Beautopia (episode)

"Beautopia" is the fourteenth episode in season three of Adventure Time thumb|300px|right

Synopsis
Susan Strong asks Finn and Jake to help fight off the Lub Glubs and regain her people's home in Beautopia.

Plot
Finn and Jake are inside one night, discussing things about coffee, when they hear banging. All of the sudden, Susan Strong bursts through the wall from the outside. She says that she needs Finn's help because of his "Hero Heart." She also adds that she needs Finn's magic, the "Red Flower," or fire.

Jake tries to convince Finn that Susan's completely crazy, but Finn insists that he goes with her. Jake remarks that he's only coming to be a "distraction."

The duo are taken to the underground cave in which the Hyoomen tribe lives. Susan explains that she wants Finn to help her tribe reclaim their original home, a wonderful village called "Beautopia" located deep within the cave system. Long ago they were driven out by the fearsome "Lub Glubs," and ever since have been scraping out a harsh existence in the garbage heaps and ruins closer to the hatch entrance. Susan thinks they should swim to get there, and is surprised when she sees Finn has no gills, nearly drowning him before discovering this. They then take a boat ride down the river and Jake sings "I'm On a Boat." A pool toy passes them and Susan panics, telling both Finn and Jake to keep quiet, because it was a "Lub Glub." They attempt to cross the Clashing Gates and pass, but the boat was smashed in half, giving it no motor.

Eventually, they reach the city - which appears to be some sort of abandoned shopping mall with "SALE" signs everywhere - and several Lub Glubs come out from the ruins. Jake is convinced that they are normal pool toys and hits one with his "Pick-Axe Hand." The Lub Glubs all turn into their true form, black smoke monsters with savage jaws, and attack the group, to Susan's terror. Susan helps Finn fight and Jake goes to put the fire in the "City Heart." When he does, all of the Lub Glubs die, and all that's left are their pool toy shells.

Later, the Hyoomen Tribe moves back to the city. Susan tells Finn he should stay, but Finn claims he's not like her. Susan takes his hand and puts it under her hat onto her neck. Finn says "Susan..." but is interrupted by Jake, who bought a bunch of soft pretzels. As they leave, Finn waves goodbye to Susan, mystified in wonder if he isn't the last human after all.

Songs

 * I'm On A Boat

Characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Susan Strong
 * Lub Glubs

Minor Characters

 * Hyoomen Tribe
 * Celina
 * Peppermint Butler (mentioned)
 * Snail

Trivia

 * The title of this episode is a portmanteau of the words "beautiful" and "utopia". "Beau" is French and the latter is defined as a perfect world.
 * Susan refers to fire as "Red Flower." In Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, fire is also called "Red Flower."
 * In this episode Susan uses near proper vocabulary when talking, indicating that her speech has improved since being taught the basics of it by Finn.
 * When the Hyoomen Tribe appears at the beginning, they are not wearing their hats, but they appear with hats at the end of the episode.
 * The Lub Glubs may be a continuation of the reference to the ABC paranormal series "Lost" which began in the episode the Hyoomens were introduced. The title card of "Susan Strong (episode)" contains an image of Finn & Jake staring down the mysterious hatch that led to the underground caves which contain the ruins that the Hyoomens live in: the angle of the shot mirrors a similar shot of "Lost" characters looking down the DHARMA hatch on the island. In this episode, the "Lub Glubs" that attack the Hyoomens are revealed to be nightmarish creatures made out of a black, fog-like substance -- possibly another visual cue from the "Smoke Monster" on "Lost".
 * Susan simply says that the Hyoomen Tribe was driven from Beautopia by the Lub Glubs "long ago", in such a way that its not clear if this even happened within her lifetime or generations ago.
 * The title card of this episode seems to be a commercial poster of Beautopia, probably before the Mushroom War. In the letters is possible to see many of its attractions, including: (B) boat trip; (E) swimming pool; (A) volleyball court; (U) towers of flames;(T) tube-like elevators; (O) the apartment buildings; (P) a park; and (A) the main flame tower; the letter (I) isn't an attraction but show a woman using an animal hat, similar to Finn's hat or Fionna's hat.
 * By the letter (I) of the title card, is possible to conclude that the Hyoomen Tribe's hats came from Beautopia.
 * It is possible that "Beautopia" was part of some sort of underground fallout shelter built by humans trying to survive the impending Great Mushroom War. From the title card, it seems that Beautopia was supposed to be part of some kind of a domed, self-contained community. However, due to a biohazard leak (mentioned on posters in concept art from "Susan Strong") the inhabitants eventually mutated into "fish-people" and degenerated into a child-like, semi-feral state.
 * Continuing the story-arc begun in the "Susan Strong" episode, this raises the question of if Finn's parents were actually from Beautopia, or another bunker system like it.
 * The story element of a self-contained generational community of humans in a bunker, meant to survive in isolation for hundreds of years after a nuclear war devastates the surface world, is a central plot point in the "Fallout" series of RPG video games.
 * Jake's clam-shaped head with a woman inside refers to the famous painting The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.
 * Finn's hair seems to dry within seconds of his hat coming off after Susan almost drowned him.
 * When Susan is climbing down underground, it's pouring down rain. When Finn, Jake, and Susan are walking away from the ladder and the opening, the rain has stopped.
 * This is the fourth episode to show Finn's blonde hair, the first being "To cut a Womens Hair", second being "Mortal Folly", and third being in "Heat Signature" when Marceline is about to "bite" Finn on the neck him.
 * The main question of "Susan Strong" was if susan was a human or humanoid. This is still unknown but finn felt her neck for gills so he only knows but the evidence leans more twards her being a human