Come Along with Me (Adventure Time)

"Come Along with Me" is the series finale of the American animated television series Adventure Time. A 44-minute four-part episode, it is counted as the 13th to 16th episodes of the series' tenth season and as the 280th to 283rd episodes of the series overall. The episode first aired on September 3, 2018 on Cartoon Network.

"Come Along with Me"
Adventure Time episodes
Episode nos.Season 10
Episodes 13–16
Directed by
  • Cole Sanchez (supervising director)
  • Diana Lafyatis (supervising director)
  • Sandra Lee (art director)
Written by
Story by
Original air date(s)September 3, 2018 (2018-09-03)
Running time44 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

The series follows the adventures of Finn the Human (voiced by Jeremy Shada) and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake the Dog (voiced by John DiMaggio), who has magical powers to change shape and grow and shrink at will. In the special, the duo must help their friend Princess Bubblegum battle Gumbald, her vengeful creation. When the antagonists realize that violent conflict is unnecessary, they team up to keep the malevolent deity GOLB from destroying the Land of Ooo.

The episode is named after the opening line of the series' ending theme, "The Island Song"; former crew members Ghostshrimp and Rebecca Sugar returned for the episode. "Come Along with Me" was watched by 0.92 million viewers during its premiere, and was acclaimed by critics, who praised its emotional weight, scale, writing, animation, and message, as well as the conclusion of the show's storylines, themes, and character arcs; most called it a perfect ending to the series. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, a first for the series which, due to its usually shorter episode length, previously competed for Short Form Animated Program.

Plot

A thousand years after the time of Finn and Jake, a cat-like being named Shermy and his friend Beth—a descendant of Jake and Lady Rainicorn—discover Finn's robotic arm in the ground. Wanting to know its origin, they seek out the "King of Ooo", who is actually BMO. BMO recognizes the arm and proceeds to relate to Shermy and Beth the story of the "Great Gum War" and of how the world almost ended.

In the series' present, Finn, Jake, and Bubblegum are preparing to go to war with Gumbald. Finn asks to parley with Gumbald, and they go to meet him and Fern. Jake activates a vial of "Nightmare Juice", incapacitating the five, who awaken in a nightmare world. Bubblegum and Gumbald are forced to experience each other's misery, with Bubblegum as a regular Candy Person and Gumbald as the Candy Kingdom's unhappy ruler. Finn helps Fern kill the Grass Demon in his psyche, freeing Fern from its negative influence but causing him to slowly disintegrate over the course of the episode. When they awaken, Bubblegum offers peace to Gumbald, but Aunt Lolly reveals his concealed "dum-dum juice", reverting him to a Candy Person. Lolly agrees to peace in Gumbald's stead, and Bubblegum declares "two Candy Kingdoms".

Everyone is about to leave when GOLB appears. Ice King recognizes the deity, having studied it as Simon Petrikov. Normal Man sends Ice King to talk to Betty, who is communicating with GOLB, but Betty shouts at Ice King that she is trying to save him. GOLB consumes her and Ice King along with Finn when he tries to intervene, causing Finn's robotic arm to be chomped off. Using some of Gumbald's soldiers and one of Princess Bubblegum's guardians, GOLB attacks by raising two horrendous creatures. Bubblegum and her allies fight the creatures, but they are too powerful, with one destroying Finn and Jake's treehouse and nearly crushing Bubblegum. Marceline sees this and smashes the creature in a rage, but Bubblegum recovers and the two embrace and kiss. Jake is despondent at the loss of his home, but BMO sings to him in order to calm him. The harmony of BMO's song weakens GOLB, whose power is derived from chaos; Bubblegum encourages everyone to sing along, further weakening GOLB.

In GOLB's stomach, Ice King is digested to his prior form as Simon, and Betty is returned to her normal state. She confesses that she summoned GOLB to save him from the ice crown. Meanwhile, Finn resigns himself to death as the walls close in, but BMO's song opens a hole leading outside, through which he and Simon escape. Betty stays behind and uses the crown to merge with GOLB, thereby saving Simon. As the merged being departs from Ooo, the crown falls onto Gunter, who wishes to be like Ice King and becomes a duplicate of him: The Ice Thing. Before Fern dies, he asks Finn and Jake to plant him at the treehouse, leaving them a seed resembling a hilt. Finn and Jake do so, sprouting a tree with a sword (The Finn Sword) embedded in the highest branch.

