I Remember You | Written & storyboarded by: Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar | Aired: October 15th 2012 | Reviewed by Lyssie
So far in the show we haven’t really seen much or any interaction between Ice King and Marceline, even though they have a lot in common in a way. Both are villain archetypes that have gradually been fleshed out, shown to be a lot more vulnerable and lonely than they let on and really wanting some friends (mostly expressed through wanting to hang out with Finn and Jake, which works out better for Marcy than IK). Both are incredibly old people whose lives reach back to a forgotten age of the world; Marceline remembers everything about herself, while IK remembers nothing.
So it’s no surprise, looking back, that the writers decided to introduce a strong connection between the two of them. Maybe its just how much I enjoyed this episode, but I really enjoyed their interaction, more than I would have expected, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it develops going forward.
Similarly to a lot of hard-hitting AT episodes, this one also starts off light and goofy before throwing us for a loop. Ice King puts on his fanciest wig and gives us a Guntherization of Marceline’s Daddy Why’d You Eat My Fries (if he can conjugate Gunther then so can I). IK gets it into his head to write a song and play it with Marceline, and goes to his The Past Room to find inspiration. Really unclear how much he remembers and how much he’s aware of… either before or after Holly Jolly Secrets.
But when he gets to Marceline’s house she’s annoyed to see him and doesn’t have the patience for his nonsense. But IK is as oblivious as ever – he basically never gets that Finn and Jake don’t want to be his friends, no surprise that it’s much the same here. And in fact, those two other ‘friends’ of his follow him, assuming he’s up to some trouble. Even after learning about his past as Simon the two can’t let go of their constant suspicion and vigilance against him. Which makes sense – the fact that he’s quite literally not been in his right mind for centuries doesn’t change the very real harm and pain his actions often cause. But it turns out this is one of the situations where he’s genuinely just looking for companionship – or rather, doing so without kidnapping anyone.
And then Marceline suddenly tells the boys that everything’s all right, and that the two of them are just hanging out, even though she was ready to kick IK out a moment ago. Given what we’re about to learn about their relationship, maybe she wanted to make sure he doesn’t suffer for something that’s basically harmless. Or maybe it’s that feeling you get when you want to protect a family member from someone else’s anger, even if that person drives you up the wall and you all to easily lash out at them yourself.
And then Ice King proceeds to drive her up the wall, with his obnoxious song about wanting to get it on with all the princesses while making a mess to boot. But his song quickly spirals into a pretty heartbreaking confession that he’s just achingly lonely and just wants someone, anyone, to be with him. And then after he tries to escape Marceline just… talks to him. Her telling him about the fact they have a shared history is a big twist but it’s presented in this really grounded way – yeah, sometimes people have had experiences before, and sometimes one of them forgets… Even the fact that they have a shared history but haven’t interacted so far is pretty elegantly explained – IK doesn’t remember their past, and Marceline tries to avoid him for exactly that reason (as well as the fact that he’s unbearable). He still doesn’t make it easy for her, what with taking her hug as a sign they should kiss, but she tries.
And then the episode goes from sad to heartbreaking. It’s sad enough that Marceline can’t even use a picture of the two of them to make Simon remember, or understand. But then her discovery of what he wrote for her on the back of the postcard, juxtaposed with him in this moment still not understanding what this is but seizing on it as lyrics for a new song, and then she plays and sings it with him…. god damn. The past him is talking to her from across centuries and memory, while the present him is trying to reconnect with her through something that’s important to her without even understanding that he’s doing that, and she’s trying to connect with both of him by engaging with his current fixation and communicating with him the only way he is able.
I don’t know if this was a conscious choice for the writers, but there’s a whole thing about music and memory, including specifically that people with various kinds of dementia or memory loss will still be able to recognize and react to music from decades earlier in their life, usually from when they were young. Certainly I experienced this with my grandmother in the last year of her life, and it was a source of strength and joy to have something that we knew she could react to and find joy in. Here it’s turned around a bit, IK doesn’t react to any particular song, but he reacts to the general fact that Marceline is a musician and subconsciously uses that as a way to reconnect with her. And, as the title card indicates, this is as much about Ice King remembering who he was, or at least trying to, as it is about remembering who Marceline once was to him.
And then that flashback, oh my glob… tearjerker. What a fantastic episode.
Stray observations
I probably had a lot more I could say here, and could have written more concisely; but we’ve been moving the last few days and I barely had time to get this done… hopefully more comes to mind in the comments section.
