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Recap / Adventure Time S 5 E 48 Betty

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In Wizard City, a magic spell backfires and somehow turns Ice King back into Simon Petrikov. Now with Finn, Jake and Marceline's help, Simon finds a way to bring his beloved Betty back. Finally reunited with the love of his life, everything is great! There's just one catch... without his magic crown Simon will die.

Tropes:

  • Anti-Magic: Bella Noche gives off anti-magic, which leaves wizards powerless and turns Ice King back into Simon Petrikov.
  • Badass Bookworm: Simon and Betty are slim, brainy types. However, Simon punches out Ash to jack his magic carpet and Betty wipes the floor with Bella Noche.
  • Bait-and-Switch: When Betty defeats Bella Noche, Death appears to Simon and tells him that he lost. At first it seems that he died, but it turns out that he's reverted into Ice King again. Technically, Death is right in that by turning back into Ice King, he is no longer Simon.
  • Bathos: Simon says being Ice King was a Fate Worse than Death, but he describes it as "living with eternal diaper butt".
  • Big Damn Heroes: Betty saves Wizard City from Bella Noche.
  • Bishōnen Line: Bella Noche starts looking like a large head made out of a green, slimy substance inside of a grey box, but his true form had the appearance of androgynous humanoid being with long hair and almost feminine appearance. Interestingly, with his dark blue robes, pale blue skin and white hair, he actually resembles the Ice King, possibly as a consequence of draining the essence of the crown from Simon (although it may also just have been the lighting in the chamber).
  • Bittersweet Ending: Simon once more loses his will to the crown and becomes the Ice King again as it's the only way to save his life. But Betty refuses to give up hope and searches for a way to bring him back to normal without the fatal side-effects.
  • Bored with Insanity: Before he realizes he is just straight up normal now, Simon's initial hypothesis for his condition is that the crown has driven him so mad he thinks he's normal now.
  • Call-Back: We finally find out what those three wizards from Reign of Gunthers were up to.
  • Celebrity Star: Betty is voiced by Lena Dunham.
  • Continuity Nod: The final magic item used to free Bella Noche is the "Staff of Stranson Doughblow". In "Wizards Only, Fools", Stranson Doughblow was the character turned into the staff by the Wizard Police for trying to buy magic without being a wizard.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Apparently, Wizard City has no counters for Anti-Magic beings like Bella Noche. As a result, they are completely helpless. Betty, on the other hand, has no magic powers, so she loses nothing when the Bellanoche attacks her (except the flying carpet, but she didn't need that anyway.) It works the other way as well; Bella Noche abosrbs all magic, but once Betty gets into his inner sanctum he's helpless against physical assault.
  • Determinator: Nothing will stop Betty from trying to save Simon. She doesn't even hesitate to go on a Flying Carpet after being in the future for not even a minute. Even when Simon asks her to let him go, she refuses to give up.
  • Faint in Shock: Marceline faints when she hears the voice of Simon, her old friend and surrogate father.
  • Incurable Cough of Death: Without his magic crown prolonging his life, Simon is slowly dying and is signified by him growing weak and coughing.
  • Muggle Power: Presumably how Betty is able to waste Bella Noche with minimal effort, as she isn't a wizard with any magic for Bella Noche to counter. The fact that Betty is from a time before magic was prevalent on Earth likely helped too.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Everyone gets their magic back as soon as Bella Noche is knocked out cold.
  • Retcon: In Holly Jolly Secrets Part 2, Simon's last video recording described how, after he came down from his first bout of crown-induced insanity, he saw Betty staring at him in shocked contempt, and then he never saw her again after that, implying she simply left him. In this episode, it's shown that she merely ran around a corner while Simon was still in the throes of madness, then dived through a time portal into the future.
    • Though, this might be explained away as Simon not remembering what truly happened thanks to the crown messing with his sanity.
  • Sequel Hook: To save Simon, he is turned back into Ice King, but Betty is still out there searching for a way to bring the Ice King back into Simon again.
  • Shout-Out:
    • During the fight against Bella Noche, a character named James (as in Jesse James) Longman, wearing a pink shirt, uses heavily slang-ridden speech, and shows a formula he made in his lab, which is not ideal. In other words, he’s a Shout-Out to Jesse Pinkman.
    • Betty's unusual surname Grof may be a Shout Out to the real psychiatrist and mystic Stanislav Grof.
  • Sorry That I'm Dying: Simon apologizes to Betty when it seems he will die right after she's just arrived.
  • Squishy Wizard: Betty slips through the crystals encasing Bella Noche to find his true form: a skinny, effeminate man. Betty easily gives him a whooping.
  • Stable Time Loop: Simon opens a portal to the past to say goodbye to Betty, who vanished after Simon first put on the Crown. He thought she was so upset at him and that she left him forever. Betty instead jumps through the portal into the present, explaining her disappearance in the past.
  • Wham Episode: Firstly Ice King is returned to being Simon, Betty comes to the present, but Simon will die if he doesn't get his magic back.

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