President Curtis & His Team Are on The Case! Your S01E01 Preview

Posted in: Adult Swim, Rick and Morty, TV | Tagged: president curtis

President Curtis & His Team Are on The Case! Your S01E01 Preview

With the "Rick and Morty" spinoff debuting tonight on Adult Swim, here's a preview for EPs Dan Harmon and James Siciliano's President Curtis.

Published Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:37:08 -0500
by Ray Flook
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Article Summary

• President Curtis premieres tonight on Adult Swim, and the Rick and Morty spinoff already has Season 2 underway.
• President Curtis Episode 1, “Pilot,” finds Curtis battling the CIA over a secret tape while facing hidden truths.
• Dan Harmon and James Siciliano say President Curtis expands the Rick and Morty world without repeating it.
• Harmon and Siciliano confirm Rick and Morty appear in the President Curtis opener, but only once this season.

President Andre Curtis (Keith David) and his team – Stephanie Beatriz's (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) Chief of Staff Banks and Jim Rash's (Community) Special Agent O'Doyle – were on the receiving end of some good news this weekend. During San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), it was announced that EPs Dan Harmon and James Siciliano's "Rick and Morty" spinoff, President Curtis, is returning for a second season (with Season 2 production already underway). We thought we would kick off our preview of the season opener with some good news – now, enjoy our updated look at what's to come:

President Curtis Season 1 Episode 1 Preview

President Curtis Season 1 Episode 1 "Pilot" – As Curtis goes head-to-head with the CIA over a secret tape, he's forced to confront secrets of his own. Written by Dan Harmon and James Siciliano.

President Curtis EPs Talk Spinoff, Confirm Rick and Morty Appearance

With EPs President Curtis set to start hitting screens tonight, we're getting some interesting insights on Adult Swim's Rick and Morty spinoff from the show's creators. Checking in with Deadline Hollywood for an exclusive interview, Harmon and Siciliano discuss why President Curtis was a good choice for a spinoff, how the character differs from his previous appearance, and (officially confirmed) having Rick and Morty appear in the opener.

Harmon on Spotlighting President Andre Curtis: "It was because that was the character who could have their own self-contained world that wouldn't be redundantly overlapping. You can think of him as like a concentric circle: If we wanted Rick to do an X Files-level mission on Earth, like going to find the Hodag in Rhinelander, Wisconsin or the Loch Ness Monsters, he could do that, but his circle is broader. The comparison I make is it's like 'Doctor Who' and 'The X Files.' Both involve aliens, but you have a different perspective there. It allows the tonality to stay the same, but it's not redundant."

Siciliano & Harmon on How the Character Was "Adjusted" for the Spinoff Series:

Siciliano: "The one thing we 'retconned' and adjusted from the Rick and Morty character when we were building our guy out is that in Rick and Morty, he is very approval-driven and craves that. That was the first thing when talking about this show – it is almost the opposite. We wanted him to not be rolling his eyes at the job as part of his duty to protect people."

Harmon: "You go to TV for a little escapism, and the thing that drives us nuts about politics, whether we accept it or not, is that the numbers wag the dog. What do you have to say to win an election? We thought about it pretty hard, and what we needed to change about this guy is if you gave him a chance to have his numbers go up but in order to do it he had to lie or cheat, he wouldn't. He is only doing the job of president because if he doesn't, someone worse will.

"This is canonical stuff that will only be revealed if the show lives long in the tooth, but we know as writers that his ex-wife, who is not in the picture at the start, was the strategist. He is more like a golden retriever. When he walks into the room people say, 'I want to have a beer with him,' which is what gets you elected, but she was the more politically-motivated one. He is divorced from his Yoda. He is not a fraud like Remington Steele, where it was all sizzle, no steak, but it is not the job he would have chosen. He is a soldier and a vampire slayer, and he was a lonely guy who begrudgingly took on this role of serving hundreds of millions of people."

Siciliano & Harmon on Having Rick and Morty Appear in Series Opener: "It is one and done for this season. We wanted to address the elephant in the room of a spin-off, but we spent a lot of time building his own staff and world, and once you get into watching the goal is you feel it is its own show," Siciliano shared. Harmon added, "We didn't want to do too much out of the gate. We had no problem doing it – there was no impudence there, and it's not like we have to license the rights, so it was a matter of giving it space and letting it have its own identity, so that those paths crossing over will feel meaningful.

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