Episode 16 – Return of the Sea Hawk

In which Adora and Sea Hawk establish some relationship ground rules.

Do you remember the Elves of Seaworthy, from Sea Hawk’s first episode? And did you dislike them quite intensely? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, you’ll probably be quite pleased with the opening scene this week, which features Catra and Grizzlor sailing a Horde prison ship into Seaworthy Harbour, and loading all the Elves aboard as prisoners. This is the first stage of Catra’s latest and probably not greatest scheme – to lure Adora and Sea Hawk into attempting a rescue.

Catra: “Tough crowd.”

In Whispering Woods, Adora is revealing to Madame Razz that she fancies the pants off Sea Hawk, but Sea Hawk is only interested in She-Ra. Not unexpectedly, Madame Razz has little in the way of useful advice, so perhaps it’s just as well that they are distracted by the arrival of the news of Catra’s little ploy. Madame Razz heads off to find Sea Hawk, while Adora becomes She-Ra and flies off to Seaworthy.

Once She-Ra locates the prison ship, Catra gets slightly over-enthusiastic and shoots a pair of nuclear warheads at her. Although She-Ra successfully dodges these, she is subsequently captured when Catra contrives to give her a severe electric shock. Catra chains Swift Wind up, and imprisons She-Ra in a forcefield, but doesn’t have much time to gloat before Sea Hawk arrives in his flying ship.

Catra: “Looks like She-Ra and Swift Wind have been living it up in Wetherspoons again.”

Despite having every opportunity, Catra doesn’t repeat her electric shock trick on Sea Hawk, and it’s entirely due to this incomprehensible error of judgement that her entire plan starts going tits up. Sea Hawk finds She-Ra in her forcefield, attempting to break through. Well, I assume that’s what she’s doing, but the animation quality suffers one of its rare lapses here and simply makes She-Ra look like she’s rubbing her breasts against the forcefield for thrills. Sea Hawk puts a stop to this, releasing She-Ra just in time for her to have a bit of a barney with Catra.

Sea Hawk trots off to release the Elves, but gets seized from behind by Grizzlor, and needs to be rescued by She-Ra, who sees fit to stand seductively by the doorway and flirt a little bit before doing so. Once that sickening sequence is over with, Sea Hawk loads the Elves aboard his ship, and She-Ra knocks a hole in the bottom of the prison ship, in a blatant attempt to murder Catra and Grizzlor. She-Ra and Sea Hawk then take the Elves back to Seaworthy, ignoring the fact that there’s nothing to stop Catra from just trying the same thing again next week.

Sea Hawk: “Sorry about having my mouth gaping open like this. I’m well aware that I look like the village idiot.”

The episode ends with Sea Hawk revealing to Adora that he doesn’t think of She-Ra as a potential lover, but he’d be very interested in taking a walk with Adora. Adora correctly interprets this as, “I’d like to jump your bones,” and they head off screen with a spring in their steps.

 

In today’s adventure…

Loo-Kee – the location of whom was once again impossible to spot in the episode – informs us that if you like someone, you should tell them, and there’s every possibility that they’ll respond in kind. The word ‘like’ is clearly quite loaded with a deeper meaning here, and I’m damned if I’m taking dating advice from a blue-tailed pixie like Loo-Kee.

Loo-Kee: “Listen to me, and you’ll be set up with your life partner in no time.”

 

Character checklist

It’s a pretty well-populated episode, this one, involving Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Madame Razz, Broom, Sea Hawk, Swen, some Twiggets, the Sea Elves, Loo-Kee, Catra, Grizzlor, and the omnipresent Horde Troopers.

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

The transformation takes place off screen today, which is a relief, because this is the second episode I’ve watched today, and the incessant She-Ra music is beginning to get permanently embedded in my head. So, anyway, there’s no excuse on this occasion.

 

Insults

Well, this is probably a new record. Grizzlor takes a fair number of fur-related insults, including “furface” and “furball” from Catra, and the rather stronger “fur-faced nightmare” from Sea Hawk. The nameless Horde Troopers get a touch of abuse, with Sea Hawk calling a pair of them “metalheads”, and another being on the sharp receiving end of “fool” from Catra.

