Episode 32 – The Price of Deceit

In which Evil-Lyn and Skeletor remember all the good times.

Evil-Lyn is on the run, trying to evade Skeletor and his forces long enough to reach her father, the Faceless One, the previous guardian of the Ramstone. Sadly, she is cornered just before reaching the Faceless One’s sanctuary, and because he cannot step outside his walls, he is unable to help as Evil-Lyn is taken into custody and led away to the Pool of Shadows, which acts as a gateway to a mysterious location called the Forsaken Realm.

Evil-Lyn: “Think that was one tequila slammer too many last night.”

The Faceless One does, however, contact Prince Adam and Man-at-Arms. He informs them that Skeletor is intending to send a living being through the Pool of Shadows, though he doesn’t specify who the living being in question is. He further adds that if Skeletor succeeds, it will result in a whole world of nastiness being unleashed upon Eternia. Adam and Man-at-Arms are unsure if the Faceless One can be trusted, but on the off chance, Adam turns into He-Man and scoots off.

On his way, He-Man is ambushed by a welcoming committee composed of Two Bad and Beast-Man, so he wastes his time indulging in a spot of mindless violence aimed in their direction. Because He-Man’s too busy beating merry hell out of these imbeciles, it’s left to Evil-Lyn to try to save herself. This she does by distracting Skeletor with reminiscences of their past happy life together, which we get to see in flashback.

Thus it is that we learn that Evil-Lyn is responsible for keeping Keldor alive after Randor burned his face off with acid in The Beginning, Part 1. It seems she took Keldor to some weird cave, where he was able to contact Hordak. Hordak – fortunately talking like a normal person and not a prize porker – then transformed Keldor into Skeletor, and seemingly drove him completely bats in so doing.

Hordak: “I’ll probably turn myself into a cannon or a unicycle or something in a minute. Just wait for it.”

Such happy memories are not enough to dissuade Skeletor, however, who begins to lower Evil-Lyn into the Pool of Shadows. Just in the nick of time, He-Man finally gets fed up of pummelling Beast-Man, and shows up to rescue Evil-Lyn. And that would be that, if it weren’t for the fact that a big slimy demon from the Forsaken Realm has already emerged from the Pool, and addresses Skeletor to inform him that someone must now be offered as a sacrifice.

Skeletor senses an opportunity and suggests that maybe the demon would like to snack on He-Man and Evil-Lyn. He-Man, on the other hand, thinks this is an outstandingly bad idea, and since He-Man’s the Most Powerful Man in the Universe (TM), what he says goes. He-Man defeats the demon by chopping off its tentacles and stabbing it in the eye, which is nice, and for good measure he closes the Pool of Shadows to prevent Skeletor trying anything so slippery again.

He-Man: “Don’t know why I bother with this, to be honest.”

Evil-Lyn expresses her gratitude to He-Man by blasting him with a bolt of energy, which puts him out of action while she makes her peace with Skeletor. It seems that rescuing him from beneath a block of rubble is sufficient to get her back on his good side, and she is welcomed back to Snake Mountain with only a warning that she must never pull another such stunt again.

Meanwhile, down in the abyss surrounding Castle Grayskull, King Hiss is plotting his return, punctuated with an evil laugh. Frankly, given he’s already returned twice in this series and been singularly unsuccessful both times, I wasn’t exactly quaking in my boots at the prospect.

In today’s adventure…

Today, He-Man learned quite definitively that it’s not worth doing any favours for Evil-Lyn, and Evil-Lyn learned that it is worth doing favours for Skeletor. Quite what this teaches the viewer, I don’t know: perhaps the very realistic life lesson that it’s sometimes but not always worth doing people favours.

Evil-Lyn: “You know your problem, He-Man? You’re too damn cocky.”

Character checklist

Parading themselves around the screen for our delight and delectation today are Prince Adam, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man, Tri-Klops, Trapjaw, Two Bad, Mer-Man, the Faceless One, Hordak, King Hiss, Tung Lashor and Squeeze.

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Nothing offered, nothing gained.

Insults

Skeletor describes his one-time foes as “those wretched Snake Men”, which doesn’t perhaps sound as insulting as he meant it. I feel like if someone had invaded my house, turned all my friends to stone, and got me eaten by a giant red snake, I’d be calling them something more vehement than “wretched”, which is an epithet I reserve largely for mildly annoying things like the supermarket being out of salt and vinegar crisps, or the reliability of the Southwestern Railways service.

Skeletor: “Those wretched Snake Men have got me almost cross.”

Anyway, in one of the flashbacks, Trapjaw calls Evil-Lyn a “girlie”, which I don’t think he’d dare to do now. He-Man describes Skeletor as a “bonehead”, and Skeletor says that He-Man is a “muscle-bound meddler”. Both of these latter two insults demonstrate reliably that this is an episode written by one of the former Filmation team.

Does it have the Power?

It’s got the Power, and then some. As well as being a continuity geek’s dream – what with the appearances of Keldor and Hordak, and the filling in of the back story around how Skeletor came to exist – it’s also got an exciting storyline with an incredibly Filmation feel to it, especially in the portrayal of He-Man. The characters are well-drawn, and there’s some real life to the episode, which – despite telling a quite dark tale – is filled with moments of gentle humour. It’s also good to have an episode that focuses on just a few key characters, after all the epics we’ve had lately featuring everyone. All in all, this is a real highlight, and we could do with more episodes on this level, please.

I hate to say it, but we’re going back into hibernation for a while now. These reviews were written about 5 years ago, and it takes only about 20 minutes to prep each one for publication, but I don’t seem to have time for even that at the moment. Still, I fully intend to have reached the end of this series by the spring, so hang in there.

