By: Tony

(featured image from F E E L I N G S playlist on youtube)

I spend a lot of time, staring into space and dissociating. I try to take a moment away from all of the intense shit happening in the world today so that it doesn’t consume every waking moment.

If you’re like me, you probably also like to have a safe, vaguely comforting show on while you dissociate, so when you occasionally dip your feet back into the scum pond that is reality, you get a fleeting moment of calm before remembering how big of a shit show the US has become.

So I’m guessing a lot of people are on their third or fourth re-watching of Avatar (The Last Airbender, not the sci-fi Dances With Wolves). If that is wearing a little thin, and you’re not sure if The Office aged well, I would highly recommend Adventure Time. The episodes are a smooth 11 minutes, the entirety is available online, and the plot is simplistic enough that you can coast on it while you try to relax for one goddamn second. The feeling of the show is always “its okay, we can get through it together.” Beyond any obstacles and troubles, the show somehow keeps its chin up, and the plucky characters keep on doing what they do, and the story keeps going.

There’s a lot of episodes to go through, so if you want to try a few and see if it is good background noise during a zone-out, here’s a list of some episodes to try out.

Blood Under the Skin (season 2, episode 4)

(The *ok sign* *clicking sound with tongue* Armor episode)

This episode is all about the fixation on having the best gear. Jake and Finn spend the whole episode trying to find the best armor, only to realize that maybe material possessions aren’t what adventuring is all about.

Bonus points: Large amount of one of my favorite side characters, Choose Goose. I can’t get enough of that wacky bird.

I Remember You (season 4, episode 25)

(The Marceline/Ice king song episode)

This is the episode that got me into Adventure Time. I heard about Ice King’s history and how the show has a bunch of dark stuff happening in the background, and this song popped up during research, and goddamn. It hits really hard in the feels, seeing this old tortured soul tell his story, dealing with his own faulty memory.

Bonus Points: The song slaps.

Prismo episodes (s5e2, s6e1, s6e19)

Prismo is a really cool character, and it expands the mythos of the show. You know when the Cosmic Owl or Prismo shows up, things are going to get weird. They deal with paradoxes, time loops, alternate dimensions, all that good stuff.

Bonus Points: The voice actor for Prismo, Kumail Nanjiani, is great. he really adds a chill vibe to cosmic powers.

Reign of Gunters (season 4, episode 24)

Lots and lots of good wizardy stuff in this episode. The wizards are a wacky bunch, all about secrets and secret societies. They add a playful and whimsical air to those ideas, so instead of being dark and sinister, it’s just a bunch of old nerds in robes that ramble about secrets.

Bonus Points: Jay T. Dogzone. Jake The Dog wrote a fake pick-up artist book, which isn’t really directly talked about much. Ice King reads it and I really love how he quotes and follows the advice. It’s like, the advice isn’t terrible, but Ice King should really be working on fixing his own shit before trying to pick up anybody, and it is really obvious.

Cursed Sword (season 5, episdoes 45 & 46)

First of all, Let’s take a moment to appreciate the name of the sentient gumball machine, rattleballs.

So this is an arc that ultimately influences the rest of the show. Finn finds a grass sword that is possibly the best sword ever. But, it is cursed, and Finn ends up becoming attached to it, This episode talks about how sometimes at first glance, we see things as terrible, but if we think about it differently, if can be a good thing. Finn comes to terms with the fact that maybe being cursed sounds worse than it actually is.

And I think that’s a great life lesson.

Bonus Points: More Choose Goose, seriously I love this floppy-necked rhyming shopkeeper.

Jake the Brick (season 6, episode 20)

This standalone episode hits harder than I would have ever thought. It’s just a story of Jake being a brick in a house and watching the struggle of the local wildlife. It gives hope, it gives a sense of community, it pulls at the heartstrings, and the whole episode is focused on characters that don’t even have names.

Bonus points: all of the characters across the world, tuning into the radio broadcast is such a wholesome, comforting moment. Like, everybody is out there in the world, just trying to make it, and they are all finding comfort in Jake’s story. It shows how we may not even realize the impact we are having on our own community, but nothing happens in a vacuum.

Stakes pt 1-8 (season 7, episodes 6-13)

Marceline literally fighting her past,

Everybody loves Marceline, she is the coolest. She is a rockstar/vampire queen and this is the story of her becoming a vampire. It delves into her backstory and explores how we can learn from our mistakes and we can try and break the cycles that we find ourselves in by making new choices. If you want to binge-watch, this is a good grip of episodes to go through.

Bonus Points: The vampires are pretty awesome. They’re not based around the classic Dracula look, and they all have very distinct vampire styles. It’s really cool.

Hall of Egress (season 7, episode 23)

An episode about escaping a dungeon, and learning to do it alone. It is a bit of a reality warp, which is something Adventure Time likes to do without batting an eye. The rules of the Adventure Time universe are very fluid, and this episodes uses that to show a really cool dungeon trap, and uses it to tell a lesson.

Bonus Points: You can impress people by knowing what egress and ingress (opposite of egress) mean.

Flute Spell (season 7, episode 24)

Huntress Wizard is great.

Adventurers and wizards have a lot of trouble in the romance department, and Finn spends a lot of the show looking for love. Huntress Wizard is just awesome, and she prizes her independence and wizardly pursuits above all else. Finn also shows how much he has matured and grown by how he deals with his feelings. Jake plays a happy, supportive friend, and it is a wholesome story about romance.

Bonus Points: Wizards are awesome, and Adventure Time wizards are especially awesome.

Orb (season 9, episode 1)

Dream episode (about wanting bananas).

I know, dream episodes can suck. The whole “it was all a dream” trope is by far my least favorite, and stories crutch on it sometimes.

But this is the fun kind of dream episode, where it really explores the surreal qualities of Adventure Time. You want a brain bender that is ultimately just a whimsical adventure through dreamworld? Of course you do.

Bonus Points: Lots of good BMO shenanigans.

Abstract (season 9, episode 10)

Blue Jake, an episode about changes.

This episode talks about changes, and how change is good. It is a comfort for people who get scared when the world around them is changing.

Bonus Points: Jermaine, Jake’s brother is a chill painter and has that “hey, it’s all good” vibe.

Any Episode with BMO

BMO episodes are always a whimsical adventure. BMO has a very active imagination, so that mixed with his narration and scripting can make for a fun, low-stakes adventure through an ever-changing world.

Bonus Points: BMO is basically sentient video game console, which adds an extra layer of surrealism.