Gotcha! (Adventure Time)

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Gotcha! (Adventure Time) — Short Version

What it is
- Gotcha! is the 12th episode of Adventure Time’s fourth season. It aired on Cartoon Network on June 18, 2012. It was written by Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar, with a story by Pendleton Ward, Patrick McHale, and Kent Osborne. Larry Leichliter directed.

Plot in simple terms
- Lumpy Space Princess (LSP) tries to seduce Finn so she can write a tell-all memoir about men. She acts as Finn and Jake’s “secretary,” but most things she reads as signs of romance are actually Finn being kind and helpful.
- Finn, Jake, and LSP go to the Mystery Mountains to look for the Loch of Phantoms. They find a mirror portal, and LSP accidentally falls through.
- In the mirror world, phantoms of Finn attack. The real Finn defeats them with Jake’s help. Realizing Finn’s inner goodness, LSP rewrites her book, realizing Finn is “beautiful on the inside,” which surprises her.

Production notes (easy version)
- The episode was created by Cole Sanchez and Rebecca Sugar, based on a story by Pendleton Ward, Patrick McHale, and Kent Osborne, and directed by Larry Leichliter.
- Ward and Sugar drew inspiration from romantic comedies while storyboarding; Ward was under personal stress during production.
- The lake and mirror villains were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons ideas. Sugar enjoyed mirror/doppelgänger themes. The crew even came up with new words for LSP’s “lumps,” including using “cobras.”

Reception and impact
- Gotcha! debuted on Cartoon Network on June 18, 2012, drawing about 2.392 million viewers.
- It was released on DVD as part of Jake the Dad (2013) and later in Adventure Time: The Complete Fourth Season (2014).
- The A.V. Club gave it a B, praising the dialogue, voice acting, and especially the final line, “Gotcha!”

What it’s about in one sentence
- The episode uses humor to show that Finn’s kindness and inner goodness are what truly attract others, even when misread as romance.