‘Solar Opposites’ Executive Producers Talk Season 5, Duke’s Return, and Potential ‘Rick and Morty’ Crossover (Exclusive)

Solar Opposites Season 5 is proving to be bigger as ever as Korvo, Terry, Yumyulack, and Jesse find themselves in new circumstances. Following the events of the show’s Valentine’s Day special, now that alien mission partners Terry and Korvo are married, the whole Solar Opposites team are focused on family values. All the meanwhile, things are getting more heated as the Wall’s inhabitants move outdoors and the Silver Cops fight on new grounds, both with their enemy and even each other.

To get a better sense of what the Solar Opposites and the interwoven storylines have in store, I had the pleasure of talking with executive producers Mike McMahan and Josh Bycel about the show’s present and future. Read our Season 5 interview with the executive producers down below!

CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO: I’m very much in love with the personal storyline that Korvo and Terry are sharing together this season. Building off the events from the Valentine’s Day special, what do you think is the most important aspect of fleshing out that dynamic in these episodes?

MCMAHAN: To me, the number one was that it’s a balance. It’s a balance of these characters are married and in love, and we’re not gonna endanger that.

We’re not gonna do episodes where it’s like, “Oh, will they get divorced?” We like that they’re in love and they’re married, and all sorts of stakes can come in, but not that. Josh [Bycel] and I were very clear with the writers’ room. We don’t wanna feel like we just gave them this thing that feels right and then endanger it all the time.

The other thing is to always make sure that they’re really, really horny. We need them to be as horny as possible at all times to a ludicrous degree. Like, hornier than high schoolers. In love, married, and extremely horny. Those are those are really our guiding lights on this. We’re like Aristotle.

Expanding further into the storyline, the Wall storyline this season is also much more different this season by taking everything to the Backyard and introducing new characters like Gavin and Sophia. What has been the biggest challenge in moving to a more expansive world?

BYCEL: Our artists and our designers do amazing work. We ask them every year to create new and different worlds. You know, we spent years in the Wall, and Mike and I really wanted to sort of expand the Wall’s world, and we thought going into the backyard and doing, like, a Western slash Chinatown slash Last of Us kind of story would be great with obviously new characters played by amazing voice actors, Clancy Brown and Charlotte Nicdao.

But, really, the biggest challenge is what our storyboard designers are able to do, creating new worlds every season, and they do amazing work. They really do.

MCMAHAN: I also feel like keeping the comedy tone up, like, we’re in a drama, but every line has a little undercut to it. Every line has a little bit of irony to it that, like, you’re still laughing. You’re still having fun. It still feels like Solar Opposites even though we’ve done this tone shift. You know?

We’ve been doing it for a number of years, and it’s still really fun. And I love how different it gets, and, hopefully, you guys as an audience never know what’s coming next. Like, that’s a big goal for us. Yeah. But it’s still the Wall.

Speaking of that storyline, we also got a look at the return of Duke in the trailer. With the move from the Wall to the Backyard. How do you think his return will affect not only what’s to come this season, but also further beyond that?

MCMAHAN: We can’t talk about that too much because it would get ahead of stuff we’ve actually already written. But we love the Duke. We love Alfred Molina and we had missed him!

A lot of this season was figuring out, like, “Oh, wait.” Not only are we telling an amazing story, but this actually makes sense why he would come back to life and leads to an insane Season 6 Wall story that highlights the Duke more than this season does. But, again, the Wall is one giant story.

I love that, on Hulu, you can go back and if wanted to, you could just watch the wall bits and catch up. it’s like watching an epic sort of HBO drama that spans generations and and worlds and stuff.

I just love how serialized the Wall storyline is because there are so many fans who really love that kind of storytelling. And because of that love, some wanna see The Wall storyline, even some of the Silver Cop stuff, being integrated into their own spin-offs. So, do you guys see it spinning off into its own show in the future, or will it stick to its current format in this show?

MCMAHAN: Right now, it’s gonna stick to the format of this show. We’ve talked about spinning it off. We’ve talked about other spin-offs. I think for us, we never wanna do something expected. We wanna always be pushing ourselves and doing things that the audience doesn’t see coming.

Taking the Wall and spinning it off into its own thing takes a little bit of its ironic specialness away from it. So we’re always talking about doing more Solar Opposites, doing bigger stuff that’s, you know, for me, more than a spin-off, a giant movie that’s like the Wall.

If we had an infinite budget, I’d be like, “Let us do a live-action The Wall movie that’s like a giant Marvel movie that, like, costs a $100,000,000 and blows people away and then also has, like, an animated B-story with the aliens in it.” It’s something like that that would get me excited because I love what we’re doing in the wall. I love that people love it, but I also I never wanna give people something that feels stale. I wanna give we always wanna be doing something that makes you go, oh, no fucking way. That’s crazy.

Definitely. And I just love how it just integrates itself into the family’s storyline as well because the family has these incidental implications for what’s to come in those storylines. with the family itself, in the what if episode, one thing that I found really funny was that crossover device gag and the meta humor of it all. Do you think there’s any specific jokes this season that have the potential to become a running bit in the future?

MCMAHAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, J.K. Sevens is, like, a character we introduced, this robot that lives with the family. He’s around in Season 6. He’s doing more stuff.

We’ve got a couple characters that appear at the end of the season. I don’t wanna give away too much, that affect the trajectory of the next season. I said there was a lot more of the Duke in Season 6. Like, the fun thing about Solar Opposites is you never know what’s gonna actually stick around and become important.

Like, Glen, the neighbor who they shoot into space and is having this whole SilverCops adventure, and you get to see a lot of that this season with with these big war episodes where he’s basically fighting My Little Pony. It’s dialing that up and down, so that you’re never sure what you’re gonna get.

There’s a bunch of fun stuff this season that ends up that ends up playing out in Season 6 as well and with the What-If device, obviously, we introduce Commander Zark. We introduce someone who is actually serious and he will come back as well.

We do just enough serialization that if you’re a die hard fan of the show, like, you’re tracking it, you’re seeing it. It’s not getting a full reset every episode. And if you’re watching an episode and you’re coming in new, then it still plays clear and great and funny.

A little bit going further into the specifics of this crossover device because, obviously, there are so many films and shows now crossing over with each other. Do you think there’s a possible chance for a Rick and Morty crossover or a Futurama crossover in the in the future?

MCMAHAN: I think so. I mean, our big desire is to do a Simpsons couch gag. That’s, like, our dream to crossover with them.

With Rick and Morty, I love we talk all the time to those guys. We love those guys. I think, you know, Solar Opposites is kind of like a sister show to Rick and Morty from back in the day. So, like, it really depends on if they wanted to do it. Like, we’d be open to doing it.

I worked there for, like, 6 years, and I love those characters, that world, and I love the writers and the actors over there. So but, yeah, I think for us, it’s like the pull of doing a crossover nobody asked for, but that’s funnier than you thought you’d get. Like, just like a weird crossing over with Muppet Babies or something ridiculous where you’re like, “What? That’s who they chose to cross over with?” And then the Solar Opposites the whole time are like, “Why are we doing this?”

There’s an old Disney movie called Donald in Mathmagic Land where it’s an educational film where Donald gets stuck in a world of math. I love the idea of the Solar Opposites being stuck in Mathmagic Land and, like, being in a weird educational cartoon that they fucking hate and they don’t wanna learn, and then they keep learning shit, it’s driving them crazy. Oh my god. I’m all I love that. That would be amazing!

Solar Opposites Season 5 is now streaming on Hulu.