As I said in the beginning of this video, it will contain spoilers for the entire plot of Elements. So this is your last chance of backing out if you don't want to be spoiled at all.
After the events of the episode "Orb", which you can check my short review on it in the video description, Finn, Jake, and BMO discover that the Treehouse, the surrounding areas, and even its inhabitants have all been turned into candy. Not only that, the candified people are all given completely different personalities. As the trio investigates further as to what is going on, they would encounter Sweet P, who is unaffected by the candy transformation, but is fearful of his now candified parents. Obviously, because Sweet P is the reincarnation of the Lich that grants him his immunity.
Later, the trio would find Princess Bubblegum transformed into a giant Candy Tower, and although she retains her sweet persona, it's a twisted one, as she wants everyone and everything around her turned into Candy. Now we all know Bonnie can be a bit of tyrant at times towards her people. But what she does in this mini-series is far more disturbing while under the cloud of, excuse the pun, "sweetness". BMO turned into candy while Finn and Jake were rescued by the Ice King, who apparently now lives in the Cloud Kingdom, or what's left of it.
Ice King's explanation of what is going on ties to a number of episodes that happened previously. The Ice Elemental Patience St. Pim is making another attempt of uniting the four Elementals of Earth - Ice, Fire, Candy, and Slime. Obviously, the other elementals refer to Phoebe the Flame Princess, Bonnie aka Princess Bubblegum, and Slime Princess.
While Patience is away foregoing her master plan, Betty, the new Magic Woman, appears and tries to make Ice King remember his past as Simon Petrikov. I guess it was obvious in past episodes, but I didn't notice until now that in spite of having Magic Man's powers and insanity, there's still a piece of humanity left in Betty that she remains determined to restore Simon's memories.
Sadly, Ice King's memories as Simon is long gone thanks to wearing Evergreen's Crown for more than a thousand years and this frustrates Betty. I honestly feel bad for her as she really loves Simon and desperately wants him back by any means necessary.
As I was doing this review, I was listening to an NPR archive from 2013 about Adventure Time regarding the Ice King and how his mental state is a reflection of the struggle of living with Alzheimer's Disease. So Betty's, and by extension Marceline's, frustrations with Simon's memory loss, is a representation of how loved ones deal with someone who has Alzheimer's.
I've also watched an episode of the Youtube Red series "Mind Field", starring Michael Steven from VSauce, where your memories determine you as a person. Should those memories be altered or stripped away, so is the person's character. I find it quite scary to know that you are defined by your own memories, and altering or removing those memories change you profoundly. This is what we are seeing with Simon as his memory loss changes him to a completely different character than what he once was.
All this made me symphatize more with what Ice King is going through. On a different note, Ice King is shown to be pretty buff in this one. I think it's from one episode where he really did some exercise to look buff, but I can't put my finger on what episode is that.
Back to the story. Taking the advice of the Tiny Manticore, Betty hangs out with Simon again, this time to instill new memories. Immediately, the two hit it off and is like a One True Pairing scene that made me wish the two do get a happy ending. Then Patience comes back with the other princesses under her mind control. She kidnaps Betty and extracts her magic powers to fuel her spell that would unite the four elements together, which backfired very badly and all of Ooo and its inhabitants were divided into the four elements.
I am quite disappointed with Patience, to be honest. Her first appearance suggests she would a possible antagonist for Finn & Jake. And although she is the one who started all this, she remains a minor character in Elements. I was hoping Finn and Patience would battle it out, but after their encounter, that's pretty much it.
After Betty is rescued, she then devises a plan to gather the jewels of the princesses and, using the Enchiridion Finn obtained back in Farmworld, would create a spell that would restore Ooo back to its original state. I totally forgot about the Enchiridion and now that the book is in play, I would think the Enchiridion will once again play a major role in a future story, perhaps to bring back the Lich.
Finn & Jake begin their adventure to retrieve the three jewels from the princesses. Along the way, several characters from seasons past would make appearances as guest characters or cameos. While attempting to take the jewel from the Slime Princess, tragedy struck as Jake is fully absorbed into Slime Princess's pure elemental form. Lumpy Space Princess, another person unaffected by Patience's botched spell, becomes Finn's companion after the latter loses Jake.
Later, while attempting to get the jewel from Flame Princess, Finn and Gunther are consumed by the Fire Elemental's rage, leaving LSP the only one left. She then made things worse by berating the Fire Elementals and having them attack the Candy Kingdom. Unintimidated by the invasion, Bonnie declares that all of Ooo should be turned candy and starts singing a song, which also acts as a spell. It is here that we now see who the real protagonist and antagonist are - LSP and Bonnie. Bonnie's song is, excuse the term again, "sweet" and not creepy at all. But the implication that it turns you into candy is what makes it disturbing and you could feel the sense of dread in the presentation.
