Finn is not happy with his replacement arm, so he builds a tower into space to find his father and take revenge by punching him and stealing his favorite arm.[1]
Plot
The episode starts with Finn trying to make spaghetti with a bulky candy arm. His bulky arm doesn't help Finn and he starts accidentally destroying things. As he continues to mess things up, he gets frustrated and his candy arm explodes. Jake comes down stairs, hoping for the spaghetti, but instead sees the mess. Jake tells Finn that all the new arms he's received from sympathetic princesses (a hot dog arm and slime arm are shown) are nice, but not what he truly needs or wants. He then tells Finn he should just take his time and listen to his "Melon Heart." Finn then says he wants to go to space so he can take his father's arm as payback for Martin indirectly causing Finn to lose his arm in "Escape from the Citadel". Jake tells him not to do this but to just relax and think and that he's going to the store to buy replacement kitchen supplies for the ones Finn broke. Finn goes outside the tree fort and he lies on the ground. He starts to talk to himself and then suddenly he notices a pile of rocks forming behind him and that there is an odd, sightly transparent arm, where his real arm used to be. He then decides to use this arm to build a tower into space to find his dad.
As Jake is returning home, the tower has grown considerably and Princess Bubblegum is there and tells Jake that Finn's got a new arm, what she believes to be a telekinetic electro-emotional prosthesis and is dangerous and could hurt him and other people around him. Jake shakes off the notion and says what Finn's doing is healthy and he should just be left alone. As Finn continues his tower he enters the cloud house of a Cloud person. She tells Finn to leave, and when he doesn't, blasts him with lightning with her gun. This moves the house out of the tower and the cloud person then says that Finn must be, "One of those swimmers," and leaves.
The next day large chunks of Ooo's landscape are missing because of the tower, including a rookery of penguins. The cloud person from the day prior returns to Finn, introduces herself as Carroll and apologizes and asks if he's really going to take his father's arm. Finn states that he is and the cloud person talks about how she was water once and how swimmers would always be swimming in her, so she got evaporated and became air. She then tells Finn he should let it go, runaway, and hate his life like she has.
On the ground BMO asks Jake what Finn is doing (not before getting crushed into the ground by a falling ice block). Jake says Finn's just working some stuff out and that it's completely healthy, which is directed at PB who is working on some sort of device. PB disagrees and says that Finn could get hurt. As Finn's tower has finally reached the atmosphere, Carroll asks what it's like up there and wonders if she should become space ice. Finn, who is extremely oxygen deprived, sees a similar looking portal to the one the Void Caster made in "Escape from the Citadel," but suddenly a bright light comes at him and he blacks out.
Finn then wakes up in what seems to be a space ship and walks to the next room to see his 'father' watching TV. Finn surprises his father and punches him into unconsciousness and tries to take his arm. As Martin moans about his favorite arm, Finn changes his mind and it is revealed that Martin was really a disguised PB. She says she tricked Finn and took him to the Candy Kingdom fallout bunker, and since he had so little oxygen that he was already hallucinating, the trick was easy to pull off.
Finn returns home, with his telekinetic arm gone, and tells Jake that he's calmed down. Jake says that's great and asks if Finn wants to do the honors of taking down the tower. Finn says he would and removes a plank of wood near the base of the tower, which then collapses sideways, destroying a large portion of the Candy Kingdom, to the shock of Finn and Jake. The episode ends with Princess Bubblegum screaming, "AHHH! MY ARM!"
Finn's telekinetic "spirit arm" is likely based on the real-world phenomenon of phantom limb syndrome, in which an amputee continues to feel pain and other sensations from a missing limb as if it were still attached to their body.
Princess Bubblegum was able to create a duplicate of Martin even though she technically should not know what he looks like due to not meeting him.
Princess Bubblegum may have met Finn's dad in the past, evidenced by the fact that she is nearing a 1,000 years old and when in "Susan Strong," she hesitated to tell Finn about humans.
Finn's voice is deeper than it was in the last episode.
This episode marks the first instance where Finn willingly gives in to evil intentions by seeking revenge.
This is the first episode Finn punches a princess, though unintentional.
Cultural references
The blocks of soil Finn uses to build the tower are similar to the ones used in the video game Minecraft, and the general blocky damage to the land is also reminiscent of the game.
The way that Finn began planting smaller amounts of blocks underneath himself as he reached space is similar to a process in Minecraft called "nerd-poleing", where one attempts to build their way into the air by jumping up and placing a block underneath themselves.
The act of Finn carving out chunks of the candy kingdom, hot dog kingdom and ice kingdom is also similar to a destructive act known as "Griefing".
Episode connections
The way Princess Bubblegum impersonated Martin (with modified voice) was similar to Finn changing his voice/appearance to be Davey in the episode of the same name.
Princess Bubblegum previously made a prosthetic arm for Shoko, one of Finn's past lives, in the episode The Vault; however, Finn's gumball arm is remarkably heavier than Shoko's prosthesis.
The fact that Finn is mad at Martin for causing him to lose his arm and many other thing said throughout the episode is also a reference to "Escape from the Citadel."
Production notes
Storyline analysis
Errors
There are several instances of Finn's flower having five petals, rather than four.
To try to stir the spaghetti, Finn uses a wooden spoon to stir it, but after it breaks and Finn destroys the tomato sauce jar, the wooden spoon is nowhere to be found.
The stove was turned on when Finn stirs the spaghetti. A few seconds later, the stove is suddenly turned off.
While Finn is talking to Jake near the end of the episode, the sun is going down and Finn's shadow is cast over Jake. The shadow has two full arms, unlike the real Finn, who has only one full arm.
This may have been a foreshadowing of Finn regaining his arm in "Breezy" or it could have been a continuity error.
