Original Airdate: May 3, 2010
Written & Storyboarded by: Pendleton Ward & Kent Osborne
Finn and Jake are battling with Science Cat and the late Sword Shark (R.I.P., brother) when Jake realizes that it’s 4 o’clock and that he’s late for viola practice with Lady Rainicorn. Jake’s upset that he’s leaving because he’s missing out on Finn decapitating Science Cat and Sword Shark’s heads only for them to re-grow them the next day. I wonder why Science Cat and Sword Shark would ever put themselves in that position. That just sounds very uncomfortable. Jake shows up to play viola with Lady, but she’s hecka tired, so Lady goes right off to bed. Man, Rainicorns go to sleep super early. So Jake sadly rides home on his bike while venting to Shelby, the worm that lives inside of his viola, about how he wishes he could hang out with both Finn and Lady at the same time. So Shelby’s like, “why don’t you just hang out with Finn and Lady at the same time?” and Jake’s all, “great idea!”
So Jake, Lady and Finn get together for a super awkward picnic where Finn tries to break the ice. Finn starts up a knock-knock joke with the setup of “diarrhea” but Lady never answers with “diarrhea who?” I really wanted to hear that joke; diarrhea always makes for a funny punchline. Jake asks Lady to say something funny and she mentions a time when her and Jake ran naked through a farmer’s field. If you ever wanna get past the censors kids, just speak in Korean. Obviously, Finn isn’t bilingual so he doesn’t understand what Lady’s saying, so the trio embarks on a journey to find a translator at the bottom of Lake Szelezon. The scenes underwater are especially a highlight; the animation is fast-paced and energized, and the music packs a feeling of thrill and whimsy. There’s also these really cool creatures called the Lake Knights that look like a mixture between a fish and a garden gnome.
Once receiving the translator, the only settings on it are alien, nightmare and grandpa, so naturally they choose grandpa. Finn gets a real kick out of it and he and Lady begin to bond. Jake slowly starts feeling left out when Lady and Finn leave him behind to go collect some choice cursed rings from Forest Wizard, and jealousy ensues. It’s interesting that only two episodes we were dealing with Finn’s jealousy toward PB and now we’re more so entering into Jake’s jealousy revolving around his love interest. I find that throughout season one, there’s a couple of episodes where Finn and Jake individually experience the same or similar situations to one another, and it’s interesting to see the different ways they handle it. In this instance, Finn seems more inclined to hide his feelings while Jake is a bit more brash and a bit more honest. It’s a good deal of character building that may or may not have been intentional, but helps flesh out the characters so that they don’t exactly seem like carbon copies of each other.
Cut to Lady and Finn playing on BMO in the tree house, whilst Jake watches. It’s kinda weird how this is BMO’s second appearance and he’s still just sort of a lifeless console. BMO’S MORE THAN JUST AN ITEM, DAMMIT. Jake’s jealous gets more and more obvious and he refuses to join Finn and Lady at a Cloud Kingdom party. A couple hours later, the two have neglected to return, so Jake calls the Cloud Kingdom and finds out that Finn and Lady had left an hour earlier. Jake shows up to Lady’s house and finds out that the two of them are hanging out without him, leaving Jake devastated. In a fit of rage, Jake looks through his phone contacts for some he can call to make his friends jealous. It’s fun to look back and see that most of these characters in Jake’s phone return later on, whether it be his old gang members or Card Wars tourney participants. And uh oh, Jake calls Tiffany. Finn and Lady hear someone shredding it on the viola, and find Jake and a mysterious stranger in the bushes. Finn’s all, “what the fuck man?? You’re cheating on Lady?” but Tiffany is revealed to be a boy, so Finn proceeds to beat the snot out of him. While Finn and Tiffany fight, Jake makes amends with Lady, apologizing for his behavior and realizing it’s sorta his fault. Tiffany runs off and vows to get Jake back, but Finn spits in his face and he runs off crying. Finn, Lady and Jake agree to always be stupid forever and the episode ends.
I think this one’s a pretty good introduction to Lady Rainicorn. I also like how it sort of goes in a realistic route of what sometimes happens with friends: someone introduces their friend to their other friend, and those two friends end up establishing a strong relationship, leaving the person who introduced them feeling somewhat hurt and betrayed. This is really the episode where Jake is actually starting to sound like Jake as well. The past handful of episodes kinda felt like John DiMaggio was trying to find a direction to take his voice in, but Jake mostly sounds very fluid and natural in this episode. This episode also introduces Tiffany, who we’ll be seeing a lot of later on.
Adventure Time Reviewed 