Bob Forward

Tom Tataranowicz

In service of a needlessly complex plan, Hordak steals and activates the dangerous Moon Mirror. This artifact will facilitate the abduction of Prince Adam, thus drawing Princess Adora to the Fright Zone. But our villain will get more than he bargains for when He-Man and She-Ra show up on the scene - and things get even worse when he uses the magical artifact in a way contraindicated by its user manual!

Prince Adam (He-Man), Teela, Bow, Princess Adora (She-Ra), Glimmer, Kowl, Spirit (Swift Wind)

Shadow Weaver, Grizzlor, Hordak

Catillus, Horde soldiers, Horde spy bat, Arrow

Horde tank, Horde trailer

BAM BAM BAM BAM! An old man is woken from his bed in the middle of the night by the sound of violent pounding on his front door. The voice on the other side of the door confirms the old man's identity as Catillus the Wizard; then the door is broken down, to make way for a troop of Horde soldiers and Grizzlor! The witch Shadow Weaver is there as well, passing through the wall and making sure Catillus doesn't try any magical funny business while they relieve him of his most valuable relic: the Moon Mirror. Weaver ignores the wizard's pleas that the mirror is very dangerous and should not be used recklessly; she just has Grizzlor grab the object and the thieves take their leave.

Weaver brings her prize to Hordak, who has a plan all ready which will put the item to good use. He wants the rebel traitor, Adora; but since the mirror is an interdimensional gateway that can only draw people from other universes, he intends to use it to kidnap Adora's twin brother, Prince Adam, from Eternia! The valuable hostage will then serve as the perfect lure for his former force captain. As Shadow Weaver explains, the Moon Mirror can only be used safely when Etheria's moons are in alignment, so they will have to wait just a little while. (The alignment only happens once a year, but they seem to have timed their theft rather well.) Using the mirror when the moons are out of alignment, as Catillus had hinted, makes the mirror's power uncontrollable and potentially catastrophic. But surely that will never come up...

Over in Eternia, it's nighttime and Prince Adam and Captain Teela are out in the royal courtyard enjoying the sight of their planet's two moons, which are about to come into alignment (and which Adam thinks look like a pair of fried eggs). While Teela is busy appreciating the wonders of nature, she misses the fact that a glowing portal has opened at Adam's feet and sucked him away. Finding him gone, she assumes, cynically, that he has slipped away to the palace kitchens for a late, eggy snack. Instead, the prince flies between dimensions and lands in the middle of the Fright Zone, where his attempts to fight off a troop of soldiers are quickly forestalled by Hordak. The villain sucks away Adam's power sword with a magnet hand, then drops the prince down a trapdoor hidden in the stairs of his dais. Hostage acquired! Now to inform the real subject of his evil plot.

Bow, Adora, and Glimmer are in the Whispering Woods, a map spread between them, making plans for the continued welfare of the Great Rebellion, when they're interrupted by a Horde spy bat swooping in from overhead. Bow - who recalls the Horde's penchant for planting explosives in all their devices - shoots down the robotic thing, but it does not immediately explode. The curious archer plucks a message cube from the downed spy, which he finds is addressed to "the traitorous outlaw rebel Adora." Adora takes the cube, which has a holographic message from Hordak, demanding that she surrender herself at the Fright Zone by sundown, or else her brother Adam will remain his captive forever! (The cube then explodes. The spy bat did, too, eventually, so Bow was definitely right about the Horde's love for bombs!)

Adora knows what she has to do - go and rescue her twin - and she demands to do it alone. Bow, after all, is needed to ensure the rebels continue to get supplies. So she whistles up Spirit and rides off into the forest, predicting that she just might come across She-Ra on the way... Sure enough, it's She-Ra and Swift Wind who fly their way to the Fright Zone and sneak inside, past tanks and troops waiting to capture a regular princess approaching on foot. Leaving Swift Wind to wait outside, She-Ra infiltrates the complex, passing a giant stone bust of Hordak on her way to the underground dungeons. So far, she's been fairly stealthy; but our heroine forgoes subtlety in favor of smashing up the guards just outside Adam's cell. She busts the prince out, and he is reunited with his power sword (which was tantalizingly hanging a few inches out of reach of the cell window); but he doesn't have time to raise it before more guards attack! The pair are forced to make a run for it.

