Episode 45 – Taking Control

In which everyone gets some chips.

As their spaceship erratically flies back to Etheria, Adora, Glimmer and Bow have a little debrief sesh. Their main area of interest is Adora’s unexpected swordless transformation into She-Ra, an event which Adora is at a loss to explain, beyond a feeling that She-Ra was simply inside her and would come out when needed. This optimistic, if unhelpful, discussion is apparently all we’re getting for now on the She-Ra subject, but I’m sure there’ll be some mystical mumbo-jumbo later for those who really want it.

Glimmer: “We’re only letting Bow sit in the driver’s seat so we can blame him when the ship inevitably crashes, right?”

Instead, Adora heads to Catra’s room, where they have a nice chat. Sorry, I mean they have one of their regular screaming matches. Catra’s got the hump because Adora came back to rescue her despite being told not to, and Adora’s cross because Catra isn’t sufficiently grateful for said rescue. These two have a proper toxic relationship, if you ask me. The discussion ends in stalemate, and Adora stomps off to whine about it to Glimmer.

Bow interrupts to alert Adora and Glimmer that there are three Horde spaceships following them, which is just fine by me, TBH. If the Horde blasted this dysfunctional shipload of idiots to kingdom come, I might just throw a party. But of course, that doesn’t happen. Instead, they go to hide in an asteroid field, where Adora figures out that they’re being tracked via the chip Horde Prime installed in Catra’s neck.

I was afraid this would lead to another Adora/Catra slanging match, but luckily Catra quickly agrees to let Entrapta remove the chip, in a scene which shows that, yes, she and Adora do care for each other. Even so, the Horde ships continue to inflict damage on our heroes’ ship, until Adora transforms into a supercharged version of She-Ra and … GOES OUT IN SPACE WITHOUT A SPACESUIT! Hurrah – the one thing that really truly gets my goat!

She-Ra: “Definitely going to use this pic for my prog-rock album cover.”

While out there, She-Ra goes one step better and speaks, asking a Horde Trooper to tell Horde Prime that “this is from me”. Apparently sound can carry in a vacuum if you’re making odd threats. Anyway, she then destroys the Horde Trooper’s ship, demanding the question of how he’s supposed to convey her message. But let’s not worry about that. Super Space She-Ra saves our heroes from the Horde ships and gets back in time for tea.

Meanwhile, back on Etheria, there’s a really quite annoying subplot playing out in which King Micah suddenly starts patronising Frosta, and it’s only by their working together on a mission to retake Elberon from the Horde that he comes to respect her as a person, rather than just believing she’s a little girl. Yawn.

This subplot is unfortunately pretty tedious, which is a shame, because the backdrop against which it occurs – the discovery that the Horde have taken over the minds of the Elberon villagers – is actually quite creepy. While King Micah and Frosta may have ruined it this time, there’s always the chance that the Horde controlling the minds of the Etherian population may prove interesting in the weeks to come – especially since the episode ends with the revelation that Spinnerella has now been chipped…

King Micah: “Frosta, tell me honestly – could I have been any more irritating this week?”

In today’s adventure…

Well, I suppose what we learned this week is King Micah’s showing that if you want to be friends with children, don’t be patronising. It’s a shame he had to have a complete personality transplant in order for this lesson to be demonstrated, but never mind.

Character checklist

The main participants this time are Adora, She-Ra, Glimmer, Bow, Catra, Entrapta, Swift Wind, Frosta, King Micah, Spinnerella and Netossa. There are walk-on roles for Wrong Hordak, a selection of Elberon villagers, and some Horde Troopers. Horde Prime appears when Catra sees flashes of the hive mind.

Elberon villager: “Yes, yes, we only appear when background weirdos are needed.”

Insults

Okay, so this one’s got far more insults than pretty much any other episode of this series. Catra doles out a full 50% of them, all aimed at the core team: she revives “Sparkles” for Glimmer, says that Adora is “even dumber than [she] thought”, and inexplicably refers to Bow as “Aero boy”, which might make sense if he’d ever shown any predilection for gobbling down bubbly chocolate, but if he has, that particular characterisation has escaped me.

Adora retaliates by describing Catra as a “stubborn brat”, and rather less effectively, says that she herself is an “idiot”. Here’s a tip, Adora: when someone’s insulting you, don’t join in. Anyway, the final barb of the week comes from Frosta, who disparagingly addresses King Micah as an “old man”.

