Come Along With Me: Adventure Time – “King’s Ransom” and “Scamps”

King’s Ransom | Boarded by: Hanna K. Nyström & Andres Salaff | First aired: January 15th, 2016 | Reviewed by Lyssie

As we’ve gotten to know more of the Ice King, we’ve learned a lot about what he feels about other people. And here I mean the IK persona specifically, not his original life as Simon; cause as Simon he seemed pretty well-adjusted, he had a loving romantic relationship and professional partnership with Betty, he was a wonderful dad / big brother to Marcy. But as the Ice King it’s never quite clear how he feels about other people, or how much he actually cares about them. A bit like AMO from a few episodes ago, he sometimes seems like someone who can only receive love, not give it. Who only cares about others to the extent that he cares about what they can give him. He kidnaps princesses so that he can have a princess to marry; he keeps his penguins around to hang around with them and also treat them like trash; he forces a friendship on Finn and Jake so he can have friends to hang out with and feel less lonely. The crown’s influence has left him with relatively little empathy, but he still has emotional needs of his own.

When Gunter gets kidnapped we see just how far he really is willing to go for someone he loves. But is that purely out of selfish reasons, cause Gunter was taken from him? Honestly, I don’t think so. If it was just a matter of going to some effort to get him back, then maybe. But his sadness and worry seem awfully genuine; and risking serious injury and death feels like more that what you’d do to get a plaything back. I think, in some way, IK really does care about the people closest to him as people, even though it usually doesn’t show.

This is love, right here.

Him coming straight to Finn and Jake to accuse them of kidnapping Gunter feels similarly revealing of his true feelings. IK is often oblivious to how much other people don’t like him or don’t want to be around him. But his accusation here feels like projection, telling Finn and Jake that they’re jealous of him and Gunter because the truth is, he’s jealous of them. Cause he sees their relationship and knows that he doesn’t have that kind of connection with anyone.

But he did, once… he had Betty. And ever since he lost her, every connection he makes is like an attempt to get back to her. Every princess he kidnaps, he wants “his princess” back. Every attempt to be best friends with Finn and Jake, he wants his best friend back. Even keeping the penguins is almost like a replacement for the person he was actually able to share his life with. Even his breakdown over Gunter’s kidnapping is also a little bit about Betty – this isn’t the first time the most important person in his life disappeared without him knowing why. Even in the broken landscape the crown has made of his mind, he’s always trying to get back to her.

Finn and Jake really are his friends by now, though. Letting someone use you as a replacement object for someone else who’s been kidnapped? Only a real friend would do something that weird.

The difference, now, is that she’s trying to get back to him too! Or rather, she’s trying to get him back to her, to get him back to himself. The first person with the skills to succeed and the motivation to try. And she makes herself possibly even lonelier than he is to do it, staying hidden and putting together an elaborate scheme so she can work on the crown for just a short while. She also can’t give up on the most important person in her life, though in her case it’s a conscious choice.

“All right. Close your eyes…” Damn, girl, that deep voice sounds good on you…

IK’s brief encounter with Betty is a great encapsulation of the paradoxes of his mind. He’s completely focused on making sure Gunter’s okay, but when he sees him he pretty quickly tells Betty she can have him for a hug. He seems to recognize her for a moment, but then it goes away and he just becomes a sleazeball again. As usual there’s nothing conclusive here, especially with the character whose mind is stuck in funhouse mirrors mode. But at least we’re one step closer to Betty and Simon getting back to each other.

Stray Observations –

• Other people I thought might have been behind it all – Gunter himself (or rather Orgalorg breaking free again), some random one-off character from the early seasons with a grudge against Finn and Jake, or original Gunter somehow (look at that moment when Betty starts to step out of the shadows – it could be!).
• The foxes all already having fake crowns and pulling them out was pretty cool! Clever foxes… (though it was probably Betty’s idea).
• Jake letting the foxes get away is a classic case of how he could solve things immediately if he went all the way with his powers. Like, sure, making a bunch of other yous and telling them to go fox-hunting is cool, but you could have just made your arms massive and scooped them all up!