Grizzlor: “Catra, please, pretty please, can I get a personality soon?”

Early on, one of the Twiggets calls another one a “twigbrain”, and Catra calls She-Ra a “muscle-bound meddler”, though not to her face. She-Ra also calls Catra a “cat lady”, and threatens to trim her whiskers. Sea Hawk addresses Madame Razz to tell her, “You are a little heavy,” which I don’t think is the way to a lady’s heart.

And finally, Catra has it in for Sea Hawk, whom she calls a “fool”, a “rebel-loving slug”, and a “worm”. Sea Hawk bizarrely responds to this latter with, “Flattery will get you nowhere.” I understand his desire to engage in witty banter, but that one needed a bit of work.

 

Does it have the Power?

It’s got Catra in it, so of course it does. She really livens up the Horde by actually having a discernible personality. It may help, of course, that I like cats, but the writers have really captured a cat’s spiteful nature. I like the fact that Catra seems to be acting as a jilted lover around Sea Hawk; she seems personally betrayed by him, with interesting consequences. I also enjoyed the shot of her drinking milk out of a saucer.

Grizzlor: “Catra, could you please stop slurping that milk??”

Otherwise, I can take or leave the plot about Adora and Sea Hawk getting it on, and I certainly didn’t need the bit where Madame Razz got together with Swen the pirate. The main plot featuring the imprisonment of the Sea Elves was simple but effective, and the whole thing was pretty enjoyable. This one gets a thumbs-up.

Episode 15 – He Ain’t Heavy

In which Shadow Weaver unleashes a powerful hoover.

Shadow Weaver and Grizzlor break into a retired wizard’s house, and – despite his warnings of danger – steal an artefact called the Moon Mirror. In the Fright Zone, Hordak congratulates Shadow Weaver on her unexpected competence and reveals his plan: when the moons are aligned, the Moon Mirror can create a bridge between universes, so Hordak is going to use it to kidnap Prince Adam. He will then capture Adora when she comes charging to the rescue.

Shadow Weaver: “Pretty sure the background in here is where Granamyr used to live.”

Hordak achieves the first of these objectives, successfully kidnapping Adam, and even managing to steal his sword. He then sends a letter to Adora, informing her of Adam’s capture and demanding her surrender. Also included with the letter is a bomb, which might have made her surrender difficult if it had worked.

Adora, of course, heads off to the Fright Zone, after telling Bow and Glimmer that they mustn’t come with her. Once out of sight, she turns into She-Ra and flies off, managing to reach the Fright Zone’s dungeons with very little effort. Adam has been spending his time trying to reach his sword through the bars of his cage, without success, but this becomes unnecessary when She-Ra arrives and rips the door off. Adam then turns into He-Man with a faint air of irritation.

Prince Adam: “I’m literally fuming.”

Bow and Glimmer remain in the Whispering Woods, studying a map to try to work out where they can get some food. They are interrupted by the retired wizard from the first scene, who introduces himself as Cattelus. He asks for help in retrieving his Moon Mirror, informing them that if used incorrectly, the Mirror could destroy Etheria. Bow leaps at the chance and hurtles off to the Fright Zone with Cattelus, hoping to recover the Mirror and help Adora at the same time.

Learning of Adam’s escape, Hordak orders Shadow Weaver to reactivate the Mirror and kidnap King Randor. Shadow Weaver warns Hordak that the moons are no longer aligned, and so the Mirror will be uncontrollable, but being a first class nitwit, Hordak tells her to do it anyway. Naturally, Shadow Weaver can’t control the Mirror, and opens a bridge to somewhere less than pleasant identified as the Doom Dimension.

Shadow Weaver: “Properly love a good night down the Hacienda.”

It would seem that the Doom Dimension would be more appropriately named the Vacuum Cleaner Dimension, since its chief characteristic is to suck everything into it. Bow and Cattelus don’t do anything except cling desperately to pillars, while He-Man and She-Ra solve the situation by throwing an enormous statue of Hordak at the Mirror, which makes the Mirror explode.

