“The Hall Of Egress” is the 34th episode of the 7th season of Adventure Time. It starts with Finn and Jake discovering a somewhat eerie cave, Finn runs in excited to explore it but ends up trapped in a room with a vault door being the only way out. But there’s a problem: it won’t budge.
Figuring out how to open the door is incredibly straightforward;Finn has to close his eyes to pass through the door. So what’s the problem? He discovers if he reopens his eyes, back to before he enters the door, Square 1. He goes through attempt after attempt trying to find a solution until finally being crippled by the door, sealing his eyes behind a blindfold around his eyes in fear of the realization of the door again.
He lives multiple select timelines leading to the worst fear, back to the door, stuck again. He lived a long time in this loop, and nobody remembers every time it resets. Finally, he decides to live alone, blind, running, and running. Finally, he’s back at the door, but this time different. Because he still has his blindfold on.
He now has to do the opposite, instead of starting a new loop with nothing to lose. He now has to risk everything, all his progress to have a chance at freedom and finally his senses back. He takes off the blindfolds, multiple precautionary measures until he gets to the last one.
He finally faces the fear of not hiding behind anything. He takes off the blindfold, the door isn’t there anymore, and he is out of the loop with his eyes open. He runs through the maze and sees Jake again for the first time in an undiscerned amount of time, refusing to comment on the cave, and the episode ends.
Egress represents something more than a door, it represents any challenge in life. If it’s an addiction, lifestyle, or habit. So many people try to run away from their issues and try to develop ways to hide from their issues. Temporary solutions in the grand scheme of things. This episode is telling you to not be blind to issues at hand and always to return to them. Not to bathe in them but to solve and be unfearful of them.
There will always be something in your life you try to escape, running and scattering from it is a very human experience. But maybe it’s time to put away the blindfolds and finally meet the problem where it is. To be free, not just for you, but also for your loved ones.
The only way to be finally free is to learn what you need to remove and throw away. In this episode, it was throwing away the forgetting nature of overarching issues and fear of losing things. Similar to the mindset of people in addiction, if you have something in your life that you know is more overarching than forgetting about it. Maybe it’s time to make moves towards it, not away from it.
