An impressive use of Chekhov’s gun.
Anton Chekhov would dance after watching Adventure Time. No, really, he would do a jig! Adventure Time’s writing continues its tradition of well-written stories that come full circle with “Memory of a Memory.” The only thing that holds back this episode – or pushes it forward depending on your perception – is its timeliness.
Inception successfully planted the fascination of dream-diving in audiences’ minds. Detail crunching-nerds everywhere raved about how “complicated” the film was and how said “complications” made it a fantastic mind-bender. It was good. No, really it was. Inception was so good, it was boring. It was great in every way because people expected greatness from Christopher Nolan. What Adventure Time pulls off is just as entertaining. Finn and Jake are guided by an armless, green smurf to a tranquilized Marceline. The hobo tells Finn and Jake that she cast a sleep spell on herself and is stuck asleep. She is now trapped in her own dream world and if they don’t find the memory core in her dreams, she could sleep forever. There goes another story-dollar in the Sleeping Beauty basket.
The hobo gives them special dream powder to help them enter her dreams and the audience should take note of this, because certain details in this scene boomerang back later. Their adventure begins with seeing a young Marceline play with her doll in a very un-vampire way. After that delightful irony, we see a memory of Marceline’s dad eating her leftover fries. This scene is a direct reference to the song featured in the episode “It Came from the Nightosphere.” The two then find the memory core near a memory of Marceline’s boyfriend Ash.
The hobo-smurf then reveals himself to be Ash, and he wanted Finn and Jake to steal the memory of Marceline breaking up with him so she would forget about breaking up with him. Finn and Jake must now go to Marceline and save her from her creepy boyfriend’s clutches. How do they do this? By having Marceline go into Finn’s dreams to find the memory of Ash stealing the dream. This idea is the equivalent of taking a boom-boom on a DVD copy of Inception. You know, in the parody kind of way. Oh, and the dream powder from earlier comes back. Hobo smurf-Ash forgot to take it back and this facilitates Finn’s plan. Remember the warning about details boomeranging back in this episode?
The return of the dream powder and daddy-stolen-fries shows that Adventure Time reveres its own continuity. Fans will giggle when they see dream-Finn tell Mareline’s dream-dad not to eat the fries and fans will scream “Take that!” at the return of the dream powder. This isn’t the first Adventure Time episode to bring ideas and items full circle in a story. The idea of Chekhov’s gun is to appreciate the details you present in a story and to use them effectively. Adventure Time pursues this philosophy and it scores more hits than misses. The only thing people may have against the episode is the Inception feel of it. People are either tired of the Inception parodies or in love with them; this episode could ignite either crowd. The fact that “Memory of a Memory” pays tribute to Inception should not count against it, as it is a great episode.
Speaking of which, can we have buff baby Finn come into the future and help tween Finn punch some evil witches’ buns? Please?
Some stats and info about Adventure Time, “Memory of a Memory”
TV SHOW – Adventure Time
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3 Episode 3
AIRED ON – July 25th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Cartoon Network
GENRE – Animated Shows, Comedy
CREATED BY – Pendleton Ward
CAST – John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny, Hynden Walch, Niki Yang, Pendleton Ward, Dee Bradley Baker, Maria Bamford Lumpy Space Princess seduces Finn with her lumps.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.