Oh No, Bow!

Delighted at their escape from Horde Prime, Glimmer offers to make a special dinner for the gang. Instead of being enthusiastic about this prospect, Bow gives Glimmer a right side eye and implies that she’s the worst cook in the galaxy. I thought this series was supposed to be about boosting peoples’ confidence, not making them doubt their abilities. Seems Bow didn’t get the memo.

Bow: “Yeah, don’t think I’ll be eating any of your slop, Glimmer. However, I will conspicuously fail to offer to make dinner myself.”

Does it have the Power?

Another episode of two halves: the first ten minutes of this are really grating and tedious, so much so that I’d almost written it off, and it was only with a supreme effort of will that I was able to grudgingly turn my opinion around when assessing the second half. You should all be proud of me. Bet you’re not, though.

Right, enough rambling. As noted, the Frosta and King Micah plot is a letdown. Their interactions simply do not work – I’m not sure if they were meant to be funny or to make a serious point, or both, but whatever was being aimed at, the result was wide of the target by some distance. However, the wider picture, of Elberon coming under Horde Prime’s control, was pretty well done, and the final reveal that Spinnerella is now chipped is a great cliffhanger.

Spinnerella: “No, no, this isn’t a Horde chip, it’s just a cute little piercing I got down at Claire’s Accessories.”

The storyline of the space gang is similar, really. I’m completely disillusioned by now with Adora and Catra’s constant bickering: we all know these two love each other really, so it would be great if they could get with the programme and realise it too. Consequently, the first half of their storyline utterly failed to get me interested. It got far more exciting – and, coincidentally, much stupider – when She-Ra showed up and went for her crazy space walk. In the old series, I used to complain about this, but here, it’s great to see some completely off-the-wall silliness lighting up a series that’s becoming increasingly po-faced.

In short, I don’t think this episode is a winner really, but it’s not the dud it was shaping up to be either. It’s not an essential instalment either: I suspect you could skip it quite happily, and in all honesty, I would probably recommend that you do so.

Episode 44 – Save the Cat

In which it’s Catra’s turn for a bangin’ new hairstyle.

Last episode, Stranded, was so bad that it rather put me off watching any more She-Ra for a while, so now I’m in the unenviable position of not really remembering what’s going on. Let’s see if today’s episode is enlightening or entertaining, or preferably both. I can’t say I’m particularly optimistic on either score, but here we go.

We open with the spaceship arriving at Horde Prime’s HQ, where Adora allows herself to be captured as a distraction while Bow, Glimmer and Entrapta sneak aboard. They have two objectives: firstly, to rescue Catra, and secondly, to hack the computers and steal information about Horde Prime. It’s Glimmer’s role to find Catra, but on arrival at the holding cell, she discovers that Catra isn’t there.

Adora: “Someone forgot to do the colouring-in on this scene.”

Bow and Entrapta do a lot better than Glimmer: embroiled in a battle with some Hordak clones, they somehow disconnect one of them from the hive mind and sever his link with Horde Prime. This then leads to the clone (newly christened Wrong Hordak) for whatever reason deciding that he must prove his loyalty to Horde Prime by assisting Bow and Entrapta, and with his input, the two of them quickly make their way to the central computer where they attempt to begin a download.

Adora, meanwhile, is having a lovely little chat with Horde Prime, who treats us to another infodump about the First Ones. Luckily, it’s a short one this time, and he quickly moves on to a more interesting topic: that Catra has been joined to the Horde hive mind! Uh oh. She’s also got a rad new haircut, though I suspect that’s not the most immediately important thing right now.

Horde Prime: “My, what big yellow eyes you’ve got.”

Horde Prime offers to return Catra to Adora, but only in exchange for She-Ra. I’m not sure exactly how he thinks that will work, but fortunately Adora refuses the bargain, which saves everyone the trouble of working out the logistics. Instead, Horde Prime unleashes Catra to attack Adora, so it’s time for another of those exciting Adora vs. Catra set pieces that we’ve enjoyed at regular intervals throughout this series.

