The result being I want to keep watching and begin to prize any time I get to spend with Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. It definitely makes me think of the phrase, "Always leave them wanting more." More in this case being unanswered questions which would not necessarily detract were they answered, but they're not required to be answered for the enjoyment of the episode. Or rather, perhaps I should call it a minimalist approach to a conclusion compared to what viewers are accustomed to seeing when their episodes end. The episode begins with Finn and Jake waving around swords, cutting apples, and wearing apples on their heads Swords Yeah, swords WhooFinn and Jake scolds Finn and Jake. I'm pretty happy with my version!Ībrupt or seemingly arbitrarily-timed endings become a big part of the show's aesthetic as it develops, and in some ways I think it's enabled by the fact that they got away with it here.įor me, this is a signature of the show, a forced resolution for the viewer. This article is a transcript of the Adventure Time episode 'Tree Trunks' from season 1, which aired on April 12, 2010. Wow, I didn't even know there was a second ending which showed Tree Trunks alive! That changes not only the mood of the ending I saw, but also the reveal later on that Tree Trunks is still alive. She speaks with a gentle, Southern drawl and lives outside the Candy Kingdom. Without the coda, the show was at risk not just of implying that Tree Trunks had straight up exploded, but also of suggesting that it was the kind of show where a character explodes and the incident is never mentioned again. Tree Trunks is a yellow-green pygmy elephant who is a friend of Finn and Jake. At this point we haven't met Marceline yet! I suppose there's an argument to be made that showing Tree Trunks still alive mitigated the shock somewhat, but in addition to reassuring younger viewings, I also think that the coda was sort of necessary because at this point in the show's history, nobody could know how much continuity there was going to be from one episode to the next, or which characters exactly were going to be recurrent. Well, either version, with or without the 2 second coda of Tree Trunks trotting happily through the crystal dimension, is still shockingly abrupt.Ībrupt or seemingly arbitrarily-timed endings become a big part of the show's aesthetic as it develops, and in some ways I think it's enabled by the fact that they got away with it here.