Preboot

Storyboarded by: Aleks Sennwald and Adam Muto

Originally Aired: November 19, 2016

Review by: CedricTheOwl

Our boy Finn has had a rough time over the past few episodes, fatally damaging the sword that is also himself and falling into an understandable state of depression.  After a rejuvenating musical pick-me-up from his friends, he’s back on the adventure trail and he’s accompanied by Susan Strong as they investigate pre-Mushroom War human culture.  In the absence of a strong connection to himself (or rather, his other self), he’s looking to fill that void by connecting with other humans.

“Preboot” opens with Finn, Jake, and Susan’s quest to unearth pre-War human relics hitting paydirt.  Low tide in Beautopia has revealed an ancient arcade, full of busted cabinets and fossils of feathered, stinging honey horses.  A cave-in forces them to flee this historical trove, only to be greeted by the emergence of an enormous subterranean craft burrowing up from the ground.

A gangway emerges from the craft and from it emerges none other than Tiffany, last seen being swallowed by a giant worm in “Dentist” and now sporting a bionic arm.  In a fun detail, his missing arm is on the left, making him even more of a warped mirror of Finn.  Tiffany invites them in for a tour of the craft, much more eloquent than usual and clearly enjoying being the center of attention from his blood brother Jake and blood enemy Finn.  Susan, however, starts acting strangely, making dialup connection noises that seemingly makes her able to interface with the craft’s systems.  Following a trail even she doesn’t understand leads her to an isolation chamber containing the craft’s captain, who identifies herself as Dr. Gross.

Fig 1:  Dr. Gross, in no way resembling a Big Daddy

At this point, the episode starts hitting hard on two motifs: exiled mad scientists from classic literature and transhumanism.  Dr. Gross’ vessel resembles a narwhal combined with a squid, referencing Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the shape of Captain Nemo’s vessel as well as one of the most famous scenes from the story where the narwhal-shaped submarine does battle with a giant squid.  The combination of two animals further references H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, about an exiled mad scientist who uplifts animals to sapience by surgically combining them with other animals and humans.  The Dr. Moreau connection is only heightened once Dr. Gross shows off her menagerie of hybrids.

As the previous screenshot demonstrates, her exosuit seems to be modeled after the Big Daddy enemy from Bioshock, a much more modern work of science fiction about an exiled mad scientist with strong themes of transhumanism.  An automated voice even welcomes the adventurers to the ship by calling them “new flesh”, very clearly referencing David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.  Even as Dr. Gross sings a pleasant tune about the wonders of her work, the show’s choices of references have made it clear that she’s much more dangerous than her exterior suggests.

After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts

Dr. Gross ends her tour in her examination rooms, providing free lollipops for her guests and ditching her STEM suit.  To Finn’s amazement, she’s a human as well!  Albeit one with significant bionic modifications.  She points out that her mods are conceptually no different than glasses or pacemakers, but she has a receptive audience in Finn.  As early as season 4’s “Who Would Win”, Finn has expressed fascination with upgrading himself with bionic limbs.  Perhaps if she’d known how eager he would be, she wouldn’t have felt the need to preemptively lace their lollipops with a paralytic agent.

Her true form revealed along with her true colors, Dr. Gross begins to monologue about normal mad scientist things:  how her genius went unappreciated, how her unstoppable hybrid armies will drive her enemies before her, and how she’ll forcibly augment the other humans.  That last part catches Finn’s attention:  as far as he knew, he was the last human in Ooo.   Other humans are exactly what he’s been looking for, either subconsciously or consciously since he first met Susan Strong back in her titular episode.

It’s not strictly true that he’s the only human left; as he pointed out earlier in the episode though; his father Martin is present even if he’s abandoned his corporeal form to travel with the Catalyst Comet, Betty was brought from the past to Ooo but is currently incommunicado thanks to the weight of Magic Man’s power, and Ice King is… Ice King.  Susan is possibly still human, but every attempt to answer the question of her lineage has only muddled her origins more.  Even if he is technically no longer the Last Teen Boy on Earth, he’s no less alone.

Speaking of Susan, when Dr. Gross discovers her cybernetic implant, she takes that opportunity to leap into action, punching away the not-so-good doctor and grabbing the paralyzed Finn and Jake.  She hid away the poisoned lollipop given to her, justifiably suspicious of Dr. Gross but also seeming to possess more knowledge about their predicament than even she can account for.  After a pitched battle with Dr. Gross’ activated menagerie, Susan escapes with Finn and Jake with a little help from a morally conflicted Tiffany.  The episode ends with Dr. Gross’ craft exploding with all hands aboard… which doesn’t include many of the hybrids from the menagerie!  Unfortunately, the giant flying eel is hungry for candy, and sets off towards the Candy Kingdom to wreak havoc…

Back in season 6 I mentioned that the season contained some of Adventure Time’s biggest experiments in terms of thematic complexity and storytelling.  Letting Jesse Moynihan off his leash gave us such classics incredible works as “Astral Plane” and “The Mountain”, but it’s also fair to say that the show’s reach went far beyond the knowledge of Gnostic philosophy and other elements of mysticism of the average viewer, let alone their 6-11 target audience.  Season 7 served as a bit of a course correction on that front, emphasizing more serialized elements while still bringing in strong character work and themes requiring a high level knowledge of folklore and mysticism to fully grasp.