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Scamps

Storyboarded by: Kent Osborne and Somvilay Xayaphone

Originally Aired: January 21, 2016

Review by: CedricTheOwl

It’s been a while since we’ve had a throwback episode on Adventure Time, one that revisits a story structure or theme from the first few seasons with the added perspective of the later seasons.  “Scamps” certainly feels like one of those episodes, specifically a callback to Season 1’s “City of Thieves”, where Finn’s forthright heroism is constantly stymied by a cynical child character.  While that episode ends with Finn once again being bamboozled, the story goes somewhat differently here.

The episode opens with the Notorious Pup Gang, last seen being imprisoned by Lemongrab in “You Made Me”, squaring up against their rival gang of child delinquents, the Marshmallow Kids.  The Marshmallow Kids are bit characters in the Candy Kingdom cast, most prominently seen in season 2’s “Susan Strong” holding the line against her raid against the Candy Kingdom.  Like in that episode, Marshmallow  Kids don’t run from a scrap, as the Pup Gang are about to find out.

Fire it up! Fire it up!

With their turf secure, the Marshmallow Kids go back to their primary money maker:  shell games.  And considering the average intelligence of their marks in the Candy Kingdom, they can’t help but make bank.  Finn and Jake, overseen by Princess Bubblegum, move in to catch them in the act.  Jake tries to scare them straight, only to be floored by exactly how successful their cons are.  When Finn tries to take them to Candy Juvie, the Kids try to worm their way out by shaming him for his comparatively privileged upbringing, then by feigning ignorance of the concept of trees.  Finn isn’t as easily taken in by them as he was by Penny in “City of Thieves”, but he still sees an opportunity for some reformative justice.  With Princess Bubblegum’s blessing, they head into the woods for some camping.

Unfortunately for him, things don’t go as smoothly as he’d planned.  The Kids quickly concoct a scheme to ditch him, having one take a fall into the river while the others start up their shell game con in the forest.  Finn can’t help but feel discouraged, but with Princess Bubblegum’s implicit trust (and a timely comparison from her between the Marshmallow Kids and Finn’s own younger self) he perseveres.

The kids overhear his conversation with Princess Bubblegum, and are actually impressed with him.  He managed to scam her in their eyes (while really just not answering any of her questions and letting her trust in him do the work), which convinces him that he’s a con artist like them.  This once again has broad stroke parallels to “City of Thieves”, where Finn is only able to outdo Penny by becoming a thief himself, but again there’s more nuance here.  Instead of Finn just flipping his alignment for a gag, he learns how to reach these kids by learning to speak to what’s important to them.

Finn leads them through a montage of survival skills, hastily reframing all the skills as steps in a grand con of Mother Nature herself.  It’s silly and awkward, but the kids are eating it up.  The kids’ final exam comes unexpectedly when Finn blunders into a caramel quicksand patch.  Unable to frame the crisis as a flim-flam while under pressure, Finn struggles to get the kids to realize that a thick vine can be used as a rope.  Out of options, they resort to violence (in the form of light shoving) to get the vine down, saving his life but violating their sworn principles against using force to get what they want.  It’s a subtle look at their moral code, which I once again can’t help but compare to “City of Thieves”.  Finn in the early seasons is all about delivering violent retribution to evil, so why is thievery considered such a radical violation of his moral code?

Finn brings Princess Bubblegum to Candy School to show off the Marshmallow Kids’ progress.  They’re right terrors in the classroom:  scamming subtraction, fleecing knowledge from books, and suckering a globe into teaching them geography.  It’s just a little bit too perfect of a setup in my mind.  Did Finn get them to construct this facade to get them off the hook, on the promise that they too could trick Bubblegum as he had?  Or did they really take his lessons to heart?  Who’s to say, except that Jake will ensure the three card monte grifting scene stays strong, even in their absence.

Notable Quotes:

• “Thanks for pulling me out of that water street, Finn.”  “It’s called a river, Gary.”
• “Ok, gotta run!  I’ll assume everything’s going great because if it wasn’t you would have said something bye!”