In which we get numerous vaguely linked plotlines, none of which work.
When white dog-like ghosts begin running at night through the rebel camp, plant life starts to wither and die. The rebels discover a gold locket, imprinted with the crest of the Green Island Kingdom, and so Adora sends Madame Razz and Broom off to the Green Islands to seek answers. Once Madame Razz has gone, however, Adora encounters the ghosts herself, and discovers them to be simply white dogs, accompanied by a ghostly white female.
This is apparently sufficient provocation to warrant a transformation into She-Ra, and there follows a weird sequence in which She-Ra doesn’t seem to know what to do about the dogs, so she waits until they nearly fall off a cliff and then leaps in to save them. She then meets a collection of woodcutters, who blame the white dogs for the dying trees. This entire scene tells us nothing we didn’t already know, and I’m tempted to delete this paragraph, but I’ve put quite a bit of effort into writing it, so I won’t.
Madame Razz returns and makes her report to Adora and Bow. The locket belongs to Princess Allegra of the Green Islands, who disappeared five years ago when her sailboat was washed away in a storm. Her father, King Arbor, is very keen to find Allegra, who was only seven years old when she vanished, and so he’s on his way to Whispering Wood to find out more.
Ever aware of the need to advertise the latest action figures, Adora suggests that they go and ask Mermista about Princess Allegra, not that they have any reason to imagine she’ll know anything. As it happens, though, Mermista has the power to access the memory of any sea creature, and thus it is that she is able to reveal that Princess Allegra’s sailboat did indeed capsize, but Allegra herself was saved by a pack of white dogs.
Princess Allegra chooses this moment to make an appearance, and explains that she’s not a ghost, for those of us who were still invested in the ghost plot. She then continues her expository monologue with the information that she now lives in the forest with the white dogs, and claims the dogs are not responsible for the dying trees, for those of us who were still invested in the dying vegetation plot.
Adora and Bow take Allegra and a white dog to the rebel camp, and the episode lurches into a storyline about how Allegra seems uncivilised to other children, because she’s grown up in the forest with only some white dogs as parents. Fortunately, that doesn’t last too long before the episode has another abrupt change of heart and starts concentrating on the woodcutters chasing one of the white dogs around.
The woodcutters temporarily manage to trap the white dog, but at that very moment, the ground starts heating up and some plants die. She-Ra makes an unwelcome re-entry to the storyline at this stage, and determines that there are a load of lava tunnels running directly underneath Whispering Wood. Her solution is to divert the ocean into the tunnels to extinguish the lava, which is achieved with stunning ease.
The episode attempts to wrap its various meandering plotlines up by having King Arbor arrive and taking Allegra home. Allegra says goodbye to her white dog friends, and Adora promises that the woodcutters will leave the dogs alone in future. Then she smirks in a really silly way.
In today’s adventure…
Loo-Kee’s got the worst hiding place ever today. He’s in the middle of an empty green field, with only his stupid blue tail offering him the slightest degree of concealment. I saw him immediately. His moral is that we should always eat our vegetables, rather than any one of the many things this episode might have been trying to say, such as:
- Don’t assume people and dogs are ghosts, because they probably aren’t.
- Don’t assume girls who grew up in the forest are idiots, because they probably aren’t.
- Don’t assume She-Ra knows what she’s doing when she’s messing about with volcanoes, because she probably doesn’t.
Character checklist
This rubbish features Adora, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Bow, Kowl, Madame Razz, Broom, Glimmer, Mermista, Allegra, King Arbor, Loo-Kee, some rebels and some woodcutters.
Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance
It’s not an excuse as such, but Adora does heartily announce “Time for She-Ra!” just before transforming. Just thought you might be interested. If you’re still reading these reviews after this long, there’s a fair chance you are.
Adora’s second transformation comes with a better excuse, since she tells Bow to wait while “I head off the woodsmen.”
Insults
At the beginning, Bow discovers that all the prize-winning vegetables in his garden have withered and died, and considers that this means it’s okay to call Kowl a “featherbrain”. Otherwise, we only have some rubbish from the rebel children, one of whom says that Allegra “looks like an animal,” to which Allegra retorts, “You’re silly-looking.”
Oh No, Bow!
“I don’t get it,” announces Bow. “How could Allegra’s locket get from the Green Islands to Whispering Wood?” Well, Bow, here’s a notion: maybe someone carried it? If you can’t conceive of a method to get a small amulet from one place to another, you really are genuinely dim.
Does it have the Power?
This one really doesn’t work. The bit about ghosts doesn’t make sense, since when we first see them, Allegra and the dogs are animated entirely in white, to make them look ghostly, but later on, they just look normal. There’s no explanation as to why they looked completely white, and it can only be chalked up to a pointless exercise in misdirection. The episode’s plotline about Allegra growing up in the forest could have been interesting, but was sacrificed almost immediately in favour of a load of utter gibberish about volcanoes. The woodcutters also did not feel like a necessary inclusion. All in all, I suggest avoiding this episode.
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