Story - Leslie Wilson & Teleplay - Francis Moss

Mark Glamack

Kowl's cousin, Red Eye, wants to join the Horde - and he'll happily sell out his cousin and the rebellion to do it! All he needs is a few feathers...

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

Shadow Weaver, Hordak, Grizzlor, Tung Lashor, Catra, Horde Prime (mentioned only)

Horde soldiers, Red Eye, various villagers (including village cat and horse), Arrow, various rebels, various birds

Horde trucks, wagon, Monstron

In the throne room of the Fright Zone, Hordak is in the midst of a very cathartic round of skeet shooting, blasting targets to smithereens with his arm cannon while daydreaming of doing the same to his rebel enemies, when he's interrupted by a visitor. The stranger announces himself as Red Eye, cousin to Kowl - and his looks and voice certainly show the relation. Red Eye is very interested in joining the Horde and willing to do what it takes to earn his spot; but Hordak is dismissive, considering the bird too diminutive to be worth his time. Shadow Weaver, however, suggests that a cousin of Kowl could help her bring down the entire rebellion - with just a few feathers.

Kowl himself is off in a random Etherian village, expressing his typical dissatisfaction with friend Bow, who's taking too long to saddle up Arrow the horse. Kowl flaps off, but collides head-on with none other than his evil cousin! The birds shake off their abrupt meeting on the high ledge of a building. Red Eye tries for a nonchalant chat with his kin, but Kowl knows his cousin must be up to no good, so the villain drops the facade, deciding to nab the entire bird instead of just a few of his feathers. Princess Adora is nearby, however, and overhears the scuffle above; she spots Kowl being bound in a loop of rope and springs into action. Some nifty parkour-style leaps and flips take her in sword-throwing distance of the pair, and her flung blade cuts the rope, freeing her friend and dashing Red Eye's kidnapping plans. The villain flees, and it seems the ordeal is over. Kowl explains to Adora about his dysfunctional family, and Bow arrives to check on the welfare of his friend, but it's fine: Kowl got away with only a few