Rick & Morty: Jessica's Lack Of Screen Time Doesn't Go Unnoticed, But Fans Get It
Kari Wahlgren is among a number of prolific voice actors featured in the cast of Adult Swim's hit adult cartoon series "Rick and Morty," which also includes regular appearances by Tom Kenny of "Spongebob" fame and Nathan Drake actor Nolan North, among others. Wahlgren once discussed how she keeps her characters straight, revealing that she listens to voice references to quickly snap into whatever character she might be performing during a given recording session.
On "Rick and Morty," Wahlgren's primary role is that of Jessica, Morty's perennial high school crush. While such a character might typically play a significant part on a show about a teenage boy, Jessica's appearances, rather, are infrequent. At one point, even, Jessica's role in "Rick and Morty" Season 5, Episode 1 had fans theorizing that her importance was set to expand, only for her to effectively disappear from then on, including through the entirety of Season 6 — all while Wahlgren continued to voice additional tertiary characters.
Fans, of course, have taken notice. For instance, user YTReckless_Leotron started a thread on the "Rick and Morty" subreddit asking if it is indeed true that Jessica doesn't appear in Season 6, outside of her brief inclusion in a wide shot in the episode "Juricksic Mort." In response to this and at least one other inquiry into Jessica's whereabouts, however, some viewers seem to think Jessica's current trajectory makes sense for the show in its present state.
Jessica's character arc may have simply reached its end
In response to user YTReckless_Leotron's thread about Jessica missing from "Rick and Morty" Season 6, another user with the handle Wise_Bass proposed that the character may be gone for story reasons. "I feel like they're kind of done with Jessica for now," they wrote. "The season 5 premiere tied that particular character storyline up neatly – Morty finally had a serious date (of sorts) with Jessica, it didn't work out after all, and they went their separate ways."
This echoes a line of thinking a number of other users shared in a similar thread asking for an explanation as to why Jessica didn't appear once in "Rick and Morty" Season 6. For example, user TakeYourLs pointed out that her most recent appearance in Season 5 actively drew attention to and undermined the fact that her role was merely as an accessory to Morty, making her character perhaps not worth revisiting. User MotorBug2005, meanwhile, pointed out that there are plenty of underutilized side characters in "Rick and Morty," leaving the door open for her return just as it is for characters in the same boat like Tammy and Birdperson.
While Jessica's relevance to "Rick and Morty" in its current state may indeed have expired, "Rick and Morty" is practically defined by its unpredictability, so the character resurfacing in a new manner is, at least, not entirely out of the question.