When I decided to start writing for this rewatch I knew that one of the things I most wanted to do was get to review more episodes that delve into IK’s past and mental state. Now I’ve finally gotten my first opportunity at it, and I wasn’t disappointed.
There’s some shows where, after a while, you start wishing there was more of a focus on some of the supporting cast than on the official main characters. I think I’ve started feeling that way about AT, but thankfully Finn and Jake are also fun to follow and watch them develop in their own right.
Cutting back to Finn and Jake during the song was a mistake IMO; cut into the moment in a way that weakened it a bit.
So, what exactly is the connective tissue between Marceline being just some girl in a post apocalyptic wasteland on the one hand, and her dad being literally the devil on the other hand? Which one precedes the other, how are they related?
Hey, that newspaper clipping of Simon was about him discovering the Necronom- uh, no wait… the Enchiridion! I hope we’ll see how it affected him, and if it was the root cause of his transformation. In general it’s been awhile since we saw that book, I wonder when it’ll show up again.
The Lich | Written and storyboarded by Tom Herpich and Skyler Page | Aired: October 22, 2012 | reviewed by ganews
We’ve just seen a very emotional, very lore-heavy episode with “I Remember You”. Now we’re going to dig extremely heavily into the workings of the Adventure Time universe. But don’t worry, there’s also a few jokes, including the The Funniest Joke In the Entire Run of Adventure Time!
Finn is having some kind of nightmare, and it’s weird. The Cosmic Owl is on TV. The great hero Billy and Billy’s lady are there, but so is the Lich-possessed snail and the talking bear. The latter says in his bear-voice that “dark times are ahead”, which is pretty creepy. The possessed snail reads from the Enchiridion, and a very Lich-shaped silhouette rises up and attacks Billy! Finn wakes up in a fright, and because this could be a premonition dream, Jake stretches into a car to take our duo off to see Billy.
Lou Ferrigno returns as the voice of Billy, but Billy is not thrilled about being woken up in the middle of the night. He gets very serious when he learns about Finn’s dream, though, and Finn is so eager to aid his hero in a quest to save all life from the Lich that he can’t even emote. Finn and Jake are ordered to snatch jewels from all the crowns of power in Ooo (they can’t just ask because Billy says there is “no time”).
We are treated to a funny montage of crown jewels being grabbed while everyone is asleep: first Ice King (who gets his face and beard scribbled like he was first to pass out at a frat party), then Hot Dog Princess, a fetal princess, Engagement Ring Princess, and Emerald Princess whose jewel is excavated by squeezing her head like a zit. Speaking of which, our boys decide to extract the star from LSP which is embedded deep in her head like an ingrown hair. (“Gross,” comments Jake.) Billy stretches Jake’s head open to make a sack for the jewels and everyone has fun riding on Jake’s back and using his stretchy powers in weird ways.
At snack break, things start getting even more weird. Billy wouldn’t touch the jewels of power before, he won’t answer Jake’s question straight, and most disturbingly he slaps Finn away when the latter goes looking in Billy’s belt for candy. Finn pulls out the Enchiridion, the powerful book he gave to the talking bear earlier this season (who in turn gave it to the possessed snail). Billy shows the boys that the Enchiridion has a secret compartment for all the jewels they’ve been collecting, which automatically float into their designated places when the compartment opens (see the notes for my highlight of The Funniest Joke In the Entire Run of Adventure Time!). A holographic display pops up when Billy says some magic words, and Billy also does some kind of trance laser thing that makes a little guy named Booko pop up and explain that this is a map to every known dimension. At the center of it all in the Time Room that makes time waves, universes can be connected by wormholes and powerful objects, the Enchiridion needs one more gem to be able to open a portal to anywhere, and maybe some other stuff that Pendleton Ward-voiced Booko explains as fast as he possibly can (while the audience may still be cracking up from the joke 60 seconds ago, ahem).
Billy says he will push the Lich through that portal, but first the boy must retrieve the last gem – from Princess Bubblegum. She is busy at work in her pajamas experimenting on the smiley guys who ride in the pocket of her lab coat (whom I never noticed in the original run until they got highlighted in this sequence). It’s a quiet moment until Finn bursts in through the ceiling demanding her crown jewel. They tussle and she accidentally slices Finn’s cheek with the scissors she was holding. Finn hisses, takes the jewel from the fallen crown, and heads toward Billy. Finn adds the last gem and the Enchiridion is transformed.
