez Rick Sanchez is one of the two eponymous characters from the Adult Swim animated television series ''Rick and Morty'' and resulting franchise. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon and voiced by the former, Sanchez is a misanthropic alcohol ...

and

Morty Smith Mortimer Chauncey "Morty" Smith, Sr. is one of the eponymous characters from the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, and voiced by the former, Morty is a 14-year-old boy loosely ins ...

, and their inter-dimensional counterparts, the season was ordered before the fourth season of the show finished airing, in May 2020. It is the final season to feature Roiland providing any voice as he was fired from the series on January 24, 2023, due to

domestic violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...

allegations.

Cast and characters

Main

and

, the main characters of the series. *

Chris Parnell Thomas Christopher Parnell (; born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1998 to 2006 and played the role of Dr. Leo Spaceman on ''30 Rock''. In animation, he voices Cyril Figgis ...

as Jerry Smith, Morty's and Summer's father, Beth's husband, and Rick's

son-in-law Son-in-Law (22 April 1911 – 15 May 1941) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and an influential sire, especially for sport horses. The National Horseracing Museum says Son-in-Law is "probably the best and most distinguished stayer this count ...

. *

Spencer Grammer Spencer Karen Grammer (born October 9, 1983) is an American actress best known for her roles as the voice of Summer Smith in the Adult Swim animated science-fiction series ''Rick and Morty'' and as Casey Cartwright in the ABC Family college comed ...

Summer Smith Summer Smith is one of the Protagonist, main characters of the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon and voiced by Spencer Grammer, Summer is a conventional and often superficial 17-year-o ...

, Morty's older sister and Rick's granddaughter. *

Sarah Chalke Sarah Louise Christine Chalke (; born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian actress and model. She is known for portraying Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy series '' Scrubs'', the second Becky Conner on the ABC sitcom ''Roseanne'', Stella Zinman on ...

Beth Smith Bethany "Beth" Smith (née Sanchez) is one of the main characters of the American animated television series ''Rick and Morty''. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, Beth is a veterinarian who specializes in horse surgery, who is struck ...

, Morty's and Summer's mother and Rick's daughter.

Recurring

Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' T ...

as President Curtis, the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

and erstwhile frenemy of Rick. *

Paul Giamatti Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...

as Story Lord, the former conductor of the Story Train, written out of the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

into a real dimension.

Guest

Episodes

Production

Development

The season is a part of a long-term deal between show creators

and

Dan Harmon Daniel James Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is an American writer, producer, and actor. He is best known as the creator and producer of the NBC/Yahoo! Screen sitcom ''Community'' (2009–2015), creator and host of the comedy podcast ''Harmontown ...

and

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

, confirming 70 new episodes would be released over an unspecified amount of seasons. Ten of those episodes were aired as

season four A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...

, and ten more were aired as

season five A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...

, leaving fifty episodes remaining. In February 2020, Roiland announced that the sixth season of ''Rick and Morty'' was underway.

Casting

Along with the season's announcement, regulars

, and

were confirmed to return as the Smith family. The second episode of the season, "Rick: A Mort Well Lived", featured

Peter Dinklage Peter Hayden Dinklage (; born June 11, 1969) is an American film, television and stage actor. He received international recognition for portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series ''Game of Thrones'' (2011–2019), for which he wo ...

as a guest star.

Writing

Writing for the series continued over

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, and

said that production was "pretty far along" by November 2020. In March 2021, Harmon confirmed that they were "very late" in the writing process.

Roiland's dismissal

On January 24, 2023, amid felony charges against Justin Roiland, it was announced that Adult Swim had cut ties with Roiland and that he was fired from the show. This makes the final season where Roiland does any work on the show, including voicing both Rick and Morty.

Release

The season premiered on September 4, 2022 on

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

. It was released on March 28, 2023 in

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

and standard

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

formats, as well as a

SteelBook Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case A ...

Blu-ray form.

Reception

On the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, season 6 has a 91% score based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critic consensus reads, "Bookended by some memorable serialized developments, ''Rick and Mortys sixth season has a lot of fun in between as it explores whether the universe's most toxic genius can actually grow as a person." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the season has a score of 86 out of 100, based on four reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The season was nominated at the

Artios Awards The Casting Society, formerly known as Casting Society of America (CSA), was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1982 as a professional society of about 1,200 casting directors and associate casting directors for film, television, theatre, and ...

for Outstanding Achievement in Casting – Animated Series.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Rick and Morty seasons Rick and Morty seasons 2022 American animated television seasons