Another Way | Written and Storyboarded by Tom Herpich & Bert Youn |
Air Date: January 23, 2012 | Recapped by Mrs Queequeg
Another Way
Aka Finn Strays Further From Lawful Good as He Ages and Becomes More Self Involved
Look, Finn, it happens. You were keeping an impossible standard, but black and white only exists as a child. You’re a teen now and your worldview naturally starts to focus on yourself. I also would hate to be bed-ridden with someone else hovering over me, trying to take care of everything. Of course, Jake loves being waited on.
Jake paid clown nurses up front to take care of them, but everything about the clown nurses is wrong. There are too many of them, they play calliope music, and generally feel like carnies in nurse outfits. I love the 💘tattoo on Jake’s nurse. The old fashioned signage of seediness.
Finn tries to distract himself by reading The Enchiridion, but he ends up finding the perfect solution to healing himself. All he needs is tears from a cyclops who lives deep in the forest of trees. No big deal.
The clown nurses continue to unsettle Finn but insist that the only way he can be healed is for them to “foo-foo his boo-boo” through c-razy smooches, even holding him down to ensure it. Finn processes this loss of autonomy 1 with an intense vision of clowns in red strobes on black and tan backgrounds.
Finn decides he’s gonna strike out on his own, and while I knew I was going to highlight Finn’s single mindedness graying from Lawful Good, I’m seeing a lot of myself in Finn and I’m not sure how to process that.2 I would also run away screaming.
Finn meets a stump between two paths. The writers wanted to make sure this was all very symbolic. To the left is Hair Fall Out Path, no more hair forever. To the right is Smelly Path, making you smell forever. The stump tells Finn that “choosing is the only way,” triggering his PTSD of the Clown Nurses. Finn kicks off the double arrow sign, scaring the stump, and announces that he chooses his way, marching into a bush made up of thorny branches. He emerges at a small river, which is too fast to ford, too acidic to raft, too electric eel-y to swim, and the bridge is a trap. A talking bush warns Finn off and insults him a lot, but Finn only notices the warning.
This is where I diverge from Finn (I type with relief.) I won’t follow rules unless I understand why they’re in place. I can weigh my options and choose the lesser of two bad choices.3 The stump said smelly isn’t that bad. I’m sure lotion or deodorant exists, or I could ask PB to make something for me or even try Wizard City’s magic. Also, I hate washing my hair. The only thing keeping me from shaving it now is that I run cold easily. I don’t know why Finn doesn’t take the Trap Bridge, which appears to be crawling with some sort of monster to fight. Finn loves fighting, and he especially loves fighting to burn off emotional distress. It seems the best option for him, but he’s stuck in a very adolescent loop of “I’m going to do [it] because you told me no.”
Up to this point, Finn had been doing the best thing for him, with minor consequences. He did scare the stump, but stopped with petty vandalism. The bramble left him with many tiny slivers. Now, he takes the talking bush into the water, parting the river by bashing it with the bush. He burns the bush to a stick before they’re even halfway across. Finn also shows sign of acidic and electrical burns. The talking bush begs him to turn back, instead Finn throws the branch and charges into the water himself, smoking as he emerges.
Finn comes across a denizen, Pan, that needs his help: the melon cart has broken and Finn needs to retrieve a wheel from a tree. We see how far gone Finn is now, he gives no time to think about how best to help Pan – Remember “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain,” where Finn spent 10 minutes to figure out the best way to help everyone? He decides that the best way to help is the most brutal, he throws the melons down the hill to Pan’s wife Rainy. Rainy is not prepared to catch rolling melons, and is flattened by them. Pan, who didn’t react to Finn using a melon to cool himself, starts crying when he sees how injured Rainy is. Finn finally realizes that his actions have consequences: he has come across various innocent characters in his quest and all are now worse off for his actions.
Finn offers to help fix their house, but Pan wants Finn to leave immediately. He climbs to the top of a hill and has a moment of introspection about his actions.
Adventure Time | I Was Wrong Song | Cartoon Network
The cliff that overlooks a river splitting into three fingers and merging, (symbolism what?) turns out to be who Finn was looking for, but again he passes over the obvious fight. Finn’s in the shame stage of regret, only wanting to return home to not hurt anyone else. The forest cyclops helpfully tells Finn that he’s evil. I like this touch, it allows Finn to realign himself to what he wants to be and what he knows is true. Finn does his best Odysseus to outwit the cyclops, and is healed in the process. He realizes that he can affect good his way, and pops the cyclops’ head off.
Finn takes the head home with him, healing everyone that he hurt on the way. Jake passes on the instant healing, his way is kisses. Finn agrees that everyone can have their own way, which is a very mature response from him. He’s learned from this episode, and last week’s, when he wouldn’t let Jake have his own way in the library.
The cyclops’ tears is a very childish ending to the story. Finn is allowed to have a do-over, fixing everything to what it was before he got there. But we’re (almost) at the end of season three, Finn’s not a little kid anymore. He won’t be allowed to fix things so easily in the future. Stay tuned next week, Stars and Lyssie, when we have a finale that changes everything! [It’s not that dramatic, but it will change the status quo in a great way.]
