Adventure Time Recap: “Betty” – Simon’s Return and Strength in Nostalgia

Check out my full recap here!

“This marks the third episode in which Hambo takes centerstage, or more specifically, the sentimentality behind Hambo which everyone (Ash the ass, Maja the Sky Witch, and now Simon) wants to harness for their own ends. Which leads one to wonder: what’s the big deal, what’s the mojo of sentimentality that makes it a currency of power, as an ingredient for potent wiz-biz, even as fuel for time-bending apparati?  It’s a piece of symbolism that cuts to the core of what Adventure Time is all about: a conception of nostalgia, sentimentality, and childhood memories as a foundation of personal strength, but also the danger of sentimentality’s perversion …”

Adventure Time Recap: “Rattleballs”

Banana guards enjoying their new minimalist furniture made from dead robots.

Of course, Finn misses the point about pointless devotion and unfettered zeal entirely, choosing instead to obey an oath to PB that exists mostly in his head. He turns Rattleballs in to PB, confident that they’ll be able to talk it out, because PB was so good at talking it out with James and having everyone in on her ruthlessly efficient plans . . .

. . . Hence, we get to see more of the dangerous game that the Princess has set up for herself–absolute authority is convenient as sliced bread, but life is never that simple, and rarely tolerates such straight lines. At this point, I see her belief in authority and control as a result of witnessing the Mushroom War, surviving it, and determining to build a society in which it cannot be repeated.

Read my full recap here!

Adventure Time Recap: “Blade of Grass”

Pillow Vendor!

Grass sword, how can I sing your praises properly? You ring like a bell when swung, you have a lawnmower mode, and you slice the bearer’s image into the target, which is all nice and dandy until you attached yourself to Finn’s wrist. To his wrist. The same wrist that he was missing in the Pillow world . . .

With the breaking of the demon bloodsword, Finn is moving out of the shadow of his foster-father Joshua, a complicated relationship explored back in “Joshua’s Dungeon” when Finn’s crybaby-ness was on trial. The discovery of the grass blade is the next step in Finn’s process of individuation, in becoming his own hero instead of a copy of his father.

Read my full recap here, and lemme know whatcha think.