Review: Adventure Time – Fionna and Cake “The Butterfly and the River”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Cake and Huntress Wizard mess with the timeline while looking for the Heart of the Forest, Simon makes a wish for Finn, Marshall meets Gary’s parents, and Fionna takes drastic action to help save the Sweet Spot.

OUR TAKE

Okay, credit where credit is due, this episode did have more focus on things happening in Fionna’s world, with only a slight check in with Simon and the rest in Ooo at the very end. The priority of this week was Fionna, Cake, Huntress Wizard, Marshall, and Gary, though not necessarily in that order. Although sadly, it does continue to make clear that the more significant stuff is happening with Huntress Wizard, as she is the one trying to understand her new abilities while regaining her old ones, and how that connects her to another multiversal portal. That’s not to say that stuff happening with Fionna, like her efforts to find funding to buy back the Sweet Spot, are not significant or meaningful. They are personal stakes and it’s not hard to understand why this means something to her. However, they do feel a bit weak compared what Huntress is doing to save Finn, who I don’t exactly care about MORE than Fionna, but it seems like is a bigger deal to more of the characters in this season than saving the Sweet Spot is. Heck, it kinda seems like Fionna is the only one really actively working on that anyway, even, as we see at the end, getting a job for Marshall’s mother Hana Abadeer, who fans may remember as being the gender swapped version of Hanson Abadeer, Marceline’s demon daddy.

And once again, we do get some interesting character history dropped, like meeting Gary’s parents. Bubblegum didn’t really have parents in Adventure Time, aside from Mother Gum, who didn’t really have a voice or personality, so this is a pleasant addition to things, especially since the dad is voiced by Joe Pera, and we also get a brief cameo from Nelly, the swapped version of Neddy, Bubblegum’s brother. We also get a bit more information about how Ice Queen, or Simone in this world, knows Marshall, apparently being a kind parental figure when his mother was being too domineering, though there are hints that they had a bit of a falling out that Marshall is still sore about. So, overall I feel…odd about this episode. It gave me a lot of neat stuff that I liked, but it also feels like it’s spinning its wheels, and my previous issues with it are only compounding, which is made worse considering we are now at the halfway point of the season. Let’s hope things start kicking into gear starting next week.