In a special Thanksgiving episode of Adventure Time, the focus on Finn and Jake is eschewed in favor of a snow golem living nearby. The golem's uneventful day is interrupted by a raucous firewolf, abandoned from the rest of its pack. The golem cares for the wolf as a pet but eventually realizes that he needs to return it to its pack, located in a treacherous land of fire and smoke.
As the first episode of a Cartoon Network show to be eligible for an Academy Award, "Thank You" had a lot of hype and expectations behind it. Was it worth the hype? No. Was it worthy of winning an Oscar? No (in my eyes, the year's best animated short is still "The External World" by David O'Reilly). Was it even the best episode of Adventure Time yet? No.
"Thank You" certainly isn't the greatest episode of the show, mostly because it feels like it panders too much to the Academy. The snow golem and firewolf are cute to watch, but outside of a few gags (like an excruciatingly painful-looking cow-milking scene), it seemed too by-the-numbers for a show like Adventure Time. The story has been done a million times before, and the few scenes that could have had an interesting spin on them (mostly the golem's journey through the land of fire) went by way too quickly to do so.
The only parts that really felt like Adventure Time in terms of originality and quality were fittingly the few scenes that actually featured Finn and Jake in them.
What I do like about "Thank You" is that it's different. It's certainly not as funny or clever as previous episodes, but it's really interesting to see the writers experiment with telling their stories in different ways and aspire to make something more than just a TV show. The execution could have been much better, but I respect them for at least trying.
