Hot Diggity Doom | Aired: June 5, 2015 | Written & storyboarded by: Thomas Herpich & Steve Wolfhard | Reviewed by Lyssie

So – election time! King of Ooo shows up, and just like that there’s an election for princess between him and Bubblegum, and the writers are able to fit two political satires in one with this. There’s democracy in action, the seemingly ideal system where everyone can take part in choosing their leaders. But it’s a system where some scumbag can smooth-talk his way into power by way of a popularity contest, the way KoO does here with his charisma and charm. Hell, he’s even able to turn around his threats towards Sweet Pea, and get a cute public forgiveness from the kid; when the public’s behind you, there’s a lot you can get away with.

And then there’s autocracy, specifically the idea of the benevolent dictator, the supposed one person who’s perfect to lead and, who has all the power and does what’s best for everyone. But what if power corrupts? Even a ruler with pure intentions might abuse their power. They might decide that things have to stay the same, and people can be hurt or disenfranchised to preserve the status quo. It’s for their own good, after all, they can’t be trusted to choose for themselves. Or maybe they’re not fulfilling their obligations to the nation cause something else is more interesting.

We’ve seen a lot of all of these from Bubblegum, especially in this season; even right at this moment, as the election happens before her eyes she doesn’t do much more than get annoyed and continue with her Science. We also get a reminder of one of the past events, when James’s mom speaks at KoO’s rally and accuses PB of turning her son into a mutant monster. Like with Tree Trunks taking a stand at the wedding, Peace Master waging war on her surveillance state, Starchy running away, Flame Princess chewing her out – people have started to get more and more fed up with her authoritarianism.

And PB is getting more and more fed up with her subjects! She doesn’t bother to either prevent or participate in the elections, or even just make sure that they’re legitimate (how do we know for sure that KoO actually got a majority of the votes?). And when she loses she flies into a rage, accusing the citizens of being a bunch of dillweeds and that KoO is gonna ruin the place.

On the bright side, none of the people vying for power or their supporters had to die; that’s a lot better than most revolutions! On the purplishly not-so-bright side, everyone might die anyway, thanks to an outside threat that the democratically elected fool is in no way equipped to handle, and that the benevolent dictator is unaware of right when she’s needed the most.

While renovating her and PB2’s new hovel home, Bubblegum shifts between ranting about her former subjects, missing them, feeling the weight lifted off of her shoulders, and hoping that things might turn out okay. And I was suddenly a bit more understanding towards the idea of the candy people not being able to take care of themselves. Maybe it’s just cause, for a change, this is just talk and she doesn’t actually have power over people’s lives; or maybe it’s easier to sympathize with someone when they’re down. But, like, those people really are a bunch of doofuses sometimes! Just recently we saw them turn a slumber party into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But, you can’t, like, make this kind of assumption about people, let alone an entire society! I mean, this is just reducing so many people to generalizations and assumptions, and even in the silly reality of this show we’ve seen so much more to it than just that. We see candy people being complicated, mature, responsible, as well as show surprising skills and traits. (Root Beer Guy being both a budding author and a better detective than the actual cops comes to mind).

And on the flip side, PB can be as much of a dummy as a lot of her subjects sometimes – whether it’s small stuff like working herself to exhaustion, getting into petty fights, etc; or big stuff, like, I don’t know, almost starting a war with another country. Or creating monsters and tyrants that she can’t control. Or ignoring that her citizens are about to vote her out of being a princess! But then, it’s always easy for the people in power to take this kind of attitude about everyone else, cause of course it doesn’t apply to them…

There’s also a question of nature and nurture, cause and effect at play here. Like, does PB control the candy people so much because they can’t take care of themselves? Or are they unable to take care of themselves because she controls them so much? Cinnamon Bun went from cartoonishly stupid to the smartest guy in the room in just a short while away from her, after all. Seems to me that she’s kept them all in arrested development for hundreds if not thousands of years – of course so many of them will be maladjusted, overly dramatic, unskilled, she’s turned them into a kingdom of overgrown children! “You made us this way, princess! It’s all your fault!”