Meanwhile, the other rebels have not been idle. Glimmer and Bow received a visit from Catillus, who is very worried about the fate of the Moon Mirror and wants to recruit some rebels to steal it back. Bow is overjoyed at the chance to give up guarding supply routes and go help Adora, so he immediately grabs the wizard and tosses him on the back of his horse. The pair sneak their way into the Fright Zone and up the walls of the main building, Bow doing his best in the process to show off his archery skills and knowledge of Horde tactics to the bemused magician. They climb into a window just in time to encounter She-Ra and a freshly transformed He-Man on their way out. The muscular duo explain that Adora and Adam are "safe," and Bow explains the peril posed by the Moon Mirror.

Indeed, Catillus has a psychic link with the artifact and can sense that, even now, a thwarted Hordak (having learned that She-Ra released his valuable prisoner) has browbeaten poor Shadow Weaver into activating the thing again, so he can kidnap a new Eternian hostage - this time King Randor. But the moons are no longer in alignment! This is that thing that he wasn't supposed to do! The heroes rush back to Hordak's throne room to try to prevent the disaster, but by the time they arrive the mirror has already opened a gateway to the "Doom Dimension" and is busily sucking everything that isn't pinned down into its hungry interdimensional maw. It won't stop until all Etheria is destroyed! What to do? He-Man suggests they plug the hole, and She-Ra remembers something that's just the right size: Hordak's bust. While Bow and Catillus cling for their lives to some pillars to resist the sucking power of the mirror, and Hordak drills his way out of his throne room to fight another day, the super-powered pair work together to punch through a nearby wall and huck the giant sculpture into the mirror's portal. The clog makes the magical Moon Mirror run mad, and it explodes; planet saved.

In a rushed ending sequence, we find the rebels reassembled in their glade in the Whispering Woods, Catillus gone, and Adam (somehow) already returned to Eternia. Glimmer points out that Adora having to save her brother was a "heavy responsibility," and Adora assures the rebel leader that Adam is "not so heavy." Uh-huh.

• Shadow Weaver (very ironically, to the old wizard they just robbed in the middle of the night): The Horde greatly appreciates your generosity and good citizenship.
• Bow: It says "To the traitorous outlaw rebel Adora" on it. Maybe it's good news!
• Bow: The Horde puts bombs in everything.

• Adam juggles his sword: Or unsheathes it, in the optimistic belief that he can fight off Hordak and a troop of Horde soldiers
• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: Just after transforming

One full
Adam also eventually gets a partial transformation to He-Man (of course missing the Cringer sequence, since the tiger did not fall through the Moon Mirror), after a false start that only got as far as "By the -".

10:12 - Loo-Kee is peeking out from behind a tree in the Whispering Woods, far left, just after She-Ra has transformed and is mounting Swift Wind. The camera then sits on the background for a second or so after She-Ra has departed, just to give us all a sporting chance at noticing the guy.
Did I spot him? YES!

Today, Loo-Kee would like to talk to us about safety. He advises us to stay away from grown-up tools and implements lying around our houses, like matches and Moon Mirrors. We should play safely - with only Mattel brand toys and products!