Meanwhile, Bow, Entrapta and Wrong Hordak come under attack from an ever-increasing army of Hordak clones; they’re temporarily saved by Glimmer, but it becomes apparent that the computer cannot be hacked in the time they have available. Glimmer instead opts to destroy the computer, which has the effect of briefly disrupting Horde Prime’s control over the hive mind. Adora is therefore able to have a heart-to-heart chat with Catra – but Horde Prime reasserts himself and forces Catra to fall from a high platform into the void below.

Adora leaps from the platform too, because of course who wouldn’t. On arrival at the bottom, she finds Catra dead and surrounded by Hordak clones. This irritates her sufficiently to provoke her into transforming into She-Ra, which somehow brings Catra back to life. She-Ra then gets in a fight with the clones before carrying Catra back to the spaceship, where she rejoins Bow, Glimmer, Entrapta and Wrong Hordak and sets a course back to Etheria.

She-Ra: “Is it just me, or do all these Hordaks look a bit catty?”

In today’s adventure…

Errrrr. The life lessons are becoming less and less apparent in this series, but I think that the scenes with Wrong Hordak were intended to convey that if you hit a guy so hard he gets amnesia, it’s absolutely fine to then convince him to help you do things that he ordinarily wouldn’t dream of doing.

Bow: “Morally ambiguous, yes, but loads of fun.”

Character checklist

Only the core team today, which is of course Adora, She-Ra, Glimmer, Bow, Catra, Entrapta and Horde Prime. There are also loads of Hordak clones, including Wrong Hordak and the original Hordak from back on Etheria, who at the end of the episode finds that pink gemstone that is somehow relevant to him.

Insults

Horde Prime tells Adora she’s a “false hero”, which isn’t a particularly great effort. Catra does much better, addressing Adora as a “fool” and an “idiot”.

Does it have the Power?

This is much better. I wouldn’t say the series is quite back on form, but it’s definitely watchable and enjoyable. I particularly liked the creepy revelation of Catra being part of the hive mind, and though I’m not convinced what followed vis-à-vis the She-Ra transformation made sense – especially not Catra’s apparent death and resurrection – it all had sufficient spark that I didn’t massively mind.

Glimmer: “Hey, Adora, we drew a moustache on Catra while she was unconscious. That’s okay, right?”

If nothing else, I’ve got to give this episode a pass for the nice homage to the original series as Bow and Entrapta attempt to find the central computer: running into a couple of Hordak clones, Bow tries to claim that they are inspectors. As we’ll all recall, this little ploy was attempted numerous times – with varying degrees of success – in the Filmation series, and it’s great fun to see it re-enacted here.

I’m glad we appear to be getting back to Etheria next time though: I don’t think this jaunt into space has really worked for me, and it’ll be good to get grounded again. Presumably Horde Prime will be following the gang home, and that’ll set the scene for a final battle. I remain hopeful it’ll all resolve nicely, but I fear the series is rather overreaching itself and becoming too ambitious, which may make the conclusion messy. Still, it’ll be fun finding out.

Episode 43 – Stranded

In which a tedious episode is made worse by Bow’s incessant grumping.

With Glimmer rescued, you’d hope Adora, Bow and Entrapta could turn around and head back to Etheria – or, more likely, head straight for Horde Prime in order to rescue Catra. In fact, neither of these is the case: it seems they forgot to top up the petrol at the last Texaco, so the spaceship is out of fuel. Entrapta detects a nearby planet which offers the chance to refuel, so they use their last resources to get there.

On arrival, they discover that the crystals they need are beneath the surface, and that they’re nearly impossible to reach because of nearly constant earthquakes. In their attempts to acquire the crystals, our heroes fall in with a trio of loonies called Starla, Tallstar and Jewelstar, who take a pretty prominent role in the episode, but I struggled rather to work out what the point of them was. Suffice it to say that by the end, they’ve joined the Rebellion.

Adora: “It’s a sad state of affairs when the most intelligent person in the room is an owl.”

But they’re hardly the most important thing here. (In fact, I’m pretty confident they’re not important at all.) The important thing is that … SHE-RA’S BACK! All join me in a Jesse-esque “Yeah, bitch!” It all comes about because Adora’s struggling to hold a passageway open, and in her desperation she somehow morphs into everyone’s favourite Princess of Power. It only lasts a second or two, but that’s all that’s needed for Glimmer to retrieve a crystal and for everyone to get safely back to the surface. Once the ship is refuelled, our team decide – inevitably – to go and save Catra.

