Seventeen

Directed by Cole Sanchez

Written and storyboarded by Seo Kim and Somvilay Xayaphone from a story by Kent Osborne, Jack Pendarvis, Julia Pott, and Adam Muto

Original airdate: December 17, 2017

In the bleak December, at the court of a mighty ruler, a young warrior feasts, secure in himself. But an unexpected guest arrives, a strange, inhuman knight clad in green, who challenges the champion to a contest of valor he cannot hope to win.

So begins Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and so too begins this week’s episode of Adventure Time. But it’s not Gawain in the court of Arthur at Christmastime, of course. It’s Finn in the court of Princess Bubblegum for his seventeenth birthday. He parties among friends… or rather, banana guards, as the whole kingdom is on lockdown while PB attempts to get to the bottom of Uncle Gumbald’s apparent return. but at least Jake, BMO, Starchy, Marceline, and Huntress Wizard were all able to attend, and the hero boy, on the cusp of manhood, feels he’s really coming into his own. With the exception of Starchy, who didn’t get squat, Finn’s friends give him their gifts. A harmonica from Marceline, a new game from BMO, and disturbingly an elk’s heart from Huntress, which she insists is fraught with significance.

Then, the thundering of hooves announces our mysterious party crasher, aboard a trojan horse. The Green Knight is voiced by, of all people, internet humorist and China, IL creator Brad Neely, whose Wizard People, Dear Reader is both the only piece of Harry Potter media still worth engaging with in 2026 and a major influence on my recapping style. The knight presents Finn with a green battle axe, to be given only on the condition that Finn strikes him with it. Finn has trepidations, but quickly decides this is some prank by Jake. Like Gawain before him, he cleaves the Green Knight’s head clean off with a single mighty jump stroke… 

only for Jake to show up with his own gag gift, a chunk of himself shapeshifted into a box. While Finn is freaking out, the Knight calmly reattaches his head and takes down the entirety of the banana guards with tentacles from his armor.  Finn advances to do what he does best, but his new axe turns into a coiled eel and wriggles back to the strange interloper, who puts up a weapon-melting force field to block Marceline, Huntress, Jake, and Starchy from interfering. PB has an anti-shield device but the Knight effortlessly causes it to short out. She attempts to negotiate, but the Knight merely plays Mr. Laughing Silent Guy and enacts the next part of the classic legend: preparing to return the stroke that was given him to the giver. Finn, like Gawain before him, makes a deal, but unlike the knight of the round table, is bound by a more reasonable and personal sense of honor than the code of chivalry. Over PB’s objections, he suggests a new game instead, utilizing the party games and favors around the candy castle. If the knight prevails he’ll accept the axe blow, but if Finn can win, the knight must answer PB’s questions. 

PB’s got a loverly bunch of coconuts standing in a row, and Finn knocks ’em down like only a boy whose mom is an Irishwoman could, until a well-timed burp from the Knight’s steed knocks his last throw subtly off course. The Green Knight, with mathematical precision, smashes all five coconuts with a single shot, winning the first round. Huntress clocks that the Green Knight was cheating by means of a tiny plant creature with an almost-imperceptible thread, but the forcefield is too soundproof to pass along the warning. Finn’s next challenge is a shimmyin’-race up a greased pole. The knight makes no effort at all, letting Finn have his moment of hope before sarcastically applauding. Finn is really feeling his oats, and a confident Jake excuses himself and BMO to take care of other business. Finn manfully offers the Green Knight his choice for the last challenge, and the Knight names the game as arm wrestling. The boy slams down his robot arm, but the knight is running him a merry chase just the same. Just as Finn puts his birthday-boy all into it, though, the knight goes for the psych-out and drops his Neelyan facade to reveal his true face: it’s Fern! He’s alive! Faced with his most recent and visceral trauma, Finn falters for long enough that Fern can layeth the smacketh down upon him. 

But as the vengeful grassman prepares to deal the deathblow, his horse speaks up and disperses the shield before revealing that within its hollow bowels, PB’s relatives have been camping out, scouting their champion against their creator’s. Gumbald reveals that the three of them were de-dumdum’d by LSP’s restoration of the people of Ooo to their true forms at the end of the Elements miniseries. Gumbald raises his weapon to subject Bonnie to the fate she once subjected him to, but Marceline insinuates herself between this crazy wad and her babe, earning an impressed acknowledgment of her scariness from him. While Finn pukes elk heart into a bucket, Gumbald and his crew withdraw, confident they hold all the cards. As they leave, Jake and BMO return with a giant Finncake, out of which the Ice King, dressed up in a sexy Flame Princess cosplay, pops out to sing the crescendo of “Happy Birthday to you”

But it is not a happy birthday, friends. Not for F the H.

This is the second of the two times I’m covering for our fallen friend Prestidigititis this season. I hope I’ve done him proud and made you smile.

