Hoots

Synopsis
A charismatic stranger in Finn's dream leads Cosmic Owl to shirk his duties.

Plot
The episode opens with the Cosmic Owl holding groceries flying down towards a motel he is staying at. He enters and exclaims "I'm home!" even though the room is empty. He proceeds to put his groceries away, prepare a meal and shuffles though his room to open a closet full of board games. A large pink jewel in his room blinks and emits a sound, then spits out a golden dream token. He says "Sorry fellas, I gotta go make some dreams come true" to his stack of board games.

Cosmic owl takes the coin and opens up a map that allows him to see all the dreams of everyone in the universe. He swipes right and lands on Finn's dream where he is being surrounded and hugged by Sweet P and Martin, claiming "Ah, Finn again". Using the coin to gain access, he enters the dream to find Finn, Sweet P and Martin posing for pictures being taken by Jake. Upon closer inspection, Cosmic Owl sees that Jake's face is upside down and Sweet P is facing backwards. The dream then shifts as Sweet P floats up and Martin walks away from Finn. A lady bird enters though a door carrying a ladder and takes a disco ball that was suspended above Finn. Cosmic Owl becomes intrigued and reveals his presence, but only Finn notices him. Finn asks him questions but Cosmic Owl isn't paying him any attention, and forcefully hoots to wake Finn.

Jake and Shelby are surprised as Finn wakes up and BMO pulls Shelby out of Finn's stomach using a fishing rod. Jake pleads with Finn to fall asleep again so they can continue stomach fishing. Finn goes back to sleep to see Cosmic Owl retreat to his room, and finds a bear with a grandfather clock for an arm sitting across from him.

Cosmic Owl is at Prismo's place drawing the lady bird in his sketch-book and ignoring Prismo. Prismo seems excited for Cosmic Owl falling in love until he reveals that he saw the lady bird in Finn's dream. He thinks it is an abuse of his powers. Cosmic Owl claims he doesn't care and wants to let love lead him. Prismo relaxes as he realizes that finding one person in billions of dreams is nearly impossible. Cosmic Owl flies away determined to find her again.

Back in his room, Cosmic Owl prepares coffee and music as he searches the dreams of residents of Ooo including Peppermint Butler, Tree Trunks, Marceline, Turtle Princess, Lemon Hope, Abracadaniel and others, all the while ignoring the large pink jewel that spawns dream tokens. He finally finds the lady bird in a dream full of butlers and maids serving small meat hor devours. He takes a token but hesitates to enter, although he enters anyway.

He talks to her, gives her a shrimp puff and tells her that he saw her in a dream and wanted to see her again, though he also lets her know that he shouldn't have done so. As he says this, a waiter carrying a tray of hor devours slips and falls with the tray landing on him as other waiters and maids laugh. She inquires as to who's dream she was seen in. He answers that it was in Finn's dream, and she becomes more interested in him, She touches him, but in doing so wakes up. They both want to see each other again, so Cosmic Owl bookmarks her dream coordinates so that he can find her again the next night. She eats the shrimp puff and hands him the toothpick to keep.

Prismo is telling Cosmic Owl a story of his own personal relationships through the television, but is interrupted by the large pink jewel. He takes the token and finds the lady bird in a dream full of what appears to be small icebergs. She is upset that the dream is dull and empty, so Cosmic Owl takes her to his room. She is impressed and wants to know more about the dream map. He lets her spy on other's dreams, including Mr. Pig, Mr. Cupcake, Party Pat and Kim Kil Whan, then asks if it can see the dreams of royalty. He says yes, but claims that Ice King's dreams are "so sad." She mentions Princess Bubblegum and he brings a token to enter the dream. He is beginning to feel something off about the lady bird.

In the dream, PB waters a small part of land, and grows a huge tree fort in front of a crown of candy people. She is praised at first until the lady bird begins to glow a dark aura and the sky darkens. The candy people become angry and boo her. PB is taken aback while the lady bird's dark aura manifests into a tendrils to melt the candy people into a yellow base. The black aura then rushes to PB who is distraught at all her hard work gone to nothing, and is pushed into the yellow base where she sinks, then wakes up.

Cosmic Owl flies to the lady bird, touches her and she snaps back as the black aura disperses. He asks her "Do you have any idea what you've done?" as he flies her back to his room. Cosmic Owl freaks out that she interfered with a dream that he was in, as dreams he enter come true. She claims "It just felt right thing to do."

He tells her that it is impossible for them to be together and wakes her up, revealing the lady bird to be Gunter who was sleeping in a crib. Ice King offers Gunter a bottle as a penguin carrying a tray of sausages slips and falls with the tray landing on him like the dream Cosmic Owl entered where he found the lady bird. Gunter angrily takes the bottle and waddles outside the room about to throw the bottle but looks up at the sky instead. Gunter sits down and pushes the bottle down instead.

