Review: Adventure Time Elements Part One “Skyhooks”

There’s something wrong with the Candy Kingdom.

Spoilers Below:

Finn, Jake, and BMO return to Ooo, but everything is different. Finn finds a fish, but it’s made entirely out of gelatin. As they walk home, the entire landscape is pink. Finn finds it strange, but Jake and BMO tell him he’s just tired. When they reach the treehouse, they find that it’s been turned into candy. Fern, NEPTR, and Shelby have been turned into candy as well. Finn asks what happens, but the three act like this is normal and has always been normal. They venture outside and find Lemongrab, who has turned pink. He squeezes pink lemonade out of his body and distributes it to everyone else. While Jake finds it interesting, Finn is highly disturbed. He asks Jake why everyone is acting strangely, but Jake tells him that Lemongrab has always been strange.

As they go through the forest, they find a distressed Sweet Pi. Sweet Pi is still made of flesh instead of candy, likely because he’s an incarnation of the Lich, and is sitting alone. Relieved to see someone still normal, Finn asks Sweet Pi what happened. Sweet Pi says that one day everyone changed. He is also terrified of his parents and says that Bubblegum has confined herself in a large pink tower. Tree trunks and Mr. Pig soon come out of the woods, having turned into candy beings as well. They try slathering caramel over his leg in an attempt to turn him ‘back to normal’. Terrified, Sweet Pi flees, and his parents chase after him. Jake finally admits that things have become too strange, and they fly to the tower to see Bubblegum.

While on the tower, they find an s’more monster, that turns out to be a candied Marceline. She takes them to see Bubblegum, whose body has become the tower itself. Finn confronts Bubblegum about what she’s done, and she says that it’s her calling as the Candy Elemental. As an awakened Elemental, she has become all candy in the universe. By turning everyone in the Candy Kingdom into candy, her subjects are now part of her. Finn is horrified and declares that she’s wrong. Bubblegum pays him no mind and tries to turn all three of them into candy. Just before the transformation takes place, a hook falls from the sky, and Jake and Finn grab onto it to escape. Unfortunately, BMO is turned into candy. Their rescuer turns out to be the Ice King, and while they float on top of the cloud, they realize Ooo has been significantly transformed.

Overview:

The plot of the Elementals has been built up for some time, and finally, comes to fruition. Bubblegum had only recently awoken her potential, but this version of her seems far from her former self. She feels like a completely different person and is fond of assimilation instead of individuality. While we have yet to see what the other Elementals are like, it seems likely that Flame Princess and Slime Princess might be far removed from how they normally are.

Interestingly, the entire episode is told like a horror film. The hero returns from his journey, finds his world changed but is rebuffed in every opportunity by his best friend. Even though he feels that something is wrong, he’s told that he’s tired, he’s overreacting, and that he needs to get over it. This is constant being told to him so often that he begins to doubt himself, regardless of what his instincts are telling him. It’s only when things become undeniably strange does his friends admit that something is up. When he confronts someone he thinks he knows, they turn out to be the root of the problem, and the hero nearly dies to try to escape. For a kid’s show, the episode is fairly terrifying.