Any two cents so far on how Fionna's been handled in season 2 of Fionna and Cake so far? I ask since she has been pretty divisive this season, especially with her actions in the most recent episode.
Fionna's slow motion emtotional car crash this season.. makes perfect sense and is a well crafted evolution of her arc in season 1.
In season 1 Fionna had a bad need for escapism. She constantly hoped some magical adventure would wisk her away and make all her problems go away. As someone with depressoin and a load of hyperfixations who before this job had gone through at on of odd jobs they hated, I related immensey so it was a great arc to see.
While the end point of appreciating where your at was blindingly obvious if decently done, the other hit even harder: YOu can't run away from your trauma, your pain or yourself in general. Wherever you go there you are and it's better to deal with your issues than slap a band aid over them and run away. Fionna realized her seeming quick fix for her world.. would almost erase it and take simon with it. It was better to save her friend who geninely supported her and just deal with her average life, if with some extra magic sprinkles now, than try and paper over it in a way that could hurt her friends. By the end she learns to value her world and is in a decent place, and got her big adventure saving the world.
Season 2 builds on this as Fionna accepted her world.. but never made peace with herself. Everyone constantly bringing up how "better" she is than she used to be, how she's not the same person, how she's more responsible makes her determined to prove them right. Makes her deathly afraid that if she ISN'T that person everyone around her will leave her. It's depression and it's an old familiar foe and friend of mine. That anxiety that no matter what you do it will NEVER be good enough. Fionna feels she has to do the big save the sweet spot gesture to feel good enough.
The thing is.. chasing some goal won't make you feel whole inside. Only you can do that. It's a lesson i've had to learn the hard way and still struggle with at times. That a big flashy gesture will make someone love you when they probably already love you and if they don't a big gesture won't really change that. Gary and Marshall already liked fionna BEFORE she saved the world. Cake is her sister even without them being raised together. Her skate friends and the runaway couple hang with her because they like her. Hunter liked her when he first met her as a hot mess trying to get someone to treat her beloved cat. Even Fennel, someone she meets after she saved the world, admired her from afar. When you hate yourself that much you can't see how loved you are.
That's why Fionna's crash out works so well for me: She's in that manic state where "If I just do THIS my life will be okay! If I do this people will love me!". Gary and Marshall are bummed by the sweet spot being taken by a vengeful asshole, but honestly aren't too put out about it. They still work to save it, but they don't blame Fionna if it dosen't work out. The odds were horribly stacked against them. It's okay. They have each other. It sucks if it happens, but they value her no matter what and appreciate it.
For Fionna though.. it's the only thing that matters and it gives her really bad tunnel vision. She HAS to fix this, has to save it and even ignores the fact that her new leafy roomate is trying to save a life. In fairness that's also parts heavy untreated PTSD and Huntress Wizard being kind of an asshole who dosen't accept help , broke the one link she had to everyone else who could directly help her and killed two diffrent gods trying to impulsively fix things. Hutnress Wizard needs just as much self growth as Fionna does.
So she spirals deeper: While her pushing her friends away was bound to happen the how is well done: She pushes Marshall away because she's more focused on the goal than the parade of red flags Hanna gives off: How he always ignores his mom's calls, how she sent a man in various costumes to stalk them, how she GOT to hanna for help in the first place, how he serems very upset about something: she means well.. yet it becomes more and more about "finishing the goal" than "helping the person she was trying to". He nearly misses the concert entirley because she can't get out of her own ass and see he's also going through some stuff and could really use his friend and not a solution to a problem that's since become a non issue: he dosen't have his van, but he has his boyfriend and a horrible revelation about his mom to deal with. You don't like how she treats him but you get it: For Fionna it's just the goal and trying to bribe her freinds who already love her to love her. SHe can't understand they need her as a person more than this big lofty nearly impossible fundraiser.
That bleeds into her other problem: DJ Flame. Now pacing wise I get the frustration, i'm right there with you. For half the season, Episodes 2-6, we get some version of "Fionna misinterprets everything as romantic, we have no idea if Felix is leading her on, or feels the same way" all while the audience screams GIRL HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND. It did get tiresome and they could've cut it back or had some variety. Contrasting this with a similar work I love dearly, and part of why I like the romance drama, Scott pilgrim found a lot of variance in his and Ramona's relationship and the effect his kinda relationship with teenage Knives had on the poor child. We got to the point a lot quicker and instead dealt with the messy fallout. Same with Takes Off thanks to scott's dissapearnce accelerating things. Here it's the same conversation four damn times.
That said while the pacing of it needed work, the actual love diamond.. works incredibly well. All four feel fleshed out. I mean Fionna is obvious, we spent a season with her but the reasoning is sadly realistic: She wants Felix back because she never got over him entirely, and feels getting with him would validate that she's "better now" She broke up with the before fionna this is the after. It's reckless, self destructive and unhealthy and only gets worse once we find out he's seemingly moved on.
With Fennel Fionna just compartmentalizes. Obviously she's either secretly an asshole or a rebound. Despite the clear evidence of his tounge in hers in front of a large crowd, she can't see that no, Fennel is a person, as she finds out a very kind lovely person who looks up to her and might have a thing for her. Hunter tells her outright she's nice. She keeps trying to make this fiction reality, but the truth is Felix is in a relationship with someone who geninely cares about him and she isn't the problem in it. Felix throwing mixed signals at his ex, not thinking fennel would worry if he was missing for a day, and later putting his tounge down said ex's throat are the issues.
