Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for the Rick and Morty Season 7 finale.

The Big Picture

Season 7 of Rick and Morty sees the show explore new narrative ground and delve into the characters’ mental health struggles. In the finale, Morty jumps into the Fear Hole alone, while Rick decides not to follow, showing growth and acceptance for both characters. Scott Marder discusses the show’s use of music, Ian Cardoni explains his approach to voicing Rick, and Spencer Grammer gives her thoughts on Summer’s relationship with Rick.

Season 7 marks the first installment of Rick and Morty that’s seen the series shake things up on more than one front. With the voices of both titular characters recast behind the scenes — Ian Cardoni now takes on the eccentric scientist Rick Sanchez, while Harry Belden delivers on Rick’s anxiety-ridden grandson Morty Smith — the show also tackled a lot of interesting narrative ground this year. Rick not only went back to therapy with Dr. Wong (Susan Sarandon), but seemed to approach some of his long-term mental health struggles differently as a result. Meanwhile, Morty has always held his a deep-seated fear that his grandfather will abandon him — something that gets addressed head-on in Season 7’s finale episode, “Fear No Mort.”

While the ominously described “Fear Hole” (in a Denny’s bathroom, no less) seems to force both Rick and Morty to tackle their biggest issues, the closing minutes of the episode reveal that Morty was the only one to jump into the Fear Hole in the first place. Rick never followed him in — and Morty’s acceptance of that fact puts him in a stronger emotional place to accept whatever comes next. That said, even after the confirmation that some twisted nightmare version of Rick’s late wife Diane (Kari Wahlgren) exists in the Fear Hole, Rick also makes the conscious decision not to venture in, seemingly accepting of the fact that his wife is truly gone.

Ahead of the Season 7 finale, Collider had the opportunity to speak with several members of Rick and Morty’s cast and crew, including Cardoni, Spencer Grammer, who voices Summer, and EP/showrunner Scott Marder. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Marder discusses how they landed on that Oasis cover for one of Season 7’s most heartbreaking episodes and what the finale signals for the series moving forward. Cardoni elaborates on his personal ritual for finding the voice of Rick Sanchez, and Grammer explains why Summer isn’t necessarily looking for validation from her grandfather after the kuato episode.

Rick and Morty Release Date December 2, 2013 Rating TV-14 Seasons 6 Studio Cartoon Network

Scott Marder Explains Why That Oasis Cover Was the Perfect Song for “That’s Amorte”
Image via Adult Swim

COLLIDER: Scott, I still haven’t recovered from Episode 4 [“That’s Amorte”]. I wanted to ask you about that cover of “Live Forever.” Were there any other songs that were considered for that montage moment, and what fueled the decision to make it that slow, stripped-down acoustic version?

SCOTT MARDER: The writer, Heather Anne Campbell, is obsessed with Oasis. It’s her number-one band. That song was in her writer’s draft. Our episodes change a million times over by the time they make it to you guys — they’re just like a prism of what they started as — but that particular sequence almost didn’t change at all from draft one. The only thing that changed internally was it was originally the Oasis song and, just based on our music budget, we ended up making that one a cover so we could afford, like, The White Stripes in a different one, to balance out and get a few of the songs we wanted across the way. But through Ryan Elder, our music supervisor, we just found that artist, and that cover I thought was a really cool version of it. We always felt like it was a really fucked up crazy episode, but what brought it home and kind of balanced out how screwed up it was was just this beautiful sort of celebration of life. That song really did it justice there.

I feel like it’s going to end up on my Spotify Wrapped next year, and I’m not even mad about it.

SPENCER GRAMMER: I’ve listened to it, also. It’s on my playlist now. It’s on my like list, and I’ve probably listened to it like 20 times since that. It’s a really good cover.

Ian Cardoni Has a Specific Ritual for Voicing Rick Sanchez
Image via Adult Swim

Ian, taking on a role like this, I’m sure there was probably a bit of an adjustment period and finding your way with the character, so is there anything that you always do to help yourself get more settled when you’re recording?

IAN CARDONI: On top of my vocal care regimen and my warm-up, in the booth, and Marder can attest to this, there are a few lines we come back to even just in between takes. One of them is from the first episode of the season, which is the Caribbean Queen line, written by Hugh Jackman, age 16. I give that a couple of repetitions, and then I’m back in the pocket.

MARDER: That’s such a random line, and hear that line. That line pings. It really would bring the Rick voice out in a beautiful way, so it would be a line that he would say before lines all the time.

CARDONI: There might be one or two others that I revisit, as well, if there’s a bit more of an effort or a yell with the lines. There are different degrees of a Rick launch point, I guess I’d call it.

Related ‘Rick and Morty’ Just Delivered Its Most Violent Sequence Ever Rick finally fulfilled his purpose. But will it actually make him feel better?

