Three Buckets

Written and Storyboarded by Tom Herpich and Steve Wolfhard|Original Airdate July 17, 2017

Review by Prestidigititis

Let’s talk about Fern, the flora doppelgänger who appeared out of Finn’s Finn-Sword when it became damaged by the Grass Sword blade. Fern came into this world with all the memories and identity of Finn, but still too different. Never fully accepted by Jake or BMO, acting on impulses not quite in the classic, heroic Finn mold, and extremely self-critical when his actions were met with disquiet by others. It resulted in Fern feeling embittered, since he couldn’t figure out why he acted so differently than Finn given he WAS Finn (in a sense). When Fern met the Grass Wizard who claimed to have created him, he didn’t get an explanation for his disconnect from the real Finn. It only made the differences between himself and Finn more stark. He recognizes he’s NOT Finn, he’s “someone else.” Someone more spiteful, more violent. More chaotic. His desire is to exemplify the ideal that Finn strives toward. But Fern has always been out of balance, lacking Finn’s inherent sense of justice and morality.

Fern is no mirror-universe evil-version of Finn. The show is too smart to present Finn and Fern as being in direct opposition. To this point (and there will be events in the show’s future that shift this a bit), the show has used Fern as a means to underscore Finn’s growth. As he’s matured, the years have been softening Finn. Remember back in “His Hero,” when Billy seemed ready to trade in that raucous hero stuff for serenity. Finn tried that too, only to come to the conclusion that being a violent shitkicker WAS being true to himself, and he embraced violence as his true hero-nature. Several trials, battles, and years later, that’s no longer who Finn is.

Fern doesn’t have that tempered attitude. He’s not just Finn, after all. He’s also a Grass Demon, who coccoon’d the Finn Sword’s Finnception, melding them. Who knows just what that demon’s deal is. It’s never overtly stated, but it’s safe to assume the demon taints and twists Fern’s identity, allowing him to not just be a carbon copy of Finn with the same memories and abilities. Fern SHOULD be more like Finn than he is, but he can’t be.

Fern is quick to annoy, to upset. To frustrate. Yet his desire to be a hero still burns within him. So is it such a surprise when Fern comes to believe the best course forward is a complete usurpation of Finn? Now that he can assume on a full-body disguise of Finn, why not take Finn’s place entirely?

“Three Buckets” is a psychological thriller of an episode. The build-up of Fern’s crises have played out subtly, over the course of his appearances, while other story arcs have raced by, foregrounded through the miniseries device. Still, when the show let us see Fern, it showed us there was something not right, not safe about the boy. Finn always believed there was a good path forward for him, and tried to give Fern the space to become his own sort of hero. Incredibly admirable, and again, so in character for where Finn is in his maturation now. But that optimism leaves Finn vulnerable to Fern’s scheme to imprison him in the strange ziggurat dungeon. The audience knows there’s something nefarious about Fern’s intent right from the start. Finn’s so happy to be doing something with Fern as a duo, he sees this as a turning point in their relationship. A reason to be optimistic and enthused. No sense of the impending doom that we viewers are practically yelling at the screen about. Fern traps Finn, and tries to be a bro. Leaving him an attempt at a meatloaf. Leaving him a bucket for his biz and garbage. Promising to return with a clean bucket. But this is a permanent change now. Sorry Finn. It’s Fern’s turn now.

When Finn breaks out and chases down Fern (thanks to Princess Bubblegum’s deus ex bionica), we’re given one of the more unpleasant battles the show’s ever done. It’s not glorious or grand, not heroic. It’s taut and rough. The two injure each other and reckon with genuine betrayal. When the Grass Demon takes over, Finn recognizes that this might just be a winner-take-all situation. He still pleads for Fern to try to compromise. To go home together and continue to work on the two of them being their own selves, together. But that was never truly an option; not as these two are currently. PB’s voice-sensing mechanical arm (perfectly used here for a little bit of comedic tension release) dictates the end, Mortal Kombating Fern into mulch, his bits drifting down around Finn as he stares blankly up at the sky.

Finn returns home, distraught, unable to speak. But his family is there to console him. Meanwhile, in a far off field, a familiar figure gathers up the remains of Fern in a bucket, providing us with our cliffhanger to button up Season Nine.

Random Observations:

• This episode is full of deft touches, where genuine emotion brushes up against discomfort. Finn expressing his feeling that he and Fern are “almost like real brothers” is met with a wordless stare from Fern. It’s a rejection that’s complete and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s masterful.
• “I’m a NEPTR guy!” Of course you are, Fern. The sweet, devoted, disparaged, forgotten NEPTR would absolutely be your favorite.
• Princess Bubblegum’s incurable social awkwardness is such a great resource for comedy. Making her hand talk and then laughing it off with an “I dunno!” is just precious.
• Finn’s arm’s functions include Pasta Maker, Toaster, Ear Piercer, Hard Drive, and Sad Marionette. Wish we could have seen that last one especially.
• With the exception of the non-canonical “Diamonds and Lemons,” that’s that for the ninth and penultimate season of Adventure Time. Folks, can you even believe we’ve made it this far? It’s the homestretch from here on out, and I’m excited for us all to dig our teeth into it.

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Diamonds and Lemons

Storyboarded by: Hanna K Nystrom and Anna Syvertsson

Originally Aired: July 20, 2018

Review by: CedricTheOwl

I can’t lie, this episode is an unusual one.  Not for its bizarre characters or its innovative plot, but just for how it came to be.  This episode was produced by Mojang, the development studio behind Minecraft.  According to Adam Muto, it was created separately from the final episode order that would become seasons 9 and 10, so it’s more of a bonus episode than part of any one season.  I was unsure if I would even cover it for this project, but the scheduling of season 9 left the season finale without a partner, so it made for a good inter-season bridge review.