The episode doesn’t see fit to explain what happens to Cattelus, or how He-Man gets back to Eternia, instead choosing to end with Adora back in Whispering Woods, making stupid jokes which only work if the rebels are familiar with the musical output of the Hollies, which logic would suggest they aren’t.

Glimmer: “You’re talking as if you think you’re being funny, Adora, but these jokes make literally no sense.”

 

In today’s adventure…

Today, Loo-Kee was in a shot of Whispering Woods that I don’t even recall being in the episode. Obviously, I didn’t see him. He yammers on to us about safety, specifically mentioning knives, tools and matches as examples of things in the house that might hurt us. I assume this was supposed to be vaguely linked to the baddies not using the Moon Mirror safely, but in that case, surely Loo-Kee should have mentioned magical artefacts in his list of unsafe household objects.

 

Character checklist

Well, as you’ll have surely deduced by now, we have another guest appearance by Prince Adam and He-Man today. Teela also puts in a showing. The regulars are Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Glimmer, Bow, Loo-Kee, Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Grizzlor, and some Horde Troopers. Cattelus is the one hit wonder.

Bow: “I don’t know, Glimmer. It’s a nice enough table, but I’m sure we could get a cheaper one at Ikea.”

 

Excuse given for Adora and Adam’s disappearances

Bow asks He-Man and She-Ra where Adam and Adora are; He-Man seems only capable of smirking in a stupid way, while She-Ra gives the most minimal reply possible: “Safe.”

I know I’ve been down this road before, but I really do have to wonder about this secret identity business. Okay, maybe it’s plausible for Adora and She-Ra to be different people, in the eyes of the rebels, but surely they can put two and two together that He-Man only seems to come to Etheria when Prince Adam does?

 

Insults

Hordak addresses his letter to “the traitorous outlaw rebel Adora”. Otherwise, there’s nothing to report here, unless we really want to stretch a point and allow He-Man’s description of the Hordak statue as an “ugly monument”.

He-Man: “Ugly it may be, but a genuine collector’s item too.”

 

Oh No, Bow!

Bow claims he’ll cause a distraction so he and Cattelus can break into the Fright Zone. What he actually does is cause a rock fall that nearly kills him and Cattelus. Remarkably, Bow seems to consider this a success.

 

Does it have the Power?

I felt like I was watching a vastly improved version of the previous episode, Friendship. It’s exactly the same plot, even following several of the same story points: for example, the Horde sending Adora a letter, and Bow being told to wait behind and then coming anyway. Still, it somehow had a lot more pizzazz to it, possibly because the person being rescued was Prince Adam and not some random “friend” who we’d never seen before and doubtless will never see again. The final crisis with the Doom Dimension was also much more interesting than the grand finale to Friendship, whatever that was. I can’t even remember now.

She-Ra: “Putting my hairdryer on full strength was possibly a mistake.”

This is probably as good a place to mention as any, but I’m still waiting for most of the Rebellion to play anything other than a supporting role. Bow, of course, is getting a fair amount of screen time, but it does seem like the writers don’t know what to do with Glimmer, Madame Razz or any of the others. Additionally, the opening credits say that someone called Light Hope knows Adora’s secret identity; why have we not even met this Light Hope individual yet?

Episode 14 – Friendship

In which She-Ra falls for a dead obvious trap.

Kowl is flapping about in Whispering Woods, trying to get Bow and Adora to join in with him as he mercilessly takes the piss out of Madame Razz. Bow seems up for this, but Adora is busier reading a letter while standing in a really weird pose that seems designed specifically to stick her arse in Bow’s direction, though God knows why she’d want to do that. The letter is from Lani, one of Adora’s old friends from when she was in the Horde, and I’ve got to say, it seems a little odd that there’s a regular postal service running between the Rebellion and the Horde.

Bow: “Yeah, Adora, I don’t normally stand like that while reading letters.”

