Philip Kassel

Bill Reed

Kowl's squabble with the irritating Imp leads to the Horde capturing Madame Razz - and Kowl taking the blame for it. Desperate to clear his name of the stench of treachery, will Kowl attempt the unthinkable - an act of bravery? And will the disheartened Razz really retire from the rebellion? Let's find out!

Kowl, Broom, Madame Razz, Bow, Princess Adora (She-Ra), Spirit (Swift Wind)

Hordak, Tung Lashor, Imp, Shadow Weaver

bee, Horde soldiers, Twiggets (Sprag, Sprocker), Arrow

Horde walkers

It's a lazy summer afternoon; the kind of day where, like the bumblebees of Etheria, you just want to lay out in the sunshine and take a pleasant little nap. But isn't it always the way? You choose the same place to nap that Hordak and his minions are field-testing their new secret weapons! I'm talking about giant walker vehicles with four stilt-like legs and snapping pincer arms. Kowl is rudely awakened from his own nap by these very secret weapons, and must flap for his life to avoid their deadly pincers. His quick wing-work causes the arms of several walkers to become all tangled together in knots, and they collapse in a heap. Having had a near escape, Kowl hides nearby to catch his breath, so he's within earshot when the crew from one of the still-standing walkers comes out to assess the damage. It's Hordak, Tung Lashor, and Imp. Bemoaning the disappointing first run for their "tanks," Imp in particular is very disparaging about Kowl, choosing some very personal and wounding epithets for the bird, such as "dust mop." Hordak declares they'll return tomorrow to test their weapons on the nearby village. Before the Horde party can leave, a vindictive Kowl swoops in to pelt the little winged spy with a very icky goosh fruit, which covers Imp in sticky brown goo. The infuriated Imp vows his own revenge.

Later that evening, Kowl recounts the events of his daring escape and petty fruit-based attack to his friends, Broom, Madame Razz, Bow, Adora, and the Twiggets Sprag and Sprocker, as they all walk into the nearby village. The rebels are plotting to defeat Hordak's new weapons, and to work out their plan of attack they retire to an empty mill. At least, they think it's empty; but the sneaky Imp, ordered to keep an eye on Kowl, has gotten there before them, and disguises himself as the rung of a ladder so he can listen in on the conversation. The spy is on hand as Madame Razz clumsily demonstrates a magic spell that changes the ground beneath an object to glue. As Adora explains, Razz is to use this spell against the walkers tomorrow, stopping them in the road and leaving them vulnerable to attack. The plan decided, the rebel party breaks up, with Kowl choosing to remain in the building to catch up on his interrupted sleep.

Before he can drift off, however, Madame Razz reappears magically to invite the bird to a private conference outside. Perched next to Kowl on a high tree branch in the moonlight, Madame confesses that she is thinking of leaving the rebellion. Citing her unreliable magic, which she believes doesn't help anyone, Razz thinks it would be best if she just went away. Kowl, aghast, attempts to reassure the witch, urging her to speak to the others before acting. Razz extracts a promise from her friend to tell no one of their conversation. While Kowl has been gone, a few things have happened in the village mill. First, the caring Twiggets Sprag and Sprocker, having hunted up a nice soft blanket for the bird, have tiptoed in and found the house curiously unoccupied. They place the blanket and depart, leaving the field clear for the still-lurking Imp to work up some payback. Taking the term more literally than one might expect, Imp leaves a sack of gold tucked into Kowl's blanket, reasoning that when the other rebels find it there, they'll suspect Kowl of giving up their plans to the Horde in return for cash.

The next day, the rebels' plans go horribly wrong: the walkers pop up unexpectedly, and before Razz can stutter out her glue spell, she is snatched off her Broom by a jetpack-clad Tung Lashor. Bow's attempts to rope a walker are snipped by a well-placed pincer. Adora and Spirit must step to the side for a moment so that She-Ra and Swift Wind can pick up Bow's slack and finish tripping the Horde secret weapon. The villains avoid further punishment with the aid of Shadow Weaver's magic, which whisks them all away (walker included). Regrouping afterwards in the mill, the rebels try to understand how the Horde could have been so prepared for their attack. Could there be a spy in their midst? The Twiggets mention that they noticed Kowl being mysteriously out of bed in the night, though the bird claims he was there the whole time; and a lifting of his blanket reveals the planted blood money. An angry and overwrought Broom accuses Kowl of treachery, even though Adora quickly points out that the idea of their old friend betraying them is a foolish one.