In today’s adventure…

Oh God, I don’t know. Today we learned that if you’ve got a boring story about needing to get some power crystals, the only way to at least try and make it interesting is to shoehorn some weird new characters into it. We also learned that such attempts will not work.

Adora: “Can I get away with a cheeky yawn?”

Character checklist

The main cast today are Adora, Glimmer, Bow, Entrapta, Starla, Tallstar, Jewelstar, and I suppose Starla’s owl Glory, if you insist. We also briefly see She-Ra, Swift Wind, Scorpia, Spinnerella, Netossa, Mermista, Perfuma, Frosta, Shadow Weaver, King Micah, Sea Hawk, Kyle the barmaid, and some Horde Troopers.

Insults

Obviously not. No one ever badmouths anyone else in this series, even when they’re annoyed with them.

Oh No, Bow!

Having rescued Glimmer from certain death, Bow decides that now is the time to be a right grumpy dick, so he puts considerable effort into making Glimmer feel bad about activating the Heart of Etheria. Adora tries to explain this away by suggesting that Bow didn’t have time to work through his issues about the Heart of Etheria because he was missing Glimmer so much, but frankly I think the explanation lies in the fact that Bow is in fact a complete cock.

Adora: “Oh, don’t mind Bow, he’s just moody because I blocked the Daily Mail on his iPad.”

Does it have the Power?

Good God, this one brought all the momentum screeching to a halt. The out-of-gas plotline was dull as ditchwater – and an unkind reviewer might be tempted to say that it brought to mind the suggestion that the series itself feels out of gas. Even the brief reappearance of She-Ra couldn’t get the blood pumping. I really, really struggled to grasp the necessity for the Star Siblings, who added literally nothing to the story, and in fact felt out of place somehow. On the plus side, they weren’t annoying, which is more than can be said for Bow, who was just asking for a smack in the chops this week. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you could easily skip this one and not even notice it was missing.

Episode 42 – Corridors

In which Catra Does The Right Thing.

Ooh, no teaser today – we’re straight into the credits. Don’t know if that signifies anything. Let’s find out. After that awesome song about being strong etc (which I do actually like, let me go on record to say), we lurch into a flashback of Adora and Catra’s childhoods. Oh good. These are always enlightening and fascinating and informative and relevant, so I’m sure this one will be no different. After watching it, I’m buggered if I know what it’s trying to convey, obviously.

Catra: “Like every cat in the history of forever would be in this situation, I am simply plotting to bite Adora’s ankle.”

Still, it’s not a very long flashback, and once it’s over, we’re checking in with Catra on Horde Prime’s flagship. She’s feeling claustrophobic and is getting the increasing sense that she’s a prisoner, especially since she’s watched over wherever she goes by various Hordak clones. It’s with some pleasure that she encounters our Hordak, who seems to retain a vague sense of self despite his memory wiping at Horde Prime’s hands back in Destiny, Part 2. Even so, there’s little for Catra to do except explore, and it’s while doing this that she learns of the existence of a teleporter aboard ship.

With her sense of isolation growing, Catra heads to Glimmer’s cell for a cosy chat, and the two of them begin to bond by slagging off Adora. In the meantime, Horde Prime has learned of the launch of Mara’s ship from Etheria, and he sets Catra the task of interrogating Glimmer to find out more. He asks politely, but punctuates the request by demonstrating his memory-wiping skills on Hordak, who once again becomes another blank clone.

Catra returns to Glimmer’s cell and gives her a slice of cake. To Glimmer’s credit, this proves to be a rubbish bribe, but even so, Catra learns that Adora is on the approaching spaceship. Glimmer spells things out in case we’d forgotten – if Horde Prime captures Adora, he can use the Heart of Etheria to wipe out the universe – and pleads with Catra to “do the right thing”. At this stage, I’m not really sure what the right thing is, and I don’t think Catra does either. Anyway, she yowls and runs away, presumably to consider what to do.

Glimmer: “Okay, okay, no need to look quite so deranged.”

She evidently decides to do what I presume is the wrong thing, since we next see her hanging out with Horde Prime, and he’s really pleased with her information. That means it’s time for another childhood flashback, in which Adora tells Catra that she will always be her friend, and Catra realises that she’s Got To Do The Right Thing ™. She runs to Glimmer’s cell, busts her out and leads her to the teleporter, then beams her to a specific set of coordinates close to Mara’s ship, accompanying this with a message warning Adora to stay away from Horde Prime’s flagship.

