Sons of Mars | Written & Storyboarded by Jesse Moynihan Ako Castuera | Aired: July 23, 2012 | Reviewed by Lyssie
Caring about other people is something that we all kind of take for granted. This capacity for bonding with other people, so prominent in our minds and in how we move through the world, so central to our lives and almost defining life for a lot of us. Even with fiction, it’s a given that characters care will about each other and that this will be a main driving force of the plot. So when we run into someone (in real life or fiction) who legitimately doesn’t care about anyone else (or at least acts like it), it can bring out a very strong revulsion in us. It’s almost a rejection of humanity, one that’s unbearable to witness.
Magic Man already had a lot of this in his first appearance in Freak City, trapping people in a pretty horrible state and treating it all as some big joke (or possibly lesson), not caring about them or acknowledging anything wrong with what he did. But Sons of Mars is a major escalation of that, with him condemning someone to death – a beloved main character, no less! – just to avoid the consequences of his actions; and then mainly gloating about his brilliance in doing so. But, instead of leaning all the way into him being a deeply disturbing person, the kind that causes audiences to shudder, the show instead gives him a spark or two of humanity to leave things more ambiguous.
After he’s condemned Jake to be tried in his place, MM appears oblivious to Finn’s rage, floating them both to his house as though he actually expects Finn to just hang out with him. He offhandedly admits he has something that can get the panicking Finn to Jake, but doesn’t provide it. And when Finn asks him who he’s photographed with, MM… whimsically replies that people come and go “so whatever”. But then something slightly shifts in him at the sight of the fallen picture. The smile drops from his face, and he says in a very direct tone that the item is downstairs and opens the way for Finn. And later in the episode we briefly see him looking wistfully at the picture and missing Margles.
Up until this point I was genuinely wondering if MM was legitimately a person with psychopathy, with no capacity to care for others. But then the writers upend this, painting him more as someone who has actively buried away his emotions and empathy, and has tried really hard to be destructive and uncaring and to act like he’s above it all. (It’s also implied that there’s some degree of self-loathing or self-degradation that MM is inflicting on himself – living in a disgusting hovel, sleeping by the side of the road – perhaps as a way of coping with the path he’s chosen in life without needing to introspect or reconsider.)
Which, honestly, is much more disturbing? Like, there’s something unsettling about someone incapable of empathy, but it’s much more sinister to have that capacity and still choose to cause so much pain and harm. Still, it is interesting to see someone like this experience something breaking through his shell. On some level I feel like he was subconsciously trying to get this kind of human connection, and then it worked on him better than he might have expected. Of course this still isn’t enough to change who he is or what he does, as his glee at Jake’s (temporary) death shows at the end. You need to actually choose to change.
If the first half of the episode focuses on MM, the second focuses on Finn, and it’s a stark contrast. Now, Finn is of course no stranger to caring about people, or acting out of emotion – hell, it’s practically his whole thing! So naturally he’s able to immediately activate the emotion-powered martian transporter, while MM remained willfully ignorant about it ‘not working’. Finn’s love for his brother keeps driving things forward as he does everything in his power to save him (though his passion also leads to him screwing up and getting Jake (temporarily!) killed). And when Jake dies he doesn’t care about whatever prophecy the martians are talking about, he just wants his brother back. It also shows up with Jake, thinking that he might actually like the second of two deaths offered him as punishment for “his” crimes but then not wanting to leave or hurt Finn. Even the King of Mars feels remorse and empathy for Jake and Finn and is even willing to sacrifice himself to rectify his mistake. And the martians almost seem to consider MM’s not caring about anyone else to be as dangerous as his actual crimes, or even more.
So the show is very clearly showing us the many faces of caring for someone else, to contrast with MM refusing to do so. The themes of the episode are even stated outright by the tiny manticore at the end, explicitly saying it to the audience. The difference being, I don’t think MM can actually feel shame, or admit his fear or weakness even to himself. At least, not yet.
Stray Observations:
- I’m very happy to have joined these reviews! It was fun to approach an episode from more of a critic role, right from the start of watching it for the first time.
- Since I’m watching the show for the first time I won’t be able to add any spoiler thoughts like the rest of you, but enjoy talking about that stuff
- This article was very much focused on one particular topic, but I did want to add some thoughts about other stuff in the episode:
- I initially thought magic man might be death; but then death actually does appear!
- Is the deer is the same one from No One Can Hear You? Villain encounter!
- But also, MM casually using the g-word like that…. oof. In a nice coincidence I also just heard an audiobook that uses it several times! Yeesh.
- There’s something funny in MM switching himself and Jake, and that there’s some similarities in movement and temperament between them. Except that Jake isn’t… you know, the worst.