MOTU crossover

• Our writer/director team for this episode is a special one for Filmation. Writer Bob Forward has only two MOTU script credits, but they are both very important episodes: MU085's "The Rainbow Warrior," which examines Queen Marlena's past as a space pilot and reveals that Adam's mother is aware of his secret identity; and MU110's "The Problem with Power," often cited as the best episode of He-Man, in which the hero very briefly gives up his powers. Forward also wrote 67003. He will become a prolific and very dependable writer for POP.
• The latter of Forward's two MOTU scripts, MU110, credits today's director, Tom Tataranowicz, as providing the idea on which the story is based. Tom was also a very regular storyboard supervisor on MOTU, and provided some of the better interviews on the wonderful documentary included as a bonus feature on my DVD sets: Power of Grayskull. (In one memorable scene, Tom says he was the person whose job it was to hide Loo-Kee in every episode - then admits to hating the character!) Tom did not direct any episodes of MOTU but will be credited as director on seven episodes of POP.
• The first character we meet today is one Catillus the Wizard, an old man with magic powers who surprisingly doesn't look like Zagraz the Comet Keeper from MU001. His name sounds oddly similar to that of the ancient Roman poet, Catullus. (Actually the only reason I know of Catullus is because he was featured in one of the Cormoran Strike novels, a detective series that's a guilty pleasure of mine.) In a rare privilege for a secondary character, we actually get to see Catillus wear two different outfits: his blue pajamas, and, later, his everyday business attire of green wizard robe with purple collar.
• We find that Shadow Weaver can pass right through solid walls - handy!
• Among the items Hordak lists off to prove that he's having a great day is a "monument to my humble genius," a large stone bust of himself that will prove useful at the episode's conclusion. Well, now we know where Skeletor got his penchant for keeping statues of himself in Snake Mountain! (See MU022, MU094, or MU121.)
• Hordak also mentions that "Horde Prime has not seen fit to annoy me," which is surprising considering that old Primey was annoyed enough with his Etherian lieutenant to send an inspector to the planet, in the recent 67013.
• Today's MacGuffin, the Moon Mirror, is an interdimensional gateway that can only be dependably used when Etheria's moons are aligned. So we again see evidence of the fact that Etheria has multiple moons - just like Eternia. We first saw Etheria's two moons at the beginning of 67006's "Duel at Devlan." It also seems that Eternia and Etheria's moons share orbital positions in some way, as both sets align at the same time. (For some surprising and seemingly contradictory information about the number of moons Etheria has, see 67022.)
• Our villain is again aiming to capture Adora, something he was actively attempting in just the last episode (67014). This is also another MOTU crossover episode which will have He-Man and She-Ra teaming up, just as in the recent 67013.
• Last time we visited Eternia, about the only main MOTU characters we got to see were Prince Adam - and King Miro, if you count him. This time, Captain Teela makes a brief appearance, getting a few nagging digs in at the royal heir before he vanishes into today's plot. In fact, this will be Teela's last ever appearance in the POP series - though we'll see her in the Christmas Special.
• It continues to surprise me that the Filmation animators' vision for the space between dimensions is consistent. We get a brief shot of Adam flying through a trippy landscape as he journeys from Eternia to Etheria, a space we've seen the heroes traverse before in MU030 and MU069.
• Hordak transformations: Hordak shows several interesting transformations today, the first coming when his arm turns into a giant horseshoe magnet that selectively grabs Adam's power sword (without grabbing any of his metallic soldiers in the process).