There are different registers of Rick as a character. You have the conversational Rick and then you have, like you said, the screaming Rick. Is there anything that you do just for the screaming? Because it feels like it might take a toll after a while.

CARDONI: Yeah, it’s a voice that definitely runs the risk of causing damage, and so we just take extra care. I’ve felt really protected by everyone in the room, Marder especially, always checking in. If there’s something that might require a bit more volume, a bit more emotional investment, then we will sometimes save that and let that be the crescendo of the day towards the end of the session, just to make sure that we’re not causing any damage. Those are also some of the most fun lines and the most Rick lines, to give a big yelp. They’re great because the range that you’re talking about, from conversational to yelling, is the range of the character and his emotional life, and to step into that is what’s really fun for me.

MARDER: Ian got the job because, believe it or not, there were so few people that could comfortably do conversational Rick the way he did in a really stand-out way. It’s funny when you cast a net, and you see how people perceive something, and everyone’s perception of Rick was just screaming. The majority of people didn’t really recognize that he had a normal baseline register, and Ian had a really good ear for all that.

Yeah, he’s not always at a 15.

MARDER: [Laughs] No. Who would want to listen to that?

The Kuato Episode Has a Deeper Meaning for Summer and Rick’s Relationship
Image via Adult Swim

Spencer, I wanted to ask you about Summer’s really fun episodes this season. We get a really nice moment with her and Rick in the middle of the kuato episode, which is crazy on its own in classic Rick and Morty fashion, but then Rick also admits to Summer firsthand that he respects her. In previous seasons, we’ve seen her stepping into that leadership role more often, but do you feel Rick’s admission to her directly changes her perception of herself and is going to affect her relationship with him moving forward?

GRAMMER: Well, that’s just an interesting question in general about how we view a female character. Is it only through the perspective of a male character? Do we accept individual agency as something that’s remarkable? Is it really necessary to have the validation of your grandfather to make you an important individual, feminine person in the world? I think it’s a question we probably are asking ourselves as individual people. Do I do what I do in my life so I can get the approval of my father or my grandparents, or do I do it because it’s important to me? I think for Summer, in that moment, probably, of course she cares, but I think at some point she realizes that Rick is a pretty flawed character who did a lot of fucked up stuff, and does she really need his approval?

But there is a level where the entire show has sort of waffled and spun around the approval of this character, particularly in the first few seasons, where I think it’s really changed as we’ve gone along. You’ve learned to have an acceptance for him. This year, particularly, Rick’s character has grown immensely, and it’s been really lovely to have Ian as the voice, because I think he’s brought so much tenderness to Rick that was really required of where the character was going, and it was needed and necessary. To take an audience on a journey for seven to ten years, to have them go through all these experiences, not only politically and socially, but also for these people, it’s been a really lovely tool to reach people and maybe help them, also, I don’t know, go to therapy and grow. [Laughs]

MARDER: That’d be lovely if we were responsible for that.

GRAMMER: So, that’s my opinion about it. But hey, listen, I’m also still struggling with a patriarchal gaze that’s an internalized misogyny for me as an individual person.

You make a great point, though. Pre-therapy Rick probably wouldn’t have been able to tell Summer that, or have felt emotionally as open to express that.

MARDER: That line, Carly, that’s the most important line in that episode because, for us writers, we felt like Season 7 was the season where Rick was finally feeling comfortable to even discuss Diane. Diane’s been the specter that’s largely not talked about. It’s weird. And 705 was important to us because it helped explain, “Look, I don’t talk about her because the most devastating thing in the world happened to her, and she’s gone everywhere, and none of us really remember her anymore.” It’s such a source of pain for him, but beating Rick Prime, it’s allowing him to finally conjure her memory again, so that was a cool connective piece in the episode for us.

‘Rick and Morty’s Season 7 Finale Indicates a New Direction for the Show
Image via Adult Swim

Scott, I wanted to ask you about the finale. We tap into what we think is Rick’s greatest fear, but it turns out to be Morty’s. What kind of effect is that going to have on their relationship? Does it feel like Rick’s decision ultimately not to go into the fear hole is, like you said, part of his journey of emotional acceptance, realizing he doesn’t need to revisit that specter?

MARDER: We felt like we found an idea that kind of gave us our cake where we were able to eat it, too, in terms of, “Wow, we finally get to see these two together, but in a paradigm where maybe it’s real, maybe it’s officially the way they’d be, maybe it’s not.” We had a lot of wiggle room in terms of what people would put on it. But certainly, the choices he makes towards the end are indicative of what we’re looking to do with the writing. He’s got to keep moving forward. He’s already made choices that weren’t just to continue chasing her down the spiral. So, as tempting as it was and as incredible as all that seems, he’s with his found family now that he’s chosen, and he’s got to keep moving in a positive direction.

Rick and Morty can be streamed on Max, with Season 7 available beginning January 22.

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