The episode cuts to the future, with Shermy and Beth asking what happened afterward; BMO replies that everyone "kept on living their lives". In a flashback, Finn and Jake discuss how powerful music can be, and the Music Hole sings a new song it has been working on entitled "Come Along With Me". As the Music Hole sings, a montage shows a series of epilogues for all the characters, including Jake's son T.V. opening up his own detective agency similar to his grandparents, Lumpy Space Princess crowned as Queen of Lumpy Space, Ice Thing marrying Turtle Princess, Simon going to Prismo's Time Room to wish Betty back (but failing), Bubblegum and Marceline cuddling on the sofa in Marceline's house, and the humans (including Finn's mother) returning to Ooo and greeting Finn and Jake by the beach side.

After leaving BMO's house, Shermy and Beth decide to find the tree that Fern sprouted, which is now gigantic. Shermy pulls the sword out and holds it high with Beth at his feet, assuming a pose similar to Finn and Jake in the series' title sequence.

Production

Background

During the last seasons of Adventure Time, there was talk at Cartoon Network about concluding the series. Olivia Olson, who provided the voice of Marceline, said that since this discussion wore on for a while "the ending of the show was getting stretched and stretched and stretched".[1] Chief content officer Rob Sorcher told the Los Angeles Times of the network's decision to end the series, saying:

Adventure Time was playing less and less on Cartoon Network, yet we were moving towards a large volume of episodes. And I really began thinking "[The end] can't come quickly as a sudden company decision, it needs to be a conversation over a period of time." And it did also strike me that if we don't wind this up soon, we're going to have a generation of fans graduate through the [television] demo[graphic that Cartoon Network targets] and we won't have completed a thought for them.[1]

Consequently, on September 29, 2016, Cartoon Network confirmed that the series would conclude after its tenth season.[2]

Development
Former storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar returned to write the song "Time Adventure".

The special was written and storyboarded by Tom Herpich, Steve Wolfhard, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, and Sam Alden, and Graham Falk. The story was developed by Herpich, Wolfhard, Ashly Burch, showrunner Adam Muto, head writer Kent Osborne, Jack Pendarvis, Julia Pott, and series creator Pendleton Ward.[3] Former head background designer Ghostshrimp returned after having officially left the series during the fourth season.[4]

According to Osborne, Cartoon Network provided the writers with "an opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about the finale" before production ended.[2] In an interview with TV Guide, Muto explained that the show's writers used many of the episodes preceding the finale to conclude minor character story arcs "so we wouldn't have to cram too much in at the very end here."[5] This allowed the finale itself to be "less dense" by simply "hitting the big [beats] and then finding vignettes for all the characters ... so we could get snapshots of where they could end up."[5]

Princess Bubblegum and Marceline kiss in one scene and are shown developing a romantic relationship in the special's epilogue.[6][7][8] Muto said that the relationship was "an ongoing conversation... It certainly wasn’t in the show’s original pitch. It was a relationship that evolved over time." The outline of the episode merely called for the two characters to "have a moment"; Nyström, being responsible for the scene, was given creative control as to the nature of the "moment". Muto noted, "When Hanna boarded that, there was a little note in the margin that said 'Come on!' with a big exclamation point. That was the only note. I can’t argue with that."[9]

According to Pendarvis, storyline writing for the series ended in mid-November 2016,[10] with the last storyline meeting being held on November 21.[11] A tweet by Osborne revealed that the series' final script was pitched to storyboarders, with Alden and Nyström in attendance, on November 28.[12][13][14] This episode was then pitched to the show's producers during the third week of December 2016.[15][16] Voice recording for the episode ended on January 31, 2017 as confirmed by a number of cast members, including Maria Bamford and Andy Milonakis.