Later, the rebels having returned to the camp in the Whispering Woods, Adora and Bow discover that they can't find Kowl anywhere. Adora theorizes their usually timorous companion has gone off to do something rash in order to prove his innocence - something like, for instance, running to the Fright Zone by himself to try to rescue Madame Razz. Adora declares her intention to go after Kowl; but it's She-Ra and Swift Wind who find the bird, sitting in a tree branch, hyping himself up to venture into the Fright Zone. She-Ra proposes that they make the perilous journey together; after all, her time as a Horde force captain means she knows about a secret entrance that will allow them to infiltrate the fortress undetected.

She-Ra locates the secret entrance, a shaft in the ground hidden under a false rock, and leaving Swift Wind aboveground the heroine and Kowl venture below. They quickly discover that security in the passageway has improved since Force Captain Adora was last there: a network of crisscrossing lasers now blocks their path. Fortunately the small, winged Kowl is the ideal creature for navigating the dangerous obstacle, and pulls the lever to shut it off once he reaches the other side. The pair are able to sneak all the way to Hordak's throne room, where they overhear Imp boasting of his own part in the discovery of the rebels' plan and the framing of Kowl. (So it was the Horde's spy doing the spying all along - go figure!) She-Ra has to drag the offended Kowl onward, so they can finally locate Madame Razz in the Horde's Interrogation Room.

Walking in on the prisoner, our heroes have a happy, if brief, reunion, unhappily cut short by the arrival of Shadow Weaver (who has detected their presence). Razz, shrouded by a circle of swirling dark clouds, has explained to her friends what she overheard from Weaver earlier: that the witch is trapped in place by a magic crystal, and the only way to free her is by reciting the correct spell. The smug Weaver, her crystal floating beside her, is sure the heroes can never save their friend. But She-Ra, like He-Man, has never met a problem that she can't out-smash. She changes her sword into an oversized boomerang and flings it at the crystal, shattering it and freeing Madame. Thinking quickly, the unrestrained Razz chants a spell that ties up her would-be captor, and the heroes make a break for it. They're pursued out onto the rooftops by Imp, Hordak, and Tung Lashor; but thanks to the timely arrival of both Swift Wind and Broom (the latter of whom just couldn't stay away when his best friend was being rescued), everyone who doesn't already have wings has a flying conveyance to leap onto. Madame is again able to discourage pursuit or counterattack by magically freezing Tung Lashor's tongue. Kowl flies back for one last dig at his new archenemy, Imp, grabbing the tiny spy and shoving him into another goosh fruit (because Hordak apparently has a goosh grove planted just by the Fright Zone).

Back at the Whispering Woods, the rebels regroup and go over events. Broom learns that Imp was to blame for everything, and apologizes to Kowl; and Madame admits that it was she who kept Kowl out of bed relating to him her thoughts of retirement. Her admission earns swift refusals and words of love from everyone. Kowl reminds her of the fact that no one could have gotten out of the Fright Zone without her magic spells. Adora recites a lesson about not passing judgment on people too hastily. Bow concludes the story by reciting the episode title, inspiring everyone else to also heartily welcome Kowl back to the fold.

• Imp: That is better than running down a scrawny, flying dust mop. / Kowl (offended): "Dust mop!" That does it.
• Kowl (actually trying to cheer someone up for once): Oh, Madame, can't you see? It isn't what you do for us - we want you with us for what you are.
• Kowl (interrupted by She-Ra as he's about to enter the Fright Zone): Thank the stars you stopped me! / She-Ra: Oh I'm not stopping you - I'm going with you!
• Broom: So it was Imp all along.
• Princess Adora (taking it upon herself to force-feed us today's moral): I guess this is a good lesson for us all: no one should ever pass judgment on someone else without getting all the facts first.

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: After transforming, as per usual
• She-Ra runs at the viewer, bug-height: Off to rescue Madame Razz from the interrogation room

One full
Adora actually changes to She-Ra twice in this episode, but we only get to watch her first transformation, during the battle with the walkers. The second occurs off-screen, just after Adora decides to follow Kowl to the Fright Zone.

