Marceline the Vampire Queen

Storyboard by: Ako Castuera and Jesse Moynihan

Original Airdate; November 16, 2015

Review By: Prestidigititis

Adventure Time episodes are only eleven minutes long. Seven seasons in, we’ve got characters whose backstories would humble a Prestige-Era-Television showrunner. A world so foreign and far in the future, yet fully realized. It feels impossible that anything of this depth could be handed within eleven minutes of action, and handled so deftly.

All the major players are like old friends to the viewer. We know their motivations, we know who their allies and antagonists are. We don’t see the enemies as mere evil stalwarts, like the Big Bads from most kids’ media tend to be, nor as relentless forces from the Outside World that a kid trying to find their own course through the big scary world might relate to.

Eleven minutes, seven seasons. There’s much that hasn’t been addressed. But it’s not like they wouldn’t have gotten around to filling in the gaps in Marceline’s background eventually…and even if they never did, we’d trust them to give us the info necessary as the show moved forward. Yet here we are, with a miniseries, a new approach for Adventure Time, the first of three miniseries the show creates.

Right at the outset we’re given reason to treat this miniseres different from the rest of Adventure Time’s storytelling process, with all-new intro animation and bass-drenched opening theme, sung by Olivia Olson herself. Things are appropriately spooky, which worked out well for Cartoon Network, who aired Stakes as a Halloween-themed event (in November). The episode that follows feels familiarly Adventure Timey. It’s got light silly touches, odd turns of phrase (from one of the series’ expert phrase-turners in Jessie Moynihan), and a bracing conflict that involves our protags Finn and Jake, even as this is laid out specifically as Marceline’s story.

Looks like this will be Princess Bubblegum’s story too, since she helps provide the instigating event for Marceline (as well as offering up key expository details of Marcy’s past, soon to be expanded on in later episodes). Our ladies have discussed the possibility of de-vampiring Marceline. Letting her become a normal person; one who can withstand direct sunlight. She will also age and, eventually, die. So this is about more than being able to retrieve an errant umbrella. This is also Marceline confronting parts of her history (when she was a “messed-up kid”). Her immortality, it seems, allowed her to resist growing up. Still, it can’t keep her from feeling empty inside. Again, Adventure Time is able to weave that insight into human nature seamlessly into a kids’ show.

As this happens, Finn and Jake are sleuthing out a rash of emaciated cows, sucked dry of blood, whose limp husks are inspiring panic in the citizens of a small village (recently tormented by Lumpy Space Princess). Villagers are certain it’s the work of a Vampire, and Marceline becomes the target for their ire, despite her insistence that she didn’t do it. (She DID have a pretty suspiciously-prophetic dream the night before, though…) Finn tries to quell their anger, witnessing an odd, creepy black figure in the act of biting a cow. This beast turns out to be the real culprit, evidenced by all the drained, barely-alive animals littering its cave. Finn rushes to clear Marceline’s name…but it appears to be too late. The villagers have tied Marcy to the sail of a windmill, and the sun is quickly creeping over the horizon…

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS:

• The AT crew tends to write “from behind,” crafting story and action in an almost improvisational way, letting the resolution find them. It feels different when they have a storytelling goal in mind, arcing events in such a way. They seem up to it, making a nifty cliffhanger stand out after laying down some serious groundwork. All without feeling too deliberate or clumsy. We’re in for a ride.
• As Bubblegum offers the first treatment for Marceline to ingest, she tells her “this means someday you’ll die. You know that, right?” Before answering, Marceline swallows it down, saying death would be her last adventure. Is this bravery, commitment, or folly? It remains to be seen.
• Princess Bubblegum is, for the most part, all business during the ramp up to the experiment. Even eliding over the fact that there’s really no way of knowing if the process will be successful. But then we get hit with this little nugget: “And someday, when you die, I’ll be the one who puts you in the ground.” It’s spoken with more tenderness than PB has maybe ever displayed toward anyone. At this point it’s pretty much agreed that PB and Marcy’s feelings are deep, long-ranging, and romantic. Between this and the more recent episodes like “Varmints,” the show is finally turning a corner in allowing those facts to be presented onscreen.
• Jake has this bad-cop routine down cold.
• Village Leader Cloud Dance has a pretty sweet combination-torch/pitchfork at the end there. Perfect for chasing and hunting a vampire with only one hand.

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Everything Stays | Aired: November 16, 2015 | Reviewed by Grumproro

This is harder to write about than I thought it would be! Part of me just wants to say “this is a good episode of TV” because it is. Real good TV TV. You know what I mean? There’s flashbacks, character development, conflict, and a great ending that leaves you excited for the next episode. It moves so fluidly through so many moments without feeling rushed, and I actually think it’s pretty spooky at the end. 

But what drew me to pick this episode to review was the music. The first time I saw this episode I was so touched and heartbroken by the introduction of Marceline’s mom in the flashback, and the song that she sings left a big impression on me (and Marceline, of course). It’s a wonderful little song that I don’t think I need to really go into detail about. I imagine someone else will do that, but if not then all you really need to do is listen. The words say it all, I think!

But the other song is different. Funny story, but I had no idea what the “human song” was until this rewatch. I honestly never took any notice of it, I don’t know why! I guess I was just too focused on “Everything Stays”? Maybe I was still crying about Simon? Or distracted by all of Marceline’s great outfits and hair? I dunno, but it feels like a huge oversight on my part now. Ralph looked it up while we were watching, so just in case anyone else doesn’t know, that’s the theme song to Mr. Belvedere, a show I didn’t know existed until now.

The first comment: “As humans it’s our duty to tell the tales. To sing the songs.” Perfect.

