Come Along With Me: Adventure Time – “Two Swords” and “Do No Harm”

Two Swords

Storyboarded by: Tom Herpich and Steve Wolfhard

Originally Aired: January 23, 2017

Review by: CedricTheOwl

First of all, I’d like to thank Mrs Queequeg and Katie for providing some much needed background information on the episode ordering for this mini arc.  The Adventure Time crew originally wrote “Two Swords” and “Do No Harm” as the first episodes of season 8, with “Preboot” and “Reboot” as the cliffhanger finale of season 7.  So if it seems odd for the show to drop a status quo shifting, four part serialized arc in the middle of the a season, just know it was originally conceived of as a bridge between two seasons.  It’s also worth pointing out that this stretch of episodes marks the start of Cartoon Network’s erratic scheduling for the show.  Instead of releasing one episode per week, episodes going forward were released in what was known as “bomb format”1A lot of digital ink has been spilled about the reasons for and consequences of Cartoon Network’s bomb format release system.  Was it trying to capitalize on the runaway success of the original Stevenbomb, which turned Steven Universe from a relatively niche show to genuine cultural icon over the course of a single week?  Was it the network’s attempt to compete with Netflix’s policy of releasing an entire season of a TV show at once?  Was it the cause of Cartoon Network’s precipitous drop in viewership numbers, or simply the scapegoat of broader industry trends brought about by streaming services outcompeting cable networks?  It’s all interesting network history, but also far beyond the scope of this article., aka new episodes released every day of a certain week followed by weeks or months of radio silence.  “Preboot” and “Reboot” both aired in November of 2016 while their immediate follow-ups aired the following January.  All this is to say that there’s a reason why nearly half of this episode consists of a recap flashback.

Though really, only a small portion of the flashback is actual recap.  After a brief abstraction of the conclusion of Finn’s fight with a hulked-out Susan Strong, the flashback gives us the full scene of Finn’s first encounter with the mysterious new grass entity, born of a combination of his Grass Sword arm and the remains of his Finn Sword.  The creature at first seems confused, barely able to walk and unable to speak intelligibly.  That changes once they see Susan’s badly injured form.  They dash over to her, prompting Finn to attempt to intercept them, reasonably assuming they’re an extension of the out-of-control Grass Sword arm that injured Susan to begin with.  After a brief tussle, the grass entity resolves themself into a new form:  one that strongly resembles Finn.

Fig 1: Finn Mertens, 100% hero.

Despite the physical similarities, this Finn isn’t quite like our own.  He’s very quick to attack our Finn, leaping to Susan’s defense when Finn touches a sore spot on her body (ie. every part of her body).  I can’t remember the last time I saw Finn straight up pummeling someone on the ground like Grass Finn does in this episode, while our Finn tries to talk things out and figure out a solution.  If anything, Grass Finn’s quick turns to comic violence and confidence in his self-proclaimed hero status remind me of an early season Finn.

Any attempts to talk reason with Grass Finn are swiftly derailed when Jake joins the conversation, though.  He immediately sides with Human Finn, reasoning that Grass Finn is a clone or a doppelganger of some kind, which isn’t really a far-fetched notion considering the last time they had an imposter Finn on their hands it ended up with the Lich getting ahold of the Enchiridion.  The united brothers taunt Grass Finn until he makes like a tree and leaves, but from his stricken expression it’s clear that there’s more to him than just a copy with malevolent intention.

Seeking familiarity, Grass Finn heads for the treehouse, but finds only a BMO who’s just as afraid of him as Finn and Jake were.  He has all of Finn’s memories though, reminiscing over a photo album of their past adventures until the physical differences between himself and the Finn in the photograph become too obvious to ignore.  He then flashes back to Finn’s duel with Bandit Princess, which resulted in Finn Sword being pierced and filled with debris from the Grass Sword.  A green spider-like monster emerges from the grass, trapping the Finn inside the sword in its webbing before proposing an alliance.  The Grass Demon speaks in the same voice as Grass Finn, so it’s safe to assume the creature is in control of this new gestalt person they’ve become.

I’ve written a few reviews this season on episodes that center on Finn’s dissatisfaction with his self-image.  “Don’t Look” featured a curse that externalized every thought that ran through his head, painting an unflattering image of how he saw those around him.  “I Am A Sword” features Finn losing the Finn Sword (and the self represented therein), and ends with the two aspects of Finn represented by the Grass Sword and the Finn Sword crossing blades with one another.  It’s only fitting that “Two Swords” follows that up with Finn meeting a synthesis of those two aspects of himself:  the Finn within the Finn Sword representing a version of himself locked in stasis in the past, and the Grass Sword representing Finn’s sublimated violent tendencies and desire for wish fulfillment. And our Finn rejects them.

