Hot to the Touch

Synopsis
Finn attempts to prove to Jake that Flame Princess isn't evil while trying to win her heart turns into a quest to stop her from taking over the Goblin Kingdom.

Plot
The show begins with the closing sequence from "Incendium": Flame Princess slaps Finn's face and tells him to never mess with her again, leaving Finn to say, "I think I have a crush." Jake then explains that he was trying to help Finn get over his "Princess Bubblegum sad times" and that she is evil. Finn becomes extremely mad at Jake for saying she was evil, and claims that he "peeped beyond her burning gaze" and that she is not evil, just passionate. Finn convinces Jake to help him look for her.

Jake begins to walk over the forest with Finn on his head, trying to convince him to date another princess, and even suggests Wildberry Princess as an option. Suddenly a Brown Bird that was set on fire by the Flame Princess flies over them, and angrily directs Finn and Jake to the location of the Flame Princess. Jake shrinks down and he and Finn start to spy on Flame Princess. They view Flame Princess curiously playing with and burning a few flowers. Finn is so attracted to her that he says that she looks like "the steam of a puppy's nose searching for ham in the snow." Jake tells him to snap out of it, and that she is burning cute little flowers. Finn, all dazed and in love, simply responds "Yeah. She is like a cute little flower!" The conversation is stopped abruptly when Flame Princess hurts herself by putting her hand in a pond.

Finn blows his cover to see if Flame Princess is alright and explains how he feels, causing her to glow brighter in excitement. Finn is scared of the fire that Flame Princess produced and he puts it out, revealing that destroying the fire that Flame Princess creates actually causes her physical harm. Finn, alarmed, asks if he is hurting her. "YES!" she replies, "That's all you've DONE!" She gasps, asking if Finn is trying to hurt her, and if that is why he is following her. Finn start to answer, but then says "I guess I AM technically following you..." This upsets Flame Princess, who runs away with Finn still following her. He awkwardly says "I guess now I'm technically chasing you!" Jake chases after Finn and the princess, before she burns down a tree and runs away. After Jake puts out the fire, Finn shouts to Flame Princess "Wait! I want to chat it up with you!" She then appears and says she's ambushing them, and starts shooting fireballs at them.

The attack does not last long as Finn confuses Flame Princess by trying to compliment her while she is attempting to kill them. She asks Finn why is he tormenting her, to which he responds "I'm not trying to, I just like you. I think I… I think I LIKE like you. Listen, when I look at you, my brain goes... all stupid! And I just wanna hug you, and sit on the couch, and play BMO with you! I can't explain why, but I've never felt this way and I think we should be together!" This causes her to blush, and her flames grow. Finn excitedly jumps up and down clapping, but Flame Princess resists, explaining that all Finn has done is hurt her and that she thinks that Finn is trying to impede her. In order to take revenge, she threatens to transform the Goblin Kingdom into her very own personal fire kingdom. She begins setting the entire field ablaze. Finn tries to convince her not to before he and Jake are restrained by a wall of fire. Jake tells Finn to fight her, but he refuses because he is "still into her." Jake asks which is more important: being with her, or being a hero and saving poor innocent Goblin folks. Finn has no choice but to be a hero, and Jake informs Finn of his plan to build fire-proof suits. Finn and Jake return to their tree house and go into the garage in an attempt to find some raw materials to build their suits. Instead they find Neptr, who is playing hide and seek and claims he has been hidden for over 15 months, 4 days, and 9 hours. Neptr then helps build fire-proof suits for Finn and Jake to wear (while Neptr sings "Working for the Master"). The suits are huge metal robot-like shells equipped with rockets and foam blasters, with Neptr himself acting as the helmet of Finn's suit.

They all fly to the Goblin Kingdom where they try and reason with Flame Princess, but she continues her rampage. She tries to attack Finn and Jake, but it doesn't work because the suits are fireproof. When Flame Princess attempts to shoot another fireball at Finn, it is deflected into a goblin's cart (the goblin claims to have been born in that cart). Jake then attempts to put out some of the fires, injuring Flame Princess in the process. Neptr attempts to put out Flame Princess by hitting her with the foam blaster, but Finn manages to stop Neptr from directly hitting Flame Princess. Instead the foam blasts Jake and extinguishes a few of Flame Princess' flames. Flame Princess becomes extremely angry, proclaiming "That is the last time you hurt me!" She grows into her beast form and continues to rampage through the Goblin Kingdom. A tear from Flame Princess' right eye reveals that she has been harmed both physically and emotionally.

