Nemesis | Boarded by: Jesse Moynihan and Derek Ballard | Originally Aired: August 7, 2014 | Reviewed by: Lyssie

What do we think about when we try to evaluate people we like? Either in real life or in fiction, sometimes a person we admire might start to show some bad sides, prompting us to figure out what we feel about them now. Do we still consider them a fundamentally good person? Do we start to consider them a bad person? If we try to hold on to nuance, will we be able to come to any conclusion at all? Or just stay in the gray?

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Nemesis picks up on several threads from the ongoing plotline of Princess Bubblegum’s authoritarianism, which has been developing for a while. Most noticeably at the beginning is that we once again find her watching her subjects on surveillance camera feeds for fun, snacks and all, like she did after jailing Tree Trunks’ wedding party in Apple Wedding. But where that episode showcased just how petty she can be with her control over her people, this one delves into just how disturbing and dangerous her unlimited and unchecked power over them really is.

We open on the Veritas Brigade, a small group of Candy Kingdom conspiracy cooks and occult hobbyists. They seem pretty silly, one guy claiming that a small radio with a pickle attached to it is a device he invented that can disrupt parallel dimensions, and Starchy presiding over them being his usual lighthearted goof. But one member of the group, the dark, imposing Peace Master, appears to be operating on a completely different level. He chides them for not focusing on the real threat to them all, the sinister figure watching them – at which point we cut to Bubblegum watching them all for funsies. It seems like the guy is hilariously unaware of how close he is to the truth, until he suddenly grabs the camera from where it was hidden, swears to the person behind it that he’ll take them down, then destroys it. At which point PB, uh, flips out.

Much has been made in recent years about how it’s pretty hard to enjoy stuff about conspiracy theorists anymore. In the real world they’ve become ever-present, hateful and dangerous, pushing forward racist, misogynistic and authoritarian agendas, often violently. Media that presents them as either harmless and funny or as actually being right, or at least onto something, has stopped being fun for a lot of people. This episode combines both ideas, which might make it even more unpleasant for some; but for me it’s precisely that which made it interesting.

Cause Peace Master is very much straddling the line of, “conspiracy theorists are right to be suspicious of the state of things, but they’re making up a guy instead of focusing on the real problems”. He talks in fantastical language, but then it turns out his target is the surveillance state – which, yeah, they are watching our every move and trying to control and suppress us! But then he still think this is just some mysterious figure working from the shadows, and seemingly doesn’t even consider that his ruler might be behind this. This puts him in the curious position of being an admirable fighter against oppression, while not quite realizing that’s what he is; and even though he very easily could have turned his rage against innocent targets instead.

Meanwhile, on PB’s end of things we see her react with the calm and maturity we’ve come to expect of her when things don’t go her way. Which, you see? Even the fact that I thought of that sentence speaks to how much someone’s likability can color our attitudes towards their actions. PB is fully the villain here! We even get a reminder about what she did to the gumball guards, with her uneasy about it, to emphasize how much she’s the villain. But because I like her I still tend towards levity about it.

Of course, in her own eyes she’s just defending the realm, even though she’s monitoring and spying on her citizens and going on a rampage when one of them gets wise to it, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with security. But then, for her it kind of is, at least the security of her own power and control. “Start brewing up some chamomile tea so I don’t stress out!” is silly fun, but it also speaks to privileged people oppressing others while highly valuing their own wellbeing. Their own comfort is more important than the other’s basic rights, and is often build on the revocation of those rights.

At the same time, Peace Master being a suburban dad driving his kids around in a van speaks to bored middle class people wanting to struggle against something, but also missing the mark and making up enemies (he even tells his kids that he doesn’t want to get stressed out much like PB did!).

And then we get to Peppermint Butler, who I’m going to refer to as PB2 for the rest of this cause he basically is an extension of her right now, going to any lengths to enforce her will and meet her desires. He uses his demonic powers to track down and try to kill Peace Master, further showing how the kooks know more than we might think about what’s out there. But Peace Master stops him with his suburban powers of pacifier and shopping list talismans, with Kenneth’s dimension disruptor helping as well, further showing how they’re actually pretty capable.

