One of Finn's past lives turns out to be a one-armed badass young girl thief named Shoko, who has a pet white tiger. Shoko is hired by a creepy local warlord who runs the Bath Boy Gang, to steal an amulet from a rival. The rival turns out to be Princess Bubblegum, who is just beginning to create the Candy Kingdom. She welcomes Shoko kindly, and Shoko helps her to create the Gumball Guardians.
Despite her developing friendship with PB, Shoko steals the amulet, but while fleeing the Guardians falls into a river of radioactive gunge. She crawls out horribly mutated into a shapeless tentacled thing, the ghost of which Finn saw in "The Creeps", in the old house that was once the Bath Boy Gang's home. She crawls to the top of a hill where the Tree Fort stands in the present day, and dies.
Finn comes out of his trance and telephones Bubblegum, talking about "atonement". When she arrives, he rips up the kitchen floor to reveal Shoko's skeleton, still clutching the amulet. He gives it to Bubblegum, but then suddenly realises that she must be centuries old and not actually a teenager. She is embarassed. Finn looks down to the hole in the floor, and sees Shoko's ghost, now in human form, giving him a thumbs up.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Shoko's parents had her arm removed to trade it for a computer, and left her behind at martial arts dojo.
- Ambiguously Gay: The all male Bath Boy Gang are mostly fairly muscular, wear very little, and live in a bathhouse. Their leader does creepily hit on Shoko before threatening her, though.
- Artificial Limbs: Shoko gets one from Bubblegum, just like most of Finn's incarnations.
- Body Horror: Shoko becomes a swollen, worm-like, hideous mutant with the help of nuclear radioactive sewage — but her arm does grow back.
- Bowdlerise: Censored versions of the episode cut both the original and flashback lines where the Bath Boy leader threatens to cut Shoko's throat.
- Call-Back: The ghost from "The Creeps" has its identity revealed.
- The Cameo:
- A younger and more innocent Peppermint Butler is shown giving Shoko a mechanical arm.
- The brownish candy that hangs around the castle in the opening song is revealed to be Mr. Cream Puff, Bubblegum's boyfriend at the time.
- Continuity Nod: Way back in Slumber Party Panic, Princess Bubblegum mentioned that she used to date old Mr Creampuff. Here she mentions that she's dating young Mr Creampuff.
- Easy Amnesia: Averted with The Vault. As discussed in "The Creeps", anything too nasty for Finn to remember goes in there, but this episode reveals that repressed memories can cause problems.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Shoko picks "idol" and immediately gets mutated and killed, and spends centuries as a repentant ghost.
- Generation Xerox: Shoko was a close friend of Bubblegum like Finn is.
- Handicapped Badass: Shoko rides a white tiger, wields a sword and is a mercenary, all while lacking one arm.
- Hypocrite: "Simple possessions aren't the only things in life", so it's ok to sell your daughter's right arm for a computer.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: After PB gives Shoko a robotic arm, Shoko tells her "I need to go to my room for no reason".
- Lampshaded Double Entendre:Bath Boy Gang Leader: [Makes throat-cutting gesture] Pretend my finger's a knife.
- Leitmotif: Shoko has a noticeable East Asian theme.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Shoko's white tiger.
- Malaproper: The Bath Boy Gang Leader pronounces amulet wrong, saying "omelette."
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: According to Jake, Finn is just seeing things, but it turns out she's very real and was his past life.
- Nuclear Mutant: The radioactive material mutates Shoko into a monster, but also kills her.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: PB gives Shoko a robotic arm as a thank you for helping her, unaware that she's really only there to steal her amulet for the Bath Boys Gang. The gesture leaves Shoko wracked with guilt, but she ultimately goes through with the theft anyway.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Apparently, this isn't the first time Jake caught Finn sleepwalking and dreaming about the ghost from "The Creeps".
- Origins Episode: Shows the earliest days of the Candy Kingdom and the creation of the Gumball Guardians.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghost from "The Creeps" turns out to be Finn's mutated past life.
- Pardon My Klingon:Shoko: They traded my arm to some tranch for a computer.
- Parental Abandonment: Shoko's parent left her at a dojo. Finn, her reincarnation, was also abandoned for reasons yet unknown.
- Panthera Awesome: Shoko rides a white tiger.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Shoko was once one of these.
- Really 700 Years Old: Bubblegum is revealed to be this after previous hints, since she was alive when Shoko was alive.
- Reincarnation: According to Finn, his past lives were a comet, a butterfly, a blob from a higher dimension and a green skinned lady named Shoko.
- The Reveal: The ghost from "The Creeps" is Finn's past life, Shoko. Bubblegum is Really 700 Years Old.
- Sequel Episode: To "The Creeps", going more in-depth about the ghost that appeared in that episode.
- Shout-Out: The visuals of BMO's hypnotic regression program are taken from the game Super Hexagon.
- Sickly Green Glow: The radioactive waste river running through the proto-Candy Kingdom.
- Starfish Aliens: One of Finn's past lives was a pinkish blob in another dimension which he's not even sure what it is, but it was sentient.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Shoko has these, which contrasts with the dot eyes of the other characters.
- Unfinished Business: Shoko's ghost is trying to atone for her betrayal of Princess Bubblegum.
- Unusual Euphemism: The dying Shoko says that she's "about to hit my reset button".
- Wham Episode: The ghost from "The Creeps" was Finn's past life, Shoko. It is finally confirmed that Bubblegum is Really 700 Years Old.
- Wham Line: "Its me Shoko".
- Whole Episode Flashback: Interestingly, not an established character, but rather a past life of Finn.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Shoko did this to get inside the developing Candy Kingdom, knocking herself out with a rock and claiming the Bath Boy Gang attacked her.
