Time Sandwich | Written & Boarded by Cole Sanchez and Kent Osborne | Aired: September 9, 2013 | Reviewed by Josephus Brown

My god, I want a tri tip sandwich so bad now.

I’ve made some incredible things where I’m pretty sure I’ll never make them again. A pizza from scratch one time me and my first wife were incredibly drunk, where I have a vague memory of going down the stairs to cook then a vague memory of staring into the bread machine watching the dough mix, or the first Thanksgiving dinner me and my sister made, which was Cornish game hens wrapped in bacon, where we kept drinking champagne and gin cocktails while we cooked so by the time I was balancing the giant roasting pan over the fire and dumping white wine into the pan to deglaze it and make gravy I have absolutely no idea what went into it. So on some level, I have sympathy for Jake’s plight.

I also approach sandwich making with a level of spirituality that I’ve never seen reflected anywhere but on this show. They need balance, they need harmony, they are a perfect sensory and nutritional experience where every element comes together to make a gestalt whose totality is vastly more than the sum of its parts. When the owner of my coffeeshop asked me to write up a guide to the sandwiches I made I ended up bringing her a five page treatise on the Philosophy of the Sandwich. I remember she said, “This is not remotely what I asked for. It’s very good and going in the employee handbook, but this is not what I asked for.”

Now, I’ll be frank with y’all: I have no idea what this episode is supposed to be about. I have a feeling it’s about *something*, but I can’t help but feel that this episode is saying something that’s just beyond my grasp.

There’s the creativity angle, where Jake is channeling the Muse of Sandwiches to distill comic inspiration into a lunch dish, and how if he refuses to come to grips with the vagaries of fate the muses won’t bless him again. 

There’s also what feels like some subtext about romance and anxiety. He’s afraid of losing his woman sandwich, to another man, and until he faces those anxieties and insecurities he can’t have a secure attachment to his woman sandwich. Or… Something. Maybe.

But honestly this is one of my favorite episodes. (I might say that a lot, but if you asked me to pick a handful to show someone who’d never seen the series, this one would 100% be on the list)

For one thing, I love Magic Man. Not everyone likes him, but he’s one of my favorite characters. I might just gravitate towards the whole chaos demon angle. I also love that Magic Man is willing to employ incredible cosmic power just so he can troll Jake as much as possible as he eats his sandwich. I like a character with mind-boggling power who refuses to use it for anything but absurd nonsense.

It’s also easily the goofiest one with the lowest stakes, possibly top five goofiest in the entire series, and it comes at a perfect time, sandwiched1 See what I did there? between a lot of other much heavier episodes. They’ve had (and will have) other quietly goofy adventures, or ones with equally low key stakes, like Finn and Jake getting trapped in Marceline’s closet or Finn exploring the library, but this might edge all of them out. It’s just a sandwich. Sure, lobster souls aren’t cheap, but c’mon.

I also love that despite the low stakes, all of Jake’s friends take his problem seriously.

Except BMO.

The episode has a real breakneck pace. It swings along wildly, rarely letting up at any point right up till we come crashing into Jake’s insecurities about Mr. Cupcake’s muscles and the fact that Lady Rainicorn seemed into him way back in Video Makers.

I love this resolution so much. When Jake needs to make himself sad he starts with “what if I’m dead and Lady moves on” but that just makes him angry.

Instead, his subconscious seems to ambush him with how his own insecurities has robbed him of a meaningful connection and friendship, making him lament a relationship he denied himself. I seriously love how he seems surprised and confused by what his imagination brings up.

It’s both ridiculous and poignant, which might be the exact sweet spot for Adventure Time at its best. A main character sobbing uncontrollably as he apologizes to a sentient cupcake for his own masculine insecurities while winding up to punch a jerk in the face. It’s beautiful.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

• I’m a sucker for time-dilation gags, so this episode is particularly fun for me. Everyone being stymied by the fact that any of their solutions just end up getting slowed down is a riot. It makes me think of the episode of Dexter’s Laboratory where he realizes he was up late working on an invention and didn’t do his homework, so he uses a time dilation helmet to give himself more time. Except now he can’t take a shower because the water moves too slow, he can’t make breakfast because nothing cooks fast enough, and when he tries to write on his homework sheet it catches fire from the friction of his pencil.
• I seriously wonder how much effort they put into coming up with the weird ass games Finn and BMO are always playing.
• Every time it cuts back to BMO and his slow motion “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” I burst out laughing again.
• PB’s missile that shoots a missile that shoots a third missile is a great example of her overcomplicating things.
• “What?! Nobodyyyy caaaaallllllllss iiiiiiit thaaaaaaaat…”
  “Nope, nope, don’t get judgmental!”
• Finn’s “He’s not frozen, he’s super slow-mozen. … motion”, like for a second he realizes that the Adventure Time speak has gone a bit too far.
• I feel like the molasses bit is a reference to the fact that the material component for a Slow spell in D&D is a bit of molasses, but “slow as molasses” is enough of a cultural touchstone that it’s impossible to be sure they’re not just drawing from the same well.
• The title cards are always real great art, but man I love this one.
• I really love the gathering storm as the episode progresses. It feels vaguely Shakespearean- like, the universe has been disordered and it’s being reflected in the weather.

This episode’s also full of tiny callbacks. There’s the plot critical one I already mentioned, harkening back to Video Makers, but there’s a lot more.

