Directed By:
Andres Salaff
Sandra Lee
Written by:
Jesse Moynihan
Sam Alden
Review by:
JosephusBrown
“A man needs a maid”
This is a fun one. It’s another one by Moynihan and Alden, who we last saw work together for The Mountain. This one is more grounded than some of their other stories, though that’s really not saying much.
We get a fun romp through the multiverse that Adventure Time has started to build. Lots of people hate multiversal stuff, because it can really destroy the stakes of a piece of fiction’s world, and I can definitely agree that it can lead to some of the laziest writing. But, for my money, I think Adventure Time has done a good job of it.
For one thing, the way they built the multiverse is different.
In the Enchiridion (which is quasi-canon but fuck it), it’s established that the crux of the multiverse is based around the observer effect, that if every conscious mind were to disappear, the multiverse would blink out of existence. This jibes with what we see in the show: since every wish Prismo grants creates another alternate universe, that means the primary way the multiverse is populated seems to be when a sentient being makes a wish or otherwise interacts with the Time Room. They don’t change their world- they create a new multiverse branch that’s a duplicate of their world, altered to their wish. Thus, the different alternate realities don’t have much in common with each other, which means it’s not really possible for us to go “here’s another world just like this one.”
So official explanation for how the Farmworld multiverse problem shakes out is like this: because Finn and Jake came to the Time Room together but didn’t make a wish together, Jake is safe in the Time Room when Finn changes reality but he still has an image of Finn and their world in his mind, making a paradox that they can exploit to get Finn back, but that this results in the Farmworld getting folded off and being duplicated. I like that this implies that almost nobody ever makes it to Prismo with a buddy, because otherwise this would have happened more.
What’s interesting is that this means that when Prismo says “events before and after a wish will be changed”, what he means is that the universe you came from will get forked going back far enough to make the wish you wished for possible.
It would also be just like Moynihan to come up with a multiverse where the key element is sentient life being able to observe it that causes a particular reality to coalesce out of all the possible worlds.
But honestly, what it boils down to is the same as every other piece of fiction: the world holds together better if the media doesn’t bother digging at it too closely, and is content to let things be without explaining everything. If the story is engaging then the audience is less apt to notice weird contradictions.
Random Thoughts:
- This has one of my favorite recurring jokes: Jake being bad at using his powers. I love how he tries to spell “MAGIC” and gets the letters in the wrong order, then tries to rotate part of it to fix it and makes it worse.
- Cosmic bureaucracy never fails to amuse me, and I like the idea that the mighty Prismo has a boss he has to answer to.
- This is less metaphysical than the usual Moynihan adventure, but treating what are essentially deities like they’re just normal people is very much his jam.
- It’s interesting that the Lich seems to know things from one universe to another- the Farmworld Jake!Lich somehow knows about the multiverse and the Enchiridion, for example. I like the implication that every Lich is the same Lich on some level, or that there’s some sort of continuity between them.
- The specific multiverse theory that Moynihan used to put the Adventure Time multiverse together is here: https://web.stanford.edu/~alinde/1032226.pdf
It’s one where the “multiverse” is actually because reality is a reiterating fractal that constantly spouts new universes in a long iterating chain, new “big bangs” happening in inflationary pockets constantly growing from one another. He even used a diagram from it to base the multiverse we see in this episode (and later in Fionna and Cake).
The Hall of Egress | Directed by Andres Salaff | Written by Tom Herpich, from a story by Kent Osborn, Jack Pendarvis, Tom Herpich, and Ashly Burch | Airdate: March 5, 2016
Review by: LibraryLass
Exploring near the Dungeon Train in search of a rumored cave Flambo’s brother told them about, Finn and Jake stumble upon a dungeon where they are separated by a trap. Finn wanders the ruin alone until finally stumbling upon a vault door– the titular Hall of Egress. His wiry teenage-boy strength fails to wrest the door open, but when he closes his eyes and leans against it a moment in repose, he finds himself falling through it into a strange blue void. But he opens them peepers in surprise right away and just as suddenly finds himself back at the entrance to the Hall. Undeterred, Finn makes a more dedicated attempt, only to achieve the same result within moments.
That essential loop is what drives the rest of the episode, a Groundhog Day-esque cycle that sees Finn get further and further in his escape each time, even as from his perspective weeks and months pass and he goes through life with Jake and BMO blind.
That’s right, it’s time for Finn to have another transcendental experience, and this one’s perhaps the most overtly Buddhist yet. Each try gets more effortless, but also more reliant on Finn giving up more control and more attachments to last. Each time Finn returns home BMO, too simple to really involve themself in such matters, and Jake, ordinarily the one to appreciate the wisdom of a good paradox, try to open him back up to the world by force.
Not that they’re wrong to want Finn to want that, it is after all ultimately what he needs. But after too many attempts to make it happen rather than let it happen, Finn abandons the treehouse entirely and wanders the woods naked until he finds himself back at the hall of egress– with a solid door. Now that he has reduced himself beyond himself, something is different.
Only when he removes many layers of blindfolds and opens his eyes at last does the door allow him passage this time, through a glass labyrinth in a sky full of clouds, above which signs of life can be seen. Finn hears Princess Bubblegum’s voice softly guide him to the center, where he emerges back to where he belongs– right by Jake, but a little wiser. Right where he’s been getting to the whole time.
This episode is a close cousin to Another Way, Puhoy, and Everything’s Jake, with Finn having to learn to let go of the structure, and even of Jake and his lessons, to find a path home. In turn it also reflects where he’s going later in life:
Spoiler level: Distant Lands and Fionna & Cake season 2
his struggles in processing Jake’s death even years after the fact, his infinitely repeating croak dream, and even his final journey in the afterlife all follow a similar pattern.
It also bears an interesting connection to Breezy, where as she does here, Bonnie forms a sort of spiritual guide to Finn’s inner monologue. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that this is Ashly Burch’s first writing credit on an Adventure Time episode, given her starring role in both Breezy and Fionna and Cake. I’m sure that it’s also no surprise that this episode, too, is a Tom Herpich joint, as it hits on some of his favorite themes.
Speaking of Fionna and Cake season 2 spoilers
Hoo boy, how ’bout that ending? I’m very much looking forward to writing about both of this show’s big sapphic confirmations in the months and years to come. I’m just in full big-smile “Garnet seeing Stevonnie for the first time” mode, even now almost three weeks later.