Day Two Hundred and Forty-six - Adventure Time: Season 1, Episode 13, "To remain Pure while Wading in filth is a Herculean Task!"

In the interests of full disclosure (and to whine to you a little bit) I have to say that today has been a reaaaalllly sucky day. Not the parts where friends came over to hang for the past few hours, that's been great... just the rest of it.

Computer crashes, brake failure, several hundred dollars in brake repair... I suppose it could have been worse. I could've wrecked the car and ended up a in a full-body cast, the computers could've exploded instead of just losing a few hours of work, and I might not have had the small cushion of extra money in my checking account that I had been saving for moving expenses in the event that I got the Arts & Culture position in Juneau (spoiler alert: I didn't get the job).

Still, all of today's karma conflagrations haven't left me all that much in the way of time to watch something for Couchbound. As such, I cheated a bit and only saw a single episode of Adventure Time (which is, generously, about twelve minutes long).

Sue me.

Anyways, this particular episode was called City of Thieves and had Finn the Human and Jake the Dog first trying to retrieve a poor girl's basket from constantly being stolen by more and more residents of the eponymous City of Thieves, then trying to get the basket from the repository of ALL treasure in the City... the Tower of the King of Thieves. Seems that there's a magical force field that repels all thieves, making it impossible for any but the pure of heart (see: Finn) to get past it.

Of course, as we find out, it also kept the King from leaving the Tower... as evidenced by his decrepit bones lying stagnant on his throne.

So, Finn retrieved a chest that he thought held the young girl's basket (her name is Penny, btw) and wound up becoming a thief, himself, in the process... losing his pure heart... which caused him to go all Dark Knight on Penny, using Jake as his cape!

As episodes of Adventure Time go, this is almost as good as it gets. From its non sequitur opening moments to its random acid trip jokes (a horse bathing in a tub?), the only thing missing are the other show regulars like Princess Bubblegum, Marceline, and Ice King.

I also really like how there are several "lessons" over the course of the ep, but they're not really forced on the viewer in any heavy handed way. Finn tries to retain his purity by not becoming a thief, but faces the moral quandry that trying to do right by Penny actually made him one. To fix things, he resorts to becoming the worst of thieves to gather the necessary materials to get rid of the "filth"... in a quite literal matter (remember that horse taking a bath? they stole its soap... among other things).

It's hilarious how ineffective his treatment is at changing Penny, who readily tricks him again, but Finn isn't bothered. In his mind, he's regained all of their purities by cleansing them with actual soap.

It's nonsensical and naïve... but also rather sweet, and representative of the series' vibe as a whole.

Recommending Adventure Time to everyone with a sense of whimsy (both young and old) is an easy thing. I don't think it would go well with anyone who doesn't want to live in a state of wonder, but who knows, maybe the doubters can be converted. Either way, my only regret is that there's still only a single season available on Netflix.

Le sigh.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~