Original Airdate: April 12, 2010
Written & Storyboarded by: Bert Youn & Sean Jimenez
The episode starts off with Finn and Jake slicing up some apples with their swords. Hey, Jake’s rarely seen kickass sword! I forgot it was in this one. We’re then formally introduced to Tree Trunks, whose hot buns previously appeared in “Slumber Party Panic”. Possibly a controversial opinion, but I actually like Tree Trunks. I know a lot of people tend to detest her and believe she weighs down the show, but I think she’s really endearing honestly. I dunno, there’s just something really adorable about the idea of an elderly lady in the body of an elephant. The only thing I don’t particularly like about her is the fact that she’s like, a billion years old and she has the hots for a 12-year-old in this episode. That’s a little creepy.
Anywho, Tree Trunks invites the boys in for apple pie as they talk about their aspirations and what they would do if they could do anything. Finn says he’d like to ride a shooting star and fight space monsters (one of these comes true, at least) and Jake wants to carve his face in the moon. Tree Trunks states that she’d pick in apple (lame) but includes that she wants to pick the legendary “Crystal Gem Apple” located in the Evil Forest. Insert Steven Universe reference here. F&J decide to adventure to the Evil Forest to retrieve it, and with a little hesitation, Tree Trunks agrees to come along.
Once they get to the Evil Forest, they encounter a Wall of Flesh. Huh, I wonder if it’s human flesh. Could be an ancestor of Finn. The boys try to slay the wall, while Tree Trunks spends her time putting stickers on it. Before the wall can hurt TT, Finn defeats it and lectures her on how stickers won’t do shit in battle. Then a bunch of totally gnarly sign zombies come along and Tree Trunks tries to have a picnic with them, and Finn gets pretty jacked up by them trying to protect TT. Finn’s all, “C’mon gurl, you’re killin’ me.” Tree Trunks apologizes once more, but when a brain snake beast comes along, she once again screws with Finn’s adventuring by trying to seduce the beast. Jake was supposed to keep a watch on her, but he ended up falling into TT’s seduction. Gross. Finn snaps on Tree Trunks and says she’s not a true adventurer, making the poor little green elephant cry.
I’m just noticing now that this episode’s a lot similar to “Trouble in Lumpy Space”: Finn, Jake and a secondary character travel to a distant land and the secondary character keeps screwing things up for the main duo, causing Finn to snap at the secondary character and then apologizing in the end. This one works a lot better in respects to that episode, imo. For one, I prefer Tree Trunks is much more likable and easier to sympathize than Lumpy Space Princess. Second, LSP’s intentions in “Trouble in Lumpy Space” seemed much more based on her own selfish needs, even though she was the one who unintentionally caused Jake the lumps, while TT’s screw-ups are primarily based on ignorance. Therefore, it’s a lot easier to sympathize with Tree Trunks than LSP, because while LSP herself didn’t mean any intentional harm, TT at least was trying to help, and she does end up assisting in getting the Crystal Apple at the very end! Finn had to cure Jake’s lumps with only help from himself. Kinda weird how they decided to basically do two very similar setups so close to each other, but this one is definitely the better of the two.
After Finn and Tree Trunks apologize to each other, they’re faced with a Crystal Guardian who can mimic their every move, and after fighting the Guardian fails, the boys try to retrieve the apple “the Tree Trunks way,” which still kinda confuses me as to what they actually did, honestly. Did they seduce the Guardian? Whatever, TT takes a bite into the Crystal Gem Apple, and when Finn asks her how it is, she explodes. Well, damn. I guess I should talk about the ending a bit too. Legend has it that on the Netflix version and a couple of DVD versions of this episode, the ending cuts off when Tree Trunks explodes, while all other versions show TT in the Crystal Dimension after she bursts. I can’t really say which ending is better honestly; the ending with Tree Trunks exploding is definitely the better “what the fuck” ending, but I think it’s still pretty effective with the brief clip of TT in Crystal Dimension, so I don’t think it necessarily ruins anything. I guess Cartoon Network was afraid kids would think Tree Trunks was dead? “Crystals Have Power” must’ve not been in production yet.
“Tree Trunks” really benefits from having a great selection of star characters and environments. I really love the Evil Forest; there’s some awesomely creative villains there, including the snake beast and the sign zombies. It’s also a pretty nice debut for Tree Trunks, and as I mentioned, plays around with the “misunderstanding between two friends” plot a lot better than “Trouble in Lumpy Space” did.
Adventure Time Reviewed 