Episode 1&2
By: Karlique Caesar
For those of us who grew up during the 2010s, Adventure Time is a quintessential cornerstone to the development of our personalities. Adventure Time taught us how to have fun and live our own way. While our world is not as magical as the Land of Ooo, the heart of Finn and Jake’s adventures were based in the endless fun and exploration available to a child, young and new to an experienced world. The true beauty of Adventure Time however lies in the depth that the story held. Behind the Shmowzows and Punch-a-ya buns, lies a story that was never afraid to alienate their base demographic by allowing their characters to change the status quo. Adventure Time was not a show lined with pointless episodes of situational comedy. Adventure Time allowed us to peer into the lives of our main cast in a world that lived both on and off-screen. If Finn cut his hair in one episode we’d see it grow over time in later episodes. The importance of this detail is that time was passing. Finn grew up and as he did, so did we. Finn experienced life at the same time as us, succeeded with us….. and failed with us. Adventure Time was an important series to my development and the development of so many other people. So when Adventure Time ended in 2018, The same year I had graduated High School and moved on to college, the feeling was bittersweet. Entering this new chapter, a crutch was missing. But the ending assured one thing. Whether we get to see them or not, Finn and Jake’s adventures would continue. It was like I had been told “life goes on”. Now Adventure Time is back… kinda. We return to the Land of Ooo with Fionna and Cake.
Well to be exact, this is not the first time that we have returned to the Land of Ooo. The honor for our first excursions back in the world of Adventure Time since its official end was a mini-series sub-titled Distant Lands. Distant Lands (released in 2020) served to further explore the lore of adventure time but was relatively scattered, as an anthology series. But Fionna and Cake feels much more in line with the vibe of the original series. Fionna and Cake carries the same theme of Adventure Time—growing up. Fionna and Cake jumps straight into speaking to the children Adventure Time spoke to. The world feels like it has lost a bit of its magic with age. As kids we wanted nothing more than being an adult. Bills and responsibilities later…. being a kid does not look so bad. Our inner Adventure Time kid hasn’t died, but the Ice Kings that taint our day-to-day can’t simply be punched away and snarked at. We have to practice restraint and control but everything feels like a punch down. That’s where our main characters Fionna and Cake come into play. In the original story, Fionna and Cake gained a cult following after the Season 3 episode that shared its name with the characters. In that episode we were introduced to the Land of Aaa, a land that mirrors that of the Land of Ooo and is inhabited by gender swapped members of the traditional cast. The episode played much like an average episode of Adventure Time but the end of the episode reveals to us that Ice King, frenemy of Finn and Jake had written a fanfiction about the adventures gender swapped versions of the people he knew would get into. This seemed to have pretty safely relegated Fionna and Cake to a funny gag but here we have 2023 and its infatuation with multiverse stories. The fascination with the multiverse does not surprise me. The pandemic had made people more alienated than ever but these multiverse stories answer that itch of “what if”. If many universes exist then when we are sad and alone in our quarantines, we can find solace in the idea that somewhere out there there’s a version of us that is happier. This thought seems to be the driving factor for Fionna and Cake. We start the series with Fionna Campbell and her pet cat Cake seemingly sharing a dream. The dream is more inline with the Fionna and Cake we have seen before with some slight differences. When Fionna wakes up, She’s in her early 20s, in a run down apartment, desperately wanting to not go to work. It is that scene. That moment that secured to me Adventure Time is back with the same purpose. To pick back up the same kids that the original series encaptured and assist with their next step, adulthood. While the first episode introduced us to Fionna living as a normal human feeling like there should be more magic in her world, The second catches us up on Simon, the former Ice King. Freed from his magic-induced madness, the world has changed and he has been left behind. In some ways he is a strong point of reference for how life could have jaded some viewers. Too much is going on now and not enough dulls the broad arrays of sound. Sometimes it feels like what we have worked so hard for, just is not fulfilling and we want nothing more but to give up. It is in these moments that it is most important to remember what Adventure Time has taught us. To have fun. I am excited to see what algebraic adventures Fionna and Cake get into from here.