The news that Rick and Morty’s season 7 ending was the show’s highest-rated outing in years on IMDb thanks to the inventive, original storytelling of season 7, episode 10, “Fear No Mort.” The outing focused on Morty’s greatest fear, which turned out to be a life where Rick no longer needed him.

This experience allowed Morty to realize that he had been putting his personal development on hold to keep Rick happy, playing his grandfather’s sidekick at the expense of his own life. Since Rick and Morty season 7 truly changed Rick’s outlook on life even before Rick Prime’s brutal death, season 8 now has room to explore more of Morty’s internal world. Rick is in the most stable, promising place he has been in decades, meaning there is an opportunity for Morty to gain more screen time and story focus after a decade of the show centering on Rick.

Rick and Morty Season 8’s Concept Art Includes An Adult Summer

This Concept Art From Instagram Seems To Promise A Time Travel Storyline

However, this doesn’t mean that Rick and Morty season 8 will forget about Summer, Beth, and Jerry. The rest of the Smith clan will remain as pivotal as ever, judging by the concept art posted on the show’s official Instagram in March 2025. One slide revealed a character design for an “Adult Summer” that seemingly proves the show will explore the character of Morty’s sister further. Morty and Summer’s relationship was central to season 7, episode 7, “Wet Quat Amortican Summer,” but Summer is still frequently relegated to B-stories.

Some of Rick and Morty’s best episodes barely feature Summer, but she can be an engaging character in her own right when given sufficient screen time. Less meek and ive than Morty but less brash and reckless than Rick, Summer has the potential to be a great leading character in Rick and Morty season 8. The presence of “Adult Summer” in season 8’s concept art seems to reaffirm this, implying Rick and Morty will explore more of her life in this outing.

However, viewers might be surprised to see “Adult Summer” in the Instagram post despite her ing role in season 7. After all, Rick and Morty supposedly has an informal "No time travel" rule that bars the show from utilizing the overly familiar sci-fi staple. Rick and Morty has centered on time travel in at least one episode before, but the show largely steers clear of the sci-fi mainstay. This is due to both its complexity and its omnipresence throughout the genre, which make the trope feel both tired and too complex.

Why Rick and Morty Avoids Time Travel Plots

The Sci-fi Staple Is Both Infamously Complex And Overly Familiar

In season 2, episode 1, “A Rickle in Time,” Rick and Morty played with the concept of time travel by creating a mess of alternate timelines that eventually resulted in the arrival of Time Cops, Langolier-like beings that policed the space-time continuum. However, both before and since, Rick and Morty has mostly avoided time travel stories as these can be both high risk and low reward.

As Rick noted in one tie-in comic, a lot of fictional time travel is based on “Garbage science” that ignores certain loopholes and plot problems while exploiting others.

Although Rick and Morty takes plenty of risks with its storytelling, the argument that time travel is both ever-present in sci-fi stories and also needlessly convoluted is a fair one. Since Rick and Morty revels in playing with and deconstructing tired genre tropes, it might make sense for the show to mock time travel. However, as Rick noted in one tie-in comic, a lot of fictional time travel is based on “Garbage science” that ignores certain loopholes and plot problems while exploiting others.

Rick and Morty Has Done One Time Travel Story Before

Season 4’s “Rattlestar Ricklactica” Was A Silly, Snake-Centric Terminator Spoof

That being said, even discounting “A Rickle In Time,” Rick and Morty has done one major time travel storyline before season 8. Season 4, episode 5, “Rattlestar Ricklactica,” was a comically complicated shaggy dog story that saw Morty try to undo the death of a snake, only to accidentally cause all manner of chaos when he messed with the space-time continuum. Most of that outing was spent cleaning up Morty’s increasingly elaborate mess.

“Rattlestar Ricklactica" was a lot of fun but devoid of emotional stakes, something that the arrival of “Adult Summer” in season 8 could avoid.

However, the plot didn’t disprove Rick’s claim that time travel stories could be prohibitively complex and pointless. “Rattlestar Ricklactica" was a lot of fun but devoid of emotional stakes, something that the arrival of “Adult Summer” in season 8 could avoid. Rather than unecessary gimmicks like a live-action Rick and Morty episode, season 8 of the series should lean into plots that flesh out the main cast. In the case of Summer, this may mean breaking Rick and Morty’s time travel rule for a second time, but it would be worth it for her to get to know her future self better.

Source: IMDb

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