Come Along With Me: Adventure Time – “Lady and Peebles” and “You Made Me”

Lady and Peebles | Written & storyboarded by Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar | Aired: August 20, 2012 | Reviewed by Lyssie

Wow! I signed up for this episode because I expected some heartwarming development Princess Bubblegum and Lady Rainicorn’s friendship, and I got… very much not that. Well, also some of that.

When the two of them rendezvous in the frigid wilderness, preparing to rescue Finn and Jake from their capture by the Ice King, we get the first of several unconventional things in this episode – Lady’s dialogue. Half of the episode is little more than the two of them talking to each other; Peebles doesn’t translate any of Lady’s Korean (since there’s no Finn around to ask, ‘What did she say?’), and the episode itself doesn’t either, like always. So a good chunk of the episode requires the viewers to follow dialogue with one character speaking in a language that, presumably, most of them don’t speak, and another responding to her, and to glean what’s said by the first from what’s said by the second. This is a bold choice by the showrunners, that even most shows aimed at adults might hesitate to do, let alone something made (primarily) for kids. But as we’ll see this episode is surprisingly mature in more ways than one.

Anyway, Peebles’ and Lady’s preparation is both sweet and funny, with Lady being really worried and scared and Peebles trying to assure her that it’ll be alright, and showing off her fancy tech that they can use to get out of any bind! The blabbidy bloobidy baller in particular being quite amusing. In general this feels a bit like season 1 Peebles, more lighthearted and hangouty; it soon feels like more of a mix, she’s in charge and super practical but also fun and a bit carefree. It’s cool to see them willing to take on this dangerous task to save Finn and Jake, going headlong into this kind of dangerous ‘adventuring’ that we haven’t seen either of them do much or at all. It feels like there’s a bit of a gender… something, to it all, a story about the girls having to go into danger to save the boys who usually do that. I’m not sure what to think of it, but the episode doesn’t really focus on it much so maybe there’s not much to say.

As they enter the underground lair things take a turn for the darker and more intense¹. Peebles’ heart monitor evokes Alien, ratcheting up the tension about what’s out there in the darkness, where exactly is it, and oh god why is it suddenly getting a whole lot closer??? As tentacle hands start appearing and grope at them the tension turns to outright horror, and the confident plan starts to fall apart as Peebles’ grenade launcher and supplies bag are snatched from her and they’re forced to escape and hide. Later they’re attacked by a humongous tongue and then a bunch of laser-shooting giant eyes, Lady is injured and straight-up asks Peebles to leave her behind, but she refuses and emergency carries her away.

At this point the twist of the episode comes into frame – it was Ricardio all along! He’s broken out of IK’s body again and has crafted himself a larger body of his own by creating limbs from IK’s tissue. Where last time he was only intent on winning her literal heart, this time Ricardio wants PB’s metaphorical heart². And… wow, Ice King’s got a whole Frankenstein thing going on, huh? First his mind decides to graft a bunch of body parts together to make itself a mate, now his heart decides to graft a bunch of body parts together to make itself into a mate!

Ricardio’s scheme brings gender issues to the forefront of the episode. From a mustache twirling monster and simple cautionary tale about not trusting smooth-talkers, he’s become an all-too-real representation of male entitlement and gendered violence³. He’s obsessive about being in a relationship with PB, concocts a scheme to lure her in (with his minions even attacking her in the process), and now arrogantly assumes that she’ll swoon over his fancy new body. All of this is even more disturbing in light of Ricardio previously manipulating PB, kidnapping her, and trying to kill her.

Content warning for sexual assault (click to see spoiler):

Even the body-part monsters seem in retrospect to be eerily evocative of sexual harassment and assault – the grabbing hands, the pressing tongue, the leering eyes…

PB immediately responds to Ricardio by challenging him to a one-on-one fight – and she f***ing wrecks him. This is the flip-side of the gender stuff in this half of the episode; if the earlier events made me wonder if this was a “girls in over their heads” story, this, at least, goes to the opposite end of things. PB proves herself superior to this male aggressor both physically, mentally and rhetorically – beating the pulp out of him and literally tearing him limb from limb thanks to her knowledge of crafting bodies, while delivering one put-down after another about how much smarter and more talented she is.

Now, despite my enjoyment of this sequence, I can’t help but also see it in light of PB’s darker side. We’ve recently seen more and more of her as a total ruler, holding all the power and often using force to get her way. And a lot of that shines through here, with her not only physically overpowering Ricardio but also using her knowledge of the manufacturing of living beings to do so, and bragging about it to boot. Which, uh, we recently saw a bunch of the ethical murkiness around that with Goliad. Obviously this was a situation where she was defending herself and her friends from a dangerous person, so I’m not saying it was bad for her to do that, but it does speak to something in how she’s developed throughout the show that even this heroic moment is deeply intertwined with questions about who she is as a ruler.

Anyway, after hauling everyone back to the Candy Kingdom⁴, we return to the female bond that we started with, as Peebles confirms to Lady that she’s… pregnant?!

