So far, there have been three episodes with the main writing credit going to female writers, though there are credits for story editing throughout the season. These are 2. Rickmancing the Stone (Becker), 3. Pickle Rick (Gao) and 4. Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender (Carbiener and Rosbe). The third season is currently being aired on Adult Swim and Netflix.

Speaking about the writing process, Harmon explained: “I want to scream at my computer: ‘You idiots, we all write the show together!’ If you can tell the difference between one writer and another on a show I’m running I’ve probably gotten so lazy that it hasn’t all been blended and refined in the usual process.

“The reason one person’s name goes on an episode is that someone has to and everyone deserves one of those times at bat where they have to do all the grunt work – they have to do all the outlining, sometimes, if they’re willing to, they can expand into the post-production process. There’s a bunch of reasons why we don’t accurately reflect how many writers contribute to each episode.”

A quick Twitter search finds references to Becker, Carbiener, Gao and Rosbe as having “ruined” the show, with one writing: “I still love Rick & Morty but rewatching season 1 made me realise the new season isn’t as good & it’s most likely due to the new female writers.”

Another said: “Wow, Glad Rick & Morty HAD to hire super awful female ‘comedy’ writers to hit quota. This is a VERY obvious decline in writing.”

While one went full-on Comic Book Guy: “The Rick and Morty episodes with credited female writers were the worst ones they've made yet.”

Harmon told Entertainment Weekly he became aware of a Reddit thread condemning the abuse, which reportedly included threats and hate mail, and had seen some of the messages sent to writers.

Rick and Morty creator responds furiously to “disgusting” sexist trolling of female writers