• Speaking of those soldiers - it appears we are coming down solidly on them being robots in this episode. In separate scenes, both Adam and She-Ra disable some guards, exposing sparks and wires. Later, when the mirror goes haywire, we watch as soldier after soldier is dismantled and sucked bit by mechanical bit into the howling portal. I guess I just have to live with the fact that Hordak nonsensically has an endless army of robots who behave emotionally like humans. Whose idea was this?
• Another in what promises to be a long line of trapdoors from Hordak: this time he's able to drop Adam through a hatch hidden in the stairs leading up to his throne. We last saw him employing a trapdoor on an unamusing Mantenna in 67013.
• We also learn that there is a set of dungeon cells in the Fright Zone; a natural enough thing for a villain to have in his lair, but it does rather make it seem like an unnecessary expense to have shipped so many prisoners off to Beast Island in previous episodes (67002, 67012, 67014).
• Returning today after a several-episode absence (we last saw her in 67011) is Glimmer, the ostensible leader of the Great Rebellion. She doesn't contribute much to this story, either! Just sort of stands around and makes comments about the other people who are actually doing things. The opening scene with her and Bow, showing them gathered around a map in the Whispering Woods, is very similar to how we found them posed when Adam and Adora showed up in 67004.
• This story introduces us to the "Horde spy bat," a bat-shaped robot that is apparently not quite the same as the other bat-like Horde devices we've already seen (for instance the attack bots of 67013). One would assume from the name that they are usually employed for reconnaissance and spying, but this one is used to deliver a ransom note, in the form of a "message cube." Both spy bats and message cubes will come up again in 67063, and we'll hear a whole lot about "spy bots" in 67069 - though we won't see any.
• I like Bow's experienced tip: "The Horde puts bombs in everything." It will be interesting to see if this explosive concept will be carried into later episodes. (The answer, sadly, is not really.)
• This story features another case of Bow wanting to follow Adora into danger, and Adora trying to stop him, just as occurred in the previous episode (67014). Actually Adam had to convince Bow not to follow him into the Fright Zone as well, back in 67003. It must be hard for the poor guy not to feel unwanted! At this point he's probably worried that his deodorant is not strong enough.
• An angry Hordak, hearing news that She-Ra has infiltrated his base, changes his arm into a cannon and destroys an abstract sculpture near his throne, which has a label on the base reading "OBEY." The thing is, he destroyed this exact same sculpture in the exact same way in the series' first episode (67001). Maybe it's a dime-a-dozen knick-knack, and after he destroyed the first one they just picked up another at the Horde's Bed Bath & Beyond. Amusingly, the OBEY sculpture is a sort of running gag in the series, and will show up in a couple of later episodes as well - see 67032 and 67080.
• Secret identity problems: He-Man and She-Ra are forced to explain the whereabouts of their alter egos when a questioning Bow shows up, and opt for the most basic and oft-used explanation, that Adam and Adora are "safe." Well, that's all right then!
• Catillus gets one look at the malfunctioning Moon Mirror and declares that it has "bridged to the Doom Dimension." Man-at-Arms discovered a "Dark Dimension" in MU017, and various Eternians have visited the "Realm of Demons," the "Demon Zone," and even the "Realm of Evil." But never the Doom Dimension! That's a new one.
• More Hordak transformations: to escape from the sucking power of the Moon Mirror, our baddie changes his hands into suction cups (just like Leech!) and his lower body into a giant drill bit. He turned his whole body into a drilling machine to evade a trap from Skeletor in 67004.
• Swiss army sword: To help fetch Hordak's stone head, She-Ra changes her sword to a length of coiled rope by simply saying "Rope!" In the previous episode, 67014's "Friendship," she used the magic words "Sword to lasso!" and ended up with a sword-shaped length of rope ending in a hilt. I guess it's just a very versatile weapon...

