The third season of Rick and Morty, an American animated television series created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, originally aired on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim.

The third season of Rick and Morty delivered the highest ratings in Adult Swim's history and was the top-rated comedy among millennials on television.

Other cast members of the season, who each have voiced one or more characters, include: Dan Harmon, Brandon Johnson, Tom Kenny, Maurice LaMarche, Nolan North, Cassie Steele, Laura Bailey, John DiMaggio, Ryan Ridley, Scott Chernoff, Dan Benson, Clancy Brown, Echo Kellum, Melique Berger, William Holmes, Tara Strong, Jeff B. Davis, Jonas Briedis, Phil Hendrie, Rob Paulsen, Alex Jayne Go, Jennifer Hale and Mariana Wise.

Rick reveals to Morty that his ulterior motive was to become his de facto male influence and get revenge at Jerry for threatening to turn him in to the authorities.

This escalates into a monologue, centered around Rick's desire to find more McDonald's Szechuan sauce, a discontinued promotional product for the film Mulan.

Summer falls in love with the Death Stalkers' leader, while Morty is given the strength of a giant arm, which takes him in search of its previous owner's killer.

Left alone, Rick eventually rolls into an open sewer drain, where he manages to manipulate the nervous systems of dead roaches and rats to build himself a mobile exoskeleton, with added weapons such as razors and drills.

They find that, while Rick was blackout drunk the previous night, he killed Worldender and set up a variety of puzzles that the Vindicators must solve to survive.

Once he assumes office, President Morty orders the execution of a shadow council of Ricks and anybody else he considers a potential threat to his rule.

Their goal is to recover Tommy, Beth's childhood friend who has been trapped in Froopyland, and prevent the execution of his father, who is being falsely accused of eating him.

"[25] In an October 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Roiland revealed that the team had received a lot of scripts from female writers for the upcoming season, which had never happened before.

"[26] Eventually, four female writers were added to the staff, and—counting out the co-creators of the show, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon—the writing room for the third season was gender-balanced.

The creative freedom provided by Adult Swim entailed taking responsibility for product quality, and as the bar had risen higher, work had become harder, improvements were constantly being sought, and this often resulted in delays.

Harmon told the assembled press at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con that "it's not an endless perfectionism because you know when something finally clicks and you go 'this is a good episode of TV.'"

He added that the animators had to suffer the worst part of the schedule delays, as they were forced to work weekends in order to cope with the demanding workload.

After the animatics (video recorded versions of a hand-drawn storyboard with very limited motion) for each episode were made, and the production team was able to pre-visualize the animation, additional passes on the scripts would follow.

[36] Although it was revealed a few years later that Roiland's inability to focus on his writing duties along with creating distractions in the writer's room also led to various delays, causing a lot of tension between him and Harmon which forced the show to bring in a mediator to salvage their partnership.

[47] Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage and showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss recorded audio commentary for the episode "Pickle Rick".

Other guest commentaries include Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love, Russell Brand,[48] and the winner of a crowdfunding campaign launched by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon to support Planned Parenthood.

[49] In his Blu-ray review for Forbes, Luke Y. Thompson describes the release as "a thorough set that seems to have covered all the angles, and will provide hours of fun to even those fans who've watched every episode multiple times already.

The site's consensus reads: "Rick and Morty dives into new and even kookier cosmic dilemmas in a third season that interrogates familial bonds, love, and nihilism—treating all existential topics to the series' trademark serrated wit.

"[51] Jesse Schedeen of IGN described the third season of the show as darker and more unpredictable than the first two, and praised its high-concept storytelling and character development.

[55] Kayla Cobb of Decider focused on the dynamism displayed by Beth and Summer, as the characters broke the stereotypical conventions of the first two seasons.

Cobb stated that "Season 3 is the first time Rick and Morty really handed over the reigns [sic] to its leading ladies, and it was a horrifying delight.

"[56] Julia Alexander of Polygon highlighted the philosophical conflict between nihilist realism and life in ignorant bliss as the season's main theme, and noted that "after an introspective season built on the importance of self-realization and reflection, Rick and Morty's third year ended on a total reset," with Beth and the kids reuniting with Jerry in the season-finale, as they seek comfort through escapism and ignore the realities of their lives.

[59] Rick and Morty was the most popular television comedy within the 18–24 and 18–34 age ranges in the United States, based on "Live+7" ratings data spanning from December 2016 to September 2017.

[60] Christina Miller, the president of Adult Swim, told Fortune that Rick and Morty "goes beyond just appealing to millennials," as numbers suggest that people of all ages are watching the show.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, female writers Jane Becker, Sarah Carbiener and Jessica Gao addressed negative comments regarding their involvement in writing the third season of Rick and Morty, recalling a post on Reddit that called them "the social justice warriors that Dan had to hire".

[27] Following the release of "Pickle Rick", one of the season's best-rated episodes, a number of fans participated in an online harassment campaign that targeted female writers of the show—especially Jane Becker and Jessica Gao—as they felt that they were "ruining the show" for them.

[71] Emily Gaudette of Newsweek said that, with the spike in popularity, the show has obtained an army of online devotees, and commented on groups like the self-described "Real Ricks", who identify themselves with the series' main character and believe that high intellect is an excuse for mistreating others.