We’ve done this TV thing before, of course. Simon uses the Cheers theme to entertain Marceline and then to help maintain his humanity while wearing the crown. Probably safe to assume Simon also taught Marceline this song? Probably. Before he lost control of his mind and left Marceline alone in the world to fend for herself. (I’m not crying, you’re crying!)

It’s very clever, I think, to use a theme song for what looks like a pretty low-stakes show to represent the stories of humanity. Sure, in 2025 I might not know this show (I didn’t know it when it aired in 2015 and I’m going to guess not many kids knew it either). But hey, I know the show now, thanks to this episode (and this review series)! And a bunch of people went to the same YouTube video I did and watched the opening to Mr. Belvedere because of Adventure Time. I like that. It works, TV is OUR stories. Or at least some of them. And the lyrics fit, don’t they?

Streaks on the china,
never mattered before,
who cared.
When you drop kicked your jacket
As you came through the door,
No one glared.
But sometimes things get turned around
And no one’s spared.
All hands look out below
There’s a change in the status quo.
Gonna need all the help that we can get.
According to our new arrival
Life is more than mere survival
And we just might live the good life yet.

Because this is Adventure Time, singing this song brings Marceline and the humans together. Lovely. I’m glad I got to write about this episode because it got me to think about this song, which I hadn’t done before, and it made me realize that the writers of this show are even smarter than I thought. Who knew?

Oh, also there are scary vampires and soul sucking and all that. But you know me, I’m here for the music and the sad parent stuff.

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Vamps About

Storyboarded by: Tom Herpich and Steve Wolfhard

Original Airdate: November 17, 2015

Reviewed by: Prestidigititis

Folks, we’re getting the band back together. Posed in a low-lit woods, we have all the important vamps from Marceline’s past, the ones whose souls she sucked after dispatching them. Their music is soft, enticing, and distinctively dark. Feels appropriate for infernal beings, ones possessed of great power, who have resurrected out of nowhere, posed with Lynchian uncanniness in an episode full of that odd feeling.

While our vamps converse about how strange their current situation is, we get samples of their individual natures. The Empress craves the trappings of her old “hive,” a place of power and prestige that she wants to re-establish quickly. The Hierophant just wants to get back to the business of feeding. He knows he’s alive again, and he doesn’t know how nor does he care. The Fool is small, flitty, silly—foolish. And The Moon doesn’t talk at all, nor is she addressed, except when The Fool falls on her.

As for The Vampire King…he’s just a sinister, unsettling presence. When The Fool takes notice of having both his fangs upon resurrection, it prompts The Vampire King to go in for a disturbing, overly-intimate culling of one tooth. The King dances with a cow before making it his meal with a vivid bite. When the Hierophant pesters him, he unleashes some quick telekinetic violence against him. He declares it to be a new era, but his cohorts seem to feel differently about what it means to be a vamp. They each head off to their own area of Ooo.

At PB’s cabin we discover that the vamp gunk removed from Marceline has somehow disappeared. Is this what caused the vampire royalty to be resurrected? Marceline recognizes the Vampire King from Jake’s descriptions (and Pep But’s police sketches), which launches us into a flashback of Vampire Hunter Marcy, about to engage in a final showdown. The Vampire King tries to impart to Marceline something important, something about the cost of power, and the elimination of an entire species. Something Marceline doesn’t want to hear. The battle is fierce—one of the most intense we’ve seen on Adventure Time—and it becomes a signature moment in Marceline’s life. As she thrusts her stake into the gut of the Vampire King, he uses their proximity to lean in and deliver his bite to her neck when the wood pierces his flesh. There is, it turns out, another option besides one of them defeating the other. It’s a grisly moment for the show, visceral and scary. Unforgettable.

Back in the present, Peppermint Butler outfits our heroes with gadgets to take down the formidable vampire crew. (Stuff he’d made just in case Marceline ever turned on PB!) After some reconnaissance, Marcy finds an invisible sanctum where the Vampire King is waiting, with a pile of freshly sucked vampire farm animals and a still-childish The Fool flying around. The Vampire King knows it won’t be long before he’s back at full strength, but he still seems to be offering a newer, different arrangement to Marceline as vampires re-enter the world. Marcy’s having none of it. She considers the vamps to be irredeemable, and therefore worthy zero mercy. She drives this point home by driving a point home into The Fool, then sucks the remnants of his soul with her demon abilities.

This results in her regaining one of her old powers. What power, you ask? How about the power of flight? Yes, by the end of the episode Marceline is once again swooping through the air to make her way to protect Simon from The Empress. Protecting Ooo from the Vampire scourge means regaining some of these vampire attributes. The ones she was eager to be rid of, so she could grow. But growth doesn’t mean you become someone entirely new, even if that’s what you want. Yes, everything changes, ever so slightly, in little ways…but still, everything stays.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS:

• Finn and Jake (and, to a degree, Princess Bubblegum) aren’t non-presences in this episode to be sure, but the main story beats lean so heavily and so impressively into the return of the vamps, and how Marceline and The Vampire King interact, it’s almost like they’re not quite there.
• Our little vampire band consists of The Empress on glass harmonica, The Fool on bongos, The Hierophant on balalaika, The Moon on flute, and The Vampire King on (regular) harmonica.
• I loved the tone and creepiness of this episode. I don’t think there’s been anything quite so visceral and graphic as the piercings of flesh during the fight, nor as quasi-sexual as the style The Vampire King uses with his cow meal dance partner, or The Fool. It’s a tone I would have loved to see continued throughout the miniseries, but personally don’t think they kept it up.
• The Vampire King sniffing out Marceline’s half-human side is a nice reference. Maybe now that the vampireness is gone, there’s nothing to cover up her half-demon/half-human identity.
• “I only eat animals now. Just like everyone else.”

