Before season 2 of Fionna and Cake settles into its storylines, it makes a statement: a brand-new opening sequence crashes in with blistering guitars and kaleidoscopic imagery centered on Fionna and Huntress Wizard. The sequence — faster, sharper, and more kinetic than the first season’s — signals that this chapter will be an adrenaline-fueled ride.
“We had a propulsive theme for the first season,” showrunner Adam Muto told Polygon. “But obviously we couldn’t reuse a lot of the same visuals. It was not trying to copy that, but also not downshift it dramatically. A lot of it was driven by the storyboards that [director] Ryann Shannon did, and then once we had edited it in, we had a temp track, and it felt better if it was cutting a lot faster. That dictated what kind of music we ended up going with.”
The new opening was composed by Amanda Jones, who also contributed music to Adventure Time: Distant Lands and the first season of Fionna and Cake. “Amanda Jones is a guitarist on her own, so I think that’s probably her,” Muto said with a laugh. “I haven’t double checked to see if that is her. But yeah, once we experimented with what the arrangement would be — it was a little bit more synthy and keyboard driven before — but we were just like, ‘No, just guitars.’ Once we got that version and it was feeling good, that’s where it landed.”
Those chugging guitar riffs set the tone: season 2 of Fionna and Cake is here. It picks up after the events of season 1 and continues to explore gender-swapped iterations of classic Adventure Time figures — Fionna as the counterpart to Finn, and Cake as the feline analogue of Jake. Ahead of the season premiere (now streaming on HBO Max), Polygon spoke with showrunner Adam Muto about how the series evolved between seasons, the decision to foreground the enigmatic Huntress Wizard, and what to expect from future Adventure Time projects.
Editor’s note: Mild spoilers for episode one of Fionna and Cake season 2 below.
Getting to know Huntress Wizard
A central thread of season 2 centers on Huntress Wizard’s mission to save Finn from a venomous wound. In the original Adventure Time series, Huntress Wizard was more of a visual mystery than a fully fleshed-out presence — a striking design with only limited screen time. Muto welcomed the chance to expand her role and reveal more of her interior life.
“It was a cool opportunity,” he said. “It was also sort of risky to take a character who’s mostly known for like, ‘Oh, that’s a very cool character design.’ She’s in a couple episodes — just enough to have a fan base of her own, but not necessarily enough that they know the ins and outs of her character. Certainly her backstory was left very mysterious.”
The Fionna and Cake universe thrives on reimagining beloved figures, and season 2 enlarges that practice — including alternate takes on characters such as Hunson Abadeer. With Huntress Wizard, however, Muto opted for a quieter evolution: a version of the character that still nods to her original persona but stands on her own.
“She is pretty much a loner in the original series, so she’s a bit more of a grouchy loner in this one just as a starting point,” Muto explained, giving the show new dramatic textures while retaining the character’s essence.
Finding the right balance
The first season often felt apocalyptic, with the alternate reality threatened by a multiversal auditor called Scarab. By season’s end, that immediate existential peril had abated, giving the creative team a choice: settle into a calmer, character-driven tempo, or reignite larger stakes. The writers charted a middle course.
“I was not bold enough to just say, ‘We’re going to do a very cozy season. Every episode’s going to be kind of boring, but it’ll be fun,’” Muto admitted. “There’s definitely the temptation to just do a slice-of-life thing and keep it completely low stakes, but I feel like they would not have greenlit that show. Finding a middle ground was sort of the challenge.”
Muto also noted the pull of the original land of Ooo. Although the series could have stayed exclusively within Fionna and Cake’s dimension, returning occasionally to Ooo offered alluring possibilities — but only when such detours served the story.
“Whenever it felt like we were going to Ooo too often, that was usually a sign we had to bolster something in the Fionna-world side,” he said. “The risk is just to show old favorites and say, ‘Oh, you missed these characters, let’s see more of them!’ In the end, it was easier to cut the Ooo stuff if it felt like it was encroaching upon what Fionna was doing.”
The future of Adventure Time
While Adventure Time started as a show nominally aimed at children, its storytelling has increasingly embraced mature themes. The Distant Lands specials and subsequent spinoffs on streaming platforms have allowed writers to tackle heavier subjects — from grief to complex romances — with fewer constraints than network television once imposed.
“A lot of it is less about how crass you can go, but more the stuff that you kind of intuitively do that usually got put in check by Standards and Practices notes,” Muto said. “Removing that as a constraint was a lot more freeing.”
Still, that freedom comes with self-restraint. Muto stressed that the creative team is careful not to let mature content rewrite the franchise’s identity.
“The limitation is self-imposed,” he explained. “It’s like: ‘We can swear. Are we swearing too much? Does this feel off-show now?’ They could be completely foul-mouthed now, and that would technically fall under the rating, but that would feel like a different show.”
On other fronts — including a promised Adventure Time feature film and the kid-oriented Heyo BMO series — Muto was circumspect. He emphasized that modern development cycles and the franchise’s integration with Warner Bros. Animation have changed how projects are conceived and greenlit.
“Development takes forever — it takes even longer now,” he said. “Becoming part of WBA more officially has made it possible for the show to exist in different platforms and in different formats… But yeah, at this point it’s just — things move a lot slower than maybe we’d like, and also things get announced way earlier than they probably should be.”
Where to watch: Fionna and Cake season 2, episode 1 is streaming now on HBO Max. New episodes premiere weekly on Thursdays.
Source: Polygon
