Death in Bloom (reviewed by Cordyceps)
Original airdate: February 28, 2011
Director: Larry Leichliter
Written and storyboarded by: Cole Sanchez and Jesse Moynihan
Death in Bloom is a classic Adventure Time story in which Finn and Jake are tasked with taking care of Princess Bubblegum’s Princess Plant while she attends a technology fair. When Finn and Jake instead kill the plant, they take a journey to the Underworld to bring it back to life, leading to an encounter with Death himself.
… Wait, what?
Much has been made of the ways Adventure Time blazed new trails for children’s animation. Its sense of humor, the guest directors, the balance of offbeat humor and increasingly heavy lore. But I think it’s worth taking stock of how wild it is that the series casually talks about and jokes about death, in the context of children’s cartoons.
It’s not that death isn’t unheard of. In 2006, Avatar: The Last Airbender showed its protagonist grappling with the question of whether or not to kill the main villain. Rugrats had an episode that talked about the death of Chuckie’s mom. Anime on Toonami would sometimes feature the death of characters.
But still, death was a topic that was often skirted around. Avatar: The Last Airbender couldn’t clearly show the death of one character, a fact which they’d later poke fun at themselves over. Danny Phantom would eventually explain that its ghosts are actually being beings from another dimension, rather than the actual souls of the dead. And, of course, action shows of my childhood would often have to use the word “destroy” in place of “kill” so as not to stay within the bounds of censors.
Here I must note that I think there are other cartoons that did engage with death more in the vein of this episode: I dimly recall an episode of Rocko’s Modern Life that features them going to “Heck”, and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy featured two children who befriended the Grim Reaper, and did also occasionally feature trips to the Underworld. But I never watched it, so I can’t comment too deeply on them. Still, I think it’s interesting the way this episode comes onto the scene and casually explores death.
And it does it in a wonderfully fun package. Finn and Jake’s adventure leads them to sneak past the guardian of the gate (which they do by just… walking through the gate). They have to avoid skeletons that want to eat their flesh, and their stealthy escape is ruined by a fart from Jake (“I thought it would be funny”). Jake drinks water from the River of Forgetfulness, making him lose all his memories (“He’s got poo brain”). And how do you win back a soul from Death? By having a music contest of course, just as Charlie Daniels and Leela have done before.
Unfortunately, Jake can’t lie and picks Death as the winner of the contest, and so Finn is doomed. As Death prepares to kill him, Finn mentions that Peppermint Butler said to tell Death hello. That changes everything, and excited Death promises them anything they want because they know Peppermint Butler. Death gives Jake the Kiss of Death to restore his memories, they get the plant’s soul back, and everyone is happy! Well, except for Peppermint Butler demanding Finn and Jake’s flesh as payment…
The episode also includes some great gags. Finn and Jake playing with the plant and stuffing it full of pizza, cookies, and soda; the skeleton gleefully flipping into the Underworld; the gate guardian angrily yelling at Finn and Jake but not being able to stop them from just walking past him into the Underworld; the vegetables at the Technology Fair just being… normal vegetables; and Finn and Jake’s reactions to Bubblegum eating the plant after all they went through.
Overall, I find this to be a really fun episode. I’m partial in that I love a good underworld journey, but it also adds enough of an Adventure Time flourish to make it feel like a version only it can do. The fact that they’re going to all this trouble for a plant (that Bubblegum proceeds to eat), Peppermint Butler revealing connections to the occult, and Death being introduced tending to a zen garden give it just the amount of charm, humor, and Adventure Time flair to make it pop.
The episode also introduces us to some bits of lore that will come up from time to time in the seasons ahead.
Click here for spoilers!
- Most notably, we get Peppermint Butler’s connection to the occult
- Death will make a few more appearances, most notably in Son of Mars when Abraham Lincoln dies
- Weirdly, for all the lore the series mines, the Underworld makes relatively few appearances… But we will return to the land of death at the very end, in Distant Land’s Together Again.
- Last week, we discovered that Earth has a chunk missing. While it’s unclear what connection The Underworld might have to the catastrophes, the Underworld is FULL of police cars, which makes one wonder
Great quotes:
- “They’re trying to peel me… I’m. Not. A. BANANA!”
- “It’s not a hole, Jake. It’s just a divot!”
- Finn’s musical performance of “Ya-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow!”
- By this point, Adventure Time rapidly ending and cutting to credits is a standard feature in its bag of tricks. Still, Peppermint Butler’s “I’m going to take it from you while you sleep” is up there in the list of unsettling endings, punctuated by the reaction of Finn and Jake
SUSAN STRONG | Aired: March 7, 2011 | Storyboarded by Adam Muto and Rebecca Sugar | Reviewed by Prestidigititis
We’ve had some fun here, on our Come Along With Me project. But I know what you’ve been asking: when will Adventure Time deal with some existential angst in a way that can also serve as an extended pastiche about Plato’s Parable of the Cave?
