Adventure Time Season 7 Finale Review

Adventure Time Preboot and Reboot Title Cards

About a week ago, Cartoon Network USA aired the Season 7 finale of Adventure Time after several months in hiatus. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, depending on how you view Cartoon Network, they did not bother promoting the Season 7 finale. According to Showbuzzdaily, Adventure Time did made it to the Top 50, landing at No. 44 with a key demo rating of 0.21 and viewed by 767,000 people. So it meets the expected average. Still, those numbers could've gone higher if Cartoon Network actually promoted the episode on their channel.

But I'm not hear to rant about Cartoon Network's recent management activities. Rather this is my general thoughts of the Season 7 finale. At first, I really didn't think of it that much as it is the start of a brand new arc that leads to another mini-series like event, similar to the 8-part Stakes mini-series featuring Marceline. In fact the upcoming comic book special serves as a prequel to the said new event. After getting a request via private message, I decided to give the two-part Season 7 finale of Adventure Time - "Preboot" and "Reboot", a second look.

Susan Strong's mechanical implant

Before we go further, let's go back to the episode "Dark Purple", which aired in February of last year. While rescuing a baby from robots that run a soda factory, a mechanical implant was revealed on Susan's scalp. It's quite a big deal since we first thought that Susan might be another human like Finn, and now it may be otherwise. This revelation is explored even further, with "Preboot" and "Reboot".

He thinks the Merry-Go-Round is a sting-like trap or something

"Preboot" begins with Finn, Jake, and Susan exploring an abandoned arcade at the mall in Beautopia, hoping to find some cursed artifacts. While it is funny to see them think that a horse from the Merry-Go-Round contains some magical properties, given the atmosphere of Adventure Time, this shouldn't be surprising. Even today, when archeologists discover some ancient artifact, unless there are other clues to help them out, they can best guess what that artifact is for, which could be wrong.

Imagine tens of thousands of years from now, someone discovered a figurine of Goku from Dragon Ball and think he's an idol people used to worship, and the people of that future decided to take the woshipping part, seriously. It's quite funny to think about it, but it is one possible scenario in an era where much of us don't exist anymore. Thus, the opening scene of Preboot features as such.

Anyhow, during the trio's exploration, Tiffany pops up from inside a giant mechanical fortress and invite Finn, Jake, and Susan inside. They meet Dr. Gross, who operates the fortress and is the one that rescued Tiffany after the latter was swallowed up by the giant Worm Queen, and giving him a bionic arm. Gross reveals that she is taking in several creatures from Earth and giving them cyborg enhancements as a way to speed up the evolutionary process, with Finn, Jake, and Susan being her latest subjects. Gross herself is also revealed to be a full cyborg.

Dr. Gross, who considers herself a "Human+"

Finn & Jake refused Gross's offer, but were paralyzed thanks to the poison from the candy Gross gave them earlier. Gross also has a more sinister plan - her cyborg creatures serves as her own personal army to draw out the humans from a place called "The Island" and turn them all into cyborgs. Once again, this is a lead-up to the mini-series where Finn & Jake entered The Island to meet other humans. Susan fortunately didn't eat the candy and rescues Finn & Jake, while Tiffany makes the ultimate sacrifice to help them escape. In the process however, the other cyborg creatures got out as well, with the giant eel heading straight to the Candy Kingdom.

In one scene, Gross finds the implant on Susan's scalp with the serial "XJ-77", and appears to be very familiar with her. So this is a strong implication that Susan originally came from The Island. The serial "XJ-77" may have also been a reference to the character "XJ-9", aka Jenny Wakeman from the Nickelodeon series "My Life As A Teenage Robot".

We continue the season finale with "Reboot". Finn, Jake, and Susan were able to subdue the giant eel, but the eel's electricity knocks Susan unconscious. When Finn tries to help her out, he unintentionally activates the implant that reveals Susan's programming, which is to kidnap Finn and bring him to The Island.

A transformed Susan Strong

Jake and Princess Bubblegum rescue Finn and take him to the Candy Kingdom, but Susan pursues and attacks. Rattleballs, the former guardian of the Candy Kingdom, and Finn's mentor in using the Grass Sword, appears to fight Susan, who tranformed into a power-up form. (I'm guessing the storyboarders must've watched Dragon Ball and used Frieza's transformations as reference) Sadly, Susan Strong was just, no pun intended, too strong and destroys Rattleballs completely. Finn is once again kidnapped and taken to a beach where Susan contacts The Island for extraction.

Yabba-Dabba-Dabba-Dabba

Jake arrives and the adventuring duo form the Jake Suit, and battles Susan pro-wrestling style. But Susan ends up the victor after pinning Jake down with an anchor. Finn reluctantly defends himself and was able to destroy the implant, bringing Susan back to her senses. However, in an attempt to survive, the Grass Sword acts on its own to attack Susan to squeeze her to death. Finn attacks the Grass Sword to free Susan, causing it to detach itself from Finn's arm and fuses with the broken Finn Sword, forming a new creature with the Grass Sword in hand, as though about to attack Finn.

TO BE CONTINUED

And that my friends, is the end of Season 7 of Adventure Time, and Finn is left with no way of defending himself. He has no weapons, Jake and Susan are down, and the Grass Creature appears intent on taking him out. I could easily predict that by the time Season 8 begins, whenever that may be, whoever Susan contacted on The Island will arrive to help Finn out. And we will get to learn more of not just The Island, but Susan's origins as well. So we will get to see more of her in the episodes to come. I'm happy that Susan gets more appearances this time around, as she is one of the favorite characters among Adventure Time fans.

We have one musical number played in the season finale, and looking back, I have to give Showrunner Adam Muto and the staff due credit, being able to pull off some good songs even without Rebecca Sugar composing them as she is now running Steven Universe.

Sad that Tiffany may be gone for good, but it's probably for the best, given that his voice actor, Collin Dean, is showing signs of puberty in his voice. Collin Dean, for those who don't know, played Greg in "OVer The Garden Wall", and is also voicing as Lincoln in Nickelodeon's "The Loud House".

Another person that's sad to go is the Finn Sword, as technically speaking, there is a living Finn inside there as a result of the various time loops and paradoxes to bring Prismo back. Now he is consumed by the Grass Sword creating a new enemy Finn must defeat.

Given that Adventure Time is planned to end its run by 2018, I would think that the final 2 seasons would be more story-driven to wrap things up, or follow the similar format of Regular Show's final season, in which the episodes are mostly stand-alone, but are tied to the overarching plot of saving the universe. I think it's proper that the final two seasons tie-up some loose ends, one of which is Finn's origins. We know that Finn was abandoned as a baby, and Martin Merten's accounts on why he abandoned his own son is fishy at best. It's been rumored that someone from Finn's past, most probably Mrs. Mertens, Finn's mother, lives on The Island. So goes the theory that Mrs. Mertens may have programmed Susan to find Finn.

So this brings the question - is it possible Susan Strong is Finn's sister? In the alternate timeline, Farmworld Finn did have a baby sibling, though the name and gender is not mentioned. So it's possible the sibling also exists in the prime timeline. Though there isn't any hard evidence to suggest Susan Strong is that very sibling, the same is true of the opposite, especially given that she was tasked to find Finn.

As I said earlier, the Season 7 finale is but a lead-in to the mini-series in Season 8, but it is a great build-up nonetheless. We see some helloes, maybe some goodbyes, well executed pace in storytelling and some yabba-dabba-dabba. Overall, a very good season finale, and I am looking forward to the next season. I just hope Cartoon Network isn't screwing with their flagship series anymore and give it its proper run for everyone to see as it slowly reaches the curtain call.