Guest Stars
- Kent Osborne as Pan
- Melissa Villaseñor as Rainy (whose got a great distinctive voice but isn’t given nearly enough to do)
- Gregg Turkington as Shrub
- Maria Bamford as Clown Nurses and everyone else
Notes
- The scene depicted in the title card happens before the episode starts
- There’s discussion about sexuality and fetishes with feet kissing, but I don’t read that here. Maybe AT is getting around censors, but I buy the kissing a boo boo angle paired with the discomfort of someone you’re not comfortable with being in your space. In general, I don’t like being touched, especially not by people I don’t consider family
- This is another episode with Roller Coaster Tycoon calliope music
- The horror sequences are based on Dumbo
- Tom Herpich wanted to challenge himself with the melon rolling scene, but it took 3 days to board and was on screen for half a second. I imagine the shot that spins from Finn looking down at Pan to Pan looking up at the tree was also in that line of thought. It’s beautiful
Snail
The snail was on the Trap Bridge
Ghost Princess | Written and Storyboarded by Ako Castuera & Jesse Myonihan |
Air Date: January 30, 2012 | Reviewed by hippenbobber64
Ahh…. the American hotting dog. A most pleasing sassage that can be eaten in a variety of ways: eat ’em grilled, eat ’em roasted over a fire, eat ’em with ketchup, eat ’em with catsup, eat ’em while sitting down with your legs crossed, eat ’em while standing up with your legs crossed, eat ’em at a baseball game, eat ’em at a wedding, eat ’em dunked in water, eat ’em with Softy Cheese?4
Did you also know these wieners are capable of gaining sentience? Hot Dog Princess is one such sassage as are her loyal sentient knights.
Jake the Dog is not a hot dog5, but does he have a strong connection with them? No, probably not. BUT the last time we saw Finn and Jake eating hot dogs was during his crazy period when the evil fingers deer captured all the candy people. Rotting hot dogs were Jake’s preferred form of sustenance during this time perhaps reflective of his mental state. Jake is also easily swayed by hot dogs, as seen with the goading from Hot Dog Princess’ knights. My dumb point is that Jake cannot resist these sassages. It would have to be something really traumatic to keep him from eating one. It’s a Jake “vault” episode.
Ghost Princess makes her return this episode by haunting Finn and Jake. The plot very quickly becomes a crime procedural when they discover GP was “moidered”. Apparently all ghosts in the world of AT are ghosts because they have no memory of their death. So really every ghost is a potential mystery for F&J to solve but let’s just stick with GP’s.
The boys elect to go with the ‘ol good cop bad copy routine and Finn actually calls dibs on bad cop which is a bit of a role reversal for him. The first ghost they encounter, Boilbee, says a few ironic things. Boilbee shames GP for “sneaking off at night, scaring peeps, haunting at all hours” because she “can’t deal with her issues”. I’m pretty sure by ghost logic none of them are dealing with their issues otherwise they wouldn’t be ghosts.
Clarence shows up, says some cheesy shit and instantly shares a connection with GP. He also wears what looks like one of those puffy vest jackets that were popular in the early 2000s when I was in middle school. Clarence suggests they check out the ne’er-do-well ghosts over yonder. Finn and Jake really ham up their performance on what we later discover is Clarence’s skeleton. Finn goes off and claims these ghosts think he’s playin’, “like it’s all a big game”– which is actually true because they know the ghost isn’t home and are just doing their routine for a lifeless skeleton.
Finn proceeds to wreck up the place, Jake loots random items, and the ghost couple go see a show. Somehow this all came together and for once Finn successfully solved a case after failing in previous mystery episodes!
Its revealed that Ghost Princess was Warrior Princess and she used to be with Clarence until he “murdled” her. It plays like a Greek tragedy but there’s really not much for me to say about it. The most interesting thing is the kind of world that existed before the Land of Ooo we know today. And it’s also interesting that Clarence’s death seem to be recent and its unclear how long ago Warrior Princess died. Like was this war happening just a few months ago or hundreds of years ago? Anywho, Clarence you really were some donkus. Nice line delivery on the state of your life tho.
When Jake sees Finn squeeeeezing out some Softy Cheese (AT’s in-universe cheese goo), he flat out refuses that processed cream of cow. Jake used to love it but now he is uncomfortable talking about. It really takes resolving a whole crime case for him to get over it. Despite how zen Jake was in episodes like The New Frontier, the image of dripping lukewarm cheese on his hot “deezy” likely made him think of his own mortality and the hot mess that was Clarence. Jake still doesn’t look too happy eating a cheesy hot dog but at least he is trying to move past his trauma and enjoy it.
And before I forget… let’s thank The Center for Ghost Community Outreach and GhostDates.com for that beautiful performance.
More Media and Observations
Fail to Snail?