Like miniseries Stakes, Islands, and Elements,[17][18] "Come Along with Me" features a unique title sequence. The sequence was animated specifically for the episode by Masaaki Yuasa's company Science Saru[5] and storyboarded by Wolfhard.[19]

Music

Former storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar returned to compose the song "Time Adventure", which BMO sings to Jake in order to calm him.[20] Sugar said of the song:

I wanted to write about how even if something ends, it continues to exist in the past, nothing ever really goes away, you only feel like it does because our mind has to process information one moment at a time in order for us to function as humans. I'm so nostalgic for the time that I spent working on Adventure Time and I find it comforting to think that I still exist in that office with Adam [Muto], working on those stories. I would be so happy to come to work and brainstorm with him and sit down and draw on paper and pitch these stories with Post-its tacked up to the wall, just like they did in the 1930s with the stick and the song and the dance, the most traditional way of doing cartoons.[21]

When Sugar debuted the song at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con, she joked that she wrote it "Because she can't stay away [from Adventure Time]."[22] DiMaggio said that "The last day we recorded we had to do the final song that Rebecca Sugar wrote. I was a wreck when I first had to sing [... it was] like, 'Thank you, Rebecca Sugar, for your beautiful music.'"[21]

Willow Smith guest stars in the special, providing the voice of Beth. She also recorded a cover version of the show's opening theme for the episode.[23] Smith, a fan of the series, previously wrote the song "Marceline" based on the character for her 2015 debut album, Ardipithecus.

Reception
The final moment of the series (bottom image) depicts two new characters, a thousand years in the future, mirroring the final pose of Finn and Jake in the show's opening (top); the ending was acclaimed by critics for its thematic implications.

In its initial airing, "Come Along with Me" was viewed by 0.92 million viewers and scored a 0.25 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. The special was the twenty-fifth most-watched cable program on the day of its airing.[24]

Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club gave the special an "A" letter rating, saying that it was "a celebration of what makes [the series] so special".[7] Eric Thurm of Polygon wrote, "By focusing on this payoff—years of communicating that what's important isn't the adventure itself, but the people you're with and the feeling it gives you—Adventure Time put itself in a position to open up the future of Ooo to all of those other moods, other tones, other perspectives..."[25] Daniel Schindel of IGN gave the episode a 10 out of 10, saying "[it] easily ranks with the best of Adventure Time's episodes, but more importantly, it acts as a perfect capper for the series. It’s a thrilling exclamation point, an intriguing question mark, and a poignant, quiet period all at once."[26] Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode an A rating and the series overall an A+, titling his review "One of the greatest TV shows ever had a soulful, mind-expanding conclusion".[27]

Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave "Come Along with Me" a B+ rating, calling it "a 45-minute assemblage of showdowns and confrontations designed to bring together every facet of its fantastical universe [that] salutes the best and worst of the Adventure Time journey".[8] Kohn praised Bubblegum and Marceline's relationship, writing: "It's unfortunate that Adventure Time has to play catch-up with these characters so late in the game, but it nevertheless illustrates the extent to which the show has pushed beyond the conservative boundaries of mainstream entertainment".[8]

Dylan Hysen of Overly Animated called the episode "one of the best series finales in television history" and "beyond what I could have imagined for its conclusion", because it managed to "conclude so many aspects of an entire series ... in such a satisfying way".[28] Hysen wrote of the ending that "[T]he vision of the entire ending depicted is just poetic and I think thematically resonant for the entire series".[28]

Dave Trumbore of Collider.com wrote that the finale "is the kind of finale you always hope for with animated series" and was "perfectly handled... both in keeping with the style the show has become known for while also delivering a satisfying conclusion to the mythology that's been a driving force behind the fandom".[29] Trumbore applauded the open-ended nature of the ending and its emotional value, concluding: "'Come Along with Me' is expertly crafted and worth watching again and again in years to come, which is just what you’d expect from Adventure Time".[29]

In 2019, the episode was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program at the 71st Emmy Awards Ceremony,[30] but lost to The Simpsons's "Mad About the Toy".[31]

