Adventure Time‘s third Distant Lands special is Together Again, a 45-minute adventure that sees Finn plumb the deaths of the Deadworlds, the afterlife for the Land of Ooo. The episode opens up with Finn’s death as an elderly man before immediately transitioning into the whacky shenanigans typical of the show. It oscillates between serious philosophical questions about the meaning of life and a colorful cartoon about a one-armed boy and his shapeshifting dog. Finn’s journey throughout Together Again is to find Jake so that they can be reunited in a shared resurrection. He’s prevented from doing so by the special’s villain: New Death, played by Chris Fleming.
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Death is a walking, talking grim reaper in Adventure Time and a pretty chill dude. The New Death is his son, the child of Death and Life, who appears later in the special as a similarly anthropomorphic bundle of snakes. As such, New Death is a walking bundle of snakes with a skeletal head, bearing the garb of his father after killing him and assuming his mantle. That’s a pretty heavy role to play since Adventure Time needs to project menace for its villains while still being comedic. But the show’s choice of casting for New Death couldn’t be more perfect.
Enter comedian Chris Fleming, a Massachusetts-born bundle of lanky energy. Fleming rose to prominence on the Internet for his “Gayle” specials, in which he portrayed the titular Gayle, an unhinged parody of a suburban housewife. Inspired by women from Fleming’s hometown, a Gayle episode generally consists of escalating feats of expectation-defying mundanity combined with the comedian’s signature ranting. Highlights include Gayle snorting a line of granola and using a shock collar to cook an apple pie. Fleming’s modern creative output is more skit-based but still maintains the same combination of aloof and frenetic energy that makes him so unique.
Fleming’s work outside his online niche is sparse and intentionally so. He confessed in an interview with The Denver Post in 2017 that he deletes most of the emails and casting calls sent his way, preferring to work “without any of those fancy cats or suits.” His previous voice acting credits consist of a minor role on Netflix’s Twelve Forever and guesting for an episode on the web series Big Top Burger. So his sudden appearance in Together Again is a genuine delight, a rare combination of Fleming’s high-effort eccentricity and a commercial role that suits him perfectly.
Like Fleming, Adventure Time stands apart from the rest of its field. Plenty of kid’s shows have taken to incorporating darker/more “adult” humor in recent years, but this is written into Adventure Time‘s DNA. It’s a part of the show’s premise, as, on the surface, Ooo is a cartoonish land perfectly at home with any Saturday morning kids show. But it’s that cheery exterior that makes its dark musings all the more unexpected. Ooo is actually Earth, hundreds of years after a nuclear apocalypse that devastated the planet and transformed it beyond recognition. The show is often a study in contrasts, going from cheerful nonsense to serious and grim contemplation.
New Death plays to plenty of Fleming’s strengths. He’s over-the-top and absurdly hammy, seething and indignant while still feeling like someone audiences can laugh at. It’s Fleming’s delivery that really sells here since it would be easy for such a character to come off as too harsh or bereft of humor. Instead, he’s all the more laughable in his fury, sounding more like a rebellious teenager than a serious threat. He’s almost constantly freaking out, which makes him oddly similar to Gayle. It wouldn’t seem like there are many commonalities between a Massachusetts housewife and a primeval demigod, but that just speaks to how the comedian transforms the roles he plays. Fleming takes the mundane and makes it otherworldly and bizarre — so it’s no surprise he feels right at home among the joyful weirdness of Adventure Time.
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