This episode begins with BMO playing some game with an egg, and when the egg cracks xe starts crying. Finn and Jake try to cheer xir up, but nothing seems to work. Then James Baxter, a horse who travels around Ooo balancing on a beach ball, shows up. James Baxter is known for his incredible ability to cheer people up and spread joy… by balancing on a beach ball and continuously whinnying his own name. Huh. Okay then. James Baxter cheers BMO up immediately. Finn and Jake are impressed and decide that they’re going to follow in James Baxter’s footsteps. This means they’re going to whinny their names at people to cheer them up. And they do so, but it doesn’t work out because I guess that’s not as charming when it’s coming from someone other than James Baxter? So they spend most of the episode trying to figure out what they’re doing wrong and how they can improve, and they eventually do find something that seems to work. Until they accidentally awaken an angry ghost that attacks them, and this really sounds like I’m either making things up or I’ve gotten confused and started summarizing a different episode instead but I swear this happens in the same episode. James Baxter shows up and calms the ghost down, then he leaves and the episode just… ends.
The episode before this one, Princess Potluck, was fun because it was silly and weird. James Baxter the Horse is also silly and weird, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. So why is that?
I think it’s because as silly as Princess Potluck was, it was at least about something. Not something important in terms of character development or story, but still something. It’s about Ice King being upset that he wasn’t invited to a party and trying to ruin it. It’s simple, humorous and easy to make entertaining. This episode, though? I just don’t really get it. It’s about… Finn and Jake wanting to imitate James Baxter? Okay, but why? Because he helps people and Finn and Jake also like to help people?
I guess what we’re supposed to take away from this episode is that being inspired by your heroes is one thing but imitation is not always the way to go, sometimes we need to do things our own way. Except there already was an episode with that message, His Hero, where Finn and Jake try to imitate Billy’s ways because he’s their hero but they find that Billy’s approach doesn’t really work for them. Why wouldn’t I just watch that?
A couple of the jokes in the episode are funny, but I just didn’t enjoy it. Maybe it’s a bit too silly for me, or not silly in the right way. Whatever it is, it’s just not for me.
Rating: 3/10
Finn and Jake play a game where neither of them can speak, their only way of communicating is by using signs that they wrote at the start of their game but they are not allowed to make anymore. Unfortunately they both forget to make a sign that lets BMO know about their game, and when BMO finds that neither of them will speak at all xe gets scared that something has taken over Finn and Jake’s body. Xe hides in the wall, and Finn and Jake have to find some way to 1) convince BMO to come out and 2) explain their game to him without either of them losing. They a try a few different things but nothing seems to work.
Meanwhile, BMO has apparently invited some “Bikini Babes” (they’re literally humanoid women in bikinis) over for a dance party and they’re gathering outside the Tree Fort, wondering why no one is answering the door. BMO officially has more game than anyone on this show. They hear BMO playing xir favorite song and fly (somehow) onto the roof. Inside the Tree Fort, Finn and Jake are trying to break through the wall with axes, but they open a rift that extends to the ceiling, and the Bikini Babes fall inside. BMO tells them to attack Finn and Jake, and after fighting them for a while Jake finally begs them to stop, which means he loses the no-speaking game. BMO realizes that Finn and Jake were themselves all along and they all have a dance party.
Well, this episode was at least kind of fun.
I liked the game/bet that Finn and Jake were playing, mainly because I like how it’s all just for the bragging rights. They won’t lose anything by losing the bet, the stakes are that the loser will be disappointed that they lost. Yet they still take it so seriously, to the point that they won’t do the sensible thing and explain to BMO what’s happening, because that would mean admitting defeat.
I also liked how those signs that they made are really oddly specific, and yet they don’t have a lot of the ones that would be important. Part of the bet is that the only signs they can use are ones that they wrote up in thirty seconds before officially starting the bet, so they have to think of as many as they can and ones that would be useful. There’s a joke at the beginning about how Finn didn’t make enough signs and therefore has a hard time communicating with Jake, who apparently has more. One of Jake’s signs even comments on how Finn didn’t make enough, which I guess says a lot about how well Jake knows Finn. Neither of them made a sign explaining their bet to people who might need to know, which was a huge oversight, but they had signs for really specific situations or things that would only make sense if they knew what was going to happen. Though if they knew what could happen, they should have prevented it. Anyway, I got a kick out of a lot of the signs they made, and thinking about why they would possibly think to make those signs exactly.
About halfway through the episode I did start to lose interest, but overall I found it entertaining enough, and I did like the premise. It just seems like something we’ve all done with our friends as kids. The bet, I mean. Not hiding in the wall and fighting women in bikinis.
Rating: 6.5/10