It turns out that Hordak blames Lani for Adora’s treachery, and is thus going to send her to the slave mines on Hordeworld. Adora – who can’t see an obvious trap even when it’s right in front of her nose – decides to rescue Lani, and turns into She-Ra. She mounts Swift Wind and off they fly to the Fright Zone. Naturally, despite being told to wait in Whispering Woods, Bow follows along behind, with the intention, if not the ability, to help.

She-Ra and Swift Wind reach the Fright Zone, only pausing to heal the wing of an injured tyrosaur on the way. Once inside, She-Ra turns back into Adora and wanders around until she finds Lani, who immediately betrays her and summons Hordak. Didn’t see that coming. Shadow Weaver knocks Adora’s sword from her hand, and she is taken into custody, amid much idiotic snorting from everyone’s least favourite pig imitator.

Hordak: “This is an A1 awesome plan, lads.”

So it’s Bow to the rescue, which means that the entire series comes to an ignominious end right now. To his credit, he does manage to reach the room where Adora is being held captive, but then gets knocked out by a blast of sleeping gas from Hordak’s stupid arm cannon. Luckily, Kowl manages to snatch the power sword and fly away, while Hordak crows that he will be sending Adora and Bow to Beast Island. Given Beast Island is a less than secure prison that featured two jailbreaks in the space of 6 episodes, I don’t imagine anyone’s too worried about this threat.

Once they reach Beast Island, Hordak starts up on that old chestnut of brainwashing Adora to serve the Horde again. I’m genuinely surprised he still considers this a good idea. Before he can get to that stage, though, Kowl brings Adora her sword, and it’s time for She-Ra to start stomping her way through the prison again. After She-Ra rescues Bow, Lani reappears in the episode. She only betrayed Adora in the first place so that Hordak would release her father from prison, so She-Ra naturally forgives her, especially once she learns that Hordak has gone back on the deal.

The next step, of course, is to find and free Lani’s father. There’s a brief diversion for a ludicrous fight in which Hordak is only defeated because he’s sufficiently idiotic to turn his arm into an electric fan, which leads to his downfall. Once that’s attended to, we are treated to some stupid antics in which She-Ra surfs on light beams, or something. I wasn’t invested in this scene to pay enough attention, really. Suffice it to say, Lani’s father is rescued, and Hordak is cross.

Hordak: “This will work to defeat She-Ra, provided she’s terrified of air-conditioning.”

Our heroes manage to escape the prison, but quickly come under attack from all the eponymous beasts of Beast Island. Luckily, that tyrosaur from earlier shows up, in a twist ending that I definitely didn’t see coming, no sir. As a thank you for She-Ra healing its wing, the tyrosaur carries them all off the island and to safety.

 

In today’s adventure…

I think part of my problem with Loo-Kee is that I forget to look for him until it’s halfway through the episode, and he’s usually hiding in the opening scene or shortly thereafter. In today’s case, he was messing about in the Fright Zone early on, not long before She-Ra had a gratuitous fight with some kind of squid thing.

Loo-Kee: “I’m not sure why I’m always hiding, to be honest.”

Anyway, Loo-Kee informs us that teachers, doctors, policemen and our parents are all our special friends, but he doesn’t go any further in attempting to turn this into a life lesson. I don’t know what to take away from this, and I certainly don’t know why doctors and policemen have been lumped in with our special friends, whereas – for example – farmers, builders, or officials from the Department for Work and Pensions haven’t.

 

Character checklist

Always a pleasure to spend some time in the company of Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Bow, Kowl, Madame Razz, Broom, Loo-Kee, Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Grizzlor and some Horde Troopers. It’s also a pleasure to meet Lani and her dad.

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

She-Ra is rude enough to ignore Grizzlor when he directly asks where Adora is, which isn’t very good role model behaviour. On the other hand, when Lani starts talking about Adora a minute later, She-Ra responds, “She’s safe.”

Kowl: “She-Ra, the interior decorator around here did a really bad job.”

 

Insults

It’s all Hordak again this week, though nothing earth-shattering. The best is probably “stupid bird” directed at Kowl, though he also offers “fool” for a Horde Trooper and “traitor” for Adora.

 

Oh No, Bow!

