‘Rick and Morty’ Showrunner Reveals Origin of Emmy-Nominated Season 5 Nimbus Episode

While the sixth season of “Rick and Morty” is on the cusp of release, the show is currently in the thick of the Emmys race for Season 5 – specifically the episode with Mr. Nimbus, titled “Mort Dinner Rick Andre.” And like some other “Rick and Morty” episodes, the origins of the story for this installment involve an idea that had been kicked around the writers room for awhile.

“Mort Dinner Rick Andre” begins as the story of Rick (voiced by Justin Roiland) coming face-to-face with his nemesis, Mr. Nimbus (voiced by executive producer Dan Harmon), who demands a dinner to set terms for a treaty. Rick tasks Morty (Roiland) with aging wine by throwing bottles into a void where time moves faster, but when Morty enters the void to retrieve each bottle, he ends up creating a nemesis of his own.

“There had been a time dilated little cupboard or thing that had been an idea that had been around for a while that we hadn’t quite cracked,” executive producer and showrunner Scott Marder told TheWrap. “And suddenly, magically, it all kind of fell in that it’d be a place that Morty would need to go get wine for a very high stakes meal between Rick and a nemesis we haven’t seen and in a story with nemeses, Morty suddenly creating his own [nemesis] for the first time and we’re seeing how that escalates quickly in a B-story that becomes the problem that bleeds into the A-story.”

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That A-story, however, was the brainchild of “Rick and Morty” writer Jeff Loveness, whose comic book fandom Marder credits with the creation of Nimbus.

“I know he’s such a big Marvel comic book guy and a lot of us internally loved the idea of Nimbus, who was like a funny David Bowie meets Namor sort of crazy character,” Marder recalled. “It all kind of magically wove together well, but Jeff Loveness is an uber talent that we were lucky really took a shine to it and took a run on a really cool, complex idea.”

The episode is the show’s submission for the Outstanding Animated Program Emmy award this year, with the Adult Swim series having won in the category twice before for Season 4 (for the “Vat of Acid” episode, also written by Loveness) and Season 3 (for “Pickle Rick”).

“Rick and Morty” Season 6 premieres on Adult Swim on Sept. 4.