And then the episode goes from too real to Way Too Fucking Real. PB2 accepts Peace Master’s challenge of a duel, but shows up with Peace Master’s kids. He threatens to turn them into monsters, then does that to two of them before their father surrenders, horrified. Then PB2 forces him to strip down to his underwear and act like a chicken. I won’t mince words here – this is threatening and inflicting violence on children, this is coercion under the threat of harm towards loved ones, this is sexual assault and humiliation. This is evil, and even PB2 realizes he crossed at least some kind of line.

But hey, it all worked out in the end, in a way – PB2 returns and gets PB1 her tea, and she’s none the wiser about the atrocities committed in order to maintain the stability of her system. Which, I don’t know what I feel about this ending. Implying that there’s a lot of evil that PB2 does for PB without her knowledge feels like a copout, as though we’re suddenly supposed to understand that a lot of the oppression wasn’t her choice; which is kind of cheap, and also we know that isn’t true. But on the other hand, this might be the only solution for us to still be able to like PB… as if the writers kind of wrote themselves into a corner, making PB more and more authoritarian and wanting to keep her as a good likeable person while also not just dropping that thread. At the same time, it feels like a show that always wants to flirt with one of the main characters being a tyrant but never fully commits to it.

And… well, I didn’t want this to get too PT, so I’ll put this bit in spoiler tags.

Content warning: war, war crimes, genocide

So, as I’ve shared in the politics thread, I’m Jewish Israeli, and ever since the war and genocide in Gaza started I’ve been horrified by what’s happening, opposed to it and hoping I could do something to stop it. But I was also terrified to speak or act right from the start, in the face of the persecution and brutalization of anyone who dared to do so (primarily Palestinian citizens, but also Jewish ones). I’ve constantly feared doing something that’s unsafe for me or that would do more harm than good, for various reasons. And even as I’ve found my way to doing more and more against this horror, I’ve had to check myself every step of the way on what I’m doing and if it might be crossing some invisible line. In the face of a very strong surveillance state, a public culture of tracking and shaming anyone critical of the war, and the threat of police and civilian violence, you can never know what will ruin your life or your ability to stay in the struggle.

So stories like this hit a lot harder, now. And they’re harder to take lightly. I guess, in a way, what some people have come to feel about conspiracy theory stories, I’ve come to feel towards stories about state oppression, surveillance and violence. Suddenly, an all-seeing, all-hearing surveillance apparatus, where the ruler freaks out at the smallest act of resistance and exposure and demands a harsh crackdown, feels a lot more sinister when you’ve been jumping at those shadows yourself for almost two years. A state actor brutalizing children and committing sexual assault and degradation is much more painful when you see your nation do the same and much, much worse every single day. And, the ruler not being to blame for the worst of it because someone else did it without her knowledge is much more difficult to accept, when you live in a society where many people, possibly most, from the top of the pyramid down, are engaging or complicit in crimes against humanity, while also proclaiming their innocence or righteousness; and will presumably claim they were ignorant or uninvolved when this is all over.

Now, I’m not trying to say that the showrunners are trying to excuse horrific state action. I genuinely do not think that; I’m not trying to start some “Steven Universe excuses tyranny” type thing, here. But this episode, especially with that last point, has left me feeling very ambiguous. I liked it and I respect them for going for it so boldly, but at the same time I don’t quite know what they were trying to say and how to feel about it. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how things keep playing out before I know for sure what to make of it.

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Joshua & Margaret Investigations

Written and Storyboarded by Cole Sanchez and Andy Ristaino, directed by Elizabeth Ito. Reviewed by ChicaDeBiblioteca

It’s Jake’s birthday! Another year older, and yet he still looks good. At the treehouse, Jake, BMO, and Finn celebrate, Jake dabbing his way to the table and guzzling his entire cake in four increasingly painful-looking bites. Jake reflects on his good genes, and the topic of Finn, Jake, and Jermaine’s parents, Joshua and Margaret comes up. Finn asks if they ever told Jake the story of his birth, and with little further ado we launch into a flashback.

