#which has steamed hams (which like a magic school bus episode i happen to be able to quote from memory)

[megasceptile001]

slowly recovering from my self doubt

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘Wizard City’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 4)

Airdate: September 2, 2021

Story by: Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, & Charley Feldman

Storyboarded by: Maya Petersen, Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, & Aleks Sennwald, & Haewon Lee

Directed by: Miki Brewster & Jeff Liu (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

An episode focusing on Peppermint Butler’s dark side is something that the fandom has craved ever since the little guy demanded Finn and Jake’s flesh in season two’s “Death in Bloom.” While installments like season five’s “The Suitor” and season six’s “Nemesis” did much to scratch that itch, the story of the Dark One remained mostly unknown…

And after “Wizard City,” it still remains largely unknown. But that’s OK, because instead of focusing on the character’s history, this special focuses on Peps’ quest to relearn magic at a magic school. Put most simply, this special is largely a fun excuse for the show to riff on Harry Potter and The Owl House-style “magic school hijinks,” and it mostly all works.

The special follows Peps quest to go to WizArts (a definite play on CalArts, the school that Pen Ward and Adam Muto, among many others, went to) so that he can relearn magic and once again become one of the greatest dark wizards of his time. Initially, Peps tries to make friends with cool kid Spader and his posse, but once they learn that Peps is not as talented at magic as they had initially thought, they kick him to the curb. It is at this point that Cadebra, Abracadaniel’s adorkable niece who is fascinated with stage magic, enters the picture. Cadebra tries everything in her power to befriend Peps, but Peps pushes back, since she’s not “cool.” It does not matter, though, because both Peps and Cadebra are sorted into the same “house”—the “Skink House—and are forced to work together.

While Peps and his cohort begin learning more and more complex magic, a secret cult of school professors, led by the otherwise caring Dr. Caledonius, are scheming to resurrect Coconteppi, a powerful dark wizard whose putrid heart has been discovered underneath the school excreting a very powerful ichor. The school cult kidnaps Spader and gives him some of the ichor to drink; they hope that because of his talent, he will be able to house the spirit of Coconteppi. This does not go as planned, and Spader is graphically killed (albeit off screen). (In a more humorous moment, Bufo, the scam wizard from season one’s “Wizard,” also ingests some of the ichor, believing himself powerful enough to handle it, but it kills him.)

Eventually Peps and Cadebra learn what is going on. Dr. Caledonius welcomes Peps, believing that he is strong enough to handle the ichor. When Cadebra’s life is put in danger, Peps reluctantly gives the putrid fluid a swig, which infuses him with the power of Coconteppi. Coconteppi-Peps then kills all the cult members before Cadebra manages to remove the ichor from Peps body. For uncovering a heinous plot, Peps is promoted to the highest house, “Salamander,” but he decides to remain a Skink and learn magic “the hard way” with Cadebra as his friend.

As I mentioned near the start of this review, “Wizard City” spends most of its time riffing on the “magic boarding school” trope, with much of the episode feeling like a light-hearted parody of Harry Potter: The characters, after all, are “sorted” into “houses,” they learn various types of magic from skilled “professors,” and they bunk in different parts of a large castle-like campus. Of course, Harry Potter didn’t invent the idea of a boarding school, but when setting your story in a school for magic, it is very hard not to lean at least somewhat into the Hogwarts relation. And this really is a double-edged sword, for while Harry Potter references can be fun here and there, they can also make the overall story feel like a fanfic parody. This special does a good job focusing more so on the characters rather than the setting, but I won’t lie, at times it did feel as if they show was really trying to make you realize it was making a Harry Potter joke.

Of all the characters introduced in the special, the breakout star is easily Cadebra, voiced by Chloe Coleman. Radiating a sort of Mabel Pines energy, Cadebra is the beam of optimism who shines brightly in an otherwise macabre special. There is something about her plucky personality and sense of wacky individualism that charms the viewer. I appreciate how the show compared and contrasted her with her uncle, the one and only Abracadaniel: like her uncle, Cadebra is a good person who wants to help others, but unlike Abracadaniel, she has a sense of courage and fortitude that results in her taking on a Coconteppi-possessed Peps at the episode’s climax. (Say what you will, Abracadaniel stans, but our favorite custodian would never have done that!) Thanks to her bravery and dedication to Peps, Cadebra is easily the heart of the special.

