WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Adventure Time: Distant Lands - Wizard City, now streaming on HBO Max.
As the final Adventure Time: Distant Lands special, Wizard City is underwhelming. In fairness, it wasn't meant to be the finale; Wizard City was basically a bonus special ordered after the other three (BMO, Obsidian and Together Again) were already in development, and Together Again was always meant as the true conclusion to this incarnation of Adventure Time. Where the previous specials explored new frontiers for Adventure Time, the central conflict of Wizard City is a retread of a story arc from the original TV series.
Wizard City follows Pep, a candy child created as a vessel for the dark sorcerer Peppermint Butler as a defense to preserve his identity against the threat of the Dum-Dum Juice, as he attends the WizArts magic school. He struggles internally with the voice of the original Peppermint Butler urging him towards the dark arts and externally with a group of murderous cultist teachers who worship PepBut and want Pep to become the vessel of ultimate evil. With the help of his fellow outcast friend Cadebra (daughter of Abracadaniel), Pep is able to fight off the pressure to become a new incarnation of his father. He's still somewhat interested in being a dark lord (the "Princess Bubblegum" scene in Together Again seems to assure he eventually does), but he's going to do it on his own terms.
It's a good message that you don't have to be who people expect/want you to be, but it's well-trod ground for Adventure Time. From Marceline to Flame Princess, plenty of characters in the series have struggled against the adults in their life pressuring them towards evil, but the most direct parallel to Pep's predicament in Wizard City is Sweet P, the "giant baby man" born from the bones of The Lich and raised by Tree Trunks and Mr. Pig.
In the Season 6 episode "Gold Stars," Sweet P was haunted by nightmares of the evil creature he was created from, bullied by his classmates in school and still capable of using dark powers despite his general good nature -- just like Pep. Sweet P's character arc continued in the Season 9 episode "Whispers," where he definitively rejects The Lich's influence over him -- a conclusion not dissimilar to Pep's in Wizard City, though more straightforwardly heroic as opposed to Pep's more Chaotic Neutral ending.
"Gold Stars" and "Whispers" are just two 11-minute episodes, a relative footnote in the greater lore of Adventure Time, but together they deliver their message more entertainingly than Wizard City does with a full 50-minute runtime. There are still things to enjoy in Wizard City (the new character designs for the WizArts students and teachers are particularly great), but this final Distant Lands installment ultimately ends up being something Adventure Time rarely was: repetitive and predictable.
Adventure Time and all four Adventure Time: Distant Lands specials are streaming on HBO Max.
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