‘Rick and Morty’ Brought in A ‘Lord of the Rings’ Actor for A Throwaway Part in the Season Finale
The Rick and Morty Season Eight finale, “Hot Rick,” capped off a year of spectacular guest stars by bringing in a core Lord of the Rings cast member to play… Rick’s sort-of-girlfriend’s dad?
Last week’s Rick and Morty episode, “Morty Daddy,” brought It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Charlie Day into the Adult Swim sci-fi comedy’s official canon. Following the episode’s premiere, many of the TV comedy watchers who fall in the very large intersection on the Venn diagram of Rick and Morty and Always Sunny fandoms wondered if Dan Harmon’s series would honor the “comedy comes in threes” rule and introduce another member of the Paddy’s Pub Gang into the Rick and Morty universe during tonight’s hotly anticipated finale.
Well, “Hot Rick” didn’t feature Rob Mac, Glenn Howerton or Kaitlin Olson, but it did score an appearance from an actor best known for their performance in arguably the greatest film trilogy of all time — and we’re not talking about Vijjo Morgenstein.
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Somehow, Harmon and the Rick and Morty team convinced 81-year-old Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies, best known for playing Gimli in the Lord of the Rings film adaptations, to record the part of Bug Anne’s Dad in the hastily abandoned B-plot of “Hot Rick,” which marks Rhys-Davies’ first TV performance in two years, according to IMDb.
Maybe, next season, we’ll see Rick and Morty bring in Sir Ian McKellen to play a talking bidet with a porn addiction, or something equally insane.
The inciting incident that sparked the chaotic events of “Hot Rick” happens when Rick decides to sever his only remaining memory of his wife Diane that survived the Omega Device in order to grow closer to his new potential partner, Bug Anne. Rick then accompanies Bug Anne to her home world where her family is having a medieval-style barbecue and impromptu gladiator duel, after Rick lets it slip to Bug Anne’s domineering father that he and Bug Anne are engaging in premarital sex. Quickly, the events of the main plot draw Rick away from his romantic duel to the death, and Bug Anne — and her father — exit the finale unceremoniously.
Historically, Rick and Morty hasn’t been the kind of show to waste a desirable cameo from a respected actor. Why Susan Sarandon signed on to play Rick's therapist Dr. Wong remains a mystery, but the Thelma & Louise star’s every appearance on the show has universe-shifting implications due to her character’s importance to the canon. Hell, even the one-off characters voiced by A-listers at least steer the course of their single episode appearance, such as when Danny DeVito’s Westworld-esque massacre highlighted “The CuRicksous Case of Bethjamin Button.”
But, no, Rhys-Davies, whose contributions to the Indiana Jones and Lord of the Ring film franchises dwarf the careers of even household name actors, only gets to play Rick’s date’s prudish dad in all of two scenes from the most forgettable finale side plot in Rick and Morty history. Perhaps Harmon and his team could only get Rhys-Davies into the recording studio in a very limited time frame before he had to return underground to his mine — hopefully he didn’t run into Princess Poñeta along the way.
