Adventure Time Season 6 Episodes 18-20 “Everything’s Jake/Is That You?/Jake the Brick”
You only think of the best comeback when you leave. – Jimmy Fallon
It can be said that my relationship with Adventure Time right now, as I type, is difficult. Since 2010, the new juggernaut has delighted Cartoon network viewers with a high fantasy vision of the apocalypse. Without a shred of doubt, it will go down as one of the finest animated programs in history. However, I must question this certainty time and time again.
This sixth season (six seasons!?) of the program has gone on a very wild ride. A certain biological father was alive, Finn lost his Grass Blade and much more, a queen bee played Deus Ex Machina, we learned to appreciate the food chain, a witch tried to attack a kingdom, Jake’s origin story was officially revealed, and a fly played Death for a night. But what does it all mean?
Ever since the sixth episode “Breezy”, I thought Adventure Time was beginning to fly off the edge into a sea of meandering. The writing staff chose a narrative direction that they ultimately couldn’t sustain. As a result, one of the more interesting concepts was sidelined to my chagrin. Granted, “Breezy” was followed directly afterwards by “Food Chain”, which was directed by Masaaki Yuasa. That helped to ease the pain.
Yet, the August break for most shows blindsided me after the sixteenth episodes. It wasn’t October 28th until that “Ghost Fly” showed the return. Then we waited another month. Adventure Time, I’m not angry with you. Why are you avoiding me? Please come back…oh, well, that’s just brilliant.
See, this past week shoved four new episodes, four nights in a row, through the schedule as part of a Thanksgiving special. Like a conquering emperor come to take back the throne, Adventure Time showed others like Steven Universe and Clarence who the real top dog is; quite literally, as the first three episodes all focus on the primary perspective of the character Jake the Dog.
For this review, my glance will be more cursory than in depth, as it is an odd amount of content to sift through. So, we can begin with “Everything’s Jake”.
The episode follows Jake after being cursed by the character of Magic Man in the first minute or so. He falls asleep while hungry and sinks inside himself to find a town born from his imagination to justify his hunger. In order to escape, he must break the illusion and feed himself, though in the process will kill the town he created.
This episode would be ultimately unremarkable if not for the guest star they tapped for three characters. Billy West, a voice actor known for his collaboration with Jake’s voice John DiMaggio, is well used. The best part is that his reprises three voices from the one and only Futurama, in which DiMaggio voiced the fantastically sadistic Bender. My personal favorite is West’s reprisal Professor Farnsworth in the character Dr. Erik Adamkinson, being the character is a major driving force in the plot. Even Tress MacNeille (bless her heart at 63 and still doing consistent voice acting) got a cameo as the Urchin using the Tiny Tim voice. All in all, the episode is still run of the mill, but Futurama fans will be satisfied with the interactions between characters and all the little reference.
The second episode is “Is That You?” and it offers more clues to the workings of this unique universe. While I have disparaged the episode “Breezy” multiple times, this episode can finally provide a semi-sequel. In the episode, the character of Princess Bubblegum was seen holding a sword right before Deus Ex Machina kicked in. It’s time to see what the sword is all about.
After the death of the character Prismo in the beginning of the season, Finn and Jake honor his memory with what I can only describe as a Dionysian pickle ritual. Prismo’s unique time abilities cause a temporal rift paradox in which Jake is both caught between the inner sanctum of a Time Room and the various memories that occurred in his home. Finn must now repeat the ritual in order to duplicate the process and enter the Time Room himself.
If the previous paragraph has means nothing to you, then congratulations. You took your first step into the odd reality of Adventure Time. The concepts of time and its spatial awareness play heavily into the show, which the episode executes to a degree so well, it may very well be one of the best episodes yet. Essentially, Prismo has the ability to distort reality in a controlled environment being that he is, and I’m quoting from the wiki, “the manifestation of an old man’s dream”. The only knowns that exist in Prismo’s Time Room are he is either dead or sleeping, and anyone can manifest as the old man. While the whole of it sounds like “throw enough paradoxes at the problem until it goes away” (and trust me, it feels like it), the end is satisfactory enough to justify the many with only one necessary paradox, which results in one of the coolest sword concepts the show has presented. Also, this episode is callback central, with Jake playing out many scenes from previous seasons to much delight. It does a great job steering the larger picture into new territory, and I can’t wait to see what this means for Finn as a whole.
Finally, we have “Jake the Brick”, which is near perfect in execution and concept and in story the best of the three. For me, an episode must do two things right for me to enjoy. Have a unique take on a certain subject while also taking a correct take. In this case, the subject combines radio drama with the drama of a woodland ecosystem.
Ever since he was young, Jake has wanted to experience the feeling of being a brick in a building that is about to collapse. Upon finding a decrepit shack, he isolates himself from everyone else and waits for his moment. When Finn shows up with a radio to keep in contact with Jake, we get a unique perspective of seeing nature in action from Jake’s monologue of a hungry bunny and an antagonistic deer. Meanwhile, Finn and his candy friend Starchy decide to broadcast the radio transmissions to the whole of the continent as entertainment.
Credit to the writing staff and John DiMaggio on this one, because the whole episode rides on roughly seven minutes of uninterrupted dialogue, a first for the show. The result is a radio drama that has all the makings of a serial. We the viewers and the citizens of Ooo are enraptured by the delivery of something so benign. We feel for the bunny and his plight, we understand the deer’s animalistic behavior, we grasp at severity as nature’s thunderstorm “invites herself in and pours a cup of tea”. It is a wonderful depiction of an incident. Credit also to the episode, as it drops a large amount of characters throughout the shows history in scenes where all they can focus on is the radio. It calls to mind a time where the United States’ only form of wholly universal entertainment was the radio. One of the best episodes from Season six.
Adventure Time is back in a big way with these three episodes, and it allows us to appreciate Jake as a character in ways we haven’t seen yet. He appreciates life’s simple pleasures, and would sacrifice so much for someone else’s betterment. His role as a father figure is central, metaphorically and literally. This has been repeatedly evidenced in this season with episodes like “Ocarina”, where his own flesh and blood evicts him and he wins him back with simplicity and “Joshua and Margaret Investigations”, where the attitudes Jake inherited from his father and mother become apparent.
As a whole, it’s hard for me to dislike a show I’ve been with since Season Three’s premiere. I’ve watched every single episode and it has become one of the few shows I don’t mind rewatching. Yes, it has bumps in the road, but I can still forgive it.
From what I’ve heard, the next series of episodes will dive further into lore of the past. Man, the level of lore is bonkers. If you haven’t seen Adventure Time, find the time to at least try it. I can almost say for certain there has yet to be a show like it in quite some time.
