Once we know he’s at the wheel, the episode finally starts to feel like good old righteous “Adventure Time.” In this incarnation, the Lich has accepted he could never eliminate all living souls as long as Finn and Jake were alive to stop him, so he takes a new approach and attempts to eliminate all dead souls and end reincarnation, using the son of Life and Death as his pawn and vessel. Enter the first twist reveal: the Lich has been steering New Death’s actions all along. We don’t know where or why Princess Bubblegum has gone, but I imagine the fourth “Distant Lands” special, “Wizard City,” will explain this.Įven with this new lore, unanswered questions still abound. It’s a cool travel sequence if nothing else, especially considering we get to see the Candy Kingdom under the rule of Peppermint Butler, complete with all the magical renovations and augmentations he seems to have made. This is just one of the many Finn travels through on his search for Jake. The background design artists were clearly having fun when it came to creating funky and colorful landscapes for the 50 deadworlds.
This is the seemingly senseless motive Finn and Jake have to contend with as they travel throughout the deadworlds, making pit stops in various other realms in search of a way to defeat the untouchable New Death. How could his brother leave him behind when they promised they’d wait for each other, even in death?īefore they have time to process this abandonment, the main conflict reveals itself: New Death (voiced by Chris Fleming) has replaced his father Old Death as ruler of the deadworlds and seeks to destroy them all, along with the souls living in them. Yes, that’s actually what he tells Finn, who’s scared and upset, and rightfully so. After an emotional breakdown on Finn’s part that feels a little premature, Jake descends from the ethereal heights of the 50th deadworld because he sensed that someone’s vibe was off. None of those pieces of Finn’s life-or rather, his death-are missing. In this Dante-styled vision of the great beyond, albeit one with 50 circles instead of nine, almost every resident of Ooo reappears in the appropriate deadworld, living out an eternal fate fitting to how they lived their lives. And it’s not Tree Trunks, or Choose Goose, or Joshua, Margaret, Jerome, Ghost Princess, Maja-or any other secondary character from the show’s extensive catalog. This time, he’s a deadworlds orientation counselor, of course. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich), who reprises his delightful role as “just some guy,” always stumbling into the craziest situations by sheer dumb luck. It’s not Tiffany Oiler (voiced by Aryan Simhadri), who’s died so many times by now that it’s honestly unsurprising he’s employed as an undertaker in the afterlife. It’s a neat trick by the animators to convey the emotion this way. Tracking the history of Tiffany in “Adventure Time” canon is difficult, evidenced by Finn’s confusing mix of reactions to meeting him again in the deadworlds. Something-or someone-is undeniably missing. Yet, even after Finn wakes from this hallucination and finds himself in a sort of transitional purgatory on his way to one of the fifty deadworlds, something about his death feels unearned. Everything we loved to cringe about in the early episodes. There’s even a painful line of autotune and a rushed “lesson learned” moment in which Finn states out loud to himself an appropriately preschool-level aphorism. Before comprehending his death, he finds himself momentarily trapped in an uncanny hallucinatory sequence of mathematics-related slang and classic Ice-King-and-ice-cream adventures with his best bro Jake. In “Together Again,” that day has come for the brothers, and the realization confronts us just as it confronts Finn. With all these victories under their belts, it may have seemed like Finn and Jake were immortal, but every dog (and human) has his day. In the eight-year run of their show, Finn the Human Mertens and Jake the Dog (voiced by Jeremy Shada and John DiMaggio, respectively) battled evil wizards, demons, vampires, other humans and even the god of chaos himself. Honestly, it was bound to happen eventually.
Adventure time: distant lands series#
That’s not really a spoiler though we find out that both members of our favorite adventuring duo have kicked the bucket not five minutes into the latest hour-long special from the “Adventure Time” epilogue series “Distant Lands.” “Finn and Jake are dead,” the screen reads. “Wait! Stop! Spoilers!” you’re probably thinking.