Thanks for the Crabapples, Giuseppe! | Written & Boarded by: Somvilay Xayaphone & Seo Kim | Aired: July 31, 2014 | Reviewed by Josephus

 These are not my teardrops, daughter dear
But just a sheen of dew, that lingers here
Past other fields, where other fathers lie
Who kept their daughters better far then I1It took me like three times through this episode to realize the “other fields” are graveyards and this poem is about him lamenting that he didn’t spend enough time with his daughter before she died tragically. What’s interesting is that even without fully understanding it, it’s really touching.

Road trips in American culture have a sort of mythical power all their own. We’ve idealized the idea of the freedom of a journey, where you end up learning about yourself and getting closer to the people you travel with instead of finding whatever it was you set out to find.

I like this one a lot. It’s freewheeling and weird, and we get to spend time with a bunch of rando C-listers. It’s also nice to see Ice King have friends. And Finn and Jake getting disappointed that they weren’t there for them after being all high and mighty about them wanting their company is really funny.

I’m not the only one who immediately thought of Ken Kesey’s bus trip from The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test when watching this one, right? A bunch of weirdos and rejects piles into a bus to go on a mystical road trip across the countryside on a “destiny will guide us” kind of thing, trying to create their own society? Sure, maybe it’s just that the story of the Merry Pranksters is one of the prototypical “roadtrip” stories and thus maps onto a lot of these, but…

There’s a point in this episode where their entire solution to being in desperate danger is a potion that causes a “head change”, which was a euphemism for dropping acid, so I mean, come on.

I’ve only read a little bit of the plot from it, but I think this might be channeling a rather tepid and incoherent documentary someone put together in the early 2010’s about the Kesey road trip, because they shot a mountain of 16mm footage on the road but literally none of it was usable and it never saw the light of day, till someone managed to get their hands on it and cut a bunch of it together.

The consensus on the documentary itself is that it kind of sucks- apparently all the audio tracks were ruined so none of the footage has audio- but the scene of them having their bus break down in a cow pasture and then their answer being “this must be destiny let’s just, like, be here, man” instead of trying any actual practical solutions is basically directly from it.

The wizards head out on this trip to create a new school of magic, a brand new, never before chanted chant. We’ve seen how shitty the wizard culture in Ooo is before now, like in “Wizards Only, Fools”. They’re judgmental, secretive, vicious, and exclusionary. One of them whispers “loser” at Abracadaniel like some lame ass fucking mean girl high school bullshit. Like Kesey and his band, our group is out to make a new society, except this time in a literal sense in that they want to establish their own secret society, just “less jerky”.

And they mostly succeed. What they find is that they didn’t need some new spell, some never before seen school of magic, some groundbreaking power. Just one another. Even this feels like commentary on the 60’s and 70’s psychedelic counterculture, because drugs are mostly a distraction.

Like Alan Watts said after taking LSD:

“It’s important that you explore new things. But once you’ve gotten the message, you should hang up the phone. Psychedelics are simply instruments, like microscopes or telescopes. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to microscope, but goes out into the world to work with what he has seen.”

Focusing on the drugs themselves is missing the point.2That said, there’s an alternate universe where the utterly bonkers plot to actually dump an impossible quantity of LSD into the Los Angeles water supply that very nearly succeeded actually does succeed and my god I can’t even begin to imagine what a hilariously fucked up day that would be or what kind of alternate history it would lead to, because LSD really can change the way you see the world. What our band of misfits needed to discover wasn’t some school of magic, that’s missing the point, too, which is what Giuseppe shows them.

And here? The something new that Giuseppe shows them? Is kindness.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

• This review is kind of already random thoughts so this is gonna be brief.
• We get to see Ron James again from “Wizards Only, Fools” and “Betty”, and the Lifegiving Magus and Finn’s old hat from “Little Dude.”
• The bus’s license plate is a reference to Somvilay Xayaphone’s name.
• I like that Finn and Jake were actually excited to hang out with the Ice King, even though they were putting on a show of being judgmental at first.
• Abracadaniel can put on the Ice Crown and not go insane because the crown still has a living host, and the writers have said in an interview that users who are already magic take longer to get affected by it but can use it more easily.
• “We have lost Guiseppe.” I have no idea why that makes me laugh, but it does.