I don’t know what he could have done to avoid it, but Bow does get knocked out by the sleeping gas. He’s also less than effective at busting himself out of his jail cell, but in complete fairness, he hadn’t actually started trying yet before She-Ra came barrelling in, thus sparing him the effort.

Bow: “Look how manly I am.”

 

Does it have the Power?

It’s one of those decidedly average affairs, which doesn’t really warrant a good kicking, but equally doesn’t deserve much in the way of praise. The problem, I think, was that everything was crushingly predictable. I knew Lani’s letter would be a trap, and I knew that the tyrosaur would help to save the day in the end. I also knew Hordak would be stupid enough to go back on his deal with Lani – seriously, I know this helps the audience to spot that he’s evil, but it’s really no way to build loyalty among his troops. Essentially, I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s not worryingly bad.

Episode 13 – King Miro’s Journey

In which we spend some time with Adora and Adam’s grandpa.

We open with a real treat this week – a panning shot of the Palace of Eternia! It brought back memories of happier days. In Eternia’s equivalent of the National Portrait Gallery, a man shows a child the portraits of past kings, and takes the opportunity to recap the plot of the He-Man episode Search for the Past, in which He-Man and King Randor rescued Randor’s father King Miro from the clutches of the Enchantress.

King Miro himself now shows up, and asks Prince Adam to take him to meet Adora, who he has not seen since she was a baby. Adam agrees, and with the off screen assistance of the Sorceress, they arrive on Etheria, only to quickly antagonise a group of Horde Troopers. Though Adam and Miro quickly win the ensuing battle, the Horde Troopers follow them into Whispering Woods. We are led to believe that this is a problem, but it’s actually not; the Twiggets arrange for the Troopers to get lost pretty smartish.

Prince Adam: “Erm, Grandpa? I’m not sure that potato is going to intimidate the Horde Troopers.”

The two of them soon locate the Rebellion’s camp, where Adora and Madame Razz are making preparations to disrupt a forthcoming visit from a Horde Inspector. Miro tells Adora that there’s so much he wants to tell her, and Adora responds that there’s so much she wants to ask. They then do no telling or asking of anything, instead going back to wittering about the Inspector, whom they decide to attack at a location called Crystal Something or Other.

Meanwhile, Hordak and Shadow Weaver greet the Inspector, but he brushes off their obsequiousness and informs them that Horde Prime is not pleased with the continuing success of the Rebellion. He further explains that he has a plan for the defeat of the rebels, which involves establishing an impenetrable crystal dome around Whispering Woods, to prevent the rebels ever getting out. Hordak is not pleased at this, largely because he hates inspectors more than he does rebels, and no doubt he isn’t keen for the Inspector to take all the credit.

Inspector: “You can bow all you like, Hordak, but we’re still going to need to discuss that debacle with Horde Prime’s nephew from last week.”

In the morning, preparing for their attack on the Inspector, Adam and Adora send King Miro off with Madame Razz, which just shows how much they really like him. They then transform into He-Man and She-Ra simultaneously, and the two transformation sequences are cut together just as awkwardly as they were back in Battle for Bright Moon.

The Inspector successfully activates the crystal dome generator, surrounding Whispering Woods. King Miro and Madame Razz then show up, and Miro starts criticising Hordak, possibly calculating that while he’s stuck behind a crystal dome, nothing untoward can happen to him. This proves incorrect; Hordak sets a bunch of robotic bats on him, which serves him right, as far as I’m concerned. Still, Miro manages to defeat the bats using a mirror. King Mirror, if you will.

King Miro: “I’m not the best zoo exhibit, being honest.”

In the meantime, He-Man and She-Ra discover the crystal dome, and don’t opt for the usual “punch it really hard” tactic, instead choosing to try something slightly more intelligent: He-Man lifts it up, and She-Ra balances it on the tip of her sword to carry it away. The episode doesn’t show us where she put it, but I like to think she put it over the Fright Zone.