If “I’m only covering it because there’s a gap in the schedule” sounds like an unenthusiastic recommendation of the episode’s merits, you’re not entirely wrong.  The episode jumps around among several Adventure Time regulars, still animated but converted to a blocky Minecraft art style, playing around in a Minecraft world.  Their playstyles match their personalities, but not really in novel ways:  Finn is big into the survival aspect of the game, Jake is directionless chaos embodied, Lemongrab is struggling with understanding the basic mechanics of the world, Ice King just wants to grief the others at LSP’s behest, and Bubblegum is engaged with some high level engineering project while Marceline provides cheap undead labor.  It’s a setup that very much fits into their early season characterizations, with the exception of PB and Marceline being closer companions as in the more recent seasons.  It’s a functional setup, even if there’s no real plot or notable character work going on.

Just look at these squares

I’ve made frequent reference to Adventure Time’s unique method of storytelling in the past, rooted in D&D both in its fantasy pastiche aesthetics as well as its improvisational, “yes, and” style of building narratives.  This episode reminds me most of another form of Dungeons and Dragons-inspired storytelling: the “replay”.  These are essentially transcripts of the author’s own tabletop adventures, either presented as-is or narrativized to various degrees, and published in magazines or as other works.  Live acted replays have exploded in mainstream recognition in the wake of The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, and other actual play web series, but this phenomenon dates back to at least 1986, when the Japanese magazine Comptiq published the replay transcripts of Ryo Mizuno’s tabletop gaming sessions.  These transcripts would eventually be adapted by Mizuno into the sprawling multimedia project Record of Lodoss War, consisting of novels, anime adaptations, and video games.  Adapting gaming sessions into other media is a long-standing tradition of the tabletop gaming community, so it makes for a logical way to adapt a property as wide open and plotless as Minecraft.

Unfortunately, I feel this episode exemplifies one of the primary challenges of the replay format:  making a freeform, unplotted gaming session into a compelling narrative.  D&D sessions can have a story in mind, but the pace is entirely determined by the players and the will of the dice.  A DM can introduce plot threads and adventure hooks for the party to pursue, but the players can end up putting those plots on hold at will or straight up ignoring them.  Major characters, both heroes, villains, and important NPCs, can die in unpredictable or narratively unfulfilling ways by the unfeeling hands of random chance, which is exciting for the people at the table but can result in a story that seems unfocused and random.  It takes a strong authorial voice from the DM, some gifted improvers among the players, or a merciless run of editing and rewriting session events to turn a replay transcript into an actual story, and some replay-based stories succeed at this more than others.  I can’t prove this episode was based on members of the crew fooling around in Minecraft on their own collective server, but it does seem like it captures that vibe of friends playing in Minecraft, off pursuing their own goals and creative projects with minimal interaction among them.

That’s not to say this episode is without its merits.  There’s a lot of talent and work involved in this episode, aside from AT’s regular cast.  For one thing, coming up with Minecraft character models for everyone is a lot of work for a one-off episode like this.  The episode is traditionally animated instead of created through CG like some of the other guest animator episodes, or (as one might suspect) created in the machinima style using the official Minecraft Adventure Time DLC pack.  The episode features a lushly pixel-animated intro made by Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon.  Paul Robertson’s work is famous in both the video game and TV space, creating vibrant, emotive pixel animations for Scott Pilgrim vs the World (both the game and the Edgar Wright film), Rumble McSkirmish and GIFfany in Gravity Falls, and more recently TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, among many other credits.  If nothing else, the intro is worth seeking out on its own.

Yes, it is strange to have a pixel art intro for an adaptation of a game that is famously not pixel art, but I can’t really care about that when it looks this good

So that leaves me with one question:  is this episode a success?  Critically, I don’t really think so.  The AT cast are depicted pretty basically, much like the guest animator episodes yet made by the AT crew themselves.  There really isn’t a plot to speak of, just a series of vignettes.  Understanding of the episode hinges upon prior knowledge of Minecraft, as the episode makes no attempt to explain its references to the crafting system, nor what the Enderman is.  As a crossover between two popular 2010s properties though, it was certainly a commercial success.  This episode aired as the penultimate episode of season 10, and it doubled the viewership of the previous episode.  It averaged more viewers than the actual series finale.  In fact, it garnered the highest ratings of any Adventure Time episode since “Islands”, back at the end of season 8.  I’ve already made many references to Cartoon Network’s disastrous scheduling of Adventure Time starting around that period, but even with that disadvantage, “Diamonds and Lemons” is the most viewed episode of the show’s last two seasons.  The children do indeed yearn for the mines.

Stray Observations –

• This is Anna Syvertsson’s first and only storyboarding credit for the main Adventure Time Show.  She would later return for both Distant Lands and the Fionna and Cake miniseries.
• In addition to this intro, Paul Robertson provided the sprite animation for the Adventure Time game Hey Ice King, Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?!.
• Lemons do not exist in Minecraft’s base game, so that is presumably why the “lemon” tree Lemongrab planted grew apples instead.  That would also explain Jake yelling “Vanilla!  No mods!” as he burned his supply of diamonds, as presumably the server didn’t allow mods to add lemons.  Again, a part of the episode that requires more than a baseline understanding of Minecraft to get.
• This is the trickiest episode to watch that I have found to date.  It’s only available for streaming on Amazon Prime, and only the complete Adventure Time DVD collection contains it as a special feature (not the “Final Seasons” DVD of seasons 8-10 I have).  The official Adventure Time YouTube channel has fragments of the episode available, but not the complete thing like with the shorts.  I can only presume this has something to do with licensing the property from Mojang and Microsoft.