After the shock ending of Tree Trunks exploding, the episode pretty much cut to black. “Tree Trunks” infamously ended in a slightly but significantly different way in early airings. Image credit of Cartoon Network/Frederator. Production Thoughts and Insights Tree Trunks grooves with some Skeleton Butterflies. And once again, Jake’s accepting and adoring attitude helps keep us from getting too judgmental. We also really want Tree Trunks to succeed, and Finn and Jake by proxy. This whole character dynamic is also transposed onto a classic kind of “quest” story structure. As Finn himself says in this ep, “You’re too super-cute for me to be mad at you!” Polly Lou Livingston’s awkward gentility and some fine character animation combine to create a character who is trying her best at every moment- even if she’s a little too thick to see the obvious problem to her approach.
However, Tree Trunks is just much harder to dislike than LSP. In fact, the thrust of the plot is not all that dissimilar to “Trouble In Lumpy Space” from last week, which is admittedly a point of weakness. That spontaneity gets her in trouble a lot in “Tree Trunks”, which could be quite an annoying dynamic. Summary Finn and Jake find Tree Trunks unprepared for adventuring. Everything she does comes from a place of complete transparency and spontaneity. Tree Trunks is just so genuine, no matter whether she’s baking pies or trying to entice a monster with her body, and that’s the genius of the character to me. She’s another character that really got some strange and thoughtful layers later on, but they’re at least hinted at here.
While we’ve seen Tree Trunks before, this is our first real spotlight on her. Also, if you haven’t seen “Tree Trunks” recently, you can watch it legally here (among many other places, including Hulu and HBO Max) and read about it here. If you’re new to this series, you’ll probably want to read my introduction first. Time to cozy up to Episode 4 with some sweet apple pies! This time, we’re watching Finn and Jake try to protect little old Tree Trunks as they go in search of the Crystal Gem Apple.
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