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Tree Trunks has always been a divisive character, from her very first appearance all the way back in season 1. Some of that, we can chalk up to plain old sexism. She’s a woman who does inconvenient things and makes the adventure harder for our boys, how dare she. AND she has the temerity to be overtly sexual, despite being old. (And also a yellow elephant thing) Truly history’s greatest monster.

But like, her overt sexuality is sometimes legitimately problematic. In her first few appearances she was openly flirtatious towards a then 12-year-old Finn, even trying to make him her husband when she was mad with crystal energy. And we’ve seen she has an exhibitionist streak (making out with Mr. Pig all throughout Ooo, even when observers specifically request they go somewhere private. Also that time they fuck in PB’s dungeon, with TT specifically saying she hopes Bonnie is watching) Which, I don’t necessarily want to get into consent and how it interacts with bystanders, that’s how you get braindead discourse about how if you wear a pup hood in public you’re basically a rapist. But there’s definitely a disregard for others’ comfort that can genuinely rub someone the wrong way.

Despite all this, I wound up being a Tree Trunks defender after watching the show for the first time. I didn’t start out that way, but I feel like all of TT’s worst moments are front-loaded, and all of her more interesting appearances don’t just redeem her character but add depth to her from the very start. Becoming a foil for Princess Bubblegum, becoming mother to the reincarnation of pure evil and death, all great directions for our tiny pachyderm. But best of all, I think, is her final focus episode.

Her initial flashback, to her first marriage to high school sweetheart Randy, is set in a very 1950s diner, which I think is the key to understanding not just this episode but Tree Trunks herself. Not to blow your minds with my advanced gender theory or anything, but patriarchal gender roles don’t really give women a lot of options. Especially the 1950s edition, pre the women’s liberation movement, post-World War II, trying to reassert a woman’s “proper” role after the war temporarily shook things up. Getting married to your high school sweetheart and being his live-in maid and nanny was basically the option, and that’s simply not going to work for our elephant of adventure.

(Now, she didn’t have to do Randy that dirty. At least give him enough time to disappoint you before you dump his broke ass girl!)

Tree Trunks finds criminal life a lot more appealing. After all, why wouldn’t she? She wants more out of life than the oppressive social norms of the tiny mammal kingdom can provide, that already makes her a criminal. At that point she might as well embrace it, living a life of swashbuckling and sexually harassing her first mate.

And yet, heteronormativity hasn’t finished with our gal. She abandons her pirate life after an admittedly tight man convinces her that she’s become too hardened by her bandit ways. A woman isn’t supposed to be a ruthless and murderous pirate queen, she’s supposed to fit in a tiny little box. Nay, say I! I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs. Let! Tree! Trunks! Do! Murder!

I’m being facetious here but also kinda not. Because Danny is trying to get one over on her, running a scam with her caked up first mate to steal her ship from her. And we see this dynamic recur, an independent girl boss Tree Trunks being convinced to shrink herself down by a man. This time it’s with corporate power player Tree Trunks, head of her own shipping empire, fending off romantic overtures from Robot Body Moe (who, it’s worth remembering, is just a regular-ass human who’s extended his life through his MO bots. None can resist TT’s feminine wiles). But the moment she sees the pathetic Wyatt, she’s overcome with pity and falls for his useless ass. We’ve already seen their dynamic in a few different episodes, though. Wyatt’s pretty overtly looking for what patriarchy promised him, a mommy-wife to take care of his every need, and of course Tree Trunks can’t abide such a useless man.

So now you know the rest of the story. And for me this is just such a compelling recontextualization of the character. We first meet Tree Trunks as a very traditional female archetype, a doting grandma-type baking pies for our boys. And throughout the show, she mostly fits within this role. She marries a man, she raises a child. But there’s always that overt sexuality hinting at something more. There are always moments of her secret alien husband, of her getting down in Bubblegum’s dungeon, of her just plain not fitting in her assumed role. And in Ring of Fire we see this complication from the other side. We see her living out her wild adventurous fantasies, but see how she doesn’t fit cleanly there either. She wants more out of life than what was planned. She doesn’t want to be defined by a prescribed role, but by reacting against that role you are still, in some sense, being defined by it. Y = -X is still Y being defined in terms of X, after all.

Still, Tree Trunks should get to do a little murder sometimes. As a treat.

Stray Observations

• There’s a joke way back in “Escape from the Citadel” where Tree Trunks is right about to divorce Mr. Pig before Sweet P shows up on their doorstep. And we see here that would have been part of a toxic pattern, where TT’s dissatisfaction at life leads her to constantly shaking everything up and starting over on a whim.
• Also I guess this episode recontextualizes TT as a nudist, rather than just a cartoon animal who doesn’t need to wear clothes. Honestly that kinda rules, this kooky old naked lady out in the woods who bakes pies. I dunno, that’s the kind of weirdo that makes the world worth it.
• God Wyatt sucks so hard. What a truly pathetic wretch