I’m not entirely sure how safe beaming Glimmer out into space was, but luckily Entrapta is able to bring the spaceship to the relevant coordinates, so Adora and Bow can put on some fancy spacesuits and catch her when she materialises. (Writers of 1980s and 1990s MOTU take note: spacesuits. No pissing about in space without them. Thank you.) Naturally, this development doesn’t please Horde Prime, who closes the episode by claiming that Catra will be of use to him. Pretty sure he said that last week too. Hope it becomes a running joke.

Horde Prime: “New catchphrase incoming.”

In today’s adventure…

The flashbacks to Adora and Catra’s childhood depict a rather tedious incident in which Catra apparently hit Lonnie because she thought Adora liked her better than Catra. I suppose the message here is that you can have more than one friend, but you’re unlikely to have any friends at all if you go round hitting people.

Character checklist

It’s mostly a showcase for Catra, Glimmer and Horde Prime, but we also see Adora, Bow, Entrapta, and various Hordak clones, including Hordak himself.

Catra: “This is all fine and it isn’t creepy.”

Insults

Not a lot going on here, but Catra does revive her derisive “Sparkles” for Glimmer, while Horde Prime refers to all Etherians as “wretched creatures”.

Oh No, Bow!

There’s a very short subplot here in which Mara’s ship stops working. Bow sets himself up as the guy who will fix it, telling Adora and Entrapta not to move while he does so. He then proceeds to do nothing whatsoever except intermittently show up to shout at Adora and Entrapta whenever they do move.

Adora: “Bow… just what?”

Does it have the Power?

A bit like last time, it’s a slow burner, but it’s a far more enjoyable one. Let’s talk about what I didn’t like first, and as you’ll probably have detected, a big part of that is the flashbacks to Adora and Catra’s childhoods – I don’t feel they add anything to the series, or particularly go any way towards explaining their motivations or current behaviours, which I’m assuming they’re meant to shed light on. Luckily, these don’t take up a whole load of screen time, but they do feel as though the writers regard them as hugely significant, and it just comes across rather inconsequential.

Speaking of inconsequential, the subplot about the ship breaking down is totally lightweight stuff, only there really to remind us that Adora, Bow and Entrapta are out in space and ready to receive Glimmer at the end. It’s punctuated by a few scenes which are intended to be funny and – once again – just aren’t. This series seems to have lost its sense of humour some time ago.

The meat of the episode is Catra’s dilemma over doing the right thing. It’s plain to everyone – including her – that helping Horde Prime is a bad idea, but she’s been manoeuvred into a situation where she seems to have little choice. The episode does a good job of conveying Catra’s growing sense of helplessness, and the scene in which Horde Prime purifies the Hordak clone is creepy and ominous.

Catra: “Am I officially a goody now, do we think?”

All this build-up, though, would have been extremely disappointing without the payoff, and I’m happy to report that when the action kicks off with Catra rescuing Glimmer, it really gets the heart rate going. It’s tense and exciting, and we’re never sure whether the escape is going to work or not – then even when it does, it simply propels Glimmer into more danger by beaming her into outer space. It’s a great action set piece to finish up the episode, which is satisfying – not just because of the action itself, but because it represents a significant and, crucially, plausible step forward for Catra’s character.

So we’re now in a situation where Catra has perhaps switched sides – and knowing Adora’s soft spot for Catra, I suspect she’s not going to just leave her on Horde Prime’s flagship, no matter what Catra’s message said. But who knows? At any rate, we have here a successful – though not by any means perfect – episode that’s got me interested to see where we go next.

Episode 41 – Launch

In which the Princesses welcome Entrapta back to the fold.

Entrapta has finished making the upgrades to Mara’s ship, so it’s time for our gang to head off out into space to rescue Glimmer! But they can’t just yet, because Adora is exhausted or something, so she’s got to take a nap while the other Princesses sit around a campfire bitching about Entrapta. Eventually they decide to give her a second chance, despite her having worked for the Horde. I’m sure you’re all massively relieved to hear it.

