Finn doesn’t want to go dentist.
And can you blame him? They put you in a whole filled with snakes and rotten butter, and they leave you there.
But also, dentist is ants?
Dentist is dentist. And when you go dentist, you sometimes gotta team up with your nemesis to fight some worms. In Finn’s case, that nemesis is . . .
Is Tiffany the greatest character in Adventure Time?
Yes.
He’s orneriness personified. He’s a poet with the heart of a scoundrel—a rascal with the soul of an artist. It also turns out Tiffany went dentist some time ago and is now a seasoned foot soldier in the Ant Army, and, as ever, he’s driven by his animosity toward Finn for stealing Jake away from the life of crime for which Tiffany claims Jake is destined. In short, Tiffany mad.
Let’s examine Tiffany’s ‘tude for a moment. Here’s how the man himself describes the thorn in his side: “As the miller’s wheel forever outrages the seed, so the good apple boringly receives his neighbor’s worm.” He clarifies to a confused Finn: “And all the corn gets smooshed to grease—to grease under the miller’s fleaping wheel.” Further clarification for a further befuddled Finn: “You’re getting greased!”
Some commentary I came across think Tiffany’s speaking gibberish here. But I think there’s something to the image of “the miller’s fleaping wheel” that explains Tiffany’s inner-struggle. I’ve been sloooowly reading George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss for a little while now, and Eliot’s book features a similarly vengeance-consumed doofus by the name of Mr. Tulliver, who owns and operates Dorlcotte Mill. But after a series of stupid legal maneuvers, Tulliver is hoisted on his own particularly dumb petard, and he loses the mill—along with his family’s reputation—to a local lawyer who really was just minding his own beeswax. Tulliver, feeling he’s been wronged in some way, seeks violent vengeance against the other guy, and he (Tulliver) ends up dying because he’s an idiot and can’t let shit go. In the case of both Tiffany and Tulliver, the turning of this fleaping mill wheel, driven ceaselessly in circles by gravity and the currents, mindlessly grinds the corn to grease, just as unchecked vengeance grinds endlessly upon the hearts of people like Tulliver and Tiffany.
Now, compare Tiffany’s mad compulsion with Finn’s passivity in this episode. Once he finally gives in and goes Dentist, Finn is pretty much just along for the ride. What else can you do when you go dentist? He mostly just repeats words and phrases, in a seemingly mild case of echolalia. Meanwhile, Tiffany is all fruitless plotting and action. That Finn is so accepting of his cruel fate drives Tiffany–who cannot accept it–to even madder madness.
So as I said before, and as we all know, when you go dentist you have to defeat some worms on behalf of the ant army in exchange for dental care. Tiffany can barely focus on the task at hand here, as he keeps noticing opportunities to take Finn out once and for all. But ultimately, when given a great opportunity to do in his nemesis, Tiffany realizes that he cannot. But he can’t save Finn, either. He instead leaves him to fall into the maw of Shai-Hulud,1 only to be regurgitated. And, wouldn’t you know it, it’s Tiffany who’s swallowed up by the worm. Finn gets his chompers repaired, and gets shoved back up the buttery snake hole, where Finn is told not to discuss what happens when one goes dentist. There are, you see, spy flies buzzing around.
I like this one. And I once again find myself at odds with Oliver Sava’s AV Club review of an Adventure Time episode. Here’s what Sava thinks of “Dentist”:
This week’s “Corn-Ooo-Copia” of new Adventure Time episodes began with a Jake spotlight, so it’s appropriate that it would end with a story focusing on Finn. Unfortunately, “Dentist” is the weakest installment of the bunch, a conceptually flimsy episode that goes off on strange tangents that never quite cohere into a substantial narrative. Strange tangents are par for the course with this series, but the best episodes are able to use that randomness to take their stories in new directions without losing track of a central idea. Others just end up all over the place, and that’s what happens with “Dentist.”
A thing about me is I don’t think I care too much about coherence. I love stories that just go(!) and sort of drag you along. George Saunders wrote about these kinds of stories in an essay about the great short story writer, Donald Barthelme (who I think would’ve been an Adventure Time fan):
A story is made of things that fling our little car forward. When I was a kid I had one of these Hot Wheels devices designed to look like a little gas station. Inside the gas station were two spinning rubber wheels. One’s little car would weakly approach the gas station, then be sent forth by the spinning rubber wheels to take another lap around the track or, more often, fly out and hit one’s sister in the face.
A story can be thought of as a series of these little gas stations. The main point is to get the reader around the track; that is, to the end of the story. Any other pleasures a story may offer (theme, character, moral uplift) are dependent upon this.
Here’s a fun story:
“Dentist” is almost entirely made of little gas stations. The conceptual flimsiness that Sava doesn’t like makes for an even more precarious (and, imo, fun) ride. And while I get the desire to have it all add up to something more than the sum of its gas stations, I get a lot of enjoyment just watching the little car whip around the flimsy track.
Bonnibel Bubblegum: megalomaniacal autocrat, or overly-protective benevolence? A question as old as…a few seasons ago. “The Cooler” tilts the scales heavily towards the first option, even as it gives the viewer hope that maybe she’s changing her ways. But all that comes toward the very end, and in this writer’s opinion feels a little..too easy.