The episode throws an interesting little curveball into the mix by having the ‘ghost’ of Past Peppermint Butler constantly haunt Peps in the here-and-now. Past Peppermint, it seems, was so determined to become a great wizard, he cursed himself, so that if anything were to go awry, his Past self could materialize and set him straight. It’s confusing, but I do think that mixing the “overbearing parent” trope with a curse is a clever idea; it gives the whole special some dramatic heft. The whole setup is made even funnier by the special’s conclusion: After Future Peppermint Butler is ‘defeated’ and the day is saved, Peps reveals to Cadebra that he still wants to be a great and powerful dark wizard… but he wants to earn that power through hard work and determination. (Peppermint Butler might commune with demons, but he would never sell his soul to one for power; Glob helps those who help themselves, ya know?)

One of the special’s strongest points is its background art. Adventure Time always had some beautiful set pieces, and this special goes above and beyond to give WizArts an ancient sense of grandeur and mystery. Ghostshrimp, a freelance artist who was the show’s lead background designer during seasons 1-4, return for this special as a “visual developer”—basically, he mocked up a bunch of rough designs for the locales, and then the episode’s background artists worked up the final pieces in his style. On his podcast, Ghostshrimp mentioned how hectic he found Adventure Time to be, because he was used to taking his time on pieces. As such, the decision to bring him on for just development was smart, as it allowed him to still come up with iconic background designs while also playing fast and loose with everything. Hopefully the show will continue this approach with the Fionna and Cake miniseries that is coming up. After all, Ghosthsrimp’s style is the look of Adventure Time.

Another strong point for the episode is its voice acting. For one thing, you have your regulars like Tom Kenny and Dana Snyder, and Duncan Trussell, who all give a solid performance. But to voice many of the special’s new characters, the show brought on a bevy of fun actors: Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, for instance, is now voicing Bufo, and he does a solid job hamming up his role as the old fogey. And then there’s Toks Olagundoye, whose British accent gives Dr. Caledonius a sense of knowledge and expertise. To my delight and surprise, SungWon Cho, an internet personality and voice actor perhaps better known as ProZD, was tapped to voice Brain Wizard, and he does an excellent job. And finally, Anthony Stewart Head, a very talented actor who I know best as Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voices Con Wizard, and is even given a fun little ditty to sing. I can safely say that the voice acting in this special is likely the best of the bunch, and it’s obvious that the actors were all having a great time playing their parts.

What drags the whole thing down, in my opinion is the excessive murder. (I joked on Twitter that during the climax of “Wizard City,” it felt like I was watching an Adventure Time-ified version of Invincible!) Infused with the power of Coconteppi, Peps goes on a brutal killing spree, boiling Potable Wizard into steam, zapping Dimension Wizard into another plane of existence, smashing Berdzerd, and—perhaps most graphically—excerebrates (had to look that word up!) Brain Wiz. On Twitter, @sometipsygnostalgic​ argued that while, yes, the scene is startling, it does wonders to transmute “a poor Summer Camp Island knockoff [into] Adventure Time chaos.” The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a fair point; after all, this is hardly the first dark thing that has happened in Adventure Time. But the part that I cannot really stomach is the fact that Spader was murdered for no real reason, and the special ends without anyone really expressing their horror at the situation. Sure, Spader was a schoolyard bully, but he was also a child. And killing a child—either for the drama or the lulz—feels decidedly out of place in an Adventure Time episode. It’s hard to express, but it just felt unnecessarily nihilistic and mean-spirited.

All things considered, I think this was a fun episode, but it was somewhat underwhelming for a ‘finale.’ Much of this is because it had to air after the perfection that was the back-to-back “Obsidian”/”Together Again” wombo combo. But I can’t help but feel like this special just felt a little... off. A little too meanspirited, and it leaned a bit too much on standard tropes. Still, it was a fun spin, and I know that I’ll rewatch it.

Mushroom War Evidence: As Peps rides the bus to school, he passes a bunch of abandoned houses, some of which are buried in the ground. There is an unexploded bomb above the fossilized elephant in the school. Cadebra has a dream that takes place in the ruins of a city.

Final Grade: B+