So, what did we get in this episode? Cause it was a lot. Really, the episode manages to combine several mature sub-genres into one story – we’ve got monster horror, wilderness survival, body horror, stalker/abusive man, the hero using ruthless violence… and before all that we also had a stretch of dialogue with no translation from a foreign language. This is a lot for 10 minutes, and it’s almost shocking in a kids’ cartoon. I think it strikes just the right balance with it all, presenting some disturbing events and weighty themes in a way that even young kids can at least somewhat engage with. But yeah, it did almost feel like I was watching a different show at times; and I can’t help but wonder if there’ll be more episodes that make me feel the same way.

Stray thoughts:

• Seriously, I don’t know what was more exquisitely devastating, the way PB methodically takes apart Ricardio’s body, or the brutal lines she delivers to him.
  • “You think we’re intellectual equals?!”
  • “And this “body” you designed is self-congratulatory garbage!”
  • “I just wanted to impress you!” “You didn’t.”
• The focus change shot at around 4:45 is really cool!
• It was only upon viewing this episode that I got the pun of “Ricardio”
• Maracas Ice King and getting him to leave is hilarious
• Following from my last review I was wondering, does Ricardio maybe rival Magic Man for villains with apparent sociopathy?
• Ricardio’s goofy little head prop at the top of his body is really funny, and helps emphasize that we’re not really meant to take him seriously.
• Just noticed the title card having Finn and Jake scratched out in some of the photos; a real “boys suck” vibe that fits with the themes of the episode
• Peebles is an error in wordpress but not in microsoft word. Go figure (wordpress is also an error in microsoft word; and so is lowercase microsoft).

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You Made Me | Written & storyboarded by Tom Herpich and Jesse Moynihan | Aired: August 27, 2012 | Reviewed by ChicaDeBiblioteca

After appearing early in season 3, it’s time for the Earl of Lemongrab’s first star turn– and what a turn it is. His new hobby of watching unsuspecting Candy Kingdom citizens in their sleep is an attempt at a balm for his loneliness, but only serves to highlight how difficult more appropriate social interactions are for him. When he’s found out by Finn, Jake, and Princess Bubblegum thanks to the Banana Guards’ signature blundering, he demands the princess send some of the Candy Kingdom’s booming population to be his subjects. Lemongrab is built different, a grade-A weirdo who struggles to interact or display affection in a way others around him can appreciate, or even understand, and it often manifests in ways that are actively uncomfortable or even harmful. I’ve always found something unsettlingly relatable about the screechy, yellow control freak, and I suspect many other neurodivergent and socially isolated fans do as well– a funhouse mirror of our own challenges in making ourselves understood by others, even our own creators (or families, as the case may be.) There are shades of Frankenstein’s monster in Lemongrab, the original, literary one. Especially in this episode as he rages against PB for creating him in a way that seems to leave him at odds with everyone he meets.

The attempt to find citizens for the Lemongrab barony is, unsurprisingly, a total diaster, leading to protests by the candy people. Mr. Cupcake even deliberately injures himself for the sake of having an excuse. The only volunteers are another set of cranky misfits, the never before seen Notorious Pup Gang, a trio of the candy kingdom’s Punkest Boyz, who explicitly set out the proviso that PB must provide for their delinquent mothers in hopes of regaining their affection. However these two groups of outsiders are a terrible match, and after mockery and shouting, Lemongrab ships them off to reconditioning for failing to understand his Lemonstylz. PB attempts to demonstrate the gentle needs of Lemongrab’s new charges by literally babying poor put-upon Crunchy, but within moments Lemongrab is horrified by the experience and shoves the little guy away, requesting to go back to the stalking– interaction on his terms alone. And here is another time in which I felt seen, perhaps more than I wanted to be, by Lemongrab. I too can’t handle a great deal of physical affection, and especially not cuddling– within five minutes I’m hot and sweaty and ready to chew my own arm off to get some moving space, even with someone I’m madly in love with. Part of that is that my joints start to hurt if I hold a single position for more than a few minutes.

Our heroes follow Lemongrab home to ascertain the state of the Pup Gang, only to be captured and threatened with torture themselves. But based on Lemongrab’s articulation of his needs, Bubblegum has provided him with a much better match: a second Lemongrab. The two investigate each other, then nuzzle foreheads, and for the first time we’ve ever seen, a little smile spreads across the two Lemongrabs’ faces as they resolve to stick together. Ultimately it remains to be seen whether Lemongrab can live even with someone completely on his own wavelength, but for the moment the outlook is hopeful

Stray observations:

• PepButt once again narrowly avoids his darksided ways being exposed by the boss’s aura-viewing machine.
• PB doesn’t wear her crown in this episode, but her hairstyle is a Crown Braid.
• Even now a decade later I remember the ad bumper for this episode, which featured some of Lemongrab’s facial takes from both this episode and Too Young superimposed on real lemons.
• Some have suggested the room in which Lemongrab keeps a series of baseball mitts on shrine-like plinths suggests a longing for a father figure. But I think it’s more of a yearning for friends– he’s got at least three of them.
• “Who’s this rigamarole?” — all-time great line, surprisingly useful in life.
• “A Lemon gives by taking, and cares by yelling! Stop by anytime. But call first! Goodbye!”

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