The Fire Kingdom is struck by a natural disaster and the Flame Princess seeks help from an unlikely ally.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: The only episode in season 6 that features Flame Princess as a major character. And the first time without any interactions with her ex-boyfriend Finn (She didn't even mentioned him at all).
- Batman Gambit: During their fight, Princess Bubblegum uses Flame Princess's rage against her to destroy the sleeping fire giants, destroying the Fire Kingdom's greatest weapon supply.
- Also, PB's plan relied entirely upon the fact that Flame Princess would call for her aid instead of following her brother's suggestion of attacking candy land.
- Both Sides Have a Point: The dialogue during Bubblegum's and Flame Princess's fight gives valid support to both of them. Flame Princess rightly points out that Bubblegum is essentially exerting authority she does not possess on a foreign power and making decisions for its citizens that are not hers to make. Bubblegum brings up concerns about the Flame Kingdom threatening the Candy Kingdom, which are well justified by Flame Princess's brother being very trigger happy and Flame Princess's own willingness to attack should it be necessary.
- Character Development: While PB tries to justify her actions, Flame Princess's "Reason You Suck" Speech hits her pretty hard and the last scene is of Bonnie taking out her spy network.
- Continuity Nod: When Finn and Jake make a last minute cameo, they're doing the song and dance number from "Food Chain".
- Princess Bubblegum notes that Flame Princess is still missing most of her power.
- Easily Forgiven: At the end of the episode, despite PB straight up sabotaging Flame Princess's military efforts and FP calling her out as a terrible person, in the next scene she doesn't seem to hold a grudge towards her. FP promptly walks with PB like the event before didn't happen.
- Enemy Mine: It's revealed that Ice King is helping Princess Bubblegum manufacture the disaster facing the Fire Kingdom, likely due to him still being sore over Flame Princess melting his kingdom back in Fire and Ice.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Princess Bubblegum is looking at her spy cameras
◊, you can catch glimpses of Ice King looking into the camera, Starchy ready to grave dig, and a candy person lying face-down on the ground with other candy people panicking. - Given Name Reveal: Flame Princess's first name is Phoebe.
- Humongous Mecha: From what we could see (access panel and Tron Lines), the Fire Giants are these. We don't get to see them in action though.
- Hypocrite: Princess Bubblegum feared an attack from the Fire Kingdom and didn't want to leave anything to chance, especially not with Flame Princess' "bananas brother" wanting to attack with the super weapons of their nation, the Sleeping Fire Giants, yet PB herself is a rather morally ambiguous ruler who has performed very questionable acts in the past and has super weapons of her own (the Gumball Guardians). In the end, Flame Princess only has one weapon to defend her nation, while Princess Bubblegum has two.
- Idiot Ball: Cinnamon Bun seems to have regressed to his old, clueless self, while still maintaining his post-Red Throne appearance and voice.
- Incredibly Obvious Bug: Cinnamon Bun has what looks to be a tiny camera stuck in his face, but when he takes it out it turns out to be a standard size video camera.
- Irony:
- In her efforts to prevent the Fire Kingdom from harming her candy people, Princess Bubblegum collaborated with someone who has acted as a borderline terrorist in the past to essentially cause an environmental disaster that lead to the deaths of multiple civilians and crippled a nation's defenses... which would give the Fire Kingdom a reason to attack the Candy Kingdom.
- Ice King had been a threat to PB's kingdom on numerous occasions (whether intentionally or not) and had frequently kidnapped her, yet she trusts him more than Flame Princess, who has never targeted her for any reason.
- It's What I Do: What Princess Bubblegum uses as an excuse when Flame Princess calls her out on her spying.
- Jerkass Ball: Princess Bubblegum's morally ambiguous actions really get amped up in this episode. While Good Is Not Soft in some of her harsher actions here she is committing outright sabotage to a neutral power that had shown no signs of hostility beyond political discussion.
- Jerkass Realization: Bubblegum after realising that how much she's overextended her authority promptly takes down her spy network.
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed with PB as she rightfully gets called out by FP for her actions which PB took to heart but the full repercussions of what she did including either a risk of war or at the very least, a deal to make up for her actions is never discussed.
- Pyrrhic Victory: PB mostly accomplishes her goal of having the Sleeping Fire Giants destroyed (one still remains) and gets away with endangering the Fire Kingdom residents. However, her crimes were exposed to FP, who promptly declares PB to be a bad person, denying PB any satisfaction and making her realize just how low she had fallen.
- Realpolitik: This episode is very reminiscent of real world politics, where one nation spies on and sabotages their neighbor which has been known to harbor extremist factions, in the hope of neutering their Weapons of Mass Destruction before it can be used. Meanwhile, the nation being spied on did not take kindly on this over-interference. At the end of the episode, both nations learned to trust each other a bit more, one agreeing not to conduct clandestine operations any further, while the other muzzled the extremist faction within. Also, the act of two nations (in this case, Princess Bubblegum and Ice King) conspiring to conduct those clandestine operations on a nation they feel threatened by.
- Shout-Out: Princesss Bubblegum's wall of video monitors is very similar to Ozymandias' from Watchmen.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Flame Princess calls out Bubblegum's crueler tendencies, telling her that it doesn't matter if she justifies them for the sake of being a scientist or protecting her people, they still make her a bad person.
- Unstoppable Rage: When Flame Princess realizes that Princess Bubblegum is sabotaging the sleeping fire giants, she gets fired up and tries to incinerate the candy princess.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Flame Princess isn't pleased to hear that Bubblegum still keeps spying on her despite her trying to rule her kingdom justly.