As a side note, I find it very creepy how nonchalant the Grass Demon is about engulfing Sword Finn

After BMO calls Finn and Jake for aid, they find Grass Finn still at the treehouse, and he’s not taking the day’s events well.  Making a mess, browbeating himself, drowning out his own thoughts with discordant music; his behavior reminds me of a child throwing a tantrum over something they don’t understand, a comparison only heightened when Grass Finn keeps turning himself to avoid eye contact with Jake as he receives an angry lecture.

Finn, on the other hand, decides to deescalate the situation.  He offers Grass Finn a Finncake, showing his acceptance that the new Finn isn’t an evil clone or alternate version of himself, but just himself.  This brings Grass Finn to his senses, and he immediately laments the mess he’s made.  The episode ends with Finn welcoming Grass Finn into their home as they make sense of their new self and their place in the world, even as the final shot reminds us that there’s more to the Grass Finn than just another Finn.

This episode is an excellent escalation of the themes of identity and self-reflection Finn has been struggling with throughout season 8.  Faced with a version of himself that acts like his younger self, his first instinct is to reject him and chase him away.  However, he has gained the maturity and capacity for introspection that allows him to recognize the person within what seems like a threat, neutralizing them through an act of compassion.  Grass Finn will have a huge impact on the trajectory of Adventure Time going forward, and I can’t wait to talk about him and his relationship more.

So I won’t.  Onward to the next episode!

Notable Quotes –

• “I’ve been working on this new arm since the last time this happened, so please don’t blow it up so fast this time.”  “Heh heh.  We’ll see.”
• “I think I’ve heard just about enough… to know that I need to hear that all over again.”
• “It’s got that big boy musk.  Socks, trash, butts, all the stinks of home.”
• “Take my anger into your face!”

Stray Observations –

• There’s something very funny about Finn and PB doubling down on the “as you know” flashback joke.  It’s a very inside baseball screenwriting gag that makes the extended recap more palatable.
• I also got a laugh out of Jake reviving himself in the flashback, only to be flattened in exactly the same manner so as to appear as he does in the present.

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Do No Harm

Storyboarded by: Laura Knetzger and Lyle Partridge

Originally Aired: January 23, 2017

Review by: CedricTheOwl

Day one of cohabitation with Grass Finn and the boys are perfectly in sync: they’re lying in bed and moping.  Reflections are the predominant motif of this episode, reinforced by the frequent match fades between Finn and Grass Finn on their parallel adventures in self-discovery.  But even as the episode draws comparisons between Finn and his vegan grass-fed counterpart, it ultimately ends up revealing just how dissimilar the two are from one another.

As Finn heads off to check on Susan, still comatose in the Candy Kingdom, Jake attempts to bond with Grass Finn by recreating some of Finn’s favorite activities.  First up is meatloaf, and despite his enthusiasm to indulge in his favorite meal, Grass Finn soon finds out that his body can’t eat.  He’s biologically different from Finn in ways that are increasingly difficult for him to ignore, and that’s not even getting into his fussier, more demanding personality, even more so than season 1 Finn.  While Grass Finn is understandably discouraged, Jake tries to keep momentum up by pivoting to a different approach.

Meanwhile, Original Recipe Finn is talking to an unconscious Susan.  He recognizes how she’s largely blameless for the rampage her control chip forced onto her, theorizing that it’s similar to how his Grass Sword arm went out of control to stop her.  Finn hated the feeling of being out of control of his own actions, no matter how physically powerful it made him.  This attitude is an important milestone for our boy, and I’ll get into its relevance a bit later.

Finn’s words of remorse are interrupted by an incensed Doctor Princess, whose rant about Finn’s culpability in Susan’s injuries quickly veers into a rant about her general lack of medical knowledge.  The old joke about Doctor Princess not being a real princess finally gets its corollary, as we learn she’s not even a real doctor; “doctor” is just her given name.  Fed up with the long hours she’s been working, she hands her lab coat off to Finn and heads out on vacation.

“Listen to me, Finn.  Nominative determinism is bunkus!  I bet you’re not even a fish appendage.”

Over at the treehouse, Grass Finn’s efforts to find more Finn activities he can participate in are not bearing fruit.  He can’t play the flute, one of Finn’s favorite leisure activities, because he realizes he doesn’t breathe, one of Finn’s all-time favorite pastimes.  Jake hastily suggests going out to fight evil, and while that does raise Grass Finn’s spirits, his creepy monotone delivery while thinking about what dungeon he wants to clear leaves Jake unsettled.  Grass Finn proceeds to carve a path of destruction through a maze of grass, using the Grass Sword that’s now a part of him to devastating effect.  In a way it reminds me of Flame Princess using her powers to blast through the Vault of Bones; he doesn’t even humor the riddle-spewing tardigrade.  Despite crushing the dungeon thoroughly, Grass Finn doesn’t feel any better for it.  He catches a glimpse of his reflection in a puddle, and hates what he sees.