References
  1. Lloyd, Robert (August 23, 2018). "As 'Adventure Time' Wraps, a Look Back at How the Series Broke Barriers and Changed the Genre". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  2. Dutton, Sophie (November 4, 2016). "Interview with 'Adventure Time' Head Writer Kent Osborne". Skwigly. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
  3. Sanchez, Cole and Diana Lafyatis (supervising directors); Sandra Lee (art director); Tom Herpich, et al. (storyboard artists) (September 3, 2018). "Come Along with Me". Adventure Time. Season 10. Episode 13–16. Cartoon Network.
  4. Ghostshrimp (January 31, 2017). "Rumor has it that I will be doing some new backgrounds for the final story arc of Adventure Time!". Facebook. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  5. Kulzick, Kate (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time Is Going Out with an Epic, Emotional Finale". TV Guide. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  6. Valdez, Nick (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time Fans React to Princess Bubblegum and Marceline's Big Finale Moment". Comicbook.com. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  7. Sava, Oliver (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time Concludes with a Celebration of What Makes It So Special". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  8. Kohn, Eric (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time Finale Review: Cartoon Network's Cultural Phenomenon Ends On a Bittersweet Note That Feels Just Right". Indiewire. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  9. Muto, Adam (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time EP Talks Bubblegum and Marceline's Series Finale Moment: 'There's Enough to Draw a Conclusion'". TVLine. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  10. Germain, Siomara (November 1, 2016). "Brockport Welcomes Adventure Time Writer Jack Pendarvis". The Stylus. Archived from the original on November 4, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  11. Pendarvis, Jack [@JackPendarvis] (November 21, 2016). "Starting my last ADVENTURE TIME meeting in about half an hour. Bah, I say! But also I'm excited about the story! But also my stomach hurts" (Tweet). Retrieved November 22, 2016 – via Twitter.
  12. Osborne, Kent [@kentisawesome] (November 28, 2016). "Last Adventure Time handout meeting :(" (Tweet). Retrieved November 29, 2016 – via Twitter.
  13. Alden, Sam [@samalden] (December 8, 2016). "@HannaKtweet @kikutowne my board however is going to be hot garbage, ruin the show, etc" (Tweet). Retrieved December 12, 2016 – via Twitter.
  14. Nyström, Hanna K [@HannaKtweet] (December 7, 2016). "hold me tight and tell me this board will be good. rock me to sleep" (Tweet). Retrieved December 12, 2016 – via Twitter.
  15. Alden, Sam (December 26, 2016). "Pitched my last Adventure Time storyboard last week". Instagram. Retrieved December 26, 2016.
  16. Muto, Adam [@MrMuto] (December 26, 2016). "from last week's final Adventure Time storyboard pitch" (Tweet). Retrieved December 28, 2016 – via Twitter.
  17. Adventure Time production staff (October 28, 2015). "'Stakes' Main Title". KingOfOoo. Tumblr. Retrieved October 29, 2015. Note: Information taken from the show's official Tumblr account.
  18. Adventure Time staff (December 9, 2016). "December 9, 2016". King of Ooo. Tumblr. Retrieved December 10, 2016. Note: Information taken from the show's official Tumblr account; animation house and storyboard artist information are in the image's tags.
  19. Adventure Time production staff (September 4, 2018). "Adventure Time: Come Along with Me – Main Title". King of Ooo. Tumblr. Archived from the original on September 5, 2018. Retrieved September 5, 2018.
  20. Joho, Jesse (September 3, 2018). "Saying Goodbye to Adventure Time, the Show That Taught Us to Let Good Things End". Mashable. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  21. Lloyd, Robert (August 23, 2018). "As 'Adventure Time' Wraps, a Look Back at How the Series Broke Barriers and Changed the Genre". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  22. Jao, Charline (August 11, 2018). "Rebecca Sugar Singing the Song She Wrote for the Adventure Time Finale Will Make You Cry". The Mary Sue. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  23. Ng, Philiana (August 27, 2018). "Willow Smith to Guest Star on Adventure Time Series Finale – and Sing the Theme!". Entertainment Tonight. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  24. Metcalf, Mitch (August 9, 2018). "Top 150 Sunday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 9.3.2018". Showbuzz Daily. Archived from the original on September 5, 2018.
  25. Thurm, Eric (September 3, 2018). "Adventure Time's Series Finale Lives Up to the Show's Spirit and Leaves the Future Open". Polygon. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  26. Schindel, Daniel (September 4, 2018). "Adventure Time Finale Review: 'Come Along with Me'". IGN. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  27. Franich, Darren (September 4, 2018). "Adventure Time Finale Review: One of the Greatest TV Shows Ever Had a Soulful, Mind-Expanding Conclusion". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  28. Hysen, Dylan (August 27, 2018). "'Come Along With Me' is a Fantastic Conclusion and Perfect Encapsulation of Adventure Time". Overly Animated. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  29. Trumbore, Dave (August 27, 2018). "'Adventure Time: The Final Seasons' DVD Review: Revisit the Series Finale Again and Again". Collider.com. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  30. "Come Along With Me (Adventure Time)". Television Academy. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  31. "Nominees/Winners". Television Academy. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
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