Blank-Eyed Girl | Written and Storyboarded by: Somvilay Xayaphone & Seo Kim | Aired: January 13, 2016 | Reviewed by Grumproro

I might not have been the best person to review this episode because I don’t really know anything about urban legends or cryptics or any of that. Or maybe that makes me a good person to review it? I dunno. I signed up for this one because I wanted something low-key without much connection to the bigger narrative. And because I remember the girls looking like they belong in a Japanese horror story. I had forgotten about the Starchy element completely, and only remembered the girls weren’t actually what they seemed in the end. Which I think is a really fun way to end this little story. In terms of reviewing, I’d say this episode is…good! It establishes the conflict early on, there are several funny “fake out” moments along the way, and Finn and Jake seem like they’re having fun (yes, fun being scared, I’ll get to that). I love a good lore-heavy episode, but it’s also nice to still have moments like this. 

I wonder if young viewers found/find this episode scary? I don’t find the Blank-Eyed Girls scary, but they are a little creepy. And some of the animation at the end is definitely unnerving. So I can see a young person being a little frightened at first. I think the moment it turns is when the dancing starts. At that point, I can’t help but think “cute!” because…so cute!

But being scared can be fun, right? I love finding a scary movie that actually spooks me. It’s difficult to do, but I’m always looking for a good scare. That’s what it feels like Finn (and Jake, to a lesser extent) is doing in this episode. He wants to believe. He’s ready to be spooked! They way they giggle and run and then giggle and then run their way home is when I really started to think about this. It feels like play. And I like to see Finn and Jake getting a chance to play like this. No one is in any real danger, that I can tell (BMO doesn’t seem concerned), and it ends with a big question mark that just…goes away. I like that.  

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Bad Jubies| Written & Directed by: Kirsten Lepore | Aired: January 14, 2016 | Reviewed by Mrs Queequeg

Make no mistake, this one’s a stunner. There’s a reason why it won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation1The fifth Emmy win, following Andy Ristaino in 2013, Nick Jennings in 2014, and Tom Herpich in both 2015 and 2016, the Annie Award for Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children’s Audience, in addition to being nominated for two additional Annie Awards. The crew for this went above and beyond, even animating the intro and a title card. 

The plot is, as it needs to be for stop motion, very simple: A storm is coming and the main three + Lumpy Space Princess need to create a shelter. Enjoyment of this episode hinges on your interest/appreciation for stop motion and how much you love LSP. 

We open in a hilly valley near the tree house, where LSP explains people with “neggy vibes” to Finn, while doing absolutely no introspection. Jake is taking advantage of this newly design landscape by glide-slicing (what I would call grass boarding) on BMO. They crash into Finn and LSP, and we get our first looks at everyone in their proper third dimension.

Lumpy Space Princess makes a meta joke about her body being weird, which was a reference to the struggle that the team had making giving the lumps their due as a puppet. 

BMO, who looks adorable as a puppet, gets an automated weather service warning for a storm alert. There’s a mega-deadly thunderthquake disasterstorm coming:

Today, expect stormnado winds and an impending monsoonami. Flurricances possible. Chance of survival: 29%

Finn assigns jobs to BMO and LSP but Jake’s gone AWOL, up a hill. Here you can get a really good look at the sand blasted ground, as well as the texturing on Jake’s body, and the cloth of Finn’s clothes. All three pieces of his outfit have different weaves. In addition to my general reverence for stop motion, the set did a phenomenal job creating the pieces needed for this episode.

BMO takes trips back and forth to the creek, while LSP sources food in an abandoned cabin. 

Lumpy Space Princess, who is pulling her weight for possibly the first time ever in her life – definitely the first time we’ve seen her intentionally and successfully be helpful, gets more and more fed up with Jake, who is working on “something big” and not contributing to the bunker. BMO goes to talk to Jake, and is disappointed by the lack of evidence that Jake’s working on anything. 

Eventually, the gang gets frustrated with him and LSP goes to confront him. I make a lot of allowances for LSP’s behaviour, I enjoy the raw emotion and frustration that she displays as our resident id character/teenager, but this exchange is very relatable to anyone who’s done a group projects. That is to say everyone who’s gone to school and had a job.

Lumpy Space Princess: BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I OBVIOUSLY LOVE SUNSETS CUTE ANIMALS BUT WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS RIGHT NOW!

Jake: But i-

Lumpy Space Princess:You know what! I just can’t with you right now!

In the bunker, everyone is bored but no one wants to play Spin the Bottle with LSP. They sit and sleep, eventually getting on each other’s nerves before Jake reveals his big project: sounds of nature. He thinks that there’s some negative energy from the storm, so he counter balances everyone with some bird calls. The fog of the storm lifts as he sings, replaced by the sun and warmth of the outdoors

They’re having such a zen time that they don’t even realize that the mega-deadly thunderthquake disasterstorm 2 Kevin Richardson has burst into their shelter. The storm admits that it only feels good when knocking other people down, and that it doesn’t recognize the sounds of nature. Jake wants to fight bad jubies with god jubies so replays noises of nature, encouraging everyone else until their music becomes a full blown song. The storm realizes that he hasn’t heard the sound of a bird since he was a baby breeze. He vows to slow down and explore the rest of the beautiful day.

There’s a pretty simple message here and it’s true that we suffer when we’re separated from nature. It has a healing impact on our general demeanor, as well as being good for us. I recently heard about a study that looked at focus after being in nature. This part stuck out to me the most

In our studies, people who took 50-minute walks in nature showed about a 20 percent improvement in working memory compared to walks in busy urban areas. Even viewing photos or listening to nature sounds for 10 minutes helps, though not as much as the real thing.

Interestingly, enjoyment isn’t required. People who walked in a cold Michigan winter, and didn’t like it at all, still showed the same cognitive boost as those who walked on a warm summer day. So comfort matters. You need to feel safe, but you don’t have to “love” nature for it to be good for you.3https://wisdomcenter.uchicago.edu/news/wisdom-news/how-nature-restores-our-minds

Oh, and at the end, and eagle snatches LSP in the bunker.

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This is my favorite of the guest animations; which is why I shouted ‘I knew it!’ when I watched Kirsten Lepore admit one of her favorite characters is Lumpy Space Princess. Lepore’s favoritism was repeated by Rachel Larson, Animation Supervisor, that “LSP is one of the most amazing characters that [they’ve] ever animated.”

Look at these stills. These are faces only an mother animator could love:

Notes 

 

Next week, we continue with King’s Ransom and Scamps