Back at General Candy Hospital, Finn is finding success in his new profession.  He removes a thorn from the unsurprisingly hypochondriac Mr. Fox, he cures the bizarre olfactory hallucinations of the Ice King, and he’s soon leading a peer review on the health benefits of throwing swords at your patients.  As you might surmise from the last point, Finn’s approach to medicine could use some refinement.  Doctor Princess returns just in time to see the failed results of Finn’s other treatments:  Mr. Fox’s paw is grotesquely swollen, while Ice King’s back is spontaneously folding itself in half.  Finn takes his failure as a medical practitioner with sullen grace, but for a while, when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror, he liked what he saw.

As Grass Finn and Meat Jake clear the Grass Maze, Grass Finn’s goal for being here soon becomes clear.  Atop the hill stands the shack of the Grass Wizard, the same wizard who created the cursed sword that eventually gave rise to our grass boy.  He’s confronting his own errant and irresponsible father figure, just as Finn sought to do after losing his arm.  Despite the similarities in their motivations, their approaches to overcoming the influence of their father figures could not be more different.  Finn initially wanted to hurt Martin the same way Martin hurt him, but after getting the first taste of revenge he found it not to his liking.  Grass Finn does no such thing, instead demanding answers to his questions about own creation and then dispassionately beating the Grass Wizard down when he finds those answers not to his liking.  As Jake says, it’s not the kind of hero work Finn does, even if it is broadly similar.

With this contrast outlined, I want to talk about the Grass Sword itself, and its metaphorical place in the creation of Grass Finn.  When he first acquired it, the Grass Sword would grant Finn supernatural sword skills, but seemed to act of its own volition.  That in and of itself is a fairly standard class of shonen power-up, something the hero has to learn to control so they can beat up the next biggest threat the world has ever faced.  The Grass Sword is also key to Finn losing his arm, one of the most pivotal moments in Finn’s character arc and one that defined his growth arguably up until this very mini-arc.  The Grass Sword tried to force Martin to stay in Finn’s life, grievously hurting him in the process.  When Finn seemed like he couldn’t bear the weight of that loss, the Grass Sword became an arm for him until he could process it.

All this paints a picture of a curse that, instead of seeking to destroy the one it’s bound to, wants to give them what it thinks they want, even if it’s not the best thing for them.  A curse that, much like the Ice King’s crown, is all the more tragic and insidious because it’s not intentionally malevolent. It represents wish fulfillment:  the wish to be a super-powerful sword fighter, the wish to connect with a father who wants nothing to do with you, the wish to undo the worst mistake you’ve ever made.  An outwardly noble goal, but it’s from those mistakes, from that lack of being the best at everything and never doing wrong, that Finn learns and grows.  He’s not the same Finn he was when he first acquired the Grass Sword on a lark, nor the same Finn he was when he lost his arm.  And in these episodes, where he definitively says he’s fine with his new robotic arm, he’s finally grown beyond the need for the power trip the Grass Sword offers at all.

Instead, the Grass Curse gravitates to a new host:  the Finn Sword.  This is still Finn, but a Finn who has been in perpetual stasis since around the midpoint of season 6.  He never experienced the disappointing reunions with Martin, he’s been separated from Jake and PB and all his friends for all that time.  All that unresolved trauma and bitterness makes him the perfect host for the Grass Curse’s brand of power fantasy.  Even if he did bring the Grass Wizard in alive, this adventure has confirmed that Grass Finn and OG Finn are wholly dissimilar.  Grass Finn makes this official by selecting a new name and riding off into the sunset, resolving to find their own identity instead of just borrowing one from someone who has outgrown them.

Fig 3: Fern, 0% Finn the Hero

Notable Quotes –

• “There’s a bird building a nest in his mouth.”
• “Look, no one really knows anything!”
• “My toes taste like candy corn, is that bad?  And everything smells like licorice except licorice, which smells like…”
• “No, let’s see where this goes.  I wanna see brains.”
• “Noooo!  Starchy’s mid-life crisis!”

Stray Observations –

• This is Laura Knetzger’s first boarding credit.  She will board a few more episodes in the series’ main run as well as the first Distant Lands special.
• Blink and you’ll miss it (like I did on my first two rewatches), but Rattleballs has been pieced back together in the hospital wing of the Candy Kingdom!
• The Doctor Princess gag is very funny to me, but it also plays into the episode’s themes quite well.  DP has had an identity foisted upon her by both of her names, much in the way Fern tried to find their own identity by copying Finn’s.
• This isn’t Finn’s first foray into being a hero through practicing medicine.  He certainly did a better job here than he did giving Lumpy Space Princess cosmetic surgery in “His Hero”.