Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake: Season 2 TV Review – Multiversal madness ensues in this mature and trippy quest for salvation
Plot: Fionna and Cake attempt to save the Sweet Spot from being demolished while searching for a cure to aid their fallen friend, Finn.
Review: I hope you’re down for some universe-hopping, friends, because the sophomore season of Fionna & Cake straddles Fionna-world and the Land of Ooo like a gymnast stretching before conquering a pommel horse. Gary Prince is about to realize his dream of opening the Sweet Spot, a bakery filled with confectionery delights, but only if Fionna and her friends can cut the ribbon in time for the Spot’s grand opening. Unfortunately, Queenie, Fionna’s sworn enemy, owns the land the Sweet Spot is built upon and vows to do everything within her power to keep Gary’s dream from coming true.
Meanwhile, Huntress Wizard goes in search of a cure after Finn becomes poisoned by the Heart of the Tree Forrest in the Wizard Cave. The quest takes Huntress Wizard on a multiversal adventure as she hops between Fionna-world, the Land of Ooo, and more for a remedy. Finn’s scenario creates a sense of urgency throughout the season, with everyone from Princess Bubblegum, Marceline, and Simon struggling to keep Finn alive until Huntress Wizard can return from her expedition with restorative medicine or magics. Is this starting to sound convoluted? I’ll admit there are a lot of spinning plates in Fionna & Cake Season 2, creating an exciting but uneven atmosphere of seriousness and silliness as we encounter life-threatening illnesses, relationship drama, friendship squabbles, and rites of passage.
Visually, Fionna & Cake Season 2 is a treat. No matter where you are, the environments are ultra-colorful, teeming with bizarre residents, and filled with secrets to discover. The season’s drama also introduces an unexpected maturity to the intricate web of plots. Whether Huntress Wizard is risking life and limb to save her friend Finn, Fionna is trying to get her act together while not letting her friends down, Cake is navigating a potential relationship with the silent Lord Monochromicorn, or Marshall Lee desperately attempts to come to terms with his familial bonds, there’s always something to pierce the ludacrisness and tug on your heart strings.
The Fionna and Cake series places itself in an interesting position. While the original Adventure Time series thrived on character development, zany sight gags, and wild fan theories about the Land of Ooo (is it a post-apocalyptic Candyland?), Fionna & Cake takes a more mature, somewhat depressed worldview. Fionna and Cake is a show for adults who grew up watching Adventure Time, and eventually came to learn how harsh the world truly is. While Finn and Jake battled fiendish kings and other fantasy-derived villains for most of their adventures, Fionna and Cake battle eviction, overdue bills, matters of the heart, and life-threatening illnesses as Father Time sinks his fangs into their fate. It’s a stark contract to say the least. These mature elements made for an interesting watch as I found parts of my own life reflected in Fionna’s everyday trials and tribulations. In that way, and more, Fionna & Cake is something special, though you’d best pray you can follow the many interlocking plotlines through a strange maze of overcoming self-doubt and multiversal madness.
HBO has only released seven of the ten episodes for the season at the time of this review. I hesitate to score the season at a seven when I feel that unreleased episodes could push it higher. Much like the original Adventure Time, Fionna & Cake is a rare gem that doesn’t come along in animation very often. Yes, we get plenty of adult animated wackiness from one series or another. Still, few introduce the heady, reflective elements of Fionna & Cake, a show that taps into modern woe, slavish responsibility, and interpersonal stife unlike much else on offer. If Fionna & Cake could get out from under its own weight from time to time, it could be close to perfection. While I struggle to score the show without seeing the entire season, the spinning plates continue to revolve inside my head as I wonder how it will all end.
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