- Check out the earth yo! I’m really curious what more we’ll learn about what happened there.
- Cute visual gag with the martians’ symbol being the mars/male symbol.
- The martian prosecutors were a pretty funny sendup of the ‘highly intelligent aliens’ trope.
- Also, the martians care enough about MM or at least his personhood that they gave him a lot of chances before executing him; but also, kind of a dick move to just make him Ooo’s problem for 200 years!
- King Abe Lincoln was hilarious, just the idea of it and how over-the-top he acts.
- Jake looking like a humanoid doing a bad imitation of a dog is extra funny cause in real life it actually is a human playing a dog, hehe.
- Jake kind of liking the second death option felt like an interesting callback to The New Frontier. Guy’s got a thing with dying in a meaningful way, I guess.
Hey! Look who made an appearance at the Olympics!
Disgraceful dive, of course. Utter trash. But cool Jake tattoo on Aussie diver, Cassiel Rousseau, who I read also has a Finn and BMO tat! What Adventure Time tattoo would you get? I’d maybe consider getting this little freak on my butt or something:
Anyhoo. Burning Low.
Finn and Flame Princess’s canoodling is, according to Jake’s multi-tiered relationship system, at “Tier 1,” where Finn gets wrapped up like a Chipotle babacoa burrito 1 and gets a hug from his lady friend.
But Finn’s approaching “Tier 2, which is smooching.” Get it, dude.
Or, perhaps, don’t get it!?! Princess Bubblegum is bothered by these developments. She runs the numbers and finds that she’s not “ready for this,” which is an interesting way of phrasing the problem she’s mulling over. She intervenes in a very PB way—with charts and graphs and stuff, which of course put Jake right to sleep. She rouses Jake from his dream of becoming president (probably brought about in part by his earlier video chat with President Porpoise), and she asks him to tell Finn what she just explained to him about why Finn and Flame Princess can’t be together.
Jake fills in the part of PB’s lecture where he dozed off 2 on his own, and he concludes that she’s is jealous of Finn and FP’s relationship. He tells Finn, who is rankled.
Lots of feelings bumping up against each other for poor lil’ Finn’s poor lil’ heart in this one. He tries to write a poem about how FP is “bright” and “beautiful” and makes him feel “. . . confused.” He wonders, “Is it because she’s so dangerous?” I like the direction he’s heading in with his draft. I would just recommend he ground his imagery with a few more specifics. When PB interrupts his writing, he snaps at her and recounts their history from his perspective. To him, whenever he comes to terms with the fact that she’s not into him, she “builds him up” again. He announces that he’s done with this cycle of heartache. Jake reiterates this account, arguing that “Finn deserves to be happy,” and that PB “should be ashamed” for toying with our boy’s feelings.
We learn at last that Bubblegum is so distraught because she’s calculated that FP is physically unstable, and that her “elemental matrix can’t handle extreme romance.” In a nutshell, if she and Finn smooch too passionately, Flame Princess will burn the world out from its core3. Finally grasping the severity of the situation, Jake springs into action.
They arrive just in time. And in the most romantic Adventure Time moment since Ice King built his freak-ass monster bride, Finn just barely keeps FP alive by breathing some of his rapidly depleting air into her.
Finn and FP are cute together after almost causing Ooo to blow up. Jake and PB look on, and Jake can’t resist:
Reading up on this episode, I learned that the “PB is jealous of Finn and FP” angle was a big part of how this episode was promoted. Commercials apparently leaned heavily into Jake’s little bit of teasing at the end. And look at that title card! So misleading! There are some interesting arguments out there about how PB is envious of FP and Finn’s relationship because of some other stuff that’ll come up later. I dunno. It might track? Maybe?
This episode explores more of Princess Bubblegum’s technocratic tendencies. First, we learn she’s been withholding important information out of a paternalistic impulse. Then, she seems convinced that if she can simply explain the science—in all its complexity—behind the danger of FP getting too worked up, Jake will listen and act accordingly. But c’mon, PB! It’s Jake we’re talking about here! And then she takes a kind of condescending tone with Finn later, which causes him to blow his stack. In both cases, she hasn’t considered her audience carefully enough. It’s a mistake that experts often make. She’s old, though. Very old. It seems that throughout her long life of ruling over the not-super-self-sufficient denizens of the Candy Kingdom (and much like a certain other very old young vampire lady) she’s kind of lost touch with the average citizen. She needs to remind herself to take them seriously and try to see things frmo their perspectives.
I can’t believe “Bacon Pancakes” is in this one! I had no idea! To bring it full circle, the women on the US synchronized diving team are named Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon! They go by Cook’n’Bacon! Here’s to them!