And random Spoiler Thought:

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Princess Day | Written & Boarded by: Somvilay Xayaphone & Seo Kim | Aired: July 24, 2014 | Reviewed by Mrs Queequeg

Princess Day kicks off with a rock and/or roll jingle to let us know that we’re gonna get a little rowdy today.

With a fantastic wide shot of Breakfast Kingdom, we join a rather contentuous Princess Day, led by the perfectly cast Grey DeLisle as Breakfast Princess. LSP is gorging herself but otherwise disinterested, while Marceline poses against a wall dressed like she’s a greaser. LSP is in full id mode today, but as usual I totally agree with her. Nothing’s worse than meetings with petty infighting, but when she points that out, Breakfast Princess gets personal.

Never one to back down from a fight, LSP declares that she’s a party crasher who ate her fill of breakfasts foods and calls BP “egg breath.” The crowd all ‘oooh’ because we are fully in high school and LSP storms out, stopping to eat some croissants. Marceline is intrigued and follows, before doubling back to invite Princess Bubblegum, who is dressed in full business casual. PB would love to, but she’s really invested in this crossword puzzle. Which is so Princess Bubblegum that Marcy does not read it for a rejection. My, how we’ve grown since the first season.

LSP knifing the walls is the moment I remember most clearly from this episode. How often I have the desire to key something, but never do I get to act on it, because I am responsible adult who respects other people’s property. LSP is not bound by such rules and Marceline admires her “tag” while texting PB updates. We’ve seen Marcy’s cool cell phone, which wraps around her arm, but this is our first look at Princess Bubblegum’s appropriately sugary cell.

PB warns Marcy not to let LSP get out of control, but that’s Marceline’s intention. They break into Breakfast Princess’ bedroom by sneaking past the guards, which are maple syrup bottles named Jerry. Marcy drinks the syrup of one, and LSP blinds the other with fresh squeezed grapefruit.

Everything is Breakfast Kingdom is malleable and edible. LSP goes into BP’s closet and eats her clothes (which are “all sticky”) and then cuts holes in hallway walls while fleeing. They trick Other Jerry into falling out of one hole, but are relieved to see he’s okay. These are bad girls, not evil.

They move on to stealing Breakfast Princess’ car (a squirrel taught LSP how to hot wire) but she’s been notified by her guards. She foolishly runs in front of her car, and LSP runs her over because she’s distracted and I don’t think she can see over the dash. But don’t worry, Breakfast Princess is only dazed and Marcy will take care of it, putting BP in the trunk.

Not LSP and Not Marceline pull Breakfast Princess out of the trunk and throw the conveniently included shovel at her to dig her own grave build a sand castle. “Don’t stop or we’ll know!” Bellows Not LSP as they pull away. Breakfast Princess watches them leave and then throws down the shovel and stalks away.

We move on to the moral question of the episode: Does doing bad stuff make you a bad person? Marceline doesn’t think that that there are bad people. She thinks good people do bad stuff sometimes and that’s bad, but only if you do it once, it’s just a mistake, which isn’t bad. 3I assume this is meant to parallel Thelma and Louise, given that they’re about to go over a cliff, but I haven’t seen it and only barely know the plot. Discuss in the comments She concludes that stealing the CD was wrong and she and LSP admit guilt, for letting themselves follow their destructive impulses, but that doesn’t stop them from high fiving after (accidentally) driving BRK FST over a cliff.

Back at Princess Day, Strudel Princess has led everyone to happy conclusions and Slime Princess is even ready to pop her egg!

 

Next week, we continue with Nemesis and Joshua & Margaret Investigations