Blink And You'll Miss An Animation Error In Rick And Morty Season 6 Episode 2
"Rick and Morty" maintains a complicated relationship to its developing canon. On one hand, enough fans were vocally upset about what they determined to be a scarcity of canonical storylines in Season 5 that "Rick and Morty" producer Scott Marder addressed this Season 5 backlash directly. On the other hand, Marder and showrunner Dan Harmon revealed in an interview that they made a concerted effort to incorporate more canon storylines in "Rick and Morty" Season 6, seeming to throw a bone to the fans more interested in the show's overarching plot than its stand-alone episodes.
While it was entirely possible to address the fan backlash to Season 5 directly, some episodes of "Rick and Morty" include some outright mistakes, which viewers, of course, have cataloged online. On a show like "Rick and Morty," these are practically inevitable. Animation, for one, is a notoriously laborious medium. Plus, a typical episode of "Rick and Morty" is intricately plotted around at least one heady sci-fi conceit, meaning that the fact mistakes might occasionally slip through during either the process of writing or animating is hardly surprising.
With that said, Season 6, Episode 2 happens to include one such animation mistake that all but the most attentive viewers likely missed.
A group of world leaders in the Roy: A Life Well Lived universe is briefly missing
Much of "Rick and Morty" Season 6, Episode 2 takes place within an arcade game called "Roy: A Life Well Lived," first introduced to viewers in Season 2. Through some series standard shenanigans, Morty (voiced by Justin Roiland)'s consciousness has come to inhabit the 5 billion non-player characters in the game, whereas Rick (Roiland) becomes its protagonist Roy and attempts to break Morty free. At one point, in order for this to happen, an NPC named Marta and Rick/Roy coordinate with a consortium of world leaders, with whom they meet virtually on a wall of TV screens.
After a failed meeting with the President of the United States, Marta and Rick/Roy argue in front of these world leaders, at which point the screen to the right of the one in the upper left corner merely contains an empty chair. The next few times the wall of TV screens is visible, this chair is inhabited by five people, suggesting their absence is, in fact, an animation error.
In a Vulture profile, "Rick and Morty" animator Nathan Litz revealed that animating the show is so time-intensive, a particularly intricate minute of one episode once took the studio four weeks to complete. With that in mind, then, the brief absence of a few silent background characters is entirely understandbale, but nevertheless a moment that may interest fans keeping track of such oddities throughout "Rick and Morty."