Ketchup

Ketchup
Airdate:	July 18, 2017
Credits
Director:	Elizabeth Ito
Story:	Kent Osborne Jack Pendarvis Julia Pott Patrick McHale Ashly Burch Adam Muto
Written & storyboarded by:	Seo Kim Somvilay Xayaphone
Episodes
Previous "Abstract"
Next "Fionna and Cake and Fionna"

"Ketchup" is the twenty-fifth episode in the eighth season of Adventure Time. It's the two hundred sixty-third episode overall.

Synopsis

BMO and Marceline swap stories about their recent adventures.

Plot

It's day outside of Marceline's cave and a bass is heard being played. Marceline is in her home sitting in front one of her amps singing a song. She continues to sing her song until a knock at the door gets her attention. Marceline opens the door to reveal BMO who is suited in vampire hunting gear, oblivious to the fact that all of the vampires were killed six months ago. BMO comforts Marceline after learning that she is the last remaining vampire again, but before he dismisses himself Marceline stops BMO, requesting his assistance with technical issues. Marceline brings BMO inside and shows him an old USB drive that she had recovered without a method of viewing the files that are stored. BMO inserts the drive, and after he tells Marceline that the process will take some time, she proposes that they catch up to pass the time. Marceline starts off with asking BMO how his boat trip went with Finn and Jake. BMO then looks into his files for "boat trip" and recalls what had happened.

Finn and BMO are sailing on Jake who has taken the shape of a boat. The three land on an islet and then collapse from fatigue. The islet spontaneously transforms into a cat with legs on its back. Marceline interrupts the sequence rhetorically asking for clarification. BMO ignores Marceline and continues with his story. While the trio ride on the cat's back, a large blue jay hollering comes into sight. The blue jay continues to holler until the cat flys off and breaks contact with it. Others boats flying into the sky come near the crew, and Finn begins singing a song. BMO's flashback ends with the cat and other boats flying off into the clouds.

BMO finishes his story and finally notices that Marceline relocated to the kitchen. When asked what she was doing, Marceline replied with making puppets. BMO gets very excited about this and Marceline gets ready to perform her puppet show for BMO.

Marceline introduces Princess Bubblegum and herself with the aliases "Lollipop Girl" and "Rockstar Girl" respectively. Marceline introduces the setting "Weekend City," where everyone is reportedly easy-going. Rock Star Girl begins playing a song on a couch next to Lollipop Girl. After unintentionally causing Lollipop Girl to lose her page, Rock Star Girl walks away. A cloud in the distance brings over Patience St. Pim, who is under the pseudonym "Blue Tranch," and approaches Lollipop Girl attempting to persuade her into fulfilling her evolutionary potential. Lollipop Girl rejects the offer which upsets Blue Tranch, but doesn't convince her to abandon her plan. Blue Tranch proceeds to unleash a curse that transforms everyone into "potato heads." As everyone else becomes affected by the curse, Lollipop Girl transforms into a tower of "potatoes." BMO interrupts Marceline's story with questions on the tower's height. Marceline answers BMO's question and continues with her story. Rock Star Girl fought back the curse and promised Lollipop Girl that she will save her from the curse. Rock Star Girl traveled to "Potato Town" to confront the blue tranch. Rock Star Girl enters Blue Tranch's room and plays a song demanding that she fix Lollipop Girl. The song evidently was agonizing for Blue Tranch, so Rock Star Girl uses this to her advantage to what she wanted. After hearing enough of her song Blue Tranch surrenders and gives Rock Star Girl the antidote to fix Lollipop Girl. As Rock Star Girl makes her way back to Weekend City, she has doubts that the antidote works, thinking that maybe the blue tranch was just trying to get her to leave. With the curse spreading to more of Rock Star Girl, she used her last bit of energy to climb to the top of the tower. When she reached the top, Rock Star Girl discovered that the curse turned Lollipop Girl into an entirely different person. Rock Star Girl chose to accept her fate and explode into stardust.

Marceline finishes her story and BMO begins to discuss the accuracy of Marceline's story. This conversation leads to the self-realization that Marceline has troubling things to discuss, on account of her never thinking over these types of situations with herself. As Marceline finishes her thought, BMO shares that his data recovery has finally finished. BMO then projects the files on the drive onto a wall and the two begin watching the slideshow. Once images of Marceline as a young girl and her mother appear, Marceline orders BMO to pause the slideshow. Marceline runs to the projected images and appears to be touched by the sight of her mother. BMO questions Marceline on who the people are in the slideshow, which causes Marceline to hesitate and ask BMO to tell her a story using the people in the photo.

BMO begins to tell a story with Marceline's Mom called "Moon Lady", a character that can only come out during lunar eclipses. Moon Lady comes to the beach to play with the little girl and become best friends. BMO then imagines a sequence of activities Moon Lady and the little girl might have taken part in. After a day of playing the Moon Lady had to leave due to the eclipse starting to vanish. The little girl never forgot about the Moon Lady or their friendship despite her departure.

The imagination sequence ends and Marceline is looking at a photo of herself and her mother embracing each other. The story causes Marceline to tear up due to reminding her of her relationship with her mother a many years ago. Marceline lets BMO know his story was beautiful, and BMO responds with the picture being beautiful.

Characters

Major characters

• Marceline
• BMO

Minor characters

• Finn (flashback)
• Jake (flashback; non-speaking)
• Lollipop Girl (flashback)
• Blue Tranch (flashback)
• Marceline's Mom (pictured, imagination; as Moon Lady)
• Blue Jay (flashback)
• Ted (flashback)
• Snail

Mentioned

• Vampires
  • Vampire King
  • The Empress
  • The Hierophant
  • The Moon
  • The Fool

Music

• Bass Song
• I Want To Ride
• Rock Star Girl's Song
• Fix My Friend

Trivia

• In BMO's Moon Lady story, it is mentioned that she can only come out during lunar eclipses, however a lunar eclipse can only be seen at night and it is clearly daytime in BMO's story.
• Susan isn't seen anywhere in BMO's flashback despite being with them during Islands when Jake was a sailboat.
• In this episode, Marceline says to have found the pendrive in her loft

Cultural references

• The Blue Jay yelling "Whooooooooah!" is an homage to the character Mordecai from the series Regular Show. The Blue Jay was voiced by J.G. Quintel, who created the show and also voiced the aforementioned character. Additionally, he storyboarded the episode "Ocean of Fear" and alongside Pendleton Ward, attended CalArts and worked as storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

Episode connections

• BMO is unaware that the vampires were wiped out six months prior, as BMO was not present in any episode of Stakes.
• Marceline asks BMO about his boat trip that occured in Islands.
• Marceline's story represents what happened to her before she was cursed by the elemental spell in Elements.

Storyline analysis

• Marceline's puppet show story seems to represent events that occurred before the Elements miniseries, with the potato curse representing the elemental changes that Ooo underwent, as well as the central characters being based on Marceline, Princess Bubblegum, and Patience St. Pim.

Production notes

• This episode features special sequences by guest animators Alex Butera and Lindsay Small, who also worked on the guest animation in the episode "Beyond the Grotto."
• Patrick McHale is credited for the story in this episode, as he had previously written BMO's first story.
• This episode was released early on the Cartoon Network app on July 14, 2017.

Videos

Adventure Time Storytime with BMO Cartoon Network

Gallery

Official art

Promo art

Screenshots