The fact that Finn is known as “Finn the Human” is one of the bigger elephants in the room. Why is he “THE Human”? What happened to the others? If these questions are making your eyes glaze over and your mind grow distant, you’re not alone. Finn gets the same way when Princess Bubblegum brings up her old Uncle Gumbald, and suggests Finn must think about his own non-existent human family too. Jake deftly brings Finn back from the void by becoming a living explosive, which digs out the tree stumps PB has tasked them with removing. Finn’s resounding “Spa-mow!” perks him right back up.
Back to his usual self, Finn and Jake get down to the business of the storyline. A non-stump hatch (inspired by then-popular show Lost) leads to a gross underground sewer realm, where a bunch of scared little folks in animal-skin hats are carving out a tribal existence. One of them is big and brave enough to come forward into the beam of Finn’s flashlight, and our hero is faced with what seems to be the first Human he’s found since the start of the series. Some guttural mutterings lead Finn to dub this beautiful lady “Susan”, and with our heroes’ guidance, she is brought to the surface to explore and discover “all the wonders of Ooo,” while hopefully not overwhelming her perpetual skittishness.
We see Finn’s desire to have a connection to his human side come out in his eagerness to teach. The joy he feels in just showing Susan around the world is palpable. He’s not just delivering knowledge onto the unknowing here, he’s helping a person to see the loveliness and beauty of Ooo the way he sees it: endlessly fascinating, joyful, and beautiful. Human. I love how Adventure Time never loses sight of the small, pure joys of living, and values it as much as the value of bravery, strength, and courage.
A sweet campfire song later, and Susan has discovered a deep lust for candy…one which excitable and optimistic Finn decides is a good reason to introduce her to the Candy Kingdom itself. Susan—who’s picked up on spoken English quite quickly—wants to know where all the candy in this supposed kingdom is. And when Finn informs her it’s all around, she wastes no time in trying to eat Peppermint Butler. In correcting her, Finn lets her know not to eat the candy that talks. Which she mistakes as instructions not to eat “red stripe man.” But everyone and everything else is fair game. She dashes off to get the rest of her clan so they can eat the candy kingdom. And Finn is left in the position of needing to turn the candy denizens into a formidable defense force to scare off the invaders.
Which goes about as poorly as you’d expect. Bits of candy look cute, not scary, in Halloween-ish outfits. An exaggerated shadow gives Finn a totally Platonic idea: use a shadow show to make the attacking horde think the candy people are horrifying beasts. And it might have worked, if not for the fact that Susan has figured out how to see past the deception of shadows against a screen, thanks to Finn’s own efforts to enlighten her by bringing her to the surface. Such irony!
A bit of unplanned misfortune finally turns the horde away: Jake’s stoking of the fire singes the upstart Marshmallow Kids just as they attack, turning them into incendiary ballistics. The animal-skin hats of the enemies catch fire, causing them to yank them off their heads in panic. Which reveals these aren’t actually humans, but some kind of fishy/humanoid hybrid (which the show’s credits call “hyoomans”). Suddenly, Finn doesn’t know what to think. Asking an un-singed Susan directly what she’s got under her catskin hat leads to her simply racing away without an answer. Leaving Finn and the audience uncertain about whether he actually is the last human on Ooo. Turning to Jake for his opinion as to what Susan was leads to one of the more iconic exchanges in the show’s early going: “Jake…do you think she was human? Or just another wild animal?” “We’re all wild animals, brother.” Finn consoles himself with a bite of perfectly-charred marshmallow skin.
Observations:
—Susan Strong returns quite a few times during the series, and in ways so big and important it seems silly to point out that her character holds a multitude of spoilers for the future. (Uncle Gumbald will get some attention later on too.)
—There are some fantastic line readings in this episode. Jeremy Shada’s soul-searchy lines are appropriately soul-searchy. Hynden Walsh’s embarrassed PB at the beginning is wonderfully subtle. Jake has some killer throw-away jokes. And I have never gotten that one candy person trying to be scary out of my brain: “Oh, uh…rawr.”
—Jackie Buscarino does an excellent job voicing Susan, too. Exhibiting all her emotions through a lot of not-quite-English at the start of the episode, and keeping her line reads halting and uncertain throughout.
—Susan Strong originated from a RPG that Penn Ward used to play, in which most of the female characters were big, buff warrior-types. The song Rebecca Sugar wrote for this episode, apparently, was based on some simple (and kinda dirty) lines Penn wrote in honor of this buff woman. And that makes me wonder just how much Sugar changed, especially when you get to the line “you turn my heart on.”
—While it’s not a true retelling of Plato’s Parable of the Cave, there are so many echoes of the parable in this episode. If you’re not familiar with the parable, at least look up a summary of it online so you can compare it to various points during this episode and go “huh!” like I did.
—This episode’s snail hunt is a rough one. (SPOILER: You can find it peeking out of a little box of trash when the Hyoomans respond to Susan’s shout of “Sha-ow!” when Finn’s got his flashlight on her.)
Click here to see the snail!
