Quick Take: Adventure Time, “Holly Jolly Secrets”
Finn and Jake start a holiday tradition.
Review: Adventure Time, “Holly Jolly Secrets”
(S0318) I never thought of Ice King as the intelligent type before seeing this week's Adventure Time. The writers are trying to make him a more sympathetic character and with this Christmas special, they succeeded. Finn and Jake find Ice King's hidden tapes underground and decide to decipher their hidden secrets. Somehow through this conflict, a miracle happens.
The audience experiences an interesting look inside the mind of Ice King. The tapes are his video diaries. We see Ice King's attachment issues and how Gunther is the only one who knows how to handle him without violence. We also see that Ice King and Gunther's relationship is very.... layered. One minute Ice King is turning Gunther into a penguin-sicle, and the next he is role playing with Gunther in his bedroom. Yes, I said role playing.
Finn and Jake make this a running gag by calling each other “Gunther.” It's this kind of character depth that makes Adventure Time stand out among other animated series. Adventure Time takes the time to develop and layer their characters, allowing for back stories that you would not expect. For example, Finn being raised by shapeshifting dogs and Marceline, a vampire princess, loving her evil father flesh out the world of Oo. The series is much deeper than the average kid cartoons and does not patronize its audience like a certain purple dinosaur.
Finn and Jake come to understand the Ice King and also witness his supervillain origins. Ice King's story shares similarities with protagonists from Lovecraftian literature and he even begins to rant like he is going insane. At the time of Ice King's horrible transformation, he was in love with a brainy beauty. It makes sense why he so fixated on Princess Bubblegum, the smartest girl in the land of Oo. Disregarding what they have learned about Ice King, Finn and Jake invite him to spend Christmas Eve together. Then, Shelby the worm narrates how for one night all the characters in Adventure Time were able to spend Christmas together... without killing each other. A Christmas miracle indeed.
Merry Christmas from the world of Oo, and great review dean !