This episode mostly concerns cheese. Finn and Jake are in the woods, by a fire, eating dogs. Hot dogs, people. Don’t be vulgar.

Although, it was a bit vulgar that Jake is so into mystery meats named for his species. Also, he doesn’t like soft cheese goop, but he can’t remember why. Where you at, Chekhov’s gun?

The dude’s are softy-cheesin’ it up woods-style when Ghost Princess comes along. Her crown floats above her ghost body. She has a strand of hair that never quite stays out of her face, but she sort of owns it. She’s all like, I have to haunt this realm until I find out who killed me so I can go to the 50th Dead World.

Then Finn’s like, “Yes! A procedural!” Jake’s like, cool man whatevski’s.

First of all, ghost animation looks awesome in Ooo. Second, the cemetery neighborhood is great, not that scary, but not quite the opposite of scary, either.

“Your neighborhood is, uh, peaceful?” Jake asks, a little spooked.

“It’s the cradle of my despair,” GP says.

F and J mispronounce “murdered” a lot. During interrogations Finn plays bad cop, though Jake wants to be bad cop too. Enter Clarence.

Clarence is a cool-dude ghost. You know he’s cool because he has a puffy vest, antlers, and an earring that’s a tiny sword. Also, his entrance music sounds like Vampire Weekend is about to take the stage, though I’m guessing everyone in Ooo would hope it’s VP’s spin-off, Discovery.

“Some of us still want to feel, you know?” Clarence says. “The vital magnetism of life; the vibrating energies that connect all living and non-living beings.”

Jake is really into this guy. Finn is suspish: “What do you know about Ghost Princess getting murdel-er-delled?” This would be Urkel’s favorite episode. I think he’d do that laugh that captured the our hearts and minds. Carl Winslow would be agitated, but happy to be watching AT.

(What would you call a show about two members of Family Matters watching Adventure Time? Other than “genius.” Did I just invent a new model of spin-off, or is that dump truck of money in front of my modest, Koreatown apartment for someone else?)

For some reason Clarence sends Finn and Jake to investigate the part of the cemetery where the ne’er-do-well ghosts hang out. Finn exhumes the grave of “Some Donkus.” He gives a skeleton a questioning it would never forget were it, uh, alive.

Meanwhile, Clarence and GP are on a crazy-weird date. Which brings me to another great idea. You know how there are probably 78 scripts for Crazy-Weird floating around that Coffee Bean you always drive past but never go into because it smells like a tire fire? All of them are about some hot superstar (hopefully a Black Swan) who has no friends and doesn’t know how to apply eyeliner and wears chunky glasses. Anyway, let’s give one of those scripts to the AT writers and artists, amirite? We’ll all retire early!

“They’d crush it,” thinks Jake, the fictional magic dog. The point is that this show does convention well.

While Clarence convinces the audience he’s a great (dead) guy Finn continues his quest for truth. It goes nowhere for most of the episode, which plays like a hyper-aware commentary on the form. It would have been cool if David Caruso guested in this one.

Clarence is appealing to the ladies in a way that challenges Finn’s romantic indifference. When Finn thinks the big reveal is discovering that Clarence killed Ghost Princess, the truth trumps procedure: the two were madly in love with each other, but were also wedded to their roles as great warriors defending what the other sought. Ghost Princess died at her lover’s hand but in her lover’s arms. It’s absurd, but it works.

Finn responds to this as if he just got cooties. Having discovered how she died, Ghost Princess’ soul ascends to the 50th level. There’s a 30 second effort to get Clarence there as well by solving the mystery of his death. Jake solves that one as soon as Clarence laments that “life is like a fart.” Flashback to Jake grabbing a snack at a quick mart, in which a then distraught Clarence was drowning his sorrows in cheese. So much cheese he exploded from consumption right in front of Jake.

Clarence rises with his love, Jake comes to terms with liquid cheese, and Finn continues growing up.

-Aaron D.