Episode 14 – The Frozen Forest

In which Glimmer learns that it’s worth pretending to be nice to get what you want.

It’s business as usual in Whispering Woods, with the rebels all beating up Horde robots while Adora continues training in the Crystal Castle with Light Hope. This training has been underway for a month, and Adora is growing despondent: her performance hasn’t improved, and she’s concerned that she’ll either never be able to beat Catra, or will repeat the mistakes made by the previous She-Ra.

While Adora’s obsessing over her lack of progress, the other rebels are growing increasingly irritated with Frosta, who’s morphed from being entirely uninterested in participating in the rebellion to being ridiculously overinvested. She’s particularly getting on Glimmer’s nerves, having apparently decided that Glimmer is her new best friend.

Frosta: “Okay, I can kind of see how I might be a bit annoying.”

Over in the Fright Zone, Catra, Entrapta and Scorpia watch a video of the rebels defeating the Horde robots, concluding that the robots could do with improvement. Catra suggests simply sending more and more droids to keep the rebels busy while the Horde conquers the planet, but Entrapta is a little more devious: she designs and builds a more powerful droid which she claims has enough power to rival a princess. This might be bad news if the princess in question is She-Ra, but less so if it’s the ever-useless Perfuma.

At the first meeting of the rebels’ council, Bow notes that the Horde are continuing to send masses of robots against the Whispering Woods, and suggests that it might be a good idea to capture a robot and try to reverse-engineer it to identify a weakness that might let the rebels deactivate all the droids in one go. Queen Angela is happy with the idea, and assigns Adora, Bow, Glimmer, Mermista, Perfuma and Swift Wind to carry it out.

Queen Angela: “Yes, yes, you can go and capture some bots. Anything to get you out of the Palace.”

Naturally, of course, our heroes come up against Entrapta’s new and improved bots, and are utterly trounced by them in a battle. Luckily, the bots aren’t on the offensive: their mission is to head to the beacon and retrieve more First Ones technology, and they aren’t programmed to waste time smashing the rebels into strawberry jam. Even so, She-Ra doesn’t really want them stealing more technology, so she sets out to prevent them.

The only problem is, of course, that She-Ra and co have already learned they’re no match for the new bots, so they’re forced to ask Frosta for help, which is awkward as they’ve spent the last 20 minutes or so telling her to piss off. Fortunately, Frosta doesn’t hold grudges, and with her assistance, they manage to capture one of the bots. The final scene has Bow beginning to dismantle it, at which point he recognises the craftsmanship and realises that Entrapta must be alive.

Bow: “Ground Control to Major Tom…”

In today’s adventure…

Glimmer learns the hard way that she shouldn’t tell people to get lost before she’s fully assessed how much they’re worth to her. Genuinely, she only makes friends with Frosta because she needs to. I think we’re supposed to see this as recognising that everybody has something to contribute, but it just comes across as Glimmer being something of a sociopath.

Character checklist

Pretty much everyone’s here this week: Adora, She-Ra, Glimmer, Bow, Frosta, Perfuma, Mermista, Swift Wind, Light Hope, Queen Angela, Castaspella, Spinnerella, Netossa, Catra, Entrapta, Scorpia, Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Kyle, Lonnie, the green lizard Horde cadet, and not forgetting the Horde Troopers, of course.

Spinnerella: “You okay there, Swift Wind? You’re looking a little psychotic.”

Insults

Fairly mundane for the most part: Perfuma calls a Horde droid a “robot-face”, and Frosta’s effort is along the same lines, offering “bot-face” to one of Entrapta’s improved robot models. Shadow Weaver elevates the material a bit, calling Catra a “lazy worthless creature”.

Oh No, Bow!

While it’s admirable that Bow is willing to welcome Frosta into the Best Friend Squad, it should probably be noted that he’s seemingly entirely tone deaf to Glimmer’s irritation with her. The word ‘tactless’ springs to mind, as it does so often when discussing Bow.

Does it have the Power?

This episode could probably best be described as a holding pattern: we’re reintroduced to the series concept and all the characters in a pretty simple story that eases us back into the She-Ra world after the season break. The storyline doesn’t advance much; Entrapta’s new bots seeking First Ones tech seemed like a distraction rather than a likely ongoing plot thread – though I could be wrong – and I suspect that Frosta’s integration into the group is now complete. I hope so anyway, because she’s my least favourite of the princesses by some distance, being rather shrill and irritating, so I’d rather not spend any more time on her. That means the only real development is Bow’s discovery that Entrapta didn’t die in No Princess Left Behind after all, and it’s certainly going to be interesting to see how the rebels react to the fact that Entrapta has now joined the Horde.

All in all, I think we’ll say that this is a pleasant enough but certainly not essential instalment, which is much as you might expect for being the first in the second season. Hopefully plot wheels will begin spinning again soon and the series will be back to the high points of last season soon.