Originally posted at the DL August 2015
So I meant to sit down and watch the intervening seasons again before this one came out; I knew I was going to watch it right away since due to my lackluster internets I can only be as up to date on the show as the DVD releases. Oops. This also means though that I'm going to be talking about this season as though all those other ones are something you're familiar with. But more than that, a lot of my thoughts on the season have little to do with the highlight episodes and a lot to do with the progression of the show to this point, so I'm going to knock those out first before moving on.
Weakest Episode: Shh! It's a clever episode idea, really, and has that nod to the golden age of animation (I get a strong Tom and Jerry vibe off it in particular), but a lot of it comes down to being unintentionally (but extremely avoidably) cruel to B-MO rather than Finn and Jake wrecking each other over their bet, which just doesn't sit right with me.
Best Episode: All the Little People. I'm having trouble articulating what's so special about this episode. It's... layered. It mirrors a) Finn's development as a character in his emotional arc in this episode, b) Finn's character flaws and how he's going to seriously dent his heroism for the remainder of the season, c) the show's development, d) the fandom's development, and even e) the writer's relationship to all of the above. It's an incredibly dense 11 minutes, and that's with noticeable chunks of it being basically "Finn stares at a wall in a state of emotional shutdown, seeing the full carnage his hubris has wrought".
So excepting season 1 (which is more a series of stories more related by their tone than by continuity), I feel like each season of the show is sorta about a particular aspect of the show, generally a character (season 2 is more fleshing out Ooo as a cohesive setting, in as much as it even is one). And season five is basically all about Bubblegum. To this point we're already seen that she was definitely more harsh than was strictly necessary in defending her kingdom. Goliad for an easy example. But in season 5 we get something approximating her full backstory; candy-blobs were the only non-malevolent mutants in the aftermath of the Mushroom War, and Bubblegum arose from them some 850 years ago. She essentially by herself forged the Candy Kingdom, building first robotic guardians and then inventing Candy Life, from which all citizens of the modern kingdom descend. She's almost solely responsible for technological discovery/reclamation in Ooo to this day, and it's no exaggeration to say that the Candy Kingdom is basically the source of civilization in Ooo, and in turn Princess Bubblegum is the Candy Kingdom in any governmental or military respect. Her only true peer is her sometime lover, who took such a different view of nigh-immortality and the responsibilities thereof that they've never been able to reconcile in untold time since their original parting.
And unfortunately for her the rest of Ooo civilization has advanced far enough to start seriously resenting her meddling. A brief perusal of the episode list suggests that Season 6 is in large part about this coming to a head. I look forward to it.
The scattered Bubblegum moments are definitely the highlights for most of the season, but it's also worth noting that the first nine or so episodes, which actually don't touch on this, are probably the strongest string of episodes in the series (that I've seen). After that there's a more normal number of average and good episodes, but those first several are a lot of very good episodes in a row, which is great. Actually, come to think of it they do tie back into Bubblegum though; they're largely about struggling with responsibility. Bubblegum as a character is essentially about assuming ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY. For everything and everyone. Forever. Somewhat literally. Heh, always nice to make connections while actually writing the review/write-up/what DO I call these anyways.
Grade- 8/10. The good episodes are spectacularly good and the weak episodes are still pretty okay. I keep thinking I should go up to 9/10 but the sheer size of the season (Season 5 is two seasons of episodes. But it's all one season for some reason. But they gel as a single season so I decided against dividing it up) means that proportionally there's still more just okay episodes than awesome ones.
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