Angel Face
Directed by:
Elizabeth Ito and Sandra Lee
Written and Storyboarded by:
Seo Kim & Somvilay Xayaphone
Reviewed By:
Josephus Brown
I’m kind of at a loss for this episode (And the next, actually, though thankfully I’m not the one writing about it.)
So far, even in the seemingly throwaway episodes, there’s been important little bits and pieces, but honestly this stretch for the next five episodes mostly just feels like the crew taking a deep breath and re-centering themselves between the huge developments of Stakes and what’s coming.
The broad strokes here are pretty simple- BMO bribes their friends with sentient sandwiches to take part in their cowboy western LARP, until someone thinks its real and kidnaps Finn for the pretend bounty, which is a great sentence to get to write and the fact that this is “simple” is a real statement on how absurd this show can get.
I really like how this feels like BMO growing up, in a weird way, after the events of The More You Know. They’re still the same goofball playing games, but now confident enough in them to share them with their friends.
Before they were like a latchkey kid left alone to entertain themselves, but now it’s like the three of them interact on more equal footing, and I really like that. It’s also nice to see BMO cutting loose and having fun after killing someone.
The plot itself is kinda ramshackle, and mostly gets by on how absurd it is, between the vaguely unsettling horror of the sentient sandwich preparation, BMO and Jake haggling over his fee, and the running gag of Jake half-assing his horse design but slowly getting better as he gets more into the game, which also serves a little industry in-joke about how incredibly hard it is to draw a good horse, especially with BMO’s “eh.. it reads” comment.
“I did try! Horses are hard!”
It might be because I love westerns, but I probably like this one more than a lot of people, even though it’s kind of silly. When a show gets so much backstory as this one, it can feel like a letdown when you’ve been waiting for another episode only to get a little quiet meandering nonsense like this one, but personally I really like the low-key stakes here.
It’s nice to have an episode every once in awhile where the villain is defeated by Finn bashing them on the head with a rock.
Stray Observations:
- I don’t like ketchup, so it being sugary tomato vomit here is real apt. The storyboard is also hilariously specific about the staging of that vomit scene, boarding it out over like six pages.
- “This prison will never hold me!” It’s nice to see the show still occasionally subverting a stupid trope by having the villain yell that and immediately get put in a better prison.
- “One sandwich per horse hour, six hour minimum.” The haggling over Jake’s fee is great.
- “Tumbleweed Turk is always the last to know!” Poor NEPTR.
- I love how BMO levels the little pretend town in the name of law and order then says, “We can rebuild!” then leaves.
- “It’s time to go home. Because there are no more sandwiches.” Jake’s priorities are always spot on.
- Me-Mow pulling up Jackrabbit Johnson’s eyepatch and realizing it’s Finn is one of those quiet gags that always makes me laugh. Finn’s disguise just being a fake mustache and two eyepatches is also a great quiet joke.
- “I used to be a guy who ran from Glob, with the wind at my back, and the devil on my shoulder. Now I’m the guy chasing those guys. Yet, the devil is still here, sleeping on my couch.”
- “BMO that hurt. Are you going to apologize?”
“Horses do not talk.”
digs in spurs - “I’M OLD ENOUGH TO VOTE!” Why does this make me think of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Meatwad randomly pulling a gun out of nowhere.
- I kind of wonder if Angel Face is a reference to Angel Eyes, the “Bad” from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, though BMO is clearly more like the Clint Eastwood character here. The plot vaguely has that sort of vibe to it, what with the fake bounty hunting thing where the character would get turned in by his buddy for the reward money, then rescued, and they’d turn him in again in the next town up the road. If I squint I can even make out the outlines of a reference where BMO manages to get Finn’s hands untied with a trick shot, to the bit in that movie where saving someone by shooting them out of a noose is a recurring thing. Maybe I’m just overthinking it.
Spoiler Level: SNAIL
He’s the mayor of the tiny town waving hello to the new visitors who OH MY GOD OH DEAR LORD OH THE HUMANITY
President Porpoise is Missing!
Air Date: January 12, 2016
Written & Storyboarded by Kent Osborne and Sam Alden
Story by Kent Osborne, Pendleton Ward. Jack Pendarvis, and Adam Muto
Directed by Andres Salaff (supervising) and Sandra Lee (art)
Reviewed by Malcolm Rambert
There’s a podcast I listen to occasionally called Talking Simpsons, run by two guys named Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert. They have a number of other podcasts, but for the ones that recap episodes of The Simpsons, Futurama, and King of the Hill, they have a beginning segment where they decide to recap events that happened on the day an episode premiered.
I’ve always thought this was a neat format to give context to what was going on when an episode was released, since TV shows are often made reflecting on the now, and I’ve thought about how well this could go if someone were to do the same thing for an Adventure Time podcast. (Like, did you know an episode of this show premiered on the same day Margaret Thatcher died?) It’s a long shot, but considering this episode is 1) premiering towards the beginning of a new year and 2) part of the 5th #AdventureBomb, it’d be a neat exercise.