• Jake mentions BMO’s “new software”, a reference to him getting his system drivers replaced in Be More.
• The thing about “when you explained about his sandwich I knew I had to help” feels like a reference to PB’s sandwich in the first Graybles episode.
• PB’s phone has multiple, like how apparently she has the chicken from BMO Noir’s phone number, along with Mannish Man, the Manly Minotaur from The Enchiridion, in her phone contacts.
• I wonder if Finn’s surprise that Bubblegum is going to call Marceline is because he slept through the events of Sky Witch.
• Magic Man having a hard time coming up with a riddle on the spot feels like a callback to when Jake can’t come up with a riddle in the Rainy Day Daydream episode.
• Jake singing “Baaacon!” makes me think of his Bacon Pancakes song, but that might just be me.
• And, obviously, Prismo’s pickles.

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The Vault | Written & Storyboarded by: Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera | Aired: September 16, 2013 | Reviewed by Katie

So, this is kind of a strange one! We saw Shoko (in her green ghostly monster form) back in season 3’s “The Creeps”, which is also where Finn puts her in “the vault”, aka represses the upsetting experience so he won’t have to think about it. And callbacks are at this point nothing new for Adventure Time, but you’d think this was setting up a story about Finn learning to deal with upsetting memories (dare I say traumatic ones?) Our boy certainly has a history of repression and avoidance (see the Fear Feaster way back in season 1). But instead that’s not quite where we go.

Instead “The Vault” gets unexpectedly spiritual, as Finn experiences a vision of a past life. His last day as Shoko gives us some expected worldbuilding fun, seeing the early years of the Candy Kingdom. We finally get explicit confirmation that Princess Bubblegum is not, in fact, a 19-year-old, which we’ve had to dance around for a while now as the show made it more and more obvious.2I mean, if she was genuinely 19 the whole “she and 1,000 year old Marceline are exes” thing becomes pretty hard to make the math work on. I know Marcy’s a musician but there are some chords I hope she’s not striking. We see her building over a radioactive apocalyptic wasteland, presumably not that far past the Great Mushroom War. There are fun gags, like the green unripe Banana Guard.

But also we get completely unexpected details, which is what makes Adventure Time’s adventures with its own timeline so compelling. The Bath Boy gang are completely eradicated in the present day, presumably at the hands of Bubblegum and her Gumball Guardians. They’re more than a little evocative of Destiny’s gang in Farmworld, though; it’s possible that Peebs is the main reason the world went from post-apocalyptic Earth to the post-post-apocalyptic Ooo.

That last part is pure speculation, but what’s not speculation is that PB has been in charge of the Candy Kingdom for centuries, building it from nothing, taking care of her children/subjects and protecting them from a very harsh world. This is one of the key details in understanding PB as a character. She’s been controlling, patronizing, sometimes downright authoritarian. Of course she has; she’s been raising children who can’t grow up for hundreds of years. She took care of the Bath Boys, but there are so many threats in Ooo and she can’t protect against them all. She learned that personally after the Lich nearly killed her a few seasons back.

In this episode we see a Bubblegum with significantly less weighing on her, and as a result we see a much more trusting person. Look at how quickly she welcomes in Shoko! Look how quickly she bonds with her, trusts her to work on top-secret projects like the Guardians, how she builds Shoko a prosthetic arm. That she hoped Shoko and her could use to do “two-arm” stuff together….

Okay look, I promise it’s possible for me to write about Princess Bubblegum without it turning into “oh hm I think she might be a touch queer” but can we really chalk up her trust and fast friendship with Shoko to her being younger and more innocent? Like, she makes it clear that Young Mr. Creampuff is “like” her boyfriend. As in, not “actually” her boyfriend. As in, hey girl later do you wanna maybe watch some Netflix maybe??? She may or may not be looking for a rebound from Marceline even (no idea when they broke up beyond “centuries ago”, it could have already happened or they could have not even met yet)

But even if we’re back in 2013 and still think it’s impossible that the next ~10 years of western kid’s TV cartoons3There has to be a more eloquent way of phrasing that, but every word of it is necessary to define our scope. will be an escalating series of gay dares4Steven Universe is a mere 2 months away from airing its first episode there’s a tragedy to Shoko and Bubblegum’s relationship that could have been. Shoko has a real friend, for seemingly the first time in here life (give or take her loyal tiger, who is clearly one of Jake’s past lives) and yet she throws it away out of fear. If she had betrayed the Bath Boys and stuck with Bubblegum she likely would have been fine; hell, she helped build the likely implement of their destruction! But she’s ruled by her fears, by her past traumas, and circumstance would deny her any further chances at growth or healing.

Thankfully, things aren’t so dire for our boy Finn. Healing from a single scary experience and accepting the memory of it doesn’t mean he’s cured forever, but it’s still real growth. It’s something he would have turned away from just a few years prior. He’s able to put poor Shoko’s spirit to rest as well, atoning for her mistake and returning Bubblegum’s omelet. Finn’s been going through it recently. He donked up bad, and really hurt someone he cares a lot about (and also Ice King). It’s important for him to learn the importance of facing uncomfortable memories, of atoning for shameful misdeeds instead of running from them. That’s not a lesson you learn all in one go, of course. But with enough lifetimes, maybe.

Stray Observations:

• Baby Peppermint Butler! He’s very cute. Now I need to write some highly spoilerific thoughts vaguely related. You have been warned.

• Why does Peebs call herself a “technical wonderchild” instead of the German “wunderkind”? Is there a limit on how much German she’s allowed to speak per episode?
• Lady Rainicorn likes weird crafting games. I don’t understand the whole survival genre, I’m with you Jake.
• There’s a snail somewhere probably, check the comments. I ain’t no paparazzi.