Finn then literally rips himself out of his own suit (never again wanting to see her hurt) and stands on top of it to shout to Flame Princess. She ignores him, causing Finn to say that he failed everyone, despite Neptr's insistence that Finn hasn't failed him. Finn gives up, feeling he can never win the heart of anyone. He begins to cry and some of his tears fall on the flames of Flame Princess, which not only hurts her, but also catches her attention. Flame Princess comes over and watches Finn cry for a short time, before stopping all her flames from destroying the city. Finn coughs and is surprised to see Flame Princess watching him. She says she thinks she understands now, and that Finn is a Water Elemental because he creates water (tears). Finn tries to explain that he isn't, but Flame Princess (having trouble understanding the concept of his species) says, "Even if we like each other, we are only going to hurt each other." Finn replies, "No, we don't have to! I can take it, I mean, can we try?" She replies "You would defy nature for me?" Finn says, "Yeah, whatevs." Flame Princess hugs Finn, burning him and causing him to tear up again. Flame Princess says goodbye, leaving in a trail of flames towards what seems to either be the desert or just a simple sunrise. Jake goes over to Finn and tells him that all of the goblins were "barbequed," before revealing that he was just messing with him, and that he saved all the goblins. Jake asks how things went with Flame Princess. "She hugged me," replies Finn, "then left." "Whoa," says Jake, "how did it feel?" Finn ends the episode with the line, "It hurt."

Main characters

 * Finn
 * Flame Princess
 * Jake
 * Neptr

Minor characters

 * Goblins
 * Snail
 * Brown Bird

Mentioned

 * Princess Bubblegum
 * Wildberry Princess
 * BMO
 * Flame King

Songs

 * "Working for the Master"

Trivia

 * At the beginning, when Flame Princess slaps Finn during the replay of the ending of "Incendium," the handprint left on Finn's face is a lighter color than that that was left on his face in "Incendium." The handprint disappears when Finn responds in anger to Jake's contention that Flame Princess is evil.
 * Flame Princess says "I've heard this all before" after Finn tells her he doesn't want to hurt her, which could mean that something like this has happened before, possibly when she was first locked up in the lantern.

Cultural references

 * Finn's fire proof suit is similar to a suit used by Marvel superhero Iron Man, with Neptr acting as an AI such as modern rendition of Jarvis.
 * The sticker on the right arm of Finn's robot suit resembles the symbol on the My Little Pony character Rainbow Dash (G3). The unicorn sticker on his back also has a similar mane.
 * Jake's line "I feel like I could touch the heavens, and sock angels..." may be a reference to the PlayStation game Xenogears.  The game featured characters that piloted giant robots.  The tagline of the game was "Stand tall and shake the heavens."


 * Jake's method of extinguishing the fire on the tree while he and Finn are chasing Flame Princess is reminiscent of Bueno the Bear's Butt Dance.

Episode connections

 * This is the first time Neptr sings. His song is "Working For The Master." This is also the first appearance of Neptr since season 1 and his second appearance overall.
 * Neptr was left alone and forgotten for 15 months, 4 days, and 9 hours (amount of time since his last appearance in "What is Life?") which may be why viewers have not seen him in a while.
 * The music from the title card, beginning when Finn starts crying and ending when he hugs Flame Princess, is identical to music from the Flower Path from "Dad's Dungeon," which also refers to Finn crying.
 * When Finn and Jake fly in their fire-proof suits, the music is a fast-forwarded version of the title card music from "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain."
 * The Goblin Kingdom was first seen in "The Silent King."

Errors

 * A goblin said that he was born in a cart, but in "The Silent King," Finn and Jake were shown the Goblin birthing pits where he would technically be born. That's not to say that the cart couldn't have been in the pit.
 * When Flame Princess goes flying out the window it isn't on fire, while Jake and Finn keep talking it is still not on fire, when Finn looks through it and says "She ain't evil" the window is now on fire.
 * After Flame Princess says "I am ambushing you!" and Finn is screaming he doesn't seem to have any missing teeth.

Production notes

 * This episode was leaked and uploaded to YouTube on 11 March 2012. The original video was taken down the next day because of a copyright claim from Cartoon Network Incorporated but many illegal copies of it can be found online. Some are still being occasionally uploaded onto YouTube.
 * This is the second episode to be leaked since "Fionna and Cake."
 * Later on, the Season 5 episodes "Finn the Human," "Jake The Dog," "Bad Little Boy" and "Up a Tree" were also leaked prior to their premieres.
 * This is the fourth most watched episode after "Burning Low," "Fionna and Cake" and "Conquest of Cuteness."
 * In the original storyboards, Flame Princess was supposed to kiss Finn. They decided to wait and put the kiss in "Burning Low."