The original promo
So to begin off: Michael Bay’s newest film 13 Hours premieres in theaters. Both The Revenant and Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens still dominate at the box office. And a new Assassin’s Creed game set in India is released. What struck me the most about this day is that is also the day where President Barack Obama gave his final State of the Union address, specifically around his plans to make tighter gun laws and closing the Guantanamo Bay prison (hmmm). We’ll wait until the end of the recap to see how something like this relates to the episode at hand.
So in this episode, we start off with Finn & Jake playing a video game on BMO (one that looks kind of fun to play might I add) when we suddenly we get a warning:
GASP!
This new development on Jake’s video-chat buddy puts them on the path to find out what happened to this democratically elected figure of the sea, along with Banana Man, BMO, and Ice King (or so he thinks).
I took it upon myself to cover this episode since it’s a one-off that doesn’t progress much and I figured it would be a nice challenge. Three things stick out to me about this episode:
The first is the humor; it can certainly get repetitive to say with these reviews here, but this does harken back to the silly nature of the earlier episodes of the series, albeit with some changes. It’s not as visually goofy as it was back in the day, what with some of those old folks responsible for the silly faces either not on-board this season or stopped working on the show altogether. Also, Ice King is an utilized character here, and on the side of helping out, something that wouldn’t have happened in the earlier seasons. I say all this because despite all the changes, it’s still pretty funny, whether it’s BMO keeping Ice King occupied with a fake underwater mission or the roundtable of President Porpoise’s cabinet. My favorite joke in the episode by far is the fact that apparently everyone just sneaks around the tree house. They first ease you in with characters you’d expect to see this attitude from, like the Ice King, Marceline, and heck even Starchy. And then you got PB running out from hiding behind a closet while eating a sub sandwich
Does Princess Bubblegum ALSO like to hear other people talk to not feel lonely?
Next we have the presence of Banana Man, who helps our main duo get underwater with his submarine. This is the 4th major presence of this character so far, and both him and we the audience recognize that he’s sort of being ignored over the course of this episode. I find this funny in a meta-way, given his voice actor is Weird Al Yankovic. Now I’m no fan of Weird Al (not a hater either, was just never really pushed to check out his stuff growing up) but I am fully aware of his reach and influence. He’s voiced plenty of bit characters in animated series over the years (heck, there was a podcast that covered them as a recurring segment), and this is no exception. Though I do find it humorous that when usually a character voiced by such a beloved and well-known figure would get major focus in any other cartoon, the characters are sort of ignoring him. He does find solace in Representative Cybil at the end, so that’s nice.
The third and final note about this episode for me is: the land of Ooo has presidents?! You don’t often think about it until you recall that pretty much every society we’ve come across in this show so far has been either a remote village or a legit monarchy. Even Finn has to ask if President Porpoise is even real at the beginning of the episode. Though while democratically elected, this system doesn’t seem much better if such a commotion can be caused by one representative forgetting the reminder he gave himself that the president was on vacation.
But to go back to the idea of the presidency and 2016; this does call to mind how this was one of the last supposedly “apolitical” depictions of a president I’ve seen in fiction; at least before, everything changed later that year. This is probably nostalgia talking, but for those last 8 years, it still felt that the political idea of the president and the pop culture idea of the president existed in harmony with one another. (Personally I’m reminded of Matthew Vaughn fully depicting Obama as the president in Kingsman: The Secret Service, but self-admittedly abstaining from portraying Trump for the sequel). This isn’t me calling it good or bad, just an observation, might even swing back in the other direction if these next 3 years say anything.
I’m reminded of a mutual showing me their podcast discussion (Kicker of Elves) on the recent film One Battle After Another, and one point was on how it’s gotten controversy by certain groups of people; one of the hosts even stating “entertainment is politics now”.
I interpret this line not as how a lot of entertainment is about politics, but just the fact that a lot of people now can’t watch something without reminding themselves of a social or political issue that they are passionate about or upsets them. It’s certainly an interesting time what with plenty of things being labeled as “woke” or “anti-woke”; sure this type of thinking existed even during the 2000s, but with how broad social media has gotten on the Internet, it’s much more noticeable (who knew that the 2023 Mario movie and the Barbie movie would ruffle peoples’ feathers?).
Notes:
- The year is winding down and I haven’t been happy with the amount of writing I’ve done. I’ve been meaning to finish essays and interviews for some legit publications and I just keep getting anxious about my work. Being that this blog is more freeform and I get to write whatever thoughts I have about a show I really like, this has been practically freeing in a way. So I want to say thanks for the community and support. You can find me on Letterboxd and other sites if you’re interested in my thoughts on stuff.