13:47 - By this point in the episode, I was starting to get very worried that I'd missed spotting our elusive little pal. But then I saw an establishing shot featuring a foreground painting of some very incongruous, Loo-Kee-colored trees. Sure enough, Loo-Kee can be found hiding among them, clutching a tree trunk and looking off to the right. It's a pose that's been used several times before, usually to show him high up in a puffball-topped tree in the Whispering Woods (see 67020, 67022, 67031).
Did I spot him? YES! Thank heavens.

Reminding us of Madame Razz's discouragement at her often messed-up magic, Loo-Kee gives the very valuable advice that "nobody does everything right all the time. We learn from trying; and it's certainly better to try and not get something right, than not to try at all." But you have to draw a line somewhere, Loo-Kee. How many times can you fail before you should finally take the hint that you're just no good at something? What I'm trying to say is, how can we tell Bow that he should stop trying to sing?

N/A

• Today's writer, Philip Kassel, previously gave us 67009's "The Missing Ax" and (IMO the far superior) 67019's "Enchanted Castle." Spoiler alert: in my book, this one falls somewhere in the middle.
• To get the pop culture reference out of the way early, I suspect this episode title (which is shoehorned into the story as Bow's final line of dialogue) was a nod to the old 70s sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter. This show was before my time and I never watched it, but surely the Filmation team would have been familiar. Though it's hard to see how Kotter's wise-cracking teacher of high school hooligans has anything in common with Bow's retiring and fussy best bud.
• It seems Etherian bumblebees are pretty much identical to Earth bumblebees - though perhaps more adorable and expressive, as we see from today's opening animation of the napping insect.
• Kowl, awakened from his own nap, believes he's being attacked by "Horde tanks," and that's what Hordak calls them as well; but this is another case in the growing epidemic of confusing vehicle naming (which I complained about at length in 67038). We've already seen four or five different Horde vehicles in the series identified as tanks, and that have more tank-ish features. The vehicles in question are not tank-like at all; I've called them "walkers" since they stand on four clawed feet at the end of leggy metallic stalks (and because, based on a later scene, our writer and animators were clearly thinking of the AT-AT walkers from Star Wars when they designed these). They have pincer arms, a pair of cannons in the "head," and are piloted by two Horde soldiers each (when Hordak isn't the one driving). It's a cool new device, which you'd think someone would have gone to the trouble of giving an original name.
• Offended by the verbal abuse he's suffered from the mouth of Imp (which is pretty ironic coming from a proven expert at dishing out insults), Kowl nails the Horde spy with an orange fruit which has very gross-looking, sticky brown innards, and proves to be named a "goosh fruit." The fruit will make a surprise return at the end of the episode.
• This is the first appearance of Twiggets since 67034's "Troll's Dream."
• We also see the Snake Man, Tung Lashor, again, for the first time since his ignominious stint as a substitute teacher in 67026's "Book Burning." Today is a special day for Tung, since this is the first time he's referred to by the same name as his action figure! Hordak very clearly calls him "Tung Lashor," not "Tung" or "Tung Lash" as he's been called previously (see 67035, 67026).
• This has to be the first and only time that Imp will turn into the rung of a ladder. It's a gala day!
• Madame's Magic: Giving a less-than-encouraging demonstration, Madame gets her own feet stuck in gluey ground before a suggestion from Broom allows her to transfer the spell to her intended target - a chair. We just saw her making ground into rubber in 67024's "The Mines of Mondor."
• Did you ever see that really old movie, The Empire Strikes Back? Well it was only a few years old when this episode aired, and She-Ra takes a page from the book of its Hoth-based rebels when she uses Bow's rope to trip up a four-legged Horde walker.
• A couple of named Fright Zone locations come up for the first time in today's story; the first is "Horror Hall," where Hordak invites Shadow Weaver to bring Madame Razz after the witch has been interrogated. My (correct) assumption is Horror Hall is the name of Weaver's private quarters, which we've seen a few times previously (67022, 67027, 67040) without its being named. (For an in-depth look at Horror Hall, check out the awesome 67047's "The Price of Power.") Later, we discover that Razz is to be interrogated in - appropriately enough - the Interrogation Room.
• Calling back to her days as Force Captain Adora, She-Ra remembers a secret entrance into the Fright Zone. It turns out to be a false rock that hinges up to reveal a hidden tunnel. That's handy, but you'd think it would have come up in one of the many other times She-Ra has had to sneak into the Fright Zone! (One instance that comes to mind is 67014's "Friendship," when She-Ra/Adora was sneaking into the Fright Zone to help a friend from her force-captaining days.)
• Imp receives another pat on the head from his doting master Hordak, again showing the Horde leader's preference for his little pal. We last saw Hordak patting Imp in 67041's "Glimmer's Story." By the way, this is now a run of four consecutive episodes in which Imp has made an appearance - he's clearly a favorite!
• Swiss army sword: In one of the more unnecessary transformations for her blade, She-Ra commands it to change into a boomerang. Why bother? She's used the sword itself as a boomerang many times already (67019, 67033, 67058, 67039, 67040).
• Madame's Magic: In a couple of helpful and completely error-free ending moves that prove she's "still got it," Madame first casts a spell that ties up Shadow Weaver using a convenient chain, then freezes Tung Lashor's groping tongue.
• Hordak transformations: His typical arm cannon makes a brief appearance as Hordak attempts to stop the intruders. She-Ra deftly blocks the incoming laser with her sword.