I would compare this to the Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Joy", which is a satirical take on the zombie genre when happiness becomes a disease and everyone gets infected by it. While "The Joy"'s use of happiness to give the sense of dread is presented as satire, Bonnie's song in Elements is taken a little more seriously in the narrative. I think being turned into a living candy while singing songs of joy would probably be a far worse fate than being zombie food.
On a side note, I believe this is the first time Marceline and Flame Princess interacted with one another, though under bizarre circumstances. It would be nice to see an episode of the two interacting while being their normal selves and see how that turned out.
Another thing I was disappointed in Elements are Finn and Gunther as they are both consumed by the Fire Elemental. Given how mentally tough Finn is, he would've easily resisted being turned into the said Elemental. Gunther too, given that he is Orgalorg. That being said, I do understand the reasoning - Finn lost Jake to Slime Princess and is still unable to break free from losing him, which played a part of him being turned into the Fire Elemental. It's also a way to show LSP as the mini-series's true protagonist.
I confess I never really liked LSP as a protagonist in previous episodes. I always find her better off as a supporting character rather than take center stage. Also in part because her persona makes her such a "lump", if you get what I mean. Nevertheless, she played her part and brought Finn back by having him remember his time with Bonnie using the latter's piece of gum.
Earlier, Finn made the comment that he gets weird feelings when he sees Simon and Betty together acting like a happy couple. This, along with his memories of being with Bonnie is an indication that he is still longing for a significant other and he still has feelings for Bonnie deep down. I'm assuming their relationship will be explored yet again sometime in the future, if not Finn finally finding his true love.
Finn, now back in the game, has gathered all the jewels from the princessesand gave them to Betty, except Betty had other plans. Instead of restoring Ooo, she will use the spell to travel through time and prevent Simon from ever wearing Evergreen's Crown, thereby altering all of Adventure Time's history. Guess the insanity part of her was her obsession in restoring Simon's memories and she also admits she couldn't stand the Ice King's character. Ironically, it was the aloof Simon who botched the spell and sent her to Mars instead, where the former Magic Man is now its king.
That just leaves the problem of Ooo being turned into Candy by Princess Bubblegum. Finn figures out that LSP is the so-called "Fifth Element" and Lumps is an anti-elemental property. Using the Enchiridion, the Princess jewels, Evergreen's Crown, and LSP's "lumpiness", LSP restored Ooo back to normal. Everyone then gathered around her as she regains concsciousness and is being hailed as a hero.
It's worth noting that the scene where everyone gathered around Lumpy Space Princess features several characters from past seasons, and seeing this gives me the feeling this is like a hidden message from the Adventure Time staff to its fans, thanking them for watching the show for 8 years as Adventure Time will end its run in 2018. I would think the scene is also a thank you to creator Pendleton Ward, who plays LSP.
When Ice King took his crown back, one of the gems fell off before he put it back on. Now if you recall in the episode "Graybles 1000+", set 1000 years into the future, it featured a creature known as the "Ice Thing", a winged-creature with the face resembling the Ice King and the jewels from Evergreen's Crown as its eyes, though one is missing. So this scene is a foreshadowing of the eventual outcome from Graybles 1000+. I hope Simon doesn't end up as the Ice Thing, but seeing this made me believe in the theory that the Ice Thing is Evergreen's Crown somehow evolved and became sentient. That said, with Betty revealed to have given up on trying to be with Ice King, his tragedy is more than likely there to stay.
The last scene features Finn reuniting with Jake, now revealing his true form as a shapeshifter. You may recall in the episode "Joshua and Margaret Investigations" where the Shapeshifter bit onto Joshua's head that spawned Jake. Finn is nevetheless glad to have his brother back and will help him restore to his normal self whenever that opportunity comes.
And this is by far the mini-series's strongest trait. We often take Finn & Jake's relationship as brothers for granted, but Elements show just how strong, and vital, their bond as brothers are. And when Finn temporarily lost his brother, he was out of it, almost to a point of being devastated. I can relate to that as I do have strong bonds with my sibling and we treat each other as though we're buddies, looking at each other's back, and having a sort of a symbiotic relationship. I would be consumed by so much grief if my sibling passes away.
So what's going to happen now that Jake is shown his true form? Given there are only a few episodes left in the current season, I would think that those episodes, or sometime in the next season will dive us more into the Shapeshifter's origins.
It's hard for me to believe that the current season is almost over at such a short amount of time. Granted, this season produced two mini-series events - "Islands" and now "Elements", both covers more than half of the episodes of the current season. This pretty much means the show will take an awfullly long break before they come back with the rest of the episodes. I honestly don't mind at all, as the current season has been great so far.
And Elements is a great mini-series with a strong emphasis on the plot, and many connectiions to past seasons that enthusiasts will further enjoy the show's long and expanded history. I really love where the show is going, especially since we are anticipating its run to end in 2018 and would like to see loose ends tied up. It's definitely worth the purchase in iTunes if you want to watch it early, or see the mini-series when it airs on Cartoon Network. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the mini-series "Adventure Time: Elements", a 4 out of 5.
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