But it’s not Billy, it’s the Lich, as Bubblegum cries while giving chase. The usually-useless Gumball Guardians appear and blast Billy in the face, tearing half away to reveal that it’s the Lich hiding in Billy’s skin.
Finn’s dream wasn’t just a premonition, it happened! Everything goes dark and Ron Pearlman’s voice as the Lich beckons to Finn for the book. Finn realizes the Lich has “messed up” Billy (“death” is not used in this show) and resists the Lich’s temptation with eternal life. He breaks the book over his knee rather than give it to the Lich…which opens the portal explained earlier by Booko. The Lich steps through, mocking Finn as he goes. Jake stretches to grab on but is dragged forward, and when Finn grabs on to help they are both pulled through the portal, which closes and leaves only the crown jewels behind.
We’re left on a cliffhanger: a boy who looks like Finn but has a sharp nose and a mechanical arm is playing the flute on what looks like a farm, not someplace in Ooo. The last time we saw this Finn was the reflection inside the dream mirror of King Worm, so is this also a dream? There’s a dog who looks like Jake and is named Jake but who is clearly just a dog. An unseen but humanoid mother calls out to this Finn, who reacts as if everything is normal. What was on the other side of that portal?
Notes:
The Funniest Joke In the Entire Run of Adventure Time
When the Enchiridion compartment is opened, all the collected jewels pop out of Jake’s head-sack. The ring portion of the jewel taken from Engagement Ring Princes falls by the side, and the actual jewels hover for a moment.Then they all move into place in the Enchiridion, except LSP’s star falls by the side. Every time my household sees this we die laughing and completely miss out on the next several minutes of important detail. It’s just perfect! The show has spent four seasons building LSP as a character, and here is the final payoff: she is magical (the star responds and floats with the others, and ultimately [highlight to spoiler]returns to its owner like the others!) but cast off, unwanted, and not actually important. It’s so ingeniously subtle. The audience is lightly programmed to notice it by devoting a (also very funny) scene with dialog to the star extraction.
There’s a lot of body horror in this episode, as far as children’s animation goes, from LSP’s star and the fleshy sounds it makes when being pulled out, to the invasion of fetal princess’s amniotic bubble, to Jake’s head-sack, to the little guys having their limbs cut and reattached, to, uh, the Lich inhabiting Billy’s corpse. But somehow it’s the little guys from Bubblegum’s pocket that are the most horrifying to me. They clearly are not hurt by her cutting off their legs, they hold their little smiles and wave, but it’s meant to seem disturbing and it is. The Bubblegum we know is not cruel, just controlling; not emotionless but aloof. We know she has some power of life in this place (and experience building biomass), having seen her create Goliad and Lemongrab’s brother. We’ll take even deeper dives into this role in future seasons.
Speaking of body horror: in Finn’s dream Billy is laughing, but there is the briefest of flickers. If you advance frame-by-frame you can see he is replaced by the Lich, Tyler Durden-style. (It’s actually harder to notice than in Fight Club.)
The face-slice from PB is a brief but emotional moment. Finn and PB have been on good terms all season, like old times. But it seems like in this moment, all the hurt Finn felt by her rejection at the end of last season comes out in a hiss and a snarl. She won’t let him be a lover, and now she wants to stop him from being a Hero!
It’s true, Finn really donked up and the Lich mocked him fairly. The snail getting possessed by the Lich wasn’t exactly his fault, but he was the mechanism. Jake warned him about how important the Enchiridion was, and he gave it to the talking bear anyway (after spending that episode not taking Jake’s warnings seriously and being wrong). He was too embarrassed by that action to wonder why Billy was acting weird. We/Finn haven’t really learned Bubblegum’s backstory yet, but there have been plenty of events so far that show she knows what she’s doing and Finn ignored her. Finally he got easily duped into breaking the Enchiridion.
This episode has great gags and visuals, but as a whole…it’s a bit too much. There’s a lot of action, a lot of lore (Pen Ward lampshades this with Booko breathlessly explaining the dimensional gateways, a lot of payoff. That’s what makes the quiet, private moment with PB so funny (she just happens to be up late, listening to the radio at a reasonable volume), but it also really undersells the death of Billy which is the first time something this extreme has happened in the show. We barely have time to react before Finn and Jake are pulled into the portal and transformed.
I have a t-shirt with Princess Bubblegum and the caption “Science!”, and it shows the little guys poking out of her labcoat pocket. There’s just something about having a guy in your shirt pocket, like Jake in “It Came from the Nightosphere”.