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?