Major characters

 * Cosmic Owl
 * Bird Woman (Gunter when he dreams)

Minor characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * BMO
 * Martin
 * Sweet P
 * Shelby
 * Prismo
 * Kim Kil Whan
 * Marceline
 * Lemonhope
 * Ice King
 * King of Ooo
 * Party Pat
 * Abracadaniel
 * Turtle Princess
 * Banana Man
 * Tree Trunks
 * Mr. Pig
 * Forest Wizard
 * Berdzerd
 * Bufo
 * Huntress Wizard
 * Laser Wizard
 * Chinchizard
 * Candy People
 * Princess Bubblegum
 * Peppermint Butler
 * Kenneth
 * Gumdrop Lass 1
 * Mr. Cupcake
 * Punch Bowl
 * Chocoberry
 * Cherry Cream Soda
 * Marshmallow Kid
 * Candy Cane Guy
 * Blombo
 * Cinnamon Bun
 * Snail
 * Penguins (Humanoid Penguins)

Mentioned

 * Flame Princess (indirect mention)

Trivia

 * Though being a dream, it shows that Banana Man may be 87 years old.
 * In Princess Bubblegum's dream, Cinnamon Bun is seen there even though he left for the Fire Kingdom in "Earth & Water."
 * Gunter's first dream took place in a restaurant where humanoid penguins were dining and serving food. One of the waiters slipped and dropped all the shrimp puffs. At the very end of the episode, the events of the dream occur with Ice King's penguins, due to the Cosmic Owl's presence in the dream.
 * When the Cosmic Owl looks at Jake upside down in Finn's dream, Jake says in a sad tone "Say goodbye" in reverse.
 * Tree Trunks' dream opening a bag of skulls, might be due her unconsious warning her about sweet-p's hidden dark nature.
 * The title card displays Shelby inside Finn's stomach.

Cultural references

 * Finn's dream seems to take place in the arcade game Q*Bert. This is further reinforced by the Cosmic Owl inserting a coin to enter the dream.
 * The way the Cosmic Owl works the dream screen with his wings is similar to the way PreCrime agents navigate their screens in the movie .
 * Forest Wizard's dream is inspired by a different video from Pendleton Ward, which he claimed was based on a dream he had.

Episode connections

 * Finn mentions the last time he had a prophetic dream from the episode "Frost & Fire."
 * The Cosmic Owl's admission of the Ice King's dreams being sad may refer back to their encounter in "Prisoners of Love."
 * Gunter's intentions of causing terror to the Candy Kingdom seems to reference Hunson Abadeer's comment towards Gunter in "It Came from the Nightosphere," saying that he/she is the "most evil thing [he's] ever encountered."
 * Lemonhope's nightmare of his life in chains is shown in one of the dream windows. This dream was seen in "Lemonhope Part 2" while he was singing Lemonhope's Song.
 * One of the dream windows shows Lemonhope's nightmare from "Lemonhope Part 2." This could be a reoccurring nightmare that he is experiencing, or the Cosmic Owl sees all dreams across all timelines, and can travel between them to fulfill prophecies, almost like a black hole is said to bend time and space.
 * Abracadaniel may have been set free or escaped from the Ice King who froze him prior to "Friends Forever".
 * PB's dream is fulfilled in "Hot diggity doom".
 * Finn's dream is fulfilled in "The Comet".

Storyline analysis

 * Despite the numerous amount of dreams appearing in this episode, the initial dream involving Finn, with his encounter with Martin and Sweet P, does appear to count as an important premonition dream that may associate with future events.
 * The dream is later fulfilled in "The Comet."
 * It is revealed some events of Princess Bubblegum's dream did come true because in "Lemonhope Part 2," the Candy Kingdom became abandoned. And in the previous episode, "Graybles 1000+," the citizens of the Candy Kingdom are now in some form of hyper-sleep. This also could support the idea that Princess Bubblegum had cloned some, if not, all the candy citizens as seen in the Prize-ball Guardian.
 * The dream did come true in "Hot Diggity Doom" when she lost the election to King of Ooo.
 * In Abracadaniel's dream might be a reference to how badly he was treated or his bad relationships with Laser Wizard, Bufo (they did not seem to care about him and planned to make him a sacrifice), Chinchizard (who called him a loser) and possibly Berdzerd and the events that showed their bad relationships are showed in "Wizards Only, Fools" and "Thanks for the Crabapples, Giuseppe."
 * Analysis of Finn's prophetic dream and the real events:
 * The enviroment where they are is purple because of the comet's influence, as well as the land of ooo's enviroment dyed purple.
 * Jake said "say goodbye" in reverse. Finn did said goodbye to Martin.
 * Martin abandons Finn to a place where Finn can't reach him.
 * The bird woman opened a door, goes up in a ladder and takes the disco ball. In the real events Orgalorg created the opportunity to use a spaceship to take the comet.
 * Sweet P appears in the dream due to the Lich connection to the comet and finn as a same entity, even thou he wasn't there in real events.
 * The bear with a clock as arm represents the return of the grass sword in finn's arm.
 * The only character that was not on the dream but was on the real events is the Cosmic Moth.

Errors

 * When Shelby is reeled out of Finn's mouth, his tail is fully intact, but when he crawls back wearing the mining helmet, he seems to have part of it cut off like in "Little Brother."
 * The Snail that appears in every episode seems be to be shown in Prismo's Time room but then disappears all of a sudden.