Seems Joshua and Margaret weren’t just adventurers, but some combination of (naturally) noir private detectives and paranormal investigators. Over T-bone steaks, Margaret wants to take on new cases, but Joshua, fearing for the baby, urges caution. Reminding her hubs of their imminently-precarious financial situation, Margaret sells him on the basis that they need a paying job, so Joshua goes to their ticker-tape machine to look at the headlines. Joshua immediately rejects Marceline performing a little good-natured sheep rustling and baby Flame Princess’s big day out in the Candy Kingdom as too dangerous, but quickly sets upon the case of Tree Trunks’s purloined pies as an ideal investigation for two safety-conscious shamuses.

Unfortunately the case is a dud. Wyatt, still married to TT at this point, almost immediately exposes himself (ew) as the real thief, and the unhappy couple argue about his overeating. A credulous Tree Trunks, however, asks the twosome to check around and make sure there aren’t any monsters around to cause her and her neighbors trouble. Margaret soon locates mysterious tracks and, ignoring Joshua’s objections, follows them into the forest past a sinister-looking, many-eyed blue owl. Near the end of the trail, the same creature emerges from the bushes in the shape of a cat, before assuming a humanoid shape and leading them into a trap. In the process of defending his wife, Joshua takes a bite to the forehead until Margaret drives the creature off with her hatpin.

Back at home, a bandaged-up Joshua calmly eats a sandwich and prepares to have Margaret slay him before he can turn into a creature of the night, but Margaret, intrepid as ever, is determined to track down the strange assailant and synthesize an antidote from its venom– alone, as Joshua is in no condition to fight. Returning to the scene of the attack, she tracks the beast to the ruins of a pre-Mushroom War shop before losing radio contact with her slowly-mutating husband. The strange creature gets her on the back foot and rapidly shapeshifts, settling on the form of a baby and rather blatantly playing innocent. This isn’t enough to stop Margaret from taking a sample from it, or from decking it in the face, but she does run away apologizing and doesn’t see the creature laugh sinisterly, assume its true form, and escape through a portal to a world full of weird blue blobs.

Margaret arrives at the brownstone just in time to go into labor, but Joshua’s forehead, Zeus-like, gives birth first… to Jake, who does a snappy little dance and a Jimmy Durante impression that wins them over right away. Later, the happy family are seen pushing a pram with Jake and Jermaine, their natural-born pure dog son as Joshua remarks that he’ll need a hat to cover up his new scar and they agree never to speak of how their first baby came into the world– a promise, Jake assures us, that they kept all their lives. So how does he know about it?

Stray observations:

• Margaret’s crossbow practice includes shooting at a drawing of Kee Oth, Joshua’s demonic nemesis. In her weapons locker, we can see Joshua’s demon blood sword made from Kee Oth’s blood.
• Also in the weapons locker: a Poke ball!

• Tree Trunks mentions a “Lieutenant Candy Corn”, presumably the same Colonel Candy Corn we know now. Oddly, she pronounces “Lieutenant” in the British manner, as “Left-tenant”. Was this in the script, or a dialectical oddity of Polly Lou Livingston’s mellow accent?
• According to the wiki, this episode has the longest title of any episode of Adventure Time!
• All the way back in “Beautopia” Jake remarked that Susan’s drawing of the Lub Glubs resembles his father, or possibly his mother. Foreshadowing?
• Joshua and Margaret being detectives with their distinctive voices and characterizations is undoubtedly a reference to Nick and Nora Charles of the The Thin Man films, but you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that them being paranormal investigators specifically isn’t a reference to the other great Thin Man riff of the 21st century, The Thrilling Adventure Hour‘s “Beyond Belief” segment. Who cares what evil lurks in the heart of dog, unless evil’s carrying the martini tray?