• Hordak's layered plot to kidnap one hero in order to draw another mimics Skeletor's similarly labyrinthine scheme from MU015's "A Beastly Sideshow," when he had Beast Man luring Cringer into a cage, in order to draw Prince Adam. Guys: just kidnap the person you want to kidnap!
• One of the main things making this episode stand out is its oddly informal title, whose meaning is not cleared up until the final lines of dialogue. Even once I heard Adora claiming that the responsibility for saving her brother is "not so heavy," I was still left feeling a bit confused at the choice of wording. I eventually thought to google the phrase and discovered that "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" is the name of a ballad made popular by Neil Diamond and The Hollies in the early 70s. The song did not invent the phrase, however; it was taken from a young sister's reply in a Christian parable, when she's asked whether she needs help carrying her baby brother. My wife understood the reference immediately, so maybe I'm the odd one out here.
• Teela announces that the moons have aligned, but the background painting shows Eternia's bright and dark moons just slightly overlapped, like a celestial Venn diagram. I would have thought "aligning" meant one completely covering the other - but to be fair, I'm no astronomologist.
• By the way, the plot for today's episode again serves to reinforce the argument I've made several times on this website, that our main characters having secret identities serves little to no purpose. Think about it: the main argument for Prince Adam not revealing to the world that he is He-Man is that he would otherwise put his non-hero self and his other loved ones in danger. Same for Adora. But guess what, geniuses? You're both already in danger! Adam is a target for Hordak's kidnapping scheme, the end goal of which is to capture Adora. Hordak isn't even after He-Man or She-Ra, and is surprised when they show up.
• I like that Hordak refers to Adora as an "ex-force captain."
• I love the animation of Bow winding up to throw away the exploding message cube, just like a major league pitcher (and left-handed as well!). Good throw, bro Bow! Also, let no one say that Bow just stands around getting convinced not to help Adora; in this episode, he saves Glimmer and Adora from bombs - twice.
• There's an interesting exchange between Hordak and Shadow Weaver, where the villain commands the witch to use the Moon Mirror again, and she objects on the very sensible grounds that it's incredibly dangerous to use when the moons are out of alignment. "You question me?!" the enraged Hordak responds, and she meekly backs down. I'm not sure we've ever seen Mom and Dad bickering like this before; Weaver and Hordak have generally seemed like they had a peer-level relationship with each other, and Weaver has been able to coax Hordak to do what she wants in the past. For more tension between the pair, see 67017. And if you want to see that tension blow up entirely, check out 67056.
• Bow seems very intent on showing off his skills and tricks to Catillus, boasting of his knowledge of the Horde and flashing around his diamond arrow which, he claims, will "stick in anything." Catillus has his own sweet moves, however: I loved when he just walked up the outer wall of the Fright Zone building.
• Animation error: even after two full seasons of He-Man and more than a dozen episodes of She-Ra, the animators still sometimes use the clip of Adam's transformation that doesn't quite cut off soon enough, ending with a split second twitch of the power sword towards an absent Cringer. You'd think they'd have learned by now!
• "I always thought that was an ugly monument," says He-Man of the giant bust of Hordak; but when She-Ra walked past it earlier, her remark was, "that's new!" And Hordak made a comment even earlier about the statue being almost finished, so it clearly hasn't been around long. If She-Ra hadn't seen it before, how did He-Man?
• So I hope Catillus didn't want that Moon Mirror back. Maybe he can get She-Ra and He-Man to pay him back its estimated worth! On the other hand, it seems almost criminally negligent of him to be living on a Horde-occupied planet with such a dangerous magical relic in the first place; so maybe he should just shut up and lump it.
• Seemingly pressed for time at the episode's conclusion, our writers settle for a line of exposition from Glimmer to establish that Adam has been bundled off to Eternia. You have to wonder exactly how Adora/She-Ra managed it; I suppose she had to talk to the Sorceress through the gem on her sword. (This is the method they'll use to get He-Man back home in the conclusion of 67035.)
• Just as in the previous episode, 67014, Swift Wind gets ditched deep in Hordak territory, and we're left in suspense as to the mount's whereabouts at the end of the story. Presumably when the heroes rushed out of the Fright Zone, He-Man and She-Ra hopped on the winged horse for their journey back to the forest. But the ending scene omits this information along with several other logistical considerations (such as where Catillus got himself to, and whether he cares that his mirror is toast).
• The final conversation with Glimmer, Bow, and Adora has the former two rebels seemingly assuming that Adora in some way aided in the successful (and heavy) rescue of Prince Adam; but it's hard to see why they would think that, unless Adora made up some kind of story about her involvement, that occurred in the time before Bow showed up.
• Interesting point about Loo-Kee's hiding place today: he was lurking in the forest just by a freshly transformed She-Ra, meaning he could hardly have failed to witness her transformation. (This is the first of several times Loo-Kee will be appearing near the transforming Adora; for the next see 67040.) For me, this seems incontrovertible proof that Loo-Kee should be added to the list of people who know Adora's secret; but as we'll eventually learn in 67055, he somehow remains ignorant of this important information. Maybe while he's hiding, Loo-Kee has to shut off his senses and so can't see or hear anything that happens around him.