All Your Fault | Aired: January 28, 2013 | Reviewed by Grumproro
Whose fault is it? Who did the thing? How dare you?
These are the questions we must ask ourselves as we consider this episode, which begins with a letter from the Lemongrabs demanding that Princess Bubblegum send them all of her candy because they’ve run out. PB seems pretty shocked, and seriously annoyed, by this request because she apparently gave them plenty already. But, she ends up sending them some candy seeds anyway. Enter Finn and Jake, who are tasked with delivering the seeds. What happens next is basically a horror movie, and I love it. I mean, it’s pretty disturbing, but also kind of fascinating. The last time we saw Castle Lemongrab the newly paired Lemongrabs seemed content enough. Or, at least, they had found their way to be. They looked inside their lemon hearts that PB gave them and saw their lemon way to act and knew that must be right. PB left the Lemongrabs alone to do…whatever Lemongrabs do, I guess. Problem solved. What could go wrong?
I mean, sure, if you look at it like that it doesn’t seem great. And Finn and Jake are understandably very confused and bothered by what they find in the castle. All kinds of new lemon people have appeared. Living but not thriving, as we learn pretty quickly that they are starving. Lemonjon, whose entire body seems to be spread throughout the castle, explains that the Lemongrabs are currently in the dungeon, so Finn and Jake must make their way through this maze of lemon horrors to find them and deliver the seeds. Once there, they accuse the Lemongrabs of hoarding all the food, but that’s not what’s happening. It’s much more complicated than that: the Lemongrabs have followed the path of their “Mother Princess” and started experimenting with the creation of candy life! Using PB’s candy formula, they’ve been creating lemon citizens instead of food. And this must have been what PB wanted, or she wouldn’t have left the formula behind, right? So this is really all her fault.
That’s the logic of the Lemongrabs, at least. And we’ve heard this before in “You Made Me” when Lemongrab rightly reminds PB that she made him this way, and now he’s been left out to dry with no people to live with, no purpose. Here we see them coming to a similar conclusion to explain their behavior. This is how they were made, and this is the formula PB left behind, and she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t mean to. Beyond that, it seems like the Lemongrabs are very much addicted to the power of creating life, even when they can’t sustain or nurture that life after the moment of creation. They just want to create. What happens to “their boys” after creation isn’t their concern. Even though they are fully aware of the suffering in Castle Lemongrab, and even though they are suffering right along with their lemon citizens, they still can’t stop creating new candy people! Which is why they immediately use the candy seeds PB sent them to do what their lemon hearts tell them is right: Lemongrabs are the kinds of guys who can’t stop making candy life from the food they need! It’s really no surprise, right? They literally just said that’s who they are. So while it might be shocking, or frustrating, it shouldn’t be surprising.
Finn and Jake suggest they go back and get PB’s help because they realize they are in way over their heads. But they clearly still don’t really understand the logic of the Lemongrabs. Because they take their suggestion and run with it…in a dangerous direction. Again, shocking, frustrating, not surprising. And now it’s Finn and Jake’s fault. Because they gave them the idea to pillage the Candy Kingdom! Just like PB gave them the formula. It’s all everyone else’s fault!
Luckily for the Candy Kingdom, and maybe all of Ooo, Finn and Jake kickstart Lemonjon’s heart, causing him to develop some empathy and understanding. He sacrifices himself to create enough food for the whole kingdom, sparing the candy people in the process. While this provides an immediate, and convenient, solution to the food problem, the Lemongrabs still need some attention. So PB erases the formula from their brains.
I can’t stop laughing at what I assume is a reference to The Sound of Music with “[how] do you solve a problem like Mario?”
This is the most interesting part of the episode for me. It is the latest in a string of solutions PB has worked up to deal with her lemony creations. First, she just let Lemongrab live in a castle alone, ruler of no one, without a purpose. Then she sent some of her citizens (after paying them) to live in Castle Lemongrab. When he didn’t know how to nurture them the way they’re used to, she spent an afternoon trying to teach him their “candy ways”. And when he struggled to adapt, she cooked up another solution: enter Lemongrab 2. This time, the solution is to erase their knowledge of candy creation (therefore obliterating their ability to feed their addiction). And…that’s that! I guess? Jake wonders if they should “fix their hearts” the way they did with Lemonjon’s, but PB explains that there’s nothing wrong with their hearts. They’re just like this. They’ll just need to keep an eye on them moving forward. So the questions we’re left with now are…what will PB’s “watching over” look like? Will it be any different than before? Because I get the sense that she’d really rather just send the Lemongrabs away and not have to deal with them anymore. But how will the Lemongrabs rule their new lemon citizens? They have all the food they need, and they don’t know how to make new lemon people, so that problem has been solved, but their core lemony selves haven’t changed. They’re just like this. But what is this?
Little Dude
Boarded by Cole Sanchez and Michael DeForge
Originally Aired: February 4, 2013
Review by: CedricTheOwl
Back in season 4, I made a comment about how Adventure Time gradually built a theme for the season about evolving and dissolving relationships. There were one or two episodes that directly dealt with the Lich’s behind the scenes machinations leading up to his return, but in my mind the episodes that truly built up to the season finale were the ones dealing with Finn exploring a new relationship with Flame Princess, struggling with how much he should trust his friend Princess Bubblegum after their relationship takes a turn for the worse, or even a story about two spiders locked in a mutually destructive marriage. Season 5 repeats that trick, and this is the episode where that theme starts to take shape: the responsibilities of parents and their effects on their children.
