Finn and the Earl of Lemongrab go on a spiritual expedition through the Mountain of Matthew.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Lemongrab's vision of Princess Bubblegum takes on a lot of Starfire's mannerisms, speaking in a stilted and formal manner without using contractions.
- Achilles' Heel: Matthew, a distilled collection of ego-suppressed individuals, is destroyed when exposed to Lemonjon candies, which were produced by Lemonjon's final, individualistic choice. The Guardian dies likewise when he is hit by the Finn Sword, another materialized individual essence.
- Badass Boast: Lemongrab presents one to Matthew before he destroys him.
Lemongrab: "If you are the head that floats atop the ziggurat, then the stairs that lead to you must be infinite. Infinite stairs are UNACCEPTABLE!"
- Call-Back:
- One of Finn's mirror visions is of Jake making Finn cakes and BMO being tempted to eat them despite the previous establishment of that taboo.
- Lemongrab's third mirror portrays the previous two Lemongrabs playing with Lemonsweets, as in Another Five Short Graybles.
- Central Theme: Coming to terms with one's identity and accepting oneself. Finn and Lemongrab enter the mountain to achieve peace while Jake, who is already content, is forbidden from entering.
- Chekhov's Gun: As Lemongrab is put to bed, he is equipped with a baseball glove, which appears later in a vision of Princess Bubblegum wishing to play catch with and relate to him.
- The Final Temptation: Both Finn and Lemongrab are faced with a choice when they reach a set of three mirrors in the mountain that has trappings of this.
- Lemongrab is shown his greatest desire (an offer of better relationship with and understanding by Princess Bubblegum), a scene of betrayal (Lemonhope taking over his kingdom and leading it to anarchy), and a reflection of himself (Lemongrab 1 and Lemongrab 2 fighting over Lemonsweets). He chooses the third one out of concern over Lemonsweets.
- Finn receives three options in the same vein: being Cinnamon Bun so he can hang out with Flame Princess again, stopping BMO from having the first Finn cakes, or pressing onward via a butterfly, his astral beast and past incarnation. Hearing Lemongrab causes him to choose the third mirror so he can go help.
- The Good King: After his predecessors' deaths and being recreated into one being, Lemongrab 3 runs a much fairer earldom than Lemongrab 1. Instead of hogging all of the food for himself as his predecessor did, Lemongrab 3's dinner session has everybody take a single spoonful of the crushed Lemonjons that the people grow and use as their main food source. Even despite the comically small amount of food eaten at dinner before Lemongrab declares it concluded, nobody appears to be suffering or dissatisfied with their lives... bar Lemongrab himself, who's currently going through a crisis of identity.
- Irony: Lemongrab 3's worst fear is Lemonhope taking over his kingdom, which is probably the last thing that Lemonhope would want to do.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: When Lemongrab gets his leg caught in a retreating geyser of lemon grease, he attempts to gnaw it off before being freed when the terrain shifts.
- Only the Worthy May Pass: Jake, who is at peace with himself (unlike Finn), is forbidden from entering the Mountain.Guardian: You have no beeswax in the Mountain of Matthew, supple yellow dog. But you, plucky adolescent. You have way cray beeswax.
- Later, Lemongrab and Finn must choose correctly from three mirrors to reach Matthew.
- Papa Wolf: When Lemongrab 3 sees the time that Lemongrabs 1 and 2 were fighting over Lemon Sweets he immediately charges to help the child.
- Recursive Reality: After passing through the mirrors, Lemongrab finds himself climbing atop his own nose, while Finn finds himself running along his own arm.
- Rule of Symbolism: The journey through the mountain seems to have been inspired by Thelemic Mysticism and its quest for enlightenment.
- Lemongrab is called to action when a hole develops in the head of a figure in a mysterious painting on the ceiling above his bed, symbolizing his mental discontent.
- The three mirrors encountered display the Freudian aspects of personality, and to continue, the traveller must select the ego mirror, which contains the Thelemic Angel (Lemonsweets for Lemongrab, a past incarnation as a butterfly for Finn) to ferry them into the Abyss towards truth.
- Next, Lemongrab and Finn each come to peace with their bodies and suffer ego death to cross the Abyss.
- Finally, they arrive at Matthew, who is composed of white rocks, similar to how Thelemic Adepts who have crossed the Abyss become egoless piles of dust in the City of the Pyramids.
- Afterwards, Lemongrab, having fulfilled the prophecy as outlined by the painting, fills the hole with some of the lemon candy that defeated Matthew, thus concluding his unrest and the quest.
- Sigil Spam: A white triangle sharing a side with a black triangle adorns the buildings and the grey clothes of the citizens of the Earldom under Lemongrab 3's rule. This heavily resembles the Magical Head of Zohar, which illustrates the concept of opposites and reflects the current Lemongrab's composition as a union of the two contrasting Lemongrabs.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: For all the lemon people. Lemongrab 3 is shown to be way more stable than his predecessors and the citizens of the Lemongrab Earldom are certainly shown as much happier and more content in their lives. Lemongrab even gets a chance to do some actual good in this episode.
- The Unreveal: The guard explodes before he can explain to Jake why he can't go in the mountain. Considering the themes of making peace with oneself, it is most likely that Jake's contentment means he has no reason to go in.
- When the Planets Align: The Dap of the Heavens, a fist bump between constellations, takes place in this episode and is said to recur every twenty years. Finn witnesses it, but declares it anti-climactic.
