Since 2010, the Cartoon Network series “Adventure Time” has given viewers a guided tour through the world of Ooo and its many inhabitants through well-animated, cleverly written and endlessly creative animation pieces. Now, five years after the original ending, the series returns with a touching epilogue to its most beloved characters, and with a more mature coat of paint.
The new series, “Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake,” is neither a starting point nor stand-alone material. Instead, the 10-episode mini-series expects, at minimum, the viewer to have watched the entire original series. This is less a criticism of the work and more a comment on the trends seen with recent, more stand-alone mini-series focused on pre-established worlds such as “Andor” from “Star Wars” and “Gen V” from “The Boys.”
That’s not to say “Adventure Time”is not completely impossible to follow as a casual viewer. The show’s protagonist, Fionna, while based on a pre-existing character originally meant to be a lighthearted joke on fanfiction, is remade into a fish-out-of-water. Fionna and her cat, Cake, now live in a world meant to resemble our own, where all of the strange and unique characters of “Adventure Time” appear in more mundane forms. And through a summoning ritual gone wrong, they end up magically transported to the land of Ooo, where they learn they are alternate-universe versions of the main characters of “Adventure Time,” Finn and Finn’s dog, Jake. What follows is a frantic chase through the multiverse to find a way to put everyone back in the right place.
The multiverse has become a prevalent trope in modern pop culture, one largely used in the likes of superhero movies to create easy-to-explain crossover events or cameos. In “Adventure Time,” the different worlds of Fionna and Cake feel like a walk down memory lane, harkening back to many classic plot lines and characters in “Adventure Time” and morphing them into separate interpretations of what could have been. This reinterpretation can also be seen as a seamless transition from the TV-PG rating seen in the original series to a TV-14 rating, allowing what was once merely implication to be made explicit. We see versions of “Adventure Time’s” world covered in ice, overrun by dangerous vampires and with all life on the planet mysteriously vanished, all different flavors of the post-apocalypse the series is known for.
The heart of this walk through memory lane is Simon Petrikov, a human archeologist from the 20th century who, through reasons that require far too much context to explain in this review, has found himself stuck thousands of years in the future. His mission within the show is to find some way to reunite with his long-gone girlfriend, Betty. He hopes there’s something in the multiverse that will let him see her again. Compared to the loud and bombastic personalities found within the show, Simon has a more reserved, worrisome demeanor, playing the role of both the straight man in the more “out there” situations the cast finds themselves in, and the more dramatic and intimate sides of the show.
“Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake” may leave newcomers in the dust, being far too reliant on seven seasons worth of context and backstory that the show barely explains. But fans of “Adventure Time” will be treated to a delightful wrap on the show’s more interesting characters. It feels like a well deserved and delightful final lap through one of the most imaginative worlds in animation.