With the spaceship ready to go, Team Rebellion just need to know where to take it. Luckily, Entrapta’s got an idea – if she can get close enough to some of Horde Prime’s 5G masts which he’s installed all over Etheria, she should be able to track his signals back to his flagship. This means that she and the other Princesses need to go on a less than entertaining trek across enemy-occupied territory to obtain the necessary info. They are of course successful, and I have little more to say about that.

Entrapta: “Guys, I know this mission is important and all, but could we wait until after the Sara Cox show is finished?”

So instead let’s talk about Glimmer, who’s still stuck with Horde Prime and his endless, insidious conversation. Today, he’s trying to persuade her to hand over the Heart of Etheria, but luckily Glimmer’s got some integrity and perhaps a little more sanity than she had a few episodes ago, and she merrily informs Horde Prime that she will never help him. We also get a very brief check-in with Catra, and it seems that she’s beginning to feel alone: she’s started hanging around near Glimmer’s cell, presumably just for company.

Adora’s also got something to do today, though it feels rather like an afterthought: while sleeping off her exhaustion, she has a lovely dream about pelting through the woods in pursuit of a vision of She-Ra. Eventually arriving at a whooshy spinny thing, she babbles some nonsense about not having a destiny but not really being too worried about that, and then wakes up. Well, thank Christ we got that sorted.

The episode ends with a whole armada-load of Horde reinforcements arriving at Etheria, and so Adora, Bow and Entrapta fly off in Mara’s ship to rescue Glimmer, leaving the Rebellion under Mermista’s command. Not sure why it’s not under King Micah’s command. Ooh, now there’s a thought: is Micah going to want to be King of Bright Moon, and what will that mean for Glimmer being Queen? Tenner says the series doesn’t address that.

Swift Wind: “Go on, Micah. Start a coup. Go on go on go on go on, it’ll be funny.”

In today’s adventure…

Scorpia spells it out for us today: even if your friends do betray you and spend a considerable time building weapons of mass destruction for evil galactic empires, it’s worth giving them a chance to redeem themselves because they might turn out to not be all that bad really. Translated into real world speak, it’s all about the importance of forgiveness.

Character checklist

Taking the lead today are Mermista, Entrapta, Scorpia, Perfuma and Frosta. Obviously, Adora, Bow, Glimmer and Catra get a decent look in, and there’s also showings for King Micah, Swift Wind and Horde Prime. Naturally, we see various Hordak clones and Horde Troopers as well, and plenty of random inhabitants of Etheria. For those that care, I suppose I should point out that Emily the bot shows up too.

Horde Prime: “Check out my bangin’ new King Micah wallpaper. Got three rolls of it from Dunelm.”

Insults

Surprisingly nasty stuff today: Mermista tells Entrapta she’s a “weirdo” and also refers to her as a “geek Princess” three times. Rather milder is Entrapta addressing a Horde Trooper as a “bad robot”. Finally, a Hordak clone gets a bit personal with Catra when he tells her she’s an “unworthy wretch”, a “parasite” and “dirt”. This latter is cut off in mid-flow, so we can only wonder where he’d have gone on from there.

Oh No, Bow!

He doesn’t do anything specific this week – or indeed anything much at all – but by Jesus I’m getting tired of seeing Bow’s stupid screeching face, so I’m just going to use this section to flag that up.

Bow: “Just your regularly scheduled instance of me bursting into your bedroom without checking if you’re dressed.”

Does it have the Power?

Well, yes and no. Mostly no. The mission led by Mermista’s team fell very flat for me – it felt like it didn’t know whether it was trying to be funny or serious, and it succeeded in being neither. Similarly, I wasn’t particularly interested in Adora’s short epiphany scene: she has these personal crises so often that it’s difficult to care anymore. I’m sure this won’t be the last. The scenes aboard Horde Prime’s ship were a little more engrossing, but even those didn’t add a lot to similar scenes last time. So the bulk of the episode, unfortunately, just felt like it was going through the motions a bit.

What redeemed it, to some extent, was the final two or three minutes, in which Mara’s ship is launched while King Micah and the other rebels provide an excellent distraction for the invading Horde Troopers. This scene felt like the episode had finally been jump-started – it suddenly had far more verve to it, and was entertaining, a bit silly, and overall great fun.

So, hopefully this one has been a bit of a stopgap episode, and the rest of the season picks up from here. That last scene shows the series can do it – so let’s hope it does.