Episode 31 – Rise of the Snake Men, Part 2

In which King Hiss proves to not be that much trouble, tbh.

And we’re straight back into the action again, picking up with He-Man and his colleagues after their defeat last time. They’re still hanging around in the environs of Snake Mountain, and are joined by Zodak, who informs them that King Hiss is now free. We’re then treated to a surprise twist in which it is revealed that Zodak deliberately allowed Kobra Khan, Rattlor and Evil-Lyn to defeat him and steal the key to the Void. This is because King Hiss killed Zodak’s brother, so he now wants vengeance, though he doesn’t explain why he didn’t simply get vengeance years ago instead of putting the Snake Men in the Void in the first place.

He-Man: “Good one, you massive halfwit.”

Meanwhile, in Snake Mountain, Evil-Lyn is introduced to King Hiss. After learning that she helped to release the Snake Men, King Hiss states that she is to be honoured – but unfortunately, the Snake Men seem to consider it an honour to be eaten by King Hiss. Evil-Lyn isn’t enamoured of this notion, and manages to buy herself some time by offering to show King Hiss where he can find the power of the Elders.

He-Man and Zodak waste a fair bit of time pointlessly punching each other over who gets to battle King Hiss, but eventually they are distracted by the sight of an army of Snake Men marching out of Snake Mountain en route to Castle Grayskull. They decide to work together, so along with Man-at-Arms, Teela, Mechaneck and Stratos, they toddle off to intercept the Snake Men. Zodak still travels in that ridiculous flying chair of his, which for some reason I have always found one of the most implausible features of the entire He-Man universe.

Zodak: “Nothing stupid about this.”

Team He-Man takes up a defensive position outside Grayskull, while the Sorceress adopts an I’m-all-right-Jack manoeuvre by putting up a protective forcefield around the castle. Just as well she does, though: when the Snake Men arrive, they prove capable of defeating our heroes in less than 40 seconds. Though I suppose when you’re relying on incompetent idiots like Mechaneck and Man-at-Arms, this shouldn’t be that surprising.

With He-Man out of action, Zodak knocked for six, and the others barely worth speaking of, King Hiss and Evil-Lyn are free to approach the castle, where they combine their magic to break in. Once the jawbridge is down, Evil-Lyn is pushed aside by Rattlor and Snake Face, who trot inside with King Hiss. Coming upon the Sorceress on her throne, they are actually slowed down by her unexpectedly spirited resistance, but in the end, she is defeated and given a good strong dose of snake venom.

King Hiss: “It’s never a good look to get defeated by the Sorceress.”

King Hiss descends to the lower levels to find the power of the Elders, but leaves Rattlor and Snake Face behind to guard the poisoned Sorceress. This proves to be a wise move, since shortly thereafter, He-Man and Zodak come waltzing in. He-Man overpowers the two guards and even manages to turn Snake Face to stone using the reflection in his shield, while Zodak follows King Hiss, defeats him, and hurls him into the abyss surrounding Grayskull.

This – not unnaturally – proves to be rather bad for the Snake Men army’s morale, though their reaction is a little bit extreme. By which I mean that they all run to the edge of the jawbridge and jump off. While this display of solidarity presumably gratifies King Hiss to some extent, he’d probably prefer it if the Snake Men had actually done some work to rectify the situation, rather than undeniably making it worse.

Kobra Khan: “Right lads, who brought the parachutes?”

Never mind. I suppose the story needed to end somehow. With the Snake Men now rechristening themselves Lemming Men and plunging to their doom in the abyss, Snake Mountain returns to its original appearance and Skeletor finds himself free. He reverses Snake Face’s stone spell on his followers (including Mer-Man, who is reassembled), and vows revenge on Evil-Lyn. I think she’d be well advised to keep a low profile for a while. Back at Grayskull, He-Man heals the Sorceress using the power of the Elders, while Zodak fucks off in his stupid flying chair.

In today’s adventure…

It’s a vague little treatise on the importance of working together this week, as demonstrated by Zodak and He-Man having their pointless barney at the beginning of the episode, rather than getting down to business. Once they actually turned their attention to King Hiss, it barely took a minute to defeat him.

Zodak: “No thank you, I don’t need any help from half-naked fruit loops.”

Character checklist

I’m getting bored with typing out billions of names each week, but luckily it’s a slightly smaller list this time: He-Man, Battle-Cat, Zodak, the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Mechaneck, Stratos, King Hiss, Kobra Khan, Rattlor, Snake Face, Squeeze, Tung Lashor, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man, Mer-Man, Tri-Klops, Clawful and Stinkor. And loads of other Snake Men, though I don’t know their names.

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Adam isn’t seen or mentioned this week, so no excuses, I’m afraid.

Insults

Man-at-Arms gets in a two-for-one near the beginning of the episode, commenting that “Skeletor’s not only evil, he’s a fool.” Naturally, he doesn’t have the courage to say this to Skeletor’s face (or lack of face, I suppose).

Man-at-Arms: “Pretty sick burn, huh?”

Does it have the Power?

Yes indeed. It’s a satisfactory conclusion to last week’s exciting opener, giving us an exciting and action-packed story that keeps us interested despite the many fight scenes. The various factions now in play on Eternia give the opportunity for plenty more interesting stories – since I for one don’t believe for a moment that King Hiss and the Snake Men are gone for good. The cartoon has spent too much effort on building them up – and there were far too many action figures released – for them to be done with now. Maybe they won’t be back for a little while, though, which is fine, because I’m looking forward to seeing the fallout between Skeletor and Evil-Lyn. In summary, I found this a most entertaining episode, with a truly epic feel, and I recommend it very much.