This episode, in my opinion, is where the show hits a happy medium of traditional storytelling and referential thematic content within a single episode.  Finn’s motivation for trusting Dr. Gross (as well as being excited by the prospect of bionic limbs) stem from character beats extending back to season 2.  Meanwhile, the wide range of connecting literary and video game references give a canny viewer insight into the new character’s motivations and mindset long before she explains it herself.  The writing is dense but fast paced, thought provoking but funny and action-packed.  And it makes for a strong opener to the second part of this two-parter.

Stray Observations –

• Dr. Gross was voiced by Lennon Parham, a character actor and comedian best known at the time for her run on Comedy Bang Bang
• I thought Clock Bear in Dr. Gross’ lab looked familiar, and sure enough he was first seen in Finn’s dreams in “Hoots”
• This is Aleks Sennwald’s second storyboarding credit, after “Five Short Tables”
• Upon review, while Finn and Jake are happily sucking on the proffered lollipops, Susan Strong does not have one in her mouth.  Good attention to detail.

Notable Quotes –

• “Hmm.  It has been a while since I had a good hex put on me.”
• “Come to me, angry demons!  Teach me a dark lesson!”
• “Come with me, and I’ll explain almost everything.”
• “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t taken candy from yet.”
• “Wolflards!  They’ve got the high endurance of a sea lard combined with the bloodthirsty killer instincts of a sea lard.”

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“Reboot” (Part 2) | Written & Storyboarded by Tom Herpich & Steve Wolfhard | Original Airdate: November 19, 2016 | Review by Mrs Queequeg

Tiffany’s back, that’s never good news. But it turns out he’s not the threat, instead it’s Susan Strong aka Seeker X-J-7-7, who has been looking for Finn. This was intended to be the seventh season finale and you can tell by the way the stakes are raised immediately.

Finn’s fighting a giant electric eel headed straight for the Candy Kingdom, because he has electricity immunity that was coincidentally obtained in my prior review, Flute Spell. Unfortunately, Susan does not know this and comes to his aid, but only succeeds in re-instating her brain chip. Susan fixates on collecting Finn and no one, not the Banana Guards, not Nurse Poundcake, not Princess Bubblegum, or Jake will stop her.

The Gumball Guardians zap Susan, but she absorbs their power and becomes Uber!Susan. Rattleballs appears, because we are getting the greatest hits in this finale but she is able to dispense with him easily, destroying him in the process. Rest in Power, Rattleballs. His last words, “Yabba Dabba Dabba Dabba.” Susan grabs Finn and flees.

Jake catches up to Susan on the beach and they start fighting. Eventually, Finn gets in the Jake Suit and they start to get an edge. They throw Susan into the ocean, they ask if she’s okay. Finn doesn’t want to fight her – look at our boy, moving past violent options. He says that she only needs to ask, he’d probably go with her if she gave him the option. Susan surfaces, holding a massive anchor. She says the prime directive must be completed and nails Finn and Jake. Finn’s able to crawl out of the Finn Suit but Jake croaks, “Yabba dabba dabba dabba,” which freaked me out upon first watch. Surely they’re not killing him off now, right?

Finn apologizes before attempting to slice Susan, but she’s hurting too many people. He gets a good hit in on her brain mech and it crumbles, returning her to former personality, but not before she slams him to the sand. This awakens the grass sword, which only defies Finn to protect him, and it shoots out of him to subdue Susan.

Finn hits his tendrils and she release her, creepily crawling across the sand back to him. They pass over the Finn sword, and then return to it. They elevate the Finn sword, and detach from Finn’s arm. The grass sword encases the Finn sword and we see Finn’s face, then the spider’s face before it falls to the sand and then grows arms. Grass sword animal crawls onto the anchor, while Finn calls, “come back.”

There’s not a lot to say about this one, at least as I type this up tiredly. It’s mostly a placesetting episode, confirming over the two parter that Susan is a human, and she and Finn are not the only ones left. Unfortunately, Dr Gross is an unethical scientist, so not all humans are worthy, but this still raises a lot of questions. More questions abound about the grass creature. How can two swords create life? We don’t know the origin of the grass sword, but it was able to graft a forearm on Finn without noticeable damage. The Finn sword was created from a parallel/time traveling Finn. How has this made a new creature? Who is this new creature? I know we’ll find out next week, so it’s tough to discuss anything, spoilers sweetie. I do love the scorpmonk, he’s doing his best.

Notes:

• This episode did make me laugh a lot early on with Jake’s cannon incompetence, and there were a lot of moments that I recognized from popular gifs. I was surprised that many were from the opening moments.
• Susan’s brain mech sparks a “Signal Received/Transport Requested” from … somewhere