I have never been an avid watcher of TV series, in the past 5 years, I have barely watched a dozen series from start to finish. That is partially due to my angry teenage self thinking TV was stupid (just came to me I have not been a teenager for almost 3 years now). I was not wrong, TV was and is stupid, and always has been, but that does not mean that stupid things don't have value or meaning in our life. Stupid, does not mean not good, sometimes good is stupid. Truth is, I had simply replaced stupid TV with the not-yet-as-stupid Internet.
My story with the fantasy children show Adventure time started when I was a blissfully stupid kid. Any form of media that had a righteous guy with a sword was enough to have me sold, bonus points for a mystical land to explore. Simple, stupid; beautiful. The whimsy of the show where lands are made of candy was not obscured by the Arabic dub by the time. I used to watch it on Cartoon Network Arabia,based in the UAE, of course they censored many bits of the show. Like any good Arabic cartoon TV channel, they failed to air the episodes in the correct sequence, preventing me from having any real understanding of what happened when in the show. Regardless I think I had watched every episode that aired until the early 2010s.
Fast forward.. (oh god..) 10 years later: I was doing my final projecting in college, perhaps every student's darkest hour. Then I wanted something mind-numbingly silly to watch before bed. What sounds better than a TV show whose memories resemble fever dreams from your childhood? In the most stressful two months of uni, I binged 8 years worth of episodes.
For those who do not know what AT time is, it is a techno-medieval low fantasy. The protagonist and his sidekick, Fin the Human, and his brother Jack the magical dog, live in their tree house with their sentient talking-walking GameBoy™️. AT has a surprisingly good amount of fantastical world-building with kingdoms of Ice, Candy and Clouds dividing the world of Ooo. Later I found out, this world of Ooo comes in the aftermath of nuclear war thousands of years ago, making it a post-post apocalypse. This is a family friendly children show, so we barely know anything of the war, or the world's making. And because it is a childern's show, no matter how much 13-yo Fin has feelings for princess bubble gum, there won't be any bubbling scenes.
Recipe backstory is over, I can start with the actual ingredients. I won't be reviewing the original series, instead I will be reviewing a sequel/spin-off. I am going to be talking about Adventure Time with Fiona and Cake , Fiona the unemployable girl and her not so-magical house cat. Errr.. it would be too long to explain everything that happened in that show here, because its lore depends on a previous 10-seasons long series. Could it be your homework to find out the back story on your own? no? then I will do it in the next one. I just want to review season 2 of Fiona and Cake because it is airing right now and I want to write about it in real time.
In Fiona and Cake is a parallel universe which has the same characters from the original living in a 'normal' human city with one catch, they gender swapped every single character. It is also a pg 14+, h*ck yeah... now characters can say bard words. Now homosexual couples can be couples and not just best friends, I guess a hero wanting to kiss the princess is not enough to captivate modern audiences.
Instead of 13-yo wannabe hero Fin, Fiona is a loser adult, so a modern young person can relate. Long story short, season one ends with magic finding its way back to regular-ville, and Fiona now makes a connection to Fin & Jack's Universe. There is a clear dichotomy that is broken, the magical surreal world of Fin & Jack, and the boringly regular world of Fiona & Cake. Fiona connects with the heroine inside of her, and starts becoming the local superhero, spiderman-esque.
Important to mention, Fin has aged since the last episode of Adventure Time. Fin is now a jacked-up hero, protector of the realm, with an actual healthy two-sided relationship. Get him out of here, I cannot relate to him anymore.
Actually, can I start over again? I don't think I made a very good preload to a review. I won't even recommend you to watch the show. I am simply knees' deep and I cannot go back. Just kidding, I love that show despite its many flaws, and it inspires me to be creative.
Maybe in the next part of this review series I shall write an actual back story. Only 2 episodes of season 2 are out, so more to come.
30th Oct, 2025