• "An overstuffed feather bag, indeed," grumbles Kowl, apparently quoting an insult that Imp has thrown at him (since the bird was also just offended by Imp calling him a "dust mop"). However, Imp never used the feather bag phrase, so Kowl seems to be inventing his own insults for himself. Likely the real cause for his ostensibly delusional behavior is a cut line of dialogue.
• Note that in a couple of places today, Broom needs to give Madame the correct words to cast her spell. It makes you wonder whether Broom has any magic himself; could he have been doing Madame's job all this time, but is just holding back so he doesn't steal her thunder?
• I found it hilarious that Imp's big plan for getting back at Kowl was to give him a sack of money. He insulted you, coated you in goo, so... you literally paid him back? Is Imp rich enough to toss his money around willy-nilly, or does Hordak's spoiled pet just not have any need for currency? Even Imp's real plan - that the rebels will find the money and conclude Kowl is in the pay of the Horde - seems convoluted and absurdly unlikely to come to fruition (though, in the logic of cartoons, it inevitably does).
• By the way, seemingly two of the requirements of this plan are 1) that the other rebels, not Kowl (even though it's in his bedroll), be the ones to discover it; and 2) that the money is immediately recognizable as coming from the Horde - which it somehow is, even though the animated coins just look like plain gold circles. Perhaps the rebels operate entirely on a barter system, making any hard cash necessarily Horde legal tender.
• On the other hand, it was downright sad to see poor Madame Razz contemplating retirement. Her hopeless senility was supposed to be a source of amusement, not shame! And what would possess her to confide in, of all people, Kowl - the most judgmental of all the rebels?
• Our slobbery friend, Tung Lashor, gets to fly around on a jetpack in this episode - he looks great doing it, and makes all our promised dreams of future personal transportation come true.
• In the scene where Adora is in the rebel camp asking Bow whether he's seen an at-first unidentified someone - a male someone who might have gone off on their own to rescue Madame - my first thought was that she was in search of Broom. After all, who's a closer friend to Razz than the wooden pole she's constantly steering into trees? Who would be most desperate for the witch's return? Instead, of course, the person Adora is looking for is Kowl, the one who (as it turns out) actually cared enough to mount a rescue. All we get to see of Broom's reaction to Madame's capture is his unreasoning and illogical inference that Kowl is the one responsible for it. (Thankfully, Broom does eventually prove his loyalty to his rider and old friend by showing up at the last minute to aid in the getaway.)
• Unless it's just Madame's slightly mixed-up magic again, there seems to have been a slight miscommunication between the animators and writer in the scene where the geriatric witch ties up Shadow Weaver. Razz's rhyme specifies a "chain," but the thing that wraps up Weaver is more like a flexible length of cable. Oddly, though it's shown to have manacles at either end, they're not put into use, the cable instead just tightly coiling about Weaver's waist, trapping her arms at her sides.
• So are Kowl and Imp now archenemies? Destined to fight it out in any future clashes of the rebels and Horde? This rivalry sort of makes me think of Maggie Simpson and the evil unibrow baby who's her archnemesis.
• This was a fun story which, I was happy to see, mined the feelings and relationships of some of our secondary heroes, rather than harping on She-Ra. Don't get me wrong, I like She-Ra; we just have plenty of other characters, and seeing them take center stage is a nice change of pace. It was interesting and believable to see Razz questioning her worth, and surprising to see Kowl again at the center of the plot, as he was for the recent 67038's "Zoo Story."