‘Rick and Morty’ Season 4 Return Date: What We Know

Rick and Morty Season 4 is now on hiatus following Sunday’s episode. While an official release date has not been announced yet, we have plenty of reason to hope it will be back soon. Here is what we know about the show’s return to TV so far.

Adult Swim warned us from the start that Rick and Morty Season 4 would be split in half. The trailer released earlier this fall specifically said that there would be five new episodes starting in November, and now we’ve gotten them all.

The show will definitely be off until the new year, according to its official Twitter account. Rick and Morty posted an Adult Swim-style title card on Monday saying: “Rick and Morty Season 4 will return in 2020.”

Of course, that does not really narrow it down, and fans are dying for more details. Considering the show’s recent leap into the mainstream, it could be that Rick and Morty is simply taking a conventional mid-season break.

Many network and cable shows take a few weeks off around the holidays, assuming that fans will not want to spend their downtime with family watching TV anyway. Rick and Morty has not done this in previous years, but the show is a cultural juggernaut now, so it could be taking that leap. If so, we can hope to see the show back on the air in late January or early February.

On the other hand, a lot is up in the air for Rick and Morty right now, with Adult Swim’s parent company, WarnerMedia preparing to launch a streaming service in May. HBO Max is intended to contend with Disney+, Netflix and other big subscription services, and Rick and Morty is a part of its catalog. It could be that Rick and Morty will hold off to try and help capitalize on this launch in May of 2020.

This seems far-fetched, however, especially since Rick and Morty has had so much time to prepare new material. The show was on hiatus for over two years between seasons 3 and 4, arranging a massive 70-episode renewal. With that in place, the staff was hopeful to keep future breaks between seasons shorter. We know that the Rick and Morty writers’ room is in session now thanks to co-creator Dan Harmon’s recently defunct podcast, Harmontown, but he never specified whether they are finishing Season 4 or working on Season 5.

Either way, the new episodes are coming one way or another. Fans may wish that Rick and Morty would give them a more reassuring timeline than “2020,” but after all these years, it seems like the best we will get.

Rick and Morty Season 4 returns for five more episodes some time in 2020.