After a long day of adventuring (or just goofing off, whatevs) Finn and Jake take a break to swim in the local pond on their way back home. The boys manage to create a tiny whirlpool in the pond, BMO is cooking up a delicious dinner of sassages, life is good. Then before they know it, Finn’s hat has been brought to life by a magic flower and our heroes are now in charge of a brand new life.
Fig 1: A Good Boy
Back at the treehouse, Finn and Jake introduce BMO to Little Dude, and he doesn’t make the best first impression. At this point, Little Dude comes across like an unruly pet, lacking any training or knowledge about how rude it is to jump on someone’s head. Too hungry to consider this point, the boys restrain Little Dude and tuck in. I honestly can’t blame them here; BMO outdid themself with that spread. Little Dude seems to agree, as he gets free and scarfs down the entire meal, turning it into poop shaped exactly like the food in its whole form. In terms of a metaphor, this scene could easily apply to a new pet as well as a new baby: both are capable of transforming food into poop at an alarming rate.
As the boys get ready for bed, a menacing figure emerges from the woods. It’s the Ancient Life-Giving Magus, last seen in “Mystery Dungeon”, and the flower on his head is responsible for animating Little Dude. Unfortunately for him, he’s broken into the house of two of Ooo’s greatest heroes, and they quickly subdue him. He immediately drops his menacing demeanor (as any character voiced by Dana Snyder eventually must) and warns them that Little Dude is not as he seems.
According to the Ancient Life-Giving Magus (hereby referred to as ALGM), anything animated by his powers is also imbued with the urge to destroy and cause mayhem. Little Dude seems all too eager to confirm his warnings, sneaking off to the Candy Kingdom and turning a passing Candy Gentleman into a raging hulk. Punching Gummy Horses, destroying buildings, throwing Gummy Horses, his appetite for destruction knows no bounds. Our heroes put up a good fight against him, but they’re powerless to restrain Little Dude. Then things get worse…
Oh no! There goes Tokyo the Candy Kingdom! Go Go Little Dude!
All the while, ALGM laments about how he’s a bad wizard, how his father’s relentless criticism and negativity corrupts his magic. Jake suggests he think of something calming, and ALGM’s thoughts turn to how his mother would comfort him after he came home from a frustrating day at wizard school. Suddenly, the objects he imbues with life are consumed by a thirst for hugging, not punching. After animating an army of objects, ALGM manages to bring down the Little Dude-possessed Gumball Guardian and return him to inanimacy. Finn laments that Little Dude had no control over how he was made, and requests that his hat be reanimated with ALGM’s positive magic. They then part ways, with ALGM resolving to bring up Little Dude better than his father did for him and Finn and Jake questing for a new hat.
Given ALGM’s many, many hangups and neuroses, it’s very easy to see how this episode relates to the season’s overarching theme of parenthood. Granted, it’s a surface level treatment of generational trauma, but it’s a good way to introduce the concept to the show’s target audience. This episode may deal most overtly with this theme, but it’s hardly the first. “Jake the Dad” showed Jake trying to raise kids the way his own parents raised him and discovering how that won’t work for his specific situation. “All the Little People” features Finn projecting his own fears and hang-ups onto small creatures completely under his control. Even the episode immediately before this one, “All the Little People”, heavily features Lemongrab grappling with the influence of Princess Bubblegum, whom is halfway between a parent and a god to him. All of these episodes show our heroes struggling with how their actions, deliberate and accidental, affect someone who looks up to them and is dependent upon them.
The Ancient Life-Giving Magus changes up the formula by showing both the product of imperfect parenting and the progenitor of poor parenting. The metaphor is on the nose: his thoughts of his father’s overbearing criticisms create destructive hellion children, while thoughts of his nurturing mother create friendly, outgoing children. There’s obviously a lot more to parenting than just validating your children all the time, but this episode does a fine job of catalyzing several disparate episodes into a cohesive theme, one the rest of the season will do a lot to explore.
Look, I skipped the close-up gif of Finn eating sausages. You had to know you were getting this one
Spoiler Level: Snail
Under the stove as Little Dude is getting acquainted with BMO’s head.
Stray Observations –
- This episode is the only boarding credit for Michael DeForge. He contributed to the show as a character and prop designer before this episode, and would continue to create episode promo art and title cards going forward.
- The boarders got away with murder with BMO’s “Kiss my Cook” apron
- The possessed Candy Gentleman punching the Gummy Horse has to be a reference to Mongo in Blazing Saddles.
Notable Quotes –
- “BMO hit you on the butt. Hehe.”
- “Only good babies get sassages.”
- “Whoever he possesses gains the proportional strength of a hat. Look out he’s got the horse again!”
- “Let’s be paljamsas. Paljamas?”
- “Oh my goodness, what is this lovely place?” “Life, man!”
- “Be good to this dude.” “I will. Way better than my poppa was to me.” “Yeah, that’s the idea.”