But Finn isn't only what's important about Adventure Time anymore, and the show's format has gotten more and more transmutable (Finn and Jake will not even appear some weeks). Adventure Time has some of the best-written female characters on television, too, all of whom function as far more than romantic foils/objects of affection for Finn. Princess Bubblegum is a deeper and more thoughtful portrait of a well-meaning Type-A personality than most primetime shows would allow. The Flame Princess, who embarked on an abortive relationship with Finn this season, is a teenager whose raging emotions/hormones leave her scorching hot to the touch and thus difficult to break through with.

Marceline the Vampire Queen, introduced as Bubblegum's polar opposite, is a raging id of an immortal girl who does whatever she wants, sparking both jealousy and irritation in her buttoned-down counterpart. But she was the focal point of some of this season's most powerful episodes, which flashed back to her life before the apocalypse that transformed the planet and helped explain how her carefree approach to life is a protective emotional shell developed over hundreds of years of loneliness.

I don't have kids, so I don't know if this deeper side of Adventure Time gets through to its younger audience, but my guess is that it does. It manages to present more complex ideas in a simple, straightforward format, like the best animated children's entertainment always does, and mix it in with monster-fighting and fart jokes without ever seeming tonally off. It helps that the show is set in a magical world where any plot twist or wacky new location is easily explained away. That's why television intended for youngsters (but written by smart people) so often connects with a larger audience—there's no need to conform to any status quo or traditional notions of realism, and that almost automatically makes for exciting television.

Among the things that have happened this season: Finn discovered a set of living action figures that looked like him and his friends and started toying with them romantically, like a real-life version of The Sims, before realizing their sentience. In another episode, Finn ventured into a pillow fort and lived a whole life, through to old age, although it was all seemingly a dream (but the show really made you feel that life in 11 minutes). In another, a sentient glass of root beer gets obsessed with a threat on Princess Bubblegum's life and jeopardizes his marriage to prove his paranoia right.

Season five ended last night with Finn completing the bucket list of his deceased friend Billy, a fellow adventurer who was killed off last season, and finally conquering his fear of swimming, a longtime plot point on the show. As he rested on his back in the water, Billy appeared in the sky and told him his father was still alive, a satisfying cliffhanger to prepare us for season six, which begins in one short month, because animated TV has weird scheduling.