Review: Adventure Time “Normal Man” (S7Ep33)

Just be normal…

Spoilers Below

The new episode of Adventure Time, “Normal Man” again dealt with a characters’ desire to change. Normal Man used to be Magic Man, a Martian who had been banished because of the chaos he caused. However, now he is trying to be a normal, good person (hence the moniker) and wants to right things when Tiny Manticore abducts his brother, who is a planet (keeping up with all this?)

Does anyone else ever feel like Adventure Time really loses its way sometimes? To me, sometimes it all just feels lazy. The writing, the animation, the dialog, even the voice acting in this one felt very thrown together. I don’t mean in a South Park hours-to-air way, either. I just don’t understand how a show like American Dad! can be on its 13th season and still have gem episodes that feel thoughtful and well-assembled– hell, even The SIMPSONS on season 27 manage to pack some punches in there.

Don’t get me wrong. There are a couple funny AdTi spots to be found in “Normal Man” (the red ant, the boomerang bit)– but for the most part, it feels forced and contrived to me. In the middle of many Adventure Time episodes, I have this feeling like, “Oh. There’s the adventure. Just like every time.” Is that what we should be getting out of cartoons?

I may be wrong, and I may be totally out of line. But I don’t like laziness. I feel like some shows improve since their first season– and Adventure Time does have cool episodes from time to time (“Beyond the Grotto” I really enjoyed this season) but ones like “Normal Man” kinda upset me. However, there are some interesting thoughts on how much a person (or character) can change.

In the end of the episode things are right again, and the cameo from LSP and Lemongrab was pretty cool.

On to next week!