Adventure Time has painted itself such a broad canvas it’s able to essentially tell any story it likes within any genre it wants. As it has grow, it has developed into one of the richest and most diverse worlds on TV, blending all the familiar elements together with its own manic voice to create a complete and fully realized existence. I’ve maintained that since at least its third season, Adventure Time has continually proven to be the best show on TV (I’m including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime on this list, yo), and the season seven finale — the double header of “Preboot” and “Reboot” — only goes to solidify that.
Some questions are answered, but even more are given; the mythology expands further than before; a bunch of characters are left behind in the wreckage; and there’s a cliffhanger that at least gives one little thing to look forward to in 2017. Warning, though: SPOILERS.
1.) Nature Leveled Up
In these latter season, Adventure Time has been going the J. K. Rowling route by mining its earlier material to play off here. Or, more appropriately, figuring out how to use these earlier, seemingly random materials to contribute to their overall mythology. The idea of cyborgs walking around Ooo was introduced way back when BMO met his creator, whose skin was about the only thing that was still human. Years later, we saw that Susan Strong had a chip implanted in her head. The mods idea comes especially into prominence here, with Finn, Jake, and Susan meeting Doctor Gross (Lennan Panham), who’s been making hybrid animal monsters in her secret laboratory. Finn’s fascinated with her because she at least appears human like himself, until she reveals her bionic spider legs. “Evolution’s too slow,” she sings.
And though her nightmare menagerie provides a lot of great visual elements, she really seems to serve to introduce a.) Susan Strong’s origins and b.) the fate of the humans. (Who we last saw leaving the shore on a ship in <i>Stakes</i>.) “Aren’t you curious as to how I know you?” Doctor Gross calls out to the escaping Susan, Jake, and Finn, right before the narwhale-shaped drill activates and self-destructs.
What’s interesting and what also comes into play is Finn’s own mod arm: the grass sword. Except Finn’s sword arm is organic and sentient, unlike the cold robotics of Doctor Gross’s experiments. I’m sure that won’t ever come into play later.
2.) Susan Strong Has Got It Going On
Just like Finn, one of the show’s longest running questions revolves around Susan Strong. When they first met, Finn was certain she was human like him, except she lived among a group of fish people and could barely speak. Eventually they got her to take off her hat, only to discover there’s that chip in her head. Hope you remembered that, because we see the fallout from that in this episode.
Because Susan gets weird.
First of all, she can match the static frequencies in the drill ship. And then Doctor Gross recognizes the call number on said chip. Everything starts to go haywire when it’s activated and Susan goes into Terminator mode, absorbing offensive energy and becoming an unstoppable force. She’s only concerned for her objective now, which involves apprehending Finn and meeting a transport. The hulked-out Susan coming out of the water, impassive and unemotional might be one of Adventure Time‘s most chilling images.
3.) Yubba Dubba Dubba Dubba
Of course, there are consequences to Susan’s rampage, include the death of Rattleballs and maybe even Jake. (This is not the death that was foretold for Jake, true, but if nothing else, Finn and Jake have messed up the direction of the multiverse with every possible decision they’ve made.) Oh, and Tiffany, too!
In the past, Adventure Time has rarely fully committed to the death of a prominent character — or even an auxiliary character (Rootbeer Guy?) — with the exception of maybe Billy. That might be due to the idea prevalent in children’s programming that kids are unable to handle something as heavy as death (bull) or maybe it’s the superhero mentality that you’ll never be able to use these characters again. I will give it to the show that characters are significantly changed if they return (Dirtbeer Guy), however. Chances are, we’ll see Rattleballs and Tiffany again, in some capacity.
Continued below4.) That Boss Battle Tho
Adventure Time consistently does a lot of things right. It’s a serialized show, but it knows how to deliver a complete and whole story with each episode. It’s built up the characters over seven seasons, allowing someone like Finn to turn from an excitable kid to a confused and angry adolescent to the character he is now with an organic flow and grace. It would make sense that he wouldn’t fight out against Susan in the middle of her rampage. “Reboot” especially generates a lot of drama by all these different characters not wanting to hurt a friend. “Hey, Susan. Is there something you want to talk about?” he asks as she’s flinging him around. “If you wanted me to go somewhere, you could have just asked. I probably would have gone.” Even when Jake shows up and Finn dons a battle-ready Jake suit, his actions are more to keep Susan from hurting other people.
The battle works because of that attachment between Finn and Susan, and Susan’s own severance of that attachment.
The animators treat us to a long-take, side-scrolling sequence for the boss battle; it’s filled with numerous insane combos. The show is designed and built through excessive storyboarding and you get the sense something as wild and gripping (and video game influenced) as this sequence could have only been born through incessant drawings.
5.) So What’s Next…?
Now, what the series doesn’t do too well is give a finale that offers any real closure. I think the closes the show ever came to that was in season six, where the animators blew apart the cosmos and metaphysics with The Comet. The Adventure Time crew use their finales primarily to set up the mysteries and conflicts of the upcoming season. Although we get to see a lot of cool stuff go down, we’re not quite sure toward what end. We can only guess about what’s happened to Jake. Or gasp at that last shot, after Finn’s grass arm takes its own corporeal form and stands poised against the sea, ready for a new attack.
From the looks of it, the eighth season is going to explore what happened to the humans, yet another question hanging over the series since the very start. Maybe the show’s finally ready to tackle it because Finn’s ready to deal with it, all emotion and maturity-like.
Adventure Time is definitely winding down. Season Eight is set to being in early 2017, though because of Cartoon Network’s bizarre programming schedule, no one knows for certain. The plan right now is end it at season nine, though again, Cartoon Network being Cartoon Network, they might do that thing where the split the episodes ordered into two separate seasons. (I think this was the case for Uncle Grandpa.) Then again, Cartoon Network is a Time Warner company and this mishandling of their property seems fairly par for Time Warner in general.
Regardless of all that, the Adventure Time animators have the room and ability to explore even more of Ooo, and even richer and deeper themes. “Preboot” & “Reboot” might not resoundly as deeply as “The Comet”, but it gives us a lot to look forward to. I think everyone involved on the show’s staff has continuously shown themselves able to see something through to the end.
Onto Season Eight! Whenever that may be.