From a more Doylist perspective, this feels like a tension between entertainment and worldbuilding (or maybe it’s entertainment worldbuilding vs thematic worldbuilding). Cause on the one hand, it’s kind of fun that all of the candy people are such hopeless goofballs! On the other hand, if I’m thinking seriously about this setting I can’t just accept that totalitarianism is necessary cause an entire people can’t be independent. When you try to keep both the silly and the depth going in your story you run the risk of the tension breaking. The depth might make the silliness unbearable; “they’ve made this story so rich but they keep falling back on these caricatures!”. Or the silliness might unmake the depth; “well sure, the candy people are just like that, who cares”.

But I think the AT crew generally manage to thread this needle, and at least part of it is that everything is both. Character arcs revolve around silly arguments or wacky adventures; social issues remain couched in how ridiculous this setting is; any comic relief or bit character might get a surprising amount of depth all at once. And that’s part of what makes this show so special and so great.

With that in mind, I can’t wait to see what mix of serious and silly they’ve prepared for us next time, cause the candy people, as well as their current and former rulers, will need to deal with

Oh. Right. The end of the world.

Well okay then.

---

Stray Observations:

I thought this would be a short and simple-write up, but I ended up finding a lot to think about! This has happened to me a few times, and honestly it’s one of the things I like most about writing about this show.

I was going to open this review by talking about how cool it is that the penultimate episode managed to tie this back to so many plot threads and moments from throughout the season. I couldn’t make it work, but I’m glad that I was able to work in so many previous events into what I wrote, including ones that weren’t referenced in the episode (though some of them were actually from the previous season… ah well).

Speaking of which, Starchy returning after escaping only to discover that life under KoO isn’t all that great was a nice touch. (I also thought him seeming to recognize the comet before all the other candy people was a call-back to the Veritas Society discovering it, but apparently not).

Oh, right, I guess there was also something with Orgalorg or whatever.

---

The Comet | Aired: June 5, 2015 | Reviewed by Grumproro

I love this arc for Finn. He starts the season thrown into turmoil, coming face-to-face with a terrible loss. Throughout the season he goes through so much! But he grows, and I think where he ends up is pretty freaking amazing. There’s a lot I could write about here, but I want to focus on Finn in this moment:

And I want to compare it to how he has behaved in the past. Previously, Finn would have immediately flailed and tried to punch his way out of this situation. We have seen this happen several times. We even saw him do this in this very same situation in “The New Frontier”. He did it when he knocked himself out to “conquer” his fear of the ocean. We saw it when he plowed forward to meet his dad, no matter the cost. And I’m not saying he was entirely wrong then. I’ve written before about how I admire Finn’s commitment to action. How he will always, always do what it takes to save his friends and protect others. As a person who maybe overthinks things and fails to act…that’s admirable to me. HOWEVER, there are times when that isn’t the best approach. And Finn has messed up in the past by acting without thinking. But now he can do both. He can launch himself onto a rocket headed for space because he recognizes whatever “Gunter” is up to is no good. He can jump into Orgalorg’s mouth when he sees an opening. He won’t just sit there and let things happen, he won’t just “put the phone down” like Martin would. But he can also pause. And take a breath. And float. And sing.

Yes, once again, a pivotal plot moment and emotional growth is expressed through song. This show just gets it. 

Because of this growth, because of how perfectly this season moves towards this moment, because of Finn’s acceptance, because of the choice that Finn makes in the end, I think this is a brilliant season finale. It just feels right to me. And now we can add another item to the list of things I admire Finn for: being able to accept that Martin is just…gonna Martin. That sucks. But accepting that is HARD. Martin is never going to change. That’s clear. So what can you do? 

Finn also chooses to remain a human, despite the struggle, despite constant disappointments like Martin, despite the fear of the unknown, despite all the mistakes he has made and will make in the future. He’s going to keep on going, he wants to see this thing through, after all. Sure, it might include…all of this

But that isn’t necessarily bad. It just…is. That’s life, ya know? At the end of the adventure, Finn is reunited with Jake, and all the cosmic dreams have been fulfilled, in their own way. What’s next? It’s so nice to have a kind of…calm ending to a season! *deep breath* Sure, things aren’t perfect. Who knows what’s next for PB and the King of Ooo, and that thorn in Finn’s hand was interesting, and what’s the deal with Gunter and Orgalaorg, and is Betty okay or what? So sure, there are questions, but everything feels relatively okay right now. Everything’s falling into place.

wenk