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The Empress Eyes

Air Date: November 17, 2015 | Written & Storyboarded by Seo Kim and Somvilay Xayaphone | Story by Kent Osborne, Pendleton Ward Jack Pendarvis,  and Adam Muto | Directed by Elizabeth Ito (supervising) and Sandra Lee (art) | Reviewed by Malcolm Rambert

So, something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while is how Adventure Time is the closest an American cartoon has come to anime. Now when I say this, I don’t mean in terms of influence. Sure, Pendleton Ward commented on how he first saw the film My Neighbor Totoro through a bootleg VHS tape that had the Korean dub with English fansubs in the The Art of Ooo artbook. And Rebecca Sugar has made the comment that One Piece is her favorite anime. I’m not entirely denying that there is SOME influence in that area.

But when I say “Adventure Time is the closest a cartoon has ever gotten to anime”, it’s specifically about how it’s the one that does the most things that people like the average anime for, as well as how it’s often consumed.

In just this collaborative blog alone, we’ve commented on a lot of things that make this show great and not so great: massive cast of characters, a large number of those characters having different motivations and lived experiences, a large world, good characters going bad, bad characters going good, moral ambiguity, call backs to previously seemingly-innocuous events and lines, etc. etc. These are all things that people like the same in whatever anime (most specifically the ones that happen to be long-running) love.

Now you might be reading this and thinking “these just seem like superficial comparisons to regular things stories themselves do”. And sure, one could say that. In fact, one could argue that animated series like Gargoyles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, or even Code Lyoko got followings for the same reasons. And they’d be right. What I believe differs from series like those is the volume to which people treat this show across the world. And this is where I get to the fan reaction.

See, as early as 2012, Adventure Time was getting fanart made of it, most of which looked liked this:

2013 Fanart by Japanese artist Aoki Shizumi, courtesy of Dynasty Scans

Shipping fanart like this and numerous pieces that showcase Finn having his blonde hair exposed is just one of many cases of people combining their love for this show with stuff that they were into. It even helped get the trend of CMVs (Cartoon Music Videos) going (which they eventually just went back to calling AMVs because, c’mon, that’s more iconic).

This extends for lots of things in the sketchy area of fan content: There have been doujinshis, scanlations of the multiple comics that KaBoom!/BOOM Comics has put out, and more importantly, fansubbing.

Fansubbing itself is VERY prominent in the culture of anime fandom, and with the rise of connectivity with the Internet, this became a thing for cartoons involved in online fandom overseas. Take the time to look up a prominently brought up cartoon of this era in a localized name, and you will find a plethora of different places online that watch this series in this manner.

These fansubs of Season 5 episodes are over a decade old and they still rake in views thanks to these compilation videos on Bilibli. Not bad for a TV series that was localized as Venturing Goofballs in both Mainland China (探险活宝) and Taiwan (探險活寶).

In fact, to give an example of something super nerdy and online: When the Fionna & Cake spinoff first premiered, it would take over a whole YEAR before the 1st season was available to watch in certain countries on HBO MAX (or whatever other streaming service they had since HBO MAX isn’t a thing everywhere). In that time, in order to keep up with the current goss, pretty much every country that had some semblance of an Adventure Time following had 1 or several people making fansubs for the then-currently airing 1st season. From China to South Korea to even Poland; Russia had 3 different fandub groups who made their own voice-over dubs of Season 1 of Fionna & Cake. Heck, the series wasn’t even sent to the United Kingdom officially in any way (probably due to its more mature content compared to its predecessor), so the only way AT fans can check out the series is through piracy.

If you’re like me and you take an interest in non-English fandom, it becomes apparent how often a show like this comes up, and in many of the same ways your average anime fan consumes anime. I haven’t even gotten to how this redefined “cartoon theories” for a whole generation of kids that wasn’t just “creepypasta it was all a dream” shit. As the vintage anime review KaiserBeamz stated:

There’s more I want to talk about with this down the line, but you probably want to know what this has to do with Stakes. Well, the Stakes miniseries is the first of what I call “Adventure Time’s anime arcs”.

See there’s this thing in long-running anime fandoms where they refer to a collection of chapters or episodes as “arcs” since they are specified around a specific event or battle or whatever. It’s a change in setting where the characters we know have to face some big threat or do some big task etc. etc. Here are the ones for One Piece.

The Adventure Time crew doing these miniseries is basically them experimenting and seeing what can be done with these characters, but it calls to mind how often long-running anime out there change the setting to make it about something else at that point in the story. The only difference is something like this would take 20 to 50 episodes to complete. XD

The Empress herself drips PURE Arc Villain-vibes. She’s an Arc Villain among arc villains. Cool design, specific goal in mind, she even has previous involvement with one or two of the main characters. In a different show, the story would probably take her a lot more seriously (I’m reminded of Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist) but since this Adventure Time, it’s good-natured half the time.

This episode itself has some pretty great bits: Empress saying penguin blood tastes like “cheese water”, her reading Simon’s diary, Marceline having flashback in the form what appears to sound like slam poetry, the Ice King playing both sides. You think that with as involved with Simon as she was she would stay longer, but we got an arc to finish, so PB comes in at the last moment to help Marcy slay that witch.

For a brief moment, you think that the Ice King is fighting back, but he really IS just so far gone in the aspect of the mind.

Additional Notes:

• I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this, but Adventure Time has been under some cases of censorship depending on where the show is airing (just like anime!). This episode for example had some stuff taken out in Brazil, specifically the scene of Ice King saying that he wants to be bitten later and the line “You stupid donkey” being partially muted.
• Funny how Jake never gets over his fear of vampires. I like that
• Best line in the episodes: “Because you’re too far gone to be under my control…and you have no class.”
• I want to thank CedricTheOwl for coming in and reviewing “Mama Said”. When I failed to turn in a review. The week preceding the deadline, I was visiting my Dad in Atlanta and while there, I was attending a film festival, specifically the 24th annual Urban MediaMakers Film Festival. There were a lot of neat films and documentaries that I still intend to write about in a number of places like Letterboxd, but my mind was focused on that and in the process, I mistakenly thought my deadline for this episode was the week after. Either way, Cedric gave a pretty good write-up, especially since the only things I had to say were 1) Canyon was one the first instances in my life where I saw a character who was an ex, still had feelings for their ex-spouse, and didn’t recuperate the relationship and 2) her mere existence certified this show having a page on the Giantess Wiki (yeah, people’s hyperfixations go HARD sometimes lol).
• Been wanting to mention this guy for a while, but a dude who goes by the username “viedo gaems” makes these pretty neat big-ass videos recapping at analyzing every episode of individual animated series (probably the only time you will ever see someone look deeper into Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law). Most of them can be listened to like their podcasts, so you don’t have to worry about sitting and looking at a screen for hours on end. As of writing this, he released his Part 2 video on Adventure Time covering seasons 4 to 6 2 days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxT02LZTLq0
• Speaking of One Piece, I’ve been meaning to get back to reading it since I haven’t caught up with it since high school. I wanted to catch up before I wrote this piece for the blog, but no luck. Hopefully, with the new schedule break coming next year, I’ll have enough time to read the chapters, watch all the movies, and check out the very impressive stuff from the folks at the One Piece Podcast. There’s a lot of overlap with these fandoms and it doesn’t surprise me. I even saw someone in a tweet I can’t find again comment on “Holly Jolly Secrets”; saying “Dude this was like One Piece after the East Blue saga THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING”. After all, they have very similar styles of humor and worldbuilding.

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May I Come In?

Storyboarded by: Luke Pearson & Lyle Partridge

Originally Aired: November 18, 2015

Reviewed by: CedricTheOwl

With two super vampires down and Marceline officially sold on the idea of teamwork, we have ourselves a vampire hunting party.  “May I Come In?” opens with Marceline, PB, Finn, and Jake tracking The Moon, following her trail of pearls to her hideout.  Marcie assures the boys that beating The Moon will be easy; since her primary power is accelerated healing, it’s simply a matter of hitting her hard enough to wear her down.

As they continue the hunt, a hunter of another type shows up:  The King of Ooo, out for a nighttime fox hunt with Crunchy standing in as the fox.  KoO soon gets more than he bargained for, as he draws the ire of none other than The Hierophant, the shapeshifting super vampire.  He chases them up a tree in the form of a boar, then shifts into a dapper koala to climb after them.  But he doesn’t want their blood (since it’s unlikely they have any), he just wants Marceline.  KoO is only too happy to sell her out by way of her association with Princess Bubblegum.

Still not the most dangerous creature in the Australian Bush

Over at PB’s cabin by Lake Butterscotch, an unsuspecting Peppermint Butler is tending the fire when he’s alerted to a scratching at the door.  It’s the Hierophant, who still adheres to the vampiric tradition of asking permission to enter a building before crossing its threshold.  I wasn’t able to find a definitive answer on where this bit of vampire lore originated, but the most convincing case I saw dates back to Goethe’s Faust, first published in the early 1800s.  In the play, Faust must invite Mephistopheles into his home three times before he is able to enter.  Symbolically, it’s a cautionary tale about sacred hospitality and being careful about whom one lets into their life.

Unfortunately for the Hierophant, Peppermint Butler has no time for philosophical moralizing.  As soon as he clocks that the Hierophant’s behavior is a weakness he can exploit, he wastes no time in mocking him for his antiquated beliefs.  PepBut even asks him what he thinks would happen if he violated this taboo.  It’s a fair question: Marceline has shown no need for permission when breaking into Finn’s treehouse or PB’s castle, and even the equally old Empress could enter Ice King’s pad at will.

This question will remain unanswered for the moment, as the Hierophant doesn’t actually need to enter the house to get what he wants.  He picks up Finn and Jake’s trail leaving the cabin and stalks after them.  To his credit, PepBut literally puts his butt on the line to try and stall him, exiting the safety of the threshold to try and distract the Hierophant.  Failing that, he at least sends warning to PB that they’ve got incoming.

The party is soon ambushed by a rogue Lumpy Space Princess, waking up from napping in the bushes.  Together, they form a plan of attack.  Finn is tied to a stake to lure out the Hierophant, and when he takes the bait they launch a stake-covered LSP at him.  As a side note, the way LSP is tied up is reminiscent of the Hanged Man card in tarot, continuing the tarot theming the super vampires have going.

Finn shows the Hierophant how a real man vamps

Alas, the Hierophant isn’t killed so easily.  In fact, he has to do little more than dodge LSP’s opening swing before their offensive completely crumbles in on itself.  As the Hierophant assumes a monstrous chimaera form to fight the beleaguered heroes, Jake stumbles upon the text from PepBut, tipping him off to the Hierophant’s weakness.  With their heavy hitter Marceline out of the fight, poisoned by the Hierophant’s Final Fantasy endboss form, Jake takes the shape of a house the party can hide in.

