Abstract

Directed by
Adam Muto

Written & Storyboarded by
Laura Knetzger & Graham Falk

People change. It’s natural. Even things that seem permanent are moving targets. The mountains are slowly crumbling into the sea, the sea is slowly getting pushed out of the way for the next set of mountains, and the domestication of the dog continues unabated.

It’s easy for us to forget, especially once we become adults. There’s a sold stretch from 20-ish through 40 or even 50-ish where you can easily just pretend every day is like the last and nothing is ever going to change. It’s one of the reasons I think it’s so important to have kids around, because they’re a positive reminder of the passage of time, which gets you ready for the later, more final reminders.

But sometimes you’re not changing. Not really. Sometimes you’re becoming more like who you always were. Sometimes the only thing that changes is which parts of yourself you let the world see. Sometimes it’s what you let yourself see.

Jake is clearly not letting himself see anything. His subconscious is basically bashing him over the head with metaphors and symbols and just straight up raw, uncut Greek style prophecy but he refuses to come to grips with any of it.

Elements had one of the first moments where we looked at how hard he compartmentalizes his feelings for the sake of Finn, but here it’s just flat out denial. It’s telling that every time he insists he hasn’t changed he changes more. It’s also becoming clear that he has questions about where his powers come from. Between the anxieties on display in Jake’s nightmares in Orb, and the prophetic hints his dream keeps throwing at him about his father in this episode, I think it’s safe to assume that Jake has unconsciously suspected that his powers mean that he was either adopted or his parents were lying to him somehow.

Eventually, Jake reconnects with his brother through his dreams and it’s interesting that it’s his brother’s change that spurs him to action. He can’t face up to his own issues but he sure as hell can get all bent out of shape about his brother doing something different than he expects him to. Other people’s problems are always easier than your own.

His prophetic vision brings him to Brak’s the James’ bean tent, who gives him directions to his brother’s art studio, where he discovers that Bryce is now his brother’s art dealer and the demon art agent is utterly perfect.

A bit of meditation on art and the continuity of the self later and Jake is back to his old yellow zazen self.

Stray Observations:

• I like that I can start recognizing artists by their quirks. The moment where Jake is looking through the telescope and goes all old school flat cartoony is 100% Graham Falk. Ditto the bits after that where the office maze he’s wandering through looks vaguely like a Mad Magazine illustration.
• I picked apart some of the symbolism in the dream but I think most of it was meant to be random and weird. I stand by the chameleon being significant, though. The carrots growing like fruit from a vine might also be representative of things being upside down and generally wrong.
• “As long as I know the shape of my soul, I know I’ll be alright.” God this show.
• My first wife used the say the exact same thing about it being hard to tell when an abstract painting is finished. She’d say the real skill in making one was learning to identify that moment and stopping.
• I love that they gave Andy Merril some more VA work. Apparently he’s an Amazon driver now. And the voice of Frylock ended up homeless and is raising money for a medical procedure. It’s awful out there for artists.
• I also love that in the shot in the Jameses’ tent you can see there’s hundreds of medals on strings hung up on the wall, meaning that Bubblegum really did follow through on her promise to him.
• This is the point where Dirt Beer Guy buys the Candy Tavern and cleans it up; it has a sign outside with DBG on it now. I thought that was a development they did in Fionna and Cake but apparently not.

Ketchup

Directed by
Elizabeth Ito

Written by
Seo Kim and Somvilay Xayaphone
from a story by Kent Osborne, Jack Pendarvis,
Julia Pott, Patrick McHale, Ashly Burch, and Adam Muto

Original Airdate:
July 18, 2017

Now that the fallout of Islands and Elements has had a little time (well, one whole episode) to breathe a bit, it’s time to take one last look at the events of the twin miniseries before we start to move on to Adventure Time’s next chapter. The episode opens with Marceline noodling around her bass, when a knock comes at the door. It’s BMO, dressed to slay! Vampires, that is. When Marcy breaks the news to BMO that she already took care of the other vampires months ago, the little robot goes in for a hug and apologizes for bothering her, but Marcy is in the mood for some chill hangs. She found a USB drive in her attic she hopes BMO will be able to decode, but progress is slow. To kill time, Marceline suggests BMO tell her all about their trip to the archipelago with Finn and Jake.

Of course, if we’re going to get a story from BMO’s perspective, by this point we know it’ll bear only the vaguest resemblance to reality, and with the help of guest animators Alex and Lindsay Small-Butera, who gives each of the three stories in the episode a unique art style and some shockingly fluid animation, they spin a wild yarn featuring a giant island-cat named Ted, a bluejay voiced by Regular Show‘s J. G. Quintel and his signature “WHOOOOOAAAAAAAA”, and no mention of Susan, Minerva, Frida, or even BMO’s VR friends.

As BMO finishes up their story, Marceline assembles a few puppets out of household items and begins her own story. It’s a tender tale of a smart Lollipop Girl, her beloved bestie Rockstar Girl, and an evil Blue Tranch whose most sinister wind turns everyone into potato-heads. In an uncharacteristically insightful turn, BMO immediately clocks the subtext of this story as being about Bonnie and the recent unpleasantness, but undeterred, Marceline reveals that Rockstar Girl confronted the Blue Tranch and obtained a cure from her, but she was too late to help her beloved, so she allowed the curse to take her as well.

Yup. If it’s LibraryLass, it must be Bubbline. BMO rejects Marcy’s ending and Marcy admits she has feelings she’s still processing and not ready to talk about. Our girl, after a thousand years, is really growing up and processing what it means to love someone as complicated as Bonnibel.

Just then, BMO’s bell rings and they project the contents of the USB: pictures Marcy and her mother Elise took on vacation long ago, before the Vampire King, before Simon, before the Mushroom War. BMO doesn’t recognize the significance of the images, and asks Marcy if she knows them. Marcy, feigning ignorance, asks BMO to make up what they think might have happened. BMO’s story casts Elise as a resident of the moon who came to visit a little girl but could only stay during the eclipse, and tells a story of the games they played and the girls’ lasting memories of their brief friendship. It’s enough to put a tear in Marcy’s eye, a beautiful story to go with a beautiful picture.

This is a pretty quiet, subtle episode, mostly meant to give us an insight into some sides of Marceline we rarely see. Her friendship with BMO, her absolute devotion to her girlfriend, her memories of Elise– all of these show the tender heart beating at the core of the unflappable vampire queen.

Side notes: 

So, who’s excited for Side Quests to premiere this week? I feel like I haven’t seen as much buzz as I expected.