Adventure Time: Frost & Fire DVD

As we’ve come to expect with these Adventure Time DVD collections, the first couple of episodes included on Frost & Fire (Vol. 9 of these 16 episode grab-bags) are the ones the set is named after. In this case, it’s Season Five’s “Frost & Fire” and its follow-up, “Earth & Water.” These episodes deal specifically with growing up, hitting puberty, and dealing with the emotional consequences these changes entail.

In particular, we’re talking about Finn (Jeremy Shada) getting a little too excited when Flame Princess (Jessica DiCicco) fights Ice King (Tom Kenny) — and then having a special dream about her shooting fire at his crotch; a fire that burns with goodness. Of course, then when Ice King gets the better of F.P., Finn’s next sex dream is of Ice King firing ice at his crotch, which completely freaks him out.

Also, in these dreams, Cosmic Owl (M. Emmet Walsh) is trying to communicate with Finn, maybe to tell him something important. That message: “You blew it.”

It’s a complicated episode for a kid’s cartoon, but its message is pretty clear to adults. Finn’s sexualization of F.P. led to lies and manipulation in order to further more sexualization which led to breaking her heart. There’s a lesson there for everybody. And then “Earth & Water” sees the aftermath of this as F.P. returns home, stages a coup, and becomes the new ruler of the Flame Kingdom — implementing a No Secrets law. Honesty is the rule of the land, and while Finn finds her even more attractive as a ruler, she’s not got time for him anymore.

He really did blow it.

The rest of the disc is a wide selection of episodes, including a couple from Season One (“Freak City” and “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain”), one from Season Three (“Apple Thief”), and a two-parter from Season Four (“Return to the Nightosphere” and “Daddy’s Little Monster”) with the rest being split fairly evenly between Seasons Five (six episodes) and Six (five episodes). So if you’re looking for some more recent episodes and are champing at the bit for a complete Season Five set, this could help alleviate that Jones (but given that there were 52 episodes in Season Five, this is still just a drop in the bucket — but there are other S5 episodes on the Jake the Dad, The Suitor, Princess Day, and Finn the Human DVD sets).

There’s not a discernable theme to the collection that I can see, although many episodes have storylines that involve the relationships between kids and their parents, a couple that are about the origins of our heroes Finn and Jake (John DiMaggio), and a few that are about developing a sense of personal identity.

And they’re all pretty darned good.

There are no special features on the disc, so basically you’ve just got a solid set of cartoons that run nearly three hours in all, and are sure to entertain both kids and adults. If there’s anything annoying about the set, it’s that some episodes lose a bit of their energy when taken out of continuity, especially with these Season Five and Six episodes, where the creative teams are really building a cohesive narrative over the series.

Ultimately, though, nothing beats the complete sets. These single DVD releases are nice and affordable, but not quite as satisfying as they could be. And with no extras (and no Jake Hat or Finn Backpack), Adventure Time: Frost & Fire is a difficult thing to recommend. The cartoons are great, but it’s DVD rather than Blu-ray, and you get 16 nearly random episodes with no solid theme or sense of continuity.