— If the meds were switched, then when I got them mixed up, I… I accidentally switched them back, so… I gave Harlan… — The correct doses, yes. But not accidentally.

KNIVES OUT (2019) dir. Rian Johnson

I love this moment, not just because of the twist, but also because Marta has been dying the whole movie with not only fear and grief, but guilt at having caused the death of her patient, her friend.

For Benoit to take the time to reassure that this was not her fault, in way that is so kind and so clear, was lovely.

“You are a good nurse.” You can tell when he says that the he truly understands what is paining her the most. Just beautiful.

I have so much love for this film, and for the moment following this where Benoit tells her that, if Harlan had listened to her, he would still be alive. The blame is taken from her, in the kindest possible way, by someone she trusts. After all the goalpost moving and ‘ah, gotcha!’ and obsession with spoilers in cinema over the last decade, with characterisation abandoned and plotlines left unresolved, knives out is a kind film. It isn’t obsessed with tricking you or catching you out, just wants you along for the ride

I love Benoit Blanc in this scene so much. I mean, he’s a great character throughout the film, but this was the moment I thought, “I will watch as many movies about this character as Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig choose to make.” 

I am so sick of the trend of making intelligent male characters callous. And despite his veneer of slow Southern affability, Benoit Blanc is almost diabolically clever. So throughout the movie, I assumed he was toying with Marta, enjoying her discomfort because he found her suspicious. I thought he was another brilliant, heartless detective in the BBC Sherlock vein. But look at him in this scene. He practically has tears in his eyes because he’s so moved by Marta’s goodness, and I love him. I love this movie. I can’t wait for the sequels.

#he loves Marta! #like YES FINE he knew from the beginning she was involved lol but also #he knew from the beginning she didn’t kill anybody #he’s like YOU’RE THE ONLY BITCH HERE I RESPECT

And after seeing “Glass Onion,” YOU’RE THE ONLY BITCH HERE I RESPECT is his mantra and that’s why he’s the BEST.

WATER PARK PRANK CANONICALLY CANON

I wanna talk more about why this is so funny to me.

So as you probably know, Water Park Prank was a guest-animated episode from season six by an animator called David Ferguson. It is widely considered one of the worst episodes in the show because of its basic plot, sometimes gross jokes, and offputting style.

It was following up on two incredibly well-received guest-animated episodes, A Glitch is a Glitch and Food Chain, so it had big boots to fill. And more importantly, it was not even supposed to be an 11-minute episode. Ferguson was originally commissioned to only make a five minute short to be posted on Cartoon Network's website and maybe its YouTube channel. And his style would have worked well in this short format, as it does for his other work. But he ended up accepting a deal to adapt his 5 minute online video, which was already mostly finished from what I understand, into a full episode. The deadlines were pretty unforgiving and the result was basically just the original video (consisting of the actual water park scenes) with a b-plot about the "daddy sad-heads" frankensteined onto the beginning and end.

So it was kind of doomed from the beginning to not be a great episode. Difficult deadlines, a doubling of the runtime late in production, a style that was intended for 2015 YouTube being broadcast on TV, and almost certainly the lowest budget of any of the guest episodes. The fandom hated it, and still mostly does. If you ask anyone for their least favourite episode of Adventure Time, and if they didn't stop watching after Breezy, there is a pretty good chance they will say Water Park Prank.

Now one thing about guest-animated Adventure Time episodes is that they are generally not considered canon. If you go to the wiki page for most of them, you will find a note somewhere saying that they are not canon. But this is not the case for Water Park Prank. Because the day before Water Park Prank aired, main series writer Jack Pendarvis proclaimed on Twitter that Water Park Prank was CANON.

An important thing to note is that there is in fact no established definition of Adventure Time canon. Jack Pendarvis probably made the tweet in full knowledge that it meant nothing but that it would be taken seriously. And taken seriously it was, because fandom is fandom. To this day I believe Water Park Prank is considered canon on the fan wiki. For a long time I considered it canon on my own website.

The net result was the hilarious paradox of this random episode simultaneously being the worst guest episode and also the only canon one.

Things went on like this for a while. Bad Jubies came out and was really good, which secured Water Park Prank's legacy as the bad apple among a bunch of awesome guest episodes. Ferguson sort of accepted his episode's reception. Way later the crew got him back to animate a segment in Distant Lands BMO, perhaps as a jokey sort of redemption, or perhaps because his style was actually pretty cool from the beginning and hadn't exactly been allowed to shine under the previous conditions.

Enter Fionna & Cake, which gives us an in-universe definition of what it means to be canon; a canon measure of canonicity, if you like. A dimension is "canon" if it is connected to the wider web of the Multiverse, at which point it also exists as an asteroid in GOLB's realm. Of course, this is still a different thing from actually being canon to Adventure Time, and there is still no official definition of canon in that sense. But it's close enough.

And what was one of the dimensions that Simon steps into ever-so-briefly in GOLB's realm? Is it the iconic 3D environments from David OReilly's A Glitch is a Glitch? No. Is it the wonderfully colourful natural history museum from Masaaki Yuasa's Food Chain? No. Is it the lovingly crafted clay world of Kirsten Lepore's Bad Jubies? No.

THAT'S RIGHT BABY, IT'S THE FUCKING WATER PARK!!! Canon first by word of god, and now by in-universe definition too!

In honour of this momentous occasion I'm not going to implore anyone to actually watch Water Park Prank. But next time you're doing a full watch-through of the series, maybe, just maybe, consider not skipping it.

Ice king is a really good character because they intoduce him and you're like "haha what a freak what's wrong with him" and then the show goes "oh! You want to know? Let me show you :)" and you end up just sitting there like

real not fake

mrrp

so true

I can’t wait for amethyst to fucking EAT pizza steve in the crossover

this actually happened I-

I don’t know wha t to say

(commissions open)