Finn the Human and Jake the Dog

Plot

In the fourth season finale, "The Lich," the villain disguises himself as Finn and Jake's hero, Billy, to trick them into using the Enchiridion to open a multiverse portal. After the Lich goes through, the duo follows him. They end up in a time room at the multiverse's center, where a wish-granter named Prismo lives. They get there just as the Lich disappears after wishing for all life to end. After a brief talk with Prismo, Finn wishes the Lich had never existed, and he is instantly sent into the reality that wish creates. The story then shifts to a new art style, matching the end of "The Lich," in a wish-made world called Farmworld. Here, Finn is an ordinary human living on a farm with his family and his dog, Jake. Picking up from the earlier episode, Finn's mother calls him and tells him to sell his beloved mule, Bartram, to settle the family's debt to the Destiny Gang. On his way to town to sell the animal, Finn and Jake fall into a hole in the ground and find the skeleton of Simon Petrikov, who has been dead for a long time. An old, worn-out Marceline—who never became a vampire—appears and explains that Simon gave his life to stop a mutagenic bomb by freezing it in ice. She says she has been guarding Simon's body and the ice crown ever since he died, to keep anyone from being hurt by the crown's power. Finn steals the crown, planning to sell it instead of Bartram. But in town, the Destiny Gang steals both the crown and the mule. Angry, Finn stirs up the townspeople, who start rioting because they are tired of the gang's abuse. Finn goes to the Destiny Gang's mansion to face their leader, Big Destiny. There, Big Destiny gives back the crown, saying it will be the last thing he ever owns. Finn looks out the window and sees the gang setting the city on fire. He races home, bringing Marceline with him. When he gets there, the gang has already set his house ablaze, with his parents and baby sibling trapped upstairs. Finn asks Marceline if the crown is magic, and she warns him it is very dangerous. He then puts the crown on his head, and the power starts to flow into him.

Production

The episodes "Finn the Human" and "Jake the Dog" were written and storyboarded by different pairs. Jesse Moynihan and Tom Herpich handled "Finn the Human," while Rebecca Sugar and Cole Sanchez worked on "Jake the Dog." The stories for both episodes were developed by Patrick McHale, Kent Osborne, and Pendleton Ward. Larry Leichliter directed both episodes, with Nick Jennings as art director. Nate Cash served as supervising director for "Finn the Human," and Adam Muto supervised "Jake the Dog." Although the credits split the work officially, the four writers and storyboarders collaborated closely. For example, Sanchez and Herpich created most of the scenes featuring Prismo, while Sugar was responsible for the sequence where Finn goes insane.

The episodes featured several guest stars. Ron Perlman voiced the Lich, Kumail Nanjiani played Prismo, Ming-Na Wen portrayed Farmworld Finn's mother, and Cloris Leachman voiced Farmworld Marceline. James Kyson voiced Big Destiny and Trami, Eric Bauza voiced Tromo, and Jeff Bennett voiced Choose Bruce. The characters Kyson and Bauza played, known as the Destiny Gang, were intentionally designed to not fit neatly into the Adventure Time world. Moynihan designed these characters, drawing inspiration from the Japanese manga series Fist of the North Star. On his website, he admitted he worried their appearance might be "a little bit jarring," but he decided to go ahead with the idea anyway.

Tim Kiefer composed the music for these episodes. For the song "Prismatic," he took the track "Lil' Booty Dance," which first appeared in the second season episode "Mortal Recoil," and remixed it to match the theme of interdimensional travel. Kiefer explained that he put his own music from the Season 2 finale "Mortal Folly / Mortal Recoil" on his turntables and experimented with pitching, reversing, rewinding, and scratching. This process transformed Jake's bongo song into a lively, merry-go-round dance celebration.

Reception

On November 12, 2012, Cartoon Network aired "Finn the Human" and "Jake the Dog" back-to-back. The two episodes pulled in a combined audience of 3.435 million viewers. Among people aged 18 to 49 who were watching TV at that time, 0.7 percent tuned in, according to the Nielsen household rating system, which tracks how many people are watching specific programs in the United States. A physical release followed in 2014 on the Finn the Human DVD, which collected 16 episodes from the show's third, fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons.

Critic Oliver Sava from The A.V. Club gave the pair an A-minus grade. He described them as a dense premiere that touches on nearly everything the series has to offer. Sava called "Finn the Human" an action-packed chapter heavy on mythology, and a welcome change of pace. He noted that "Jake the Dog" leaned into humor and relationships, using silly, irreverent moments to balance out the more serious storyline.

Eric Kohn of IndieWire also praised the episodes, calling them irreverent and narratively engaging. He argued that they serve as an ideal example of animation's flexibility in a commercial landscape usually defined by limits. Kohn highlighted the show's willingness to explore sad subtext, like the mysterious Mushroom War and the relationship between Marceline and the Ice King. He admired how the characters use cheerful songs and bright artwork to push back against the dark world around them. Finally, he commended the episodes for diving into the multiverse, calling it an interesting creative challenge for the series.