Maybe I'll pirate Plural bus or whatever the apple show is, for now deal with my Adventure Time posting.
I liked this season a lot. Spoilers ahoy:
I like that the show's multiple universes have been revealed to be cells in a giant cosmic tree. That's way more interesting than your typical multiverse fair, which is usually just a boring writing crutch.
That last shot really sticks with me, of that solid block of densely packed city poking out of an ocean of wilderness. I mean, anyone can project anything they like onto it. A fantasy of modern comforts alongside a "virgin" wilderness, shorn free of history... hard not to see a reactionary read in that.
But. It makes me think of Half-Earth Socialism by Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, that book that argues we can probably balance modern industry with the natural world but only if we devote (at least!) half the landmass of the planet to wilderness preserves. (Maybe you remember the browser game they released alongside the book) I'd like to think that's the read the creators were leaning towards, given how the show ends with starting a community center and also all the ecological imagery they've introduced to their multiverse. Maybe that's too hopeful. Oh well.
If you want a different fiction that explicitly delves into what life might look like in a world that's half wilderness preserves, (or you don't want to read the non-fiction I've referenced above) check out A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
My kid enjoys it. Weird to release the last episode on Christmas when he's busy with gifts and family, but we'll get to it eventually. It seems to make less sense than even most Adventure Time stuff does (which we've watched all of it together because he's a fan of all of it), but it's certainly not bad by any stretch. Just occasionally more interested in some larger story beats and set pieces than it is in the connective tissue between them.
Some of the specific beats also seem to be done more to reference other works (the second to last episode had a bunch of Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, for example), than to make sense narratively, but there's still good character beats and it's saying some nice things anyway.
I'd rather have him into something like this than rotting his brain with YouTube or TikTok like some of his classmates definitely are. He's at the age where he's "learning" things from media and so things like Hunter not taking advantage of a tipsy Fionna are good for him to see. He also said out of no where "Huntress Wizard is cool. She's powerful and has cool abilities. I can see why Finn likes her." So, hopefully that means I don't have a manosphere dork on my hands haha