Adventure Time ended its sixth season with one average set up episode and two amazingly existential finale episodes.
“On the Lamb,” the fourth episode in the weeklong set, focused completely on Martin, Finn’s estranged father. I think everyone can agree that Martin is a horrible father, and even Finn struggled to face the truth throughout the sixth season. This episode allowed us to see the culmination of Finn and Martin’s relationship and eventual abandonment through a tiny alien Martin names Martin Jr. The alien looks like a small bear, and Martin remarks that it even reminds him of his son.
After Martin manipulates many aliens who helped him escape imprisonment, he sets out to live life as a fugitive in his new world with Martin Jr., but of course, the authorities find him and the chase begins. Martin contemplates leaving Martin Jr. to save him from capture, but he misinterprets what the authorities wanted. All along Martin thought they were chasing him, and they were really after Martin Jr. If the situation truly parallels the events leading up to Finn’s own abandonment, I can see where Martin would think leaving his son was the best path. However, Finn would definitely disagree.
The episode ends with Martin exiting the planet’s atmosphere via a giant moth, and we’ll see him again in the last episode, “The Comet.”
These last three episodes pulled a lot from the Season 5 finale episodes, which was a real positive considering Adventure Time often has a reputation for scattered continuity. “Hot Diggity Doom” brings us to the Candy Kingdom, where Princess Bubblegum studies the incoming comet and the King of Ooo campaigns for Princess. Princess Bubblegum assures Peppermint Butler (who is one of my favorite minor characters) that the candy people will vote for her without needing to campaign because she physically created all of them. However, she loses the election, just as Peppermint Butler predicts, because the candy people are pretty dumb.
Bubblegum is furious and storms out of the kingdom with Peppermint Butler at her side, but tells Finn and Jake to protect the candy people, and that maybe one day she will return. She and her trusty candy man find a shack to live in just when the comet gets closer to Ooo.
Finn and Jake try to find the new princess in charge (The King of Ooo), but instead, they discover a mysterious person working on Bubblegum’s rocket. At this point I was certain that person was Betty, but it was Gunter instead. Unfortunately, Betty fails to make an appearance again, so I suspect she will take on a major role next season.
“Hot Diggity Doom” ends, and “The Comet” begins as Gunter escapes on the rocket, and Finn and Jake almost fall to their deaths, but the thorn in Finn’s hand latches onto the rocket. Gunter makes his final transformation into Orgalorg and explodes the rocket.
This is exactly where the existentialism comes into play in this last episode. Finn asks what Orgalorg is doing, and he replies “It was just time to come out again…these are doorways the universe presented to me….” Jake names Orgalorg’s thoughts as “open door philosophy” where you “just say yes to everything.”
Orgalorg takes off, and Finn and Jake begin their descent into nothingness in space (very Gravity of them). Finn properly freaks out, but then remembers to keep calm and “appeal to greater forces.” He sings a nice song about his place in the universe. The song is a prayer of sorts. The universe sends him Martin, and the moth, and Martin insists that his appearance was random but Finn knows that “he merged his intention with the universe” to will Martin there. Martin eventually helps him to safety. It’s obvious that Finn and Martin have different philosophies about the universe. Martin believes in the randomness of the universe, and Finn believes in fate and everything pulling together for one important event.
The moth turns to Orgalorg consuming the comet. Martin thinks it’s hopeless to stop Orgalorg, but Finn insists he can stop him. Finn floats inside Orgalorg and his thorn becomes the grass sword from last season; he slices Orgalorg from the inside out and releases the comet.
Suddenly, the comet starts talking to Finn. It asks Finn if he remembers, and he says yes. “A long time ago I was Usor,” he says (and we see a clip of a comet here), “and I crashed on earth and became a butterfly or some bizz. I guess it was just some random absurd thing. Just a joke I’ve been playing out for centuries.” I did not have enough time to process this bit, so I watched the episode a few more times and I am completely amazed at what the Adventure Time writers have done with this finale.
I think the part about being a butterfly refers to the seemingly purposeless “Food Chain” episode from this season. Maybe all of the filler episodes are not just filling spaces, but revealing Finn’s obscure thoughts as a former cosmic entity. I can’t believe that I’m saying it, but Finn the human might be more than human after all. This theory also reveals why Finn appeared as Glob died to save Mars back in “Astral Plane.”
The comet offers a choice to Finn: “Come with me to the end and the beginning or struggle here like a beautiful autumn leaf.” Finn hears a bell and the comet says, “This is your crisis” to give up everything on Earth for a “new mode of existence.” Finn declines the offer telling the comet, “I think I put a lot of work into this meat reality I’d like to see it through.” The comment about “meat reality” only further confirms that Finn was once a cosmic entity like the one he speaks to in this episode.
Martin selfishly asks if he can have the same “mode of existence,” and Finn calls him out on leaving him yet again. Martin explains that nothing he can say will ever make it better, but offers no more sympathy. The comet and Martin disappear for what could be forever.
Finn bumps into Jake and Banana Man in a space ship, and he says it wasn’t random; he willed it. Orgalorg tags along back to the descent to Ooo and turns into Gunter yet again. They cheerfully report to Bubblegum that they solved the problem and the episode, and Season 6, ends.
This season of Adventure Time ended on a strong note and left its fans with a lot to think about. Adventure Time was once a show I shrugged off as silly and episodic, but these past few seasons have pulled together to make a cohesive world that is occasionally unbelievable but always charming. I may be an adult reviewing a show for kids, but I am glad that Adventure Time exists to teach important life lessons to the target audience, and I’m willing to admit that I relate to Finn’s continuing existential crisis, even if I really am just a human and not a cosmic entity. I cannot wait to see where Finn’s journey takes him in Season 7.
[Photo via Cartoon Network]
Just a correction, Finn says “I was you sort of” (speaking to the comet) not “Usor.” Nice review!
“A long time ago I was you sort of and I crashed on earth and became a butterfly or some bizz. I guess it was just some random absurd thing.”
These words and the Food Chain episode make me think that the comet was -in the past- some kind of life-creating event, and Finn remembers it because some sort of colective memory. Finn’s journey in Astral Plane maybe just meant that he would be “the Chosen One” that would have to stop Orgalorg and the comet. I don’t think Finn to be more than human. But just theories, you know. Great review!