Stakes! is an eight-part American animated television miniseries within the seventh season of the cartoon Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward. It originally aired on Cartoon Network from November 16 to November 19, 2015.
Episodes
Tired of the burden of immortality, Marceline asks Princess Bubblegum to perform an experimental scientific procedure to cure her of vampirism. While the extraction machine appears successful, a mob of angry villagers mistakes the weakened Marceline for a threat and ties her to a windmill to fry in the morning sun.
As Finn and Jake rush to rescue Marceline, she lapses into vivid flashbacks of her complex childhood. She remembers surviving the aftermath of the Mushroom War, hunting down dangerous vampires alongside early human survivors wearing animal hats, and her early connection to Simon Petrikov. Back in the present, the extracted vampire essence inadvertently morphs, resurrecting her ancient foes.
The five powerful vampires Marceline defeated centuries ago—The Fool, The Empress, The Hierophant, The Moon, and the formidable Vampire King—fully awaken and begin terrorizing the Land of Ooo. Knowing the threat they pose, a newly mortal Marceline teams up with Finn, Jake, and Bubblegum to hunt down the court of vampires before they regain their full strength.
The manipulative Empress targets the Ice Kingdom, using her powerful hypnotic eyes to enslave the Ice King. Marceline rushes to save Simon from her grasp, culminating in a fierce confrontation where Marceline manages to stake The Empress and reabsorb her hypnotic abilities.
The remaining crew tracks down the shapeshifting Hierophant, who is stubbornly bound by old-school rules like needing explicit permission to enter a household. Taking advantage of this, the team tries to trick him into crossing a threshold uninvited, resulting in a chaotic battle where Marceline defeats him and absorbs his shapeshifting powers.
Marceline is severely poisoned during a run-in with The Moon, a hauntingly creepy, self-healing vampire. While Princess Bubblegum works desperately to synthesize an antidote to save her friend, Finn and Jake are forced to venture out alone into a terrifying night to confront The Moon directly.
With his court dismantled, the Vampire King surprises everyone by arriving unarmed and requesting peace. He reveals that he also wants to be cured of his vampiric curse. Princess Bubblegum uses her extraction machine on him, turning him into a harmless lion, but the massive, concentrated bucket of extracted dark essence unexpectedly takes on a mind of its own.
The weaponized dark essence explodes into a colossal, sentient monster known as The Dark Cloud, which begins marching across Ooo to consume everything in its path. Realizing she is the only one who can stand against it, Marceline flies directly into the vortex, destroying the cloud from the inside out and reabsorbing the mass—ultimately returning to her eternal state as the Vampire Queen.