King Miro decides that it’s now time for him to return to Eternia, even though he’d really like to stay. He doesn’t give any explanation as to why he has to go back, since he’s not exactly doing anything that important there, and he’s shown himself today to be more useful than the majority of the rebels. Once he and Adam have left, Adora goes for a joyride on Spirit, spouting some remarkable gibberish about not wanting to fly in case she crashes into her heart, which is soaring. Clearly she’s been at Madame Razz’s stash of LSD again.

Adora: “Definitely might crash into my heart. That’s well plausible, that is.”

 

In today’s adventure…

No, I didn’t see Loo-Kee, which I’m sure will come as a tremendous surprise to you. He was in the Eternian Palace courtyard, in case you want to know. His moral drawn from this episode is that family is the most important thing in your life. He emphasises “your” in a really weird way, implying that he has far more important things in his life, but we don’t.

 

Character checklist

Some less regular attendees today, as I’m sure you’ll have guessed. Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Madame Razz, Broom, Loo-Kee, the Twiggets, Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Mantenna and the Horde Troopers are standard fare, but Adam, He-Man, King Miro, the Horde Inspector, and the man and the boy in Eternia’s Portrait Gallery are variety, and thus a treat for the eyes.

He-Man: “Oh, do stop trying to upstage me with that bloody unicorn, She-Ra.”

 

Excuse given for Adora and Adam’s disappearances

“Only She-Ra can talk to the animals,” says Adora, as she prepares to interrogate a bird over suspected Horde activities in an early scene. Later on, when Adam and Adora transform together, they don’t give excuses, being too excited over the prospect of changing at the same time.

 

Insults

Surprisingly slim pickings today, with only Hordak making a contribution at all, referring to all his Horde Troopers as “clowns” and calling the Inspector a “coward”.

 

Does it have the Power?

I very much doubt that anyone had been wondering what had happened to King Miro after the less than enthralling events of Search for the Past, but this was a pretty decent return performance for him. Miro has a distinct air of competence about him, and is a well-drawn character who refuses to be intimidated by the Horde, even when he’s at a clear disadvantage. It strikes me that he’d be a better king than Randor, frankly, who I can only remember achieving anything once (in Prince Adam No More, if you must know).

King Miro: “Come on, don’t try to tell me you don’t love skulking round portrait galleries dressed as Robin Hood.”

It’s also very pleasing to see Adam and He-Man again; I knew we would at some stage, but wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon. The simple but effective plot with the Inspector was good as well, especially since it gave some much needed character to Hordak: his dislike for the Inspector was very good, and it led to an amusing recurring joke in which he repeatedly threw Mantenna down a trapdoor just to cheer himself up. All in all, this one’s recommended.

Episode 12 – The Laughing Dragon

In which we learn that Bow looks rather fetching in a dress.

We open in a town called Elboron, which the Rebellion has just liberated from Horde oppression. As the Mayor gives a super-long speech thanking the rebels, Bow gets bored and wanders off. In no time at all, he manages to cause a massive crisis by igniting a fuel tank left behind by the Horde. Luckily, She-Ra is on hand to create a whirlwind, which picks up the jet of flame and drops it in a lake. This is as plausible as it sounds.

Kowl: “Bow, don’t you realise by now that literally every decision you make is incorrect?”

She-Ra barely has time to return to Elboron, turn back into Adora, and dispense some harsh words to Bow, before a dragon pops up from underground. Luckily, the dragon in question is Sorrowful, but unluckily, this would appear to be Sorrowful’s first appearance, so no one knows he’s a nice dragon. Would it really be so hard for these episodes to be shown in the order they were clearly intended?

Even without the fact that technically they ought to know this already from two weeks ago, it doesn’t take Bow and Adora long to realise that Sorrowful isn’t a threat. They promise to be his friend, on condition that he doesn’t go round destroying towns, and they all decide to go to visit a lady called Castaspella, who may be able to magic up some courage for Sorrowful.

Castaspella turns out to be that nameless lady rebel from The Prisoners of Beast Island, so thank Christ we solved that little mystery. Despite initial misgivings, Castaspella is persuaded to carry out a ritual to enhance Sorrowful’s courage. She tries twice, but in both cases fails entirely. I’m sure even Madame Razz could do better than this.

