Jake: “LSP, you’re wearing garbage for clothes!”
Lumpy Space Princess (LSP): “Gotcha!”
That final piece of dialogue between Jake and LSP perfectly encapsulates the tone of this episode, which features LSP doing research for her new book by becoming Finn and Jake’s Adventure Secretary. LSP is one of this show’s most bizarre characters, a delusional, self-absorbed anthropomorphized mass of lavender lumps that sounds like a 40-year-old man doing a valley girl impression. The fact that I even typed that sentence makes me wonder just what these guys were on when they created this show. LSP reminds me of Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force in the way she’s adorable but simultaneously off-putting. There’s just something not right about LSP, and that translates to lots of laughs.
LSP and Turtle Princess are two bumbling best friends that enable the worst in each other. The repetition of their catchphrase “Hey, girl!” is the episode’s best running gag, if only because Pendleton Ward and Steve Little give the characters such great voices. This show makes me feel like a child because all it has to do to make me laugh is give a purple blob and turtle really goofy voices. When Turtle Princess wants to learn how she can rock her own lumps, she asks LSP to write a book because she gets so much attention from men. The men in discussion are the ants that crawl on LSP and the vulture that stalks her, but because LSP gives them human names, Turtle Princess is convinced that LSP is a hot commodity.
As research for the book, LSP works her lumps on Finn, heading over to his treehouse in her best garbage bag dress. She says she’s come to fill the Adventure Secretary position, but Finn sees through her lie and pities the desperate, lonely lump behind it. He gives her the made-up position, and LSP is convinced that she got the job because she looked fresh and rocked the interview. Her delusions are the episode’s major theme, and she’s never able to get past the idea that she’s the ultimate desire for men everywhere.
When LSP is invited into the treehouse, she knocks a bunch of shit over and starts demanding food. There’s a reason why LSP is lonely: She doesn’t have any concept of manners or personal consideration, so no one wants to hang out with her. Turtle Princess is a pushover that follows people blindly, so it’s natural that they’d be best friends. On her first mission as Adventure Secretary, LSP complains that she has to carry two rocks, then puts the entire group at risk when she flies into danger while trying to impress Finn with a striptease.
When LSP goes through a portal and ends up trapped in a cave of mirrors, she comes lump-to-lump with sexy shadow versions of Finn that are destroyed when the real Finn and Jake break through the glass. In the room of broken mirrors, Finn shares this episode’s big moral: “LSP, you don’t need a mirror to know you look good. You’re beautiful on the inside. Like, your brain and stuff.” Finn is interpreting LSP’s erratic behavior as insecurity, but she’s just doing research, and his words give her the inspiration to take her book in a brand new direction.
While talking to Turtle Princess, LSP realizes that Finn is the one who is beautiful and that his bravery gives him lumps on the inside. She’s inspired to write her manuscript, which is a hilarious recounting of the past day’s events. “I had left an indelible mark for real,” she writes. “But that was nothing compared to my next realization. Are you ready for it. The realization? It’s coming up in the next paragraph.” It continues on for a while, and I’d recommend a good freeze-frame reading to get a full idea of LSP’s literary prowess. The episode ends with LSP dropping by the treehouse to confess her deception, but neither Finn nor Jake care that she was using their friendship for their book. Jake just wants to know why LSP I wearing garbage. She answers with her trademark “Gotcha!” and floats out the window with the grace of a trash bag in the wind.
Stray observations:
- To cross the Loch of Phantoms, why doesn’t Jake just stretch Finn across while LSP floats over? I’m guessing because of magic.
- Jake has to call BMO “sensei” for an entire month. I really hope that joke continues through the next few episodes, because dominating BMO is the cutest.
- The quick little bursts of music this week set the tone for the scenes really well, especially the Bon Iver-like final number as LSP has her final kinda-revelation.
- The freeze frame of LSP and Turtle Princess smiling after they come up with the book idea is fantastic.
- “These lumps are not for sale!”
- “At the end of the day, it’s all about the lumps.”