It’s very weird for me to do reviews of TV series, because they usually just keep going and going. And when they finally end, they get an abrupt cancellation or no closure at all. Or they just keep going.
Aventure Time got to air it’s final episode on September 1st, and after 10 seasons, they wrapped it up and… what an ending.
But Adventure Time had an annoying, yet powerful dynamic. Most episodes were self-contained, and they were just a funny little story to watch with no context to understand aside from the little adventurer boy and his shapeshifting dog doing funny stuff and defeating monsters.
And most people will acclaim that Adventure Time is a great show for being very deep sometimes. And yes, it does.
But after watching the ending and being on the edge of my chair for full 45 minutes of intensity, one thing strikes me as impressive after everything is over.
Adventure Time was not a story. It was a whole world.
First of all, the characters. Not only they are not one-dimensional, but they are all morally ambiguous. There are no bad and good guys, there are just characters that sometimes make good decisions and sometimes they don’t. Finn was a creep, Jake was self-absorbed at times, Bubblegum is … machiavelic? And there is more to say.
While almost every episode is self-contained, the underlying changes of the world and how different characters move along with it… it’s just so much. This is, as I can recall on top of my head, the long-themed stories that were told through this series.
- Finn and his relationship to Jake
- Finn and his relationship to quests / monsters / adventure / conflict resolution / Billy
- Princess Bubblegum and her duties as princess, her relationship to her kingdom
- Finn’s relationship with Bubblegum
- Finn’s relationship with Flame Princess
- Marceline’s relationship to her father, her music
- Marceline’s background and being turned into a vampire
- Ice King, Simon Petrikov, Betty Grof and their quest to reunite (omg, I’m gonna cry)
- Finn’s relationship with his absent, irresponsible, selfish father
- Finn’s relationship with his absent, overprotective, selfless-to-her-people mother
- Jake’s relationship and family, father, mother, Lady Rainicorn, and children
- Bubblegum’s family feud, the Gum War
- The Four Elementals
- The Meteor, The Lich King, The Mushroom War
- Orgalorg, Gunther’s origins and mission, The Crown
- Lemongrab and his desire to rule and create life
- Prismo’s origin
- Finn’s loss of his arm, Fern’s quest to be a real person
- Tree Trunks, her past life and navigation through relationships
- Susan Strong and the last humans
- BMO, his relationship to himself and his creator
If you haven’t guessed where I’m going, it’s this: it’s an incredibly rich and complex world.
My experience with Adventure Time is that I would watch about 10 episodes that I found boring, and I was ready to completely quit watching it, and then it would always hit me with one more episode that gave a plot twist, and it always got me hooked and wanting more. I can recommend good episodes but if you really want to enjoy the whole story, you need to watch it all, even be boring ones.
As such, I think it’s incredibly well written. The spaces still helped build characters and move things along, even when the world wasn’t changing, they were. So if you really want to get into the story, you should not skip any of the 280 episodes.
They’re worth it.