With no way to get at our heroes, the Hierophant does something unexpected:  he tries to reason with Marceline.  Apparently he’s not over his grudge against the Vampire King from “Vamps About”, and is more than willing to betray him by teaming up with Marceline.  Marcie is reminded of her previous encounter with the Vampire King, and how he plunged her stake into his own chest while in the process of turning her.  She reluctantly agrees to accept the Hierophant’s help, but only if he swears off blood.

The Hierophant won’t hear of it, of course.  As a traditional vampire, he refuses to debase himself by subsisting on red.  Just as he grabs Marceline and threatens to finish her and her friends, Crunchy emerges from the brush, still chased by the King of Ooo, and knocks the Hierophant into House!Jake.  Breaching the threshold without an invitation is enough to kill him, ending the fight and allowing Marceline to Mega Man yet another super vampire soul.  She’s not out of danger yet; she starts to uncontrollably shape shift before collapsing under the effect of the Hierophant’s poison.

In keeping with my theory that each of the super vampires reflects one of Marceline’s personality flaws, the Hierophant represents her obstinance and resistance to change.  Just as he refuses to abandon old vampiric traditions, even weaknesses like the need to ask permission to enter a building, Marceline struggles to let go of things in her past.  Losing Simon inspires her to protect the remaining humans in Ooo, which eventually leads to her turning.  Her inability to process the end of her past relationship with Princess Bubblegum metastasized into a grudge that left her friendless and jaded for centuries.

While the Hierophant refuses to change his ways out of arrogance, Marceline is able to overcome him by embracing the ways she has changed over the past six seasons.  Early in “Stakes”, she tried to push her friends away and fight the super vampires alone.  Finn, Jake, and PB attempt to help her, which only frustrates her.  However, once the party reunites in this episode, there’s a more relaxed, natural atmosphere now that Marceline isn’t shutting her friends out.  Marcie even laughs off Finn and Jake horsing around while on the job, instead of getting annoyed as she did before.  And while Finn, Jake, and PB don’t land any solid hits on the super vampire, Marceline would not have been able to triumph without them.  She’s paid the price for the Hierophant’s power, slowly and agonizingly over centuries, which has allowed her to reclaim his power for her own. Three super vampires down, but at what cost?

Stray Observations –

• Among other things, the Hierophant in tarot represents tradition and adherence to established customs.  Very appropriate for the vampire of the same name, and for the personality flaw in Marceline that his influence represents.
• The Hanged Man, among many other things, represents sacrifice, which is a funny joke about their plan to use Finn as bait and/or a joke about their plan to cover LSP in stakes and throw her at the Hierophant.  Both seem pretty on board with being put in bodily danger for this plan.

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Take Her Back

Written & storyboarded by: Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera

Directed by Andres Salaff and Sandra Lee

From a story by Kent Osborne, Pendleton Ward, Jack Pendarvis, and Adam Muto

Original airdate: November 18, 2015

Review by LibraryLass

Marceline’s voice echoes through the happy home of a slightly-older Simon and Betty as they cook soup and bake a (living) pie. A knock at the door announces the arrival of a dapper, grey-streaked Marceline. The happy couple and the pie suddenly begin belching as Marceline remembers she was hunting vampires (though she has forgotten her encounter with the Hierophant, remembering only that she was after the Moon), and we’re wrenched from the dreams of the badly-poisoned former Vampire Queen back to the reality of Ooo, moments after ol’ Wet Uncle met his post-timely end. Princess Bubblegum cradles Marcy in her arms while Finn and Jake, inspired by their parents’ alleged folk cure, repeatedly burp on her. Sadly, PB disabuses them of the notion that burping is a cure-all, and tries to engage them in a discussion about the nature of Hubris. Finn *should* know what it means, because he did way back in season 1’s “The Other Tarts”, and he even mispronounces it the same way he did back then, but he seems to have forgotten as this time he mixes it up with the Egyptian god Anubis. LSP, tactless as ever, points out the immediate relevance to PB’s recent life, and PB admits that that’s exactly what she means– she agreed to the ambition of curing Marceline’s vampirism without considering the dangers that might come with it, and now Marceline is paying the price. Finn and Jake try to spin this not as proof of Bonnie’s arrogance, but the strength of her bond with Marcy, to which Peppermint Butler agrees and adds that he has a lab in the Candy Castle where he regularly poisons and cures himself in the course of his duties.

Just like that, Team Marceline has a plan! PB and PepBut will bring Marceline to the Candy Kingdom and work on an antidote for her, while Finn and Jake are sent to retrieve the Moon in hopes Marceline will be able to regain her regenerative powers. Unfortunately in her haste, Bonnie slurs her speech a little and Finn hears “you guys take her back” as “stake her back” and heads off to slay the Moon. As the others bail, LSP casually extrudes another stake that I’m pretty sure was in her butt. Speaking of things extruded from butts, Finn and Jake quickly pick up on the Moon’s trail, as she’s left a spoor of moon pearls behind her. Jake is deeply concerned with where exactly on her person they come from, but Finn just knows they’re pretty and they’re useful to the mission at hand. They find the Moon in an amphora inside an oddly plop-shaped dome, on a small catamaran moored in a nearby lake, but the duo are unable to make much progress in actually harming her even when they bring her out into the sun– she simply heals too fast.

Meanwhile, back at the Candy Kingdom, the King of Ooo has tied Crunchy to a trophy plaque and is supervising the Banana Guards’ attempt to mount him on the wall when Pepbut and PB kick down the door and pretty much effortlessly overthrow him. PB performs a badass double dropkick while holding her girl in a fireman’s carry and orders the Banana Guards to ignore him and release the chompable shlimazel while PepBut absconds with the lab keys.

Hours later, Finn and Jake have made no progress and only then do they realize their error… then the sun sets and the Moon’s dormancy gives way to an incredible speed. All this is according to plan for Finn, however, who hops on Jake’s back and commences kiting tactics. Finn suddenly realizes that the hunter who has become the hunted is him, not her, and slows Jake up to threaten her with eternity as a tiger litterbox. Finally, The Moon speaks, in the distorted, stentorian voice of Beau Billingslea, and reveals that she is as omnipresent as the light of her namesake.

Back at the poison lab, PepBut is resorting to some crystal-healing jargle and trying his best to not reveal it’s magic-based to the infamously-skeptical princess. Bonnie isn’t fooled but doesn’t have better ideas as a number of Banana Guards look on. One bursts into tears. As Bonnie tries to comfort him, he reveals that what’s really bothering him is how much they all just want her in charge again, and a group hug ensues. Soon the ceremony continues, with Bonnie keeping Marceline’s head in her lap until the time comes that there is nothing more to do but wait. PepBut suggests they pass the time with video games, but PB doesn’t care for them– and neither, he admits, does PepBut, who doesn’t have a system to play them on anyway. One of the Banana Guards has, however, except what he describes sounds like it might just be a workout video, even though he insists it isn’t. As the debate rages, Finn and Jake are incoming, with the Moon only steps behind. PB grabs Marceline and barricades the pair of them in the interior of a sort of medical-bed-looking device in an alcove, ordering the others to hold her off until Marceline recovers. The Moon has time to wait, however, and as Finn approaches her he suddenly collapses, exhausted, and it’s all he can do to hold onto her leg and force her to drag him as she drops Jake with a shout of “Pigs!” and melts a couple of Banana Guards. The door to the inside of the med-bed is locked, however the Moon is undeterred and begins commanding it to open for her, leading to one of the all-time great Adventure Time lines:

“Did you just yell ‘Pigs!’ at the lock until it opened?”

In Marceline’s coma dream, PepBut digs a grave while an aged Marcy sits in an easy chair playing her bass and singing. Bonnibel, still young as ever and wearing a very stylish hanbok, kisses her forehead and sings with her, but Marceline is going deaf and can’t hear it. As PB tells Marceline to wake up, it begins raining indoors. The Moon’s voice is heard and her hands are seen tearing through the walls, but instead of her face there is only the actual Moon, as Marcy achieves a degree of lucidity– the rain is the feeling of Bonnie’s tears as she begs her to get up and fight.

When all hope seems lost, PepBut strikes from behind with the biggest stake left, staggering the moon just long enough for the semiconscious Marceline to devour her essence and regain her healing… not that she’s about to stop relaxing in PB’s arms. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Goddamn, these two are crazy about each other. Finn reaches his sword too late and is deeply relieved that he doesn’t have to stand up. Four vamps down.

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Checkmate

Storyboarded by: Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera

Original Airdate: November 19, 2015

Review by: Josephus Brown

Welcome ladies, gentlemen, and variations and negations thereof!

Since we’re writing these all separately, I’m not sure how much of this may have been covered in other sections, so I’m just gonna go full bore and get real weird with it.

In this episode, in true Adventure Time fashion, we are promised an epic showdown between enemies only for expectations to be subverted, and it turns out the Vampire King was utterly truthful right at the very beginning of the miniseries and fully intended everything he said about having turned over a new leaf and rejected his old ways of violence and domination.

The Vampire King is the only one of the major vamps to not be directly named after one of the Major Arcana, so we’ll come to him last, even though Checkmate is his episode, because he still invokes several more, so there’ll be plenty to unpack anyway.

There’s a billion interpretations of the Tarot, and many more variations of the artwork. However, the AT crew has repeatedly referenced the specific Rider-Waite-Smith deck from 1909, which is also the one that most people who have a passing familiarity with the tarot have probably seen, and it hews closely to other esoteric traditions they’ve invoked before, so I feel relatively confident in leaning on a specific interpretation as laid out by the designers of that deck.

Here, the Major Arcana is often laid out as the journey of the Fool through the stages of life.

That he’s apparently about to step off a cliff is one of my favorite details, especially because it’s a *positive* card.

He represents opportunity, new beginnings, the start of a journey.

Fitting, then, that the Fool is the first vampire to get unceremoniously ganked and his abilities devoured. Fitting, too, that the power of flight is one of the most important ones for Marcy to have to fight with. While it’s hard to say that Marceline represents the Fool (we’ll get to which one she might be in a minute), the Fool definitely represents the start of the journey, here.

Inverted, the Fool represents recklessness, negligence, and stupidity, which doesn’t seem too far off from the Fool himself.

The next encounter is the Empress.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The Empress tarot is about femininity and beauty and authority, which, sure, definitely works for the vampire Empress. However the rest of the card’s meaning is largely about caring about people, about taking care of your loved ones, and nurturing and supporting and collaborating with people, none of which tracks with the vampire.

Sure, the Empress reversed can be taken to mean things like overbearingness in relationships and being a domineering and controlling partner, and it can mean overdependence on others (all of which line up pretty well with the Empress herself), but the real meat of the interpretation comes when you look at the rest of the episode. Because the entire episode is about love: Marceline has to learn to trust and work with her loved ones, she’s largely motivated by her love for Simon through the whole thing, and the big lesson is about how dangerous it is for her if she keeps charging off alone and refusing to let her loved ones in.

Now, we come to the Hierophant.

This one is easy. The Hierophant (also called the Pope in older editions) depicts a religious leader. It invokes things like tradition, convention, and conformity. When inverted it can demonstrate a need to reject the old ways of doing things or a coming danger from failing to adapt. This more or less directly maps onto what happens to the vampire Hierophant, but, more importantly, foreshadows Marceline’s encounter with the Vampire King about rejecting the past (Which, again, we’ll get to later.)

And, finally, Sister Moon.

We’ve met some of the iconography of this card before, where the symbolism was invoked in You Forgot Your Floaties, to indicate the danger that Betty was putting herself in, getting involved with mystical powers. The Moon represents the unconscious, mystical power, misconceptions, fear, and dreams. Fitting, then, that, a) the rising action of the episode is because of a misconception on F&J’s part, b) a great deal of the episode takes place inside Marceline’s dreams, and, c) the Moon is FLIPPIN’ TERRIFYING. The Moon reversed can also represent fears and anxieties being exposed and dealt with, and even a health issue resolving.

Now, the Vampire King.

Like I mentioned above, he’s the only one to not be named directly after a card in the Major Arcana. He does, however, invoke several. Let’s run through them!

Indirectly, the Emperor.

It’s the closest thing to a King the deck has. It represents power and authority, but can also represent things like useful advice or a sound perspective, both of which he has offered Marceline on multiple occasions thus far. Reversed, it can indicate the need to abdicate power, to delegate responsibilities and let go of rigid structures and routines. I think this tracks pretty well with the VK’s character arc. He openly rejects the old ways, and it’s largely Marceline and our heroes who have to be convinced otherwise.

Because the VK is determined to reject these ways of being, he directly confronts Marceline in one of the greatest dialogues in this show’s run.

“What’s the one thing you’ve noticed about the world since you beat me all those hundreds of years ago?”
“Everything repeats over and over again. No one learns anything, because nobody lives long enough to see the pattern.”
“But you’ve lived long enough… And you still think this is the right way?”
“The other way is like a black hole… An unknown.”

There’s no way this isn’t intentional.

This card is about karma, about the universe coming back into balance, and also about fairness and impartiality, about balancing emotion with logic. Both a plea for Marceline to listen to his words and to consider that her actions *also* have consequences, as well as invoking the fact that he is leaving the decision up to her.

“Spill my guts or face the unknown! Either way, I will not bite! For turning you will subjugate me to the Wheel of Fortune!”

The letters spell “ROTA”, or wheel, and the Hebrew spells the Tetragrammaton, or the mystical name of God, while the four inner symbols represent the four elements. Also, pretty sure the creatures on here (plus the cow he hangs out with) were a partial inspiration for the VK’s chimera-like design, along with the Lamastu, a Babylonian vampire-like creature that’s a lion with bird feet.

This card is, obviously, about fate. But more importantly it’s both about the inevitability of change and the extent to which we influence our destiny by embracing it or fighting it, and can often paradoxically be about how refusing to acknowledge change can itself be a way of not taking control of your own circumstances. The Vampire King refuses to allow the pattern to repeat, because he is willing to acknowledge that the world has turned on without him and he has no need to fight it. By forcing Marceline to choose he is forcing her to acknowledge that change, and forcing her to take full responsibility for that choice.

“My path runs straight into the void! On a sick. Flaming. CHARIOT!!”

The Chariot is a real easy one here. This card represents willpower and control, but also it represents rejecting structure and society, as a man on a chariot rides away from a city into the wilderness. The VK refuses to fall into the ancient paradigm of Good versus Evil, instead charting his own path outside the bounds of what is expected of him and into the unknown.

Honestly, I love everything about this episode. It does a glorious job of pointing out that, at some point, old grudges and violence can just become reflexive, and that an endless cycle of destruction and pain and misery can be perpetuated just because the alternative is an unknown. At what point do you question what you’ve been told? How many times does the wheel have to turn before you try something new? Eventually you need to hurl yourself into the void and accept that you’ll land on your feet, because the alternative is to never actually have real control over your actions.

Now… What about Marceline?

This could represent her. The Magician is often contrasted with The Fool, as an adept who can use all the powers at their command with care in order to face trials and tribulations. Marceline even has four powers by the time this is over, corresponding with the four symbols on the Magician’s table.

Another consideration is:

This one, where a woman is taming a lion by showing it compassion and care. This card represents courage and self-control, refusing to be driven by animalistic instincts or passions, while still acknowledging them. It also represents overcoming self-doubt and insecurity, about acknowledging your fears instead of hiding from them in order to truly overcome them. Between both the conclusion of this episode and the VK’s appearance as a simple, non-anthropomorphic lion, I think there’s a good argument to be made for this one.

And, finally…

Random Thoughts:

• Can we just talk about how great a fucking character the VK is? His whole passionate sky speech about “Fuck destiny!” is one of my favorite things the show has done, right up there with Lemongrab’s speech to Matthew. And how great is, “How do we find him?” “I COME TO YOU.” Just the classiest motherfucker you’ll ever meet. It’s also appropriate that Marceline found him the same way 1,000 years ago.
• Finn is singing a version of the Bacon Pancakes song while making stakes.
• PepBut’s fan girling over the Vampire King is priceless, and I love VK’s understated, “Hey”, especially once we know that he could hear everything PepBut was thinking up to that point.
• I love that the VK just turns back into a lion. Not even a talking lion. Just an old school, pre-mushroom war weirdness straight up normal lion.

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The Dark Cloud | Written and Storyboarded by Tom Herpich and Steve Wolfhard | Originally Aired November 19, 2015 | Review by Katie

“It’s about trauma”

Over the past ~10 years1I think? idk I don’t watch horror, I just used to be very online and followed pop culture mainly through discourse. It’s like the allegory of the cave except sadder the concept of genre fiction serving as an allegory or metaphor for trauma has become so overdone that even complaining about it is overdone. And these sorts of cultural complaints are always hard to parse from the outside, because on the one hand I can see how it would become exhausting to reduce every story down to the exact same read, analyzing everything through the lens of trauma; I saw a similar cultural arc in the progression from “hey did you know everything has political implications, even if unintended?” to “Steven Universe is counter-revolutionary because it’s not a 100% practical and actionable handbook for how to overthrow a fascist empire”. But on the other, there’s always a whiff of anti-intellectualism to it, a hint of “the curtains are blue” obstinance from reflexive lazy contrarians. Are you really sick of a specific played out cultural trend, or are you just annoyed any time a story asks you to engage on a level beyond the literal?

All that to say, as I write this I haven’t read the preceding 7 analyses, so I have no idea if I’m the first or the 7th27th and not 8th since Presti is doing 2 episodes person to bring this up. But fuck it, we ball. Because there’s no way to engage with Stakes in general, and “The Dark Cloud” in particular without talking about trauma, and specifically the process of healing. From a literal plot perspective, there’s a fair bit of contrivance to the ending of this series. Our heroes have everything they want by the end of “Checkmate”, except then some Three Stooges type shit happens and the bucket of gunk spills. And at the end, when Marceline is soul-sucking the whole cloud back inside herself, it somehow still manages to bite her just before dying, once again leaving Marceline as the last vampire on Ooo.

“Everything Stays” is the second episode of this miniseries, and also the best song in the entire show. It’s a gift from Rebecca Sugar, Marceline’s mother both figuratively and literally3In that they voice her mom in this special, don’t be pedantic. It was inspired by an event from Sugar’s childhood; she had a black toy rabbit that she loved very much, but one day left it outside in the backyard and then proceeded to forget about it for 6 months. When they finally remembered and came back, the side facing the sun was bleached white, permanently altered thanks to her neglect. This core memory of Sugar’s would also go on to inspire Spinel’s whole arc in the Steven Universe movie, and more specifically the song “Drift Away”, which focuses more directly on the neglect and guilt aspects.

But Adventure Time, as is its way, comes at the themes from a skewed angle. Throughout this entire series, Marceline has been reliving her millennia-old war against the vampires which once ravaged Ooo. And throughout, she’s been reexamining elements of her life that have been in stasis for nearly as long. A lot of it’s been painful; Simon being stolen from her, her estrangement from Bubblegum, her being turned and thus excluded from the human survivors she had built community with. Marcy sought a cure for vampirism specifically because she was fed up living with the burden of these experiences. But, in the process of attempting to heal, everything’s gone to shit. Marceline starts the episode despondent.

Bubblegum: Marceline? Hey, what’s wrong?
Marceline: *sigh* Me, I guess.
Bubblegum: What?
Marceline: Me. I’m wrong. This—all of this—this is all my fault. Even just fighting the vampires in the first place screwed everything up. Sure screwed me up, anyway. And, geez Louise, trying to fix it—trying to fix me… Just made things a thousand times worse. So why even try, you know? What’s the point?

Which, to bring this back to everyone’s favorite topic, that’s what confronting trauma is like. You’re picking at mental scabs, and it’s going to suck a lot. Things are gonna get worse, as you remember and relive the worst moments of your life. You’re gonna wonder why you’re even bothering. And, I don’t wanna be pat here. Healing isn’t magic, and trauma never goes away. But, to some extent, you get define what it means to you. That’s really what therapy is, mechanically, the process of re-remembering painful memories and attempting to recontextualize them.4Paraphrasing from stuff my therapist’s told me, I’m not a professional don’t take this as gospel And so obviously the bucket of gunk had to spill, and obviously Marcie had to get re-bitten in the process of cleaning it up. Any other path was a fantasy.

I really like what Finn says, late in the episode, back at Marceline’s house to recover after the fight against the Vampire King’s essence.

Are you, uh… Do you feel bad? I don’t want to say, like, “I’m sorry about who you are” or anything if you’re feeling okay, but I don’t know how bad news all of this is… Right?

It’s both thematically on point and also just generally good life advice5And from the show that used to mock the very idea of stories teaching lessons. Marceline’s not the only one growing up!. Because yeah, being a vampire has its downsides. Obviously. But like it or not, that’s who Marceline is, and who she’ll always be. She couldn’t change that without fundamentally altering everything after, bad and good. If she’s not immortal, she can’t spend eternity “hanging out” with Bubblegum.

Healing is possible, and can produce tangible results. Marceline comes to terms with what the VK did to her all those centuries ago. She’ll never stop missing Simon, but she gets genuine fatherly wisdom from him here, in a roundabout Ice King sort of way. She deepens her recently reestablished bond with Bubblegum, to the point that she has a standing invitation to move into the castle with her.6I’d make a U-Haul joke but these two have known each other for like 800 years so the charges wouldn’t stick, despite how recently they started talking again. Things can change, slowly, overtime, but they can change. Healing is possible.

But everything stays.

Stray Observations

• I love how casually PB says “once I usurp Crunchy” like she isn’t even gonna pretend like he’s an obstacle. Which, fair
• There wasn’t a great place to put this, which is why I trimmed this observation, but I love how we don’t hear the full chorus to Everything Stays until this episode. In her flashback to her mom, the memory cuts off at “Everything stays, Right where you left it”. It isn’t until Marceline reexamines and reconfronts her biz that she’s able to sing the rest of the chorus, about how even though everything stays, it still changes. The damage of Rebecca’s toy rabbit becomes recontextualized as the healing of Marceline’s traumatic memories, I like that shift. It really fits the bittersweet rumination the song has going on.
• In their own way, the candy people finally managed to handle something for themselves, without Bubblegum. Princess Crunchy the Unforgiving would have been a bad idea long-term, but it’s progress.