Adventure Time - Season 5 Episode 36 - Recap - The Vault
Adventure Time - Season 5 Episode 36 - Recap - The Vault
Ready yourselves, because this one's a doozy! This week, Cartoon Network's Adventure Time gets kinda nuts. We learn some history for Ooo, the fantasy world in which the show takes place, as well as some history for one of the setting's main rulers, Princess Bubblegum. You should know, this cartoon is eleven minutes long. This recap is longer than some of my recaps of forty-four minute shows. That's how much content ends up jammed into each episode! If you're not watching this show, please give it a shot!
Finn is up late at night hanging out in his PJs when he's suddenly attacked by a big green ghost! This is a callback to an episode from a few years ago, a Halloween special that was really creepy. Finn's quickly overtaken by the horrific ghoul, only to be awoken by Jake. It was all a dream! Jake tells Finn he's got to examine his repressed thoughts so he stops wrecking the treehouse with the sleepwalking. Finn laughs it off and they go back to sleep.
The next day, Jake is suspiciously eager for Finn to play a new game with B-MO. He boots up the game and it's something called "Repression Simulator". Finn begins the game and falls into a sort of trance, going into his mental vault and reliving his past lives. Passing through a few inanimate objects, Finn finally lands in the life of a wandering mercenary named Shoko. Shoko is a young, one-armed lady with a white tiger companion. I could tell right away that Shoko is the ghost lady from Finn's nightmares. Anyway, Shoko goes and visits a bath house, where the gang inside recognizes her right away. She has clearly worked with these guys before. She approaches the boss, who has a job for her: She's to steal an amulet from a nearby place. If she fails or backs out, he promises he'll kill her! She heads there and we see... The Candy Kingdom! It's still under construction, with the Banana Guard on the wall still an unripe green. Shoko has her tiger fake dead, then screams and knocks herself out with a rock. The guard notices and calls for help. Princess Bubblegum appears, looking exactly as she does in the present day. She orders Shoko brought inside.
Upon awakening, Shoko explains that she was attacked by the Bath House Boys gang (though we know this is a lie). PB offers asylum, and they get to work helping build the kingdom. After some days, the Princess brings Shoko to a secret room, where she's putting the finishing touches on her new security system, the Gumball Guardians. PB presents Shoko with a gift in the form of a mechanical arm. Shoko, heartbroken that she's got to betray her new friend, runs off in tears. Later that night, remembering the gang leader's threat, Shoko sets off for PB's room with the new arm attached.
When Shoko gets to PB's room, she sneaks up to steal the amulet, but the Gumball Guardians spot her. She's knocked into the radioactive river below, and the Guardians cannot find her. Princess Bubblegum goes back to bed, saddened. In a moment of true heartbreak, Shoko's tiger lays down next to the river and waits... :(
Later, Shoko crawls from the river, amulet in hand, looking a lot more like the ghost she eventually becomes. She crawls back towards the bath house, having regrowns her arm in the radioactive goo. She reaches a young tree nearby and slumps over, dead. As we fade back to reality, Finn is jerked awake filled with knowledge. He gets on the phone to call PB, who rushes over. Finn goes to the kitchen and starts wrecking the floorboards. Underneath is the ghost, who hands Finn PB's amulet. PB is shocked, and when she looks in the whole, there's just a skeleton. Finn explains that he's the reincarnation of Shoko and had to make amends, he comments on PB being much older than she says she is, then the episode just ends.
This is one of the best episodes of this show by far. There's so much subtlety and just the right amount of backstory delivered in a really cool way. Thus far, most of the past we've seen is very recent or very distant. Here, we get a somewhat long time ago, but not the century of Simon & Marcy. It's really some good stuff, and I recommend watching this episode is you've fallen away from the show and are looking to come back! Check here next week for another recap, unless Cartoon Network skips a week. Really, just keep trying on Mondays until you see a recap here!