Castaspella: “Adora, stop blocking the bloody camera. This is my moment to shine.”

Unbeknownst to our heroes, right at this moment, Leech and Mantenna are engaged in a nefarious plot to build a road through Castaspella’s territory. I’m not entirely sure why this is such an evil thing to do, but Hordak certainly seems to think it’s pretty damn dastardly, so we’ll go along with it for now. Anyway, eventually Castaspella gets wind of the new road, and hurtles off to prevent this dreadful outbreak of infrastructure. She-Ra, Bow and Sorrowful come too, the latter reluctantly.

Bow is pretty confident that the Horde will run away as soon as they see Sorrowful, but he doesn’t known that Hordak’s pet Imp has been spying on them all afternoon, and knows exactly how cowardly Sorrowful is. When confronted by the rebels, therefore, Leech and Mantenna don’t really care, and it takes a nonsensical pep talk from She-Ra for Sorrowful to summon up the courage to breathe fire all over the Horde Road Building Team.

The episode concludes with She-Ra, Bow and Castaspella congratulating Sorrowful on his amazing performance, just like the other episode with Sorrowful did. This one’s slightly different, however, since for no readily apparent reason an army of blue-faced bipedal rabbits have turned up to offer their congratulations as well. That’s not the most unexpected thing though, believe it or not – what really caught me by surprise was She-Ra telling Bow he was terrific, and kissing him full on the lips.

Rabbits: “No, we don’t really know why we’re here either.”

 

In today’s adventure…

I found Loo-Kee today! Just joking. I couldn’t see the little bastard anywhere. I don’t even care where he was, and I don’t care about what he’s got to say for himself either. On the off chance that you do, though, he said that you can always find courage in your heart. Ra ra ra.

 

Character checklist

Who’s Who in Etheria this time brings to the table Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Bow, Kowl, Castaspella, Sorrowful, Loo-Kee, Hordak, Leech, Mantenna, Imp, some Horde Troopers, some villagers, and some rabbits.

Leech: “Come on guys, jazz hands!”

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

Adora pops behind a tree and mutters, “No one will see us here,” though that’s hardly an excuse. Still, it’s the best we get, and does at least supply lip-service to the notion of secrecy. While we’re on the subject, I expect Bow would like some more lip-service.

 

Insults

A fairly subtle insult starts us off today. When Bow tells Sorrowful, “You are now as brave and gallant as I,” Kowl immediately nips in with the smart comment, “Of course, that’s not saying that much.”

Sorrowful: “Great. As brave as Bow. Forgive me for not looking more pleased.”

Otherwise, we learn that Leech is not a big fan of the circus, judging from the fact that he refers to all our heroes as “rebel clowns”, and shortly thereafter addresses Sorrowful to call him a “clown” as well. As if that weren’t enough, he also calls Sorrowful a “lily-livered reptile”. Fortunately, Sorrowful doesn’t make any oblique references to S&M in response, instead simply calling Leech a “grump”.

 

Oh No, Bow!

Granted, there was no way he could have known it was going to happen, but I don’t think I can fail to mention that it’s Bow who’s responsible for igniting the fuel tank in Elboron.

It’s also worth noting that when Sorrowful first appears, Bow – in a misguided effort to save her – drags Adora into a cottage, preventing her from becoming She-Ra. He then exacerbates his failure by putting on a pair of fake breasts and a dress, and draping a towel over his head. Still wearing the dress, he exits the cottage and introduces himself to Sorrowful by saying, “I’m a man.” Bow is quite possibly the most confusingly insane character in any programme I’ve ever watched.

Bow: “No further comment.”

 

Does it have the Power?

Yes, I suppose so. As mentioned above, it really could have done with being aired before The Prisoners of Beast Island, because it’s just stupid for our heroes to know who Sorrowful was two weeks ago and not know him now. It would also be better if there was a space of more than two weeks between the episodes, because they’re essentially the same storyline. Still, judging this one on its own merits, and not by its placement in the running order, it’s a pretty solid entry, despite the weird bits about the Horde building roads and the unexpected and unnecessary arrival of the rabbit army.