Felix truly isn't helping: What Fionna is doing is bad, she should stop it. We're sympathetic enough to feel bad for her, but also want her to stop, exactly what I think the creators were going for : You feel empathetic enough to want Fionna to do better, but also can't stop the slow motion emotoinal car crash she's causing because she's too hyperfixated on some fantasy goal of getting her ex back. Like with the sweet spot she's too busy thinking this will fix her to actuallyw ork on herself.
Phelix on the other hand we don't have a ton of context for, and it takes till episode 8 to figure out if he actually likes her back. And even then he still runs after Fennel claming it was nothing
He kissed her back and passionatley. He had feelings like Fionna he just tried to ignore the red flags. She ignored his relationship was real, he ignored he still HAD feelings and can't just talk through them. It ended horribly.
And it is early to call: there needs to be fallout and Fionna needs to geninely make amends to Hunter and Fennel. Fennel especially as they gayly bonded on Venus then next day she sees Fionna jam her tounge down flame's throat while he seems into it. I feel really bad for her and understand why people don't lke it... but that's the idea and what makes it work. Fionna did do the horrible ass thing, and now has to live with it.
It also hurt Hunter who at worst i've realized just coudln't say he liked her. Poor person just wanted to be with her, but can't say it and is having dreams about his issues with her clearly choosing the worse option, and possibly, then defintelvley, hurting their best friend. He's just too shy to actually talk this out and too afraid of their own anger so it blows up, but it's hard to really be mad at them unlike the other 2: fionna made a horrible decision she now has to live with and atone for, saying you hate yourself fixes nothing belvie me I know, and Felix sucks by this point. Hunter has tried to be there but can't get up the courage and their one chance was one they rightfully turned down; She was both heavily drunk and using them to try and deflect her feelings. I will hold some judgment till we see how this plays out, but it's well done: The point is that Fionna is fucking up badly and dosen't think about how this will hurt hunter and fennel till she already has for a guy who didn't like her back as much and sucks. IT's frustrating to watch, but it felt ineveitble in a way that worked.
So that ties it all in to where we are now. The Sweet Spot Demo Derby. And that is one of the best moments of the season to me. It works and I honestly THOUGHT I knew how that half of the plot would go. And unlike with Felix, I was wrong: They DID get the money.. but they found a clever way to still make Fionna crash out: they did it WITHOUT her. The entire project, while STARTING from a good place, became a monument to her need for validation, her need to know she matters. For the same reason she kissed someone elses boyfriend, she wanted this concert to go well, to finally feel like she really earned the praise she was getting.
The irony is that everyone pulling together.. was a show of love. Cake scrambled to rescue flame from his kidnapping, get a venue together then stall when Phelix was understandably beat from being held hostage. All her friendds willingly pitched in to provide new acts with Marshall providing the coup de grace despite having EVERY reason not to want to perform: while his mom was no longer involved, Fionna had geninely hurt him by ignoring how he felt and not listening to him. Yet he still stepped up anyway because it was still the right thing and peformced a powerhouse song AND even got the genuine respect of Phelix. They succeeded largley because they all loved Fionna and wanted to help her.. and Marshall had a whole ass arc.
Instead of seeing this Fionna only sees the most self loathign version of it: They don't need her. I'd also like to point out the destruction is a moment of impulsive anger: she dosen't MEAN to wreck marshall's van or Gary's trailer/bakery. That's a key thing I think many are missing. Kissageddon is entirley her fault, she has to live with it, atone for it, and move on. She wouldn't listen to anyone else like her new roomate. It's a theme of this season: Impulsive actions have consequences and shutting other people out only leads you to making worse and worse decisions. Both Huntress and Fionna don't listen, and both end up further and further behind their goal because of it. Fionna's dream only comes true because she wasn't alone, and she can't enjoy it because she felt she HAD to do it alone: it HAD to be her to be loved. So she decdies to wreck a few chairs in anger.. but you can see the shift. The second she looses control she's filled with regret and hatred. I'm more forgiving of this act because while with flame it was bad and she should feel bad , she also planned it for weeks depsite all the red flags that no, this is bad and your going to hurt people.
Here she just tried to let off some steam. It was stupid.. but you understand why, that she can't admit she's so jealous because she feels this proves they DON'T need her. And the second she does it she sees herself as a monster, wallowing in self loathing. It's why you can still sympathize: fionna clearly hates herself, isn't getting therapy (and given her money troubles probably can't afford it), and while what she did in episode 8 isn't good, neither thing was, you can still feel because it's been one long cry for help. You WANT her to get better. IT's something people forget with fictional characters sometimes. They can get better. Sometimes you just can't walk it back, Mordecai is proof of that, but sometimes you CAN be better the next day. Mistakes are inante to being human and alive, we fall we get up we survive and so we must strive to be better. To live a better life. But not hate ourselfs the whole way. This resoultion could be messy and it is a bit late in the season, but I have faith thye'll pull it out and hope Fionna can atonne. Maybe she ends up with no one. Who knows. What matters is that she tries to make it better and learns that she's loved, that like Simon last season she's in a place she can forgive herself/atone for her mountain of mistakes and move on.