It’s hard to force a solid template over Princess Bubblegum throughout Adventure Time. She’s needed rescuing as often as she’s enforced order. She’s taken in strays (Shoko) as much as she’s been proactive in building up defenses for her Candy Kingdom (Rattleballs, the Gumball Guardians). She’s shown devotion to the cause of royal heroism (by encouraging our boy Finn to be her Hero), and great love for the Candy citizens that she, after all, did create herself. Sure, there’s an inherent danger that a Fire Kingdom, with a reckless and evil monarch at its helm, holds for her innocent and fragile Candy folk. But Flame Princess has replaced the Flame King as ruler for some time now. Yet for the duration of the show, Bubblegum has always shown a wariness toward Flame Princess.
It was there long before Flame Princess became ruler. She made baby FP’s father paranoid about her potential to seize power, having him imprison her for most of her life (at the suggestion/demand of PB, we come to learn). When FP’s older and free to roam about, Princess Bubblegum’s gone invisible to spy on FP, coerced her to be subject to nutzoid experiments, interfered in the courtship of Finn and FP, and played on the girl’s heartache and confusion in order to find a means to tamp down her danger—which is also her essence, her chaotic, passionate fieriness.
Now there’s a heat crisis in the Fire Kingdom, dropping temperatures to dangerous levels, threatening citizens’ very existence, and necessitating an emergency meeting of Fire Kingdom leaders. The suggestion of burning the Candy Kingdom for an injection of calories is floated, but FP has to concede that Princess Bubblegum may be a necessary ally, even someone who could help solve the crisis. Indeed, PB is summoned and arrives at the Fire Kingdom, bright and cheery, trying to make nice with Flame Princess and get on a first-name basis with her. Flame Princess isn’t having it.
With some sciency talk, playing on the concerns of FP, Bubblegum manages to get access to “the most sacred relics of the Fire Kingdom.” And it’s here that we find the vault that holds the Ancient Fire Giants, a mix of myth and technology that provided heat and life to the first Fire People. The reverence FP shows for these furnace beasts—in story and song—is legitimately touching. Especially as we see Bubblegum illegitimately touching and DISABLING some key mechanical part of their inner works.
I really don’t understand how PB can justify her actions.. She has a reason—something about too great a risk for such potential power—but come on. That’s not being protective of one’s people, that’s creating a potential calamity for other people! All the Fire Princess wanted from PB was a possible end to the heat crisis. And PB not only wants that crisis to continue, she wants to eliminate the last resort left for the Fire Kingdom in the interest of protecting her own people because that last resort might–might–one day be used as a weapon against the Candy Kingdom. Somehow. It feels…frankly…a little too close to current events, if I’m being honest.
PB’s scheme is discovered after she layers on more lies. Which leads to a fiery confrontation that plays into Bubs’ plans, destroying more Fire Giants–but in so doing, giving Flame Princess more raw heat with which to battle PB’s high-tech personal defenses. At the end, when the two are collapsedin a heap, Bubblegum comes clean and admits she’s responsible for the dangerous cooling trend, just so she could make a move to disable the Fire Kingdom’s source of energy. And to gather the info about the Fire Kingdom, she turned Cinnamon Bun into a walking, mumbling spycam.
Fire Princess is, understandably, flabbergasted. But Bubblegum shrugs it off with a “I’m PB! I spy on everybody! No big D!” I was so angry in this moment, and I don’t think Flame Princess took her to task enough for it. Calling her cold, and letting her know it’s not just because she’s a scientist or a ruler, but because there’s something essentially wrong inside Bubblegum–that’s all true. But it doesn’t really meet the moment. It seems to inspire Bubblegum to pull the reins on her manipulation a little, and call off her awful plan before the final Fire Giant is eliminated. A gesture of goodwill? A last moment of moral clarity peeking through? Hard to know. Flame Princess gives her the benefit of a doubt I frankly couldn’t give were I in that situation. She even tells Bubblegum her first name as a gesture of trust.
Back at the Candy Kingdom, in PB’s snooping sanctum, she considers the wall of hidden camera views set up across Ooo. We see her rip out the wires that broadcast the Fire Kingdom feeds…and then after a few more moments of consideration, she breaks the rest, leaving her with a wall of dead monitors. I guess this signals some kind of big change for Bubblegum. It feels too big a pivot in so small a moment. I’m open to the possibility that maybe it’s just a small first step, demonstrated by a grandiose gesture. One that Bubblegum has to do by herself, for herself.
This episode is probably the most chilling (no pun intended) revelation of who PB has become, and is meant to serve as a turning point in who she tries to be going forward. Over the years we’ve come to know plenty about how much of a caring ruler she is, how much of a scientific genius, how much she needs to feel like the caretaker of her people. We’ve also seen her try to act in the best interests of Finn, and of Marceline. We’ve seen her be kind to kids in orphanages, and brave in the face of the Lich. We’ve seen her try to understand Lemongrab, and try to be kind to LSP. We know the show wants us to see she’s a good person at heart. Maybe as her desire to give her Candy realm a good life has grown, the means through which she’s willing to go turn have turned her sour and become oppressive. She’s put so much on her own shoulders that the desire to be kind and benevolent has become salted with a casual coldness. She needed to learn that if you choose to take away freedoms in order to protect those you value, you’re not doing them or yourself any favors. As they say, power corrupts. Even those with a heart of bubblegum.
Spare things:
–Flame Princess’ first name is Phoebe. In ancient Greek, the name means “bright” or “shining.”
–”My nose is disgusting!!”
–Flame Princess’ song has the feel of a folk story or mythology passed down through the generations via story and song. I love the sense of history and reverence it has, especially when contrasted with the act of deliberate sabotage Bubblegum is committing against the song’s subjects.–Spoiler level: Snail.