Marceline's archenemy visits and makes an odd proposal right before battle.
Tropes:
- Baffled by Own Biology: Marceline loses her vampire essence, and when she feels hungry for the first time since becoming a vampire, she wonders why she feels this way. She thinks it might be what love feels like. Jake then takes out a picnic, and Marceline eats it quite ravenously. She loves the taste of other foods since she's never been able to consume anything that wasn't red since becoming a vampire.
- Big Eater: Prior to the first battle against the Vampire King, Bubblegum decides to have dinner with her allies and reveals she packed quite a big lunch for everyone. Giddy about no longer having to only subsist on anything red after so many centuries, Marceline quickly devours a good deal of the food available. She's later seen eagerly having breakfast the next morning.
- Chewing the Scenery: Vampire King gets very worked up when giving a speech to Marceline.
- Continuity Nod: Finn sings a variation of Jake's "Bacon Pancakes" song from "Burning Low" while making his mega-stake.
- Cuteness Proximity: When the Vampire King is turned into a lion, Marceline cheerfully yells out "kitty".
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Easy. First, we take down the V.K, kill him, destroy him, and...kill him!"
- Depending Upon the Undependable: While Peppermint Butler is normally more than capable of handling himself, Bubblegum entrusts him to dispose of the Vampire King's essence while he is currently blind. As a result, he drops the essence because he couldn't see where he was going.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Vampire King, despite being built up as the Big Bad for the Stakes eight parter, ultimately doesn't wish any harm to Marceline and only starts fighting back when the others attack him. Ultimately it's his essence, released in the form of a black, lion-shaped storm cloud, that becomes the Final Boss for the arc.
- Eternal Recurrence: Vampire King points out to Marceline how everything in the world keeps repeating itself, which has been demonstrated in previous episodes (especially "Evergreen"), and she knows because she's lived long enough to see it. His desire to stop being a vampire came from a desire to break out of this cycle.
- Everything Makes a Mushroom: The vampire essence bursting from the bucket makes a mushroom cloud that destroys Bubblegum's house.
- Fanboy: As it turns out, Peppermint Butler is a huge Vampire King fan who writes in his diary about wanting to meet the man himself (complete with Luminescent Blush) and desperately wants his autograph.
- Gratuitous German: Princess Bubblegum counts in German while Marceline does jumping jacks. They hit about 40 before Bubblegum loses count.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: When Jake goes to collect the bucket from Peppermint Butler, Pep-But says "Dozo" (Japanese for "Here you go") and Jake replies with "Merci (French for "Thank you") and Adios (Spanish for "Goodbye")".
- Groin Attack: Finn delivers a series of kicks to Vampire King on a suspiciously obscured area, and the Vampire King's speaking in Instant Soprano briefly afterwards.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Vampire King says he doesn't want to be a vampire anymore, giving himself up willingly.
- Hope Spot: When the bucket of concentrated vampire essence drops on the ground, nothing happens. And then Jake hugs it in his sleep.
- Idiot Ball: PB rather unwisely trusts the bucket of incredibly dangerous essence taken from the Vampire King to a temporarily blind Peppermint Butler, taking him at his word that his "inner sight" is all he needs. It doesn't end well.
- King of Beasts: Drained of his vampire essence, The Vampire King is transformed into a (seemingly normal) white lion.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Peppermint Butler wants the Vampire King's autograph and blushes at the thought of meeting him in person.
- Open Shirt Taunt: The Vampire King tears his shirt off, daring Marceline to strike him. For unrelated reasons, he also tears off his pants.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: The Vampire King delivers one to Marceline about how she is so eager to kill him just because it's what she's familiar with and fearing the unknown.
- Screw Destiny: As noted under Eternal Recurrence the Vampire King sees himself as part of an endless cycle, and he wants out. He is notably unconcerned about how that happens, as he was fully willing to let Marceline kill him again just to do so.
- Sense Freak: When Marceline eats food for the first time in centuries, she goes crazy and starts scarfing everything down.
- Take a Third Option: The VK proposes a cycle breaker by way of PB's vampire curing machine.
- Talk to the Fist: The Vampire King wants to surrender, but Marceline won't listen to him or to Finn and keeps trying to attack him.
- Temporary Blindness: Because he wasn't wearing goggles when Princess Bubblegum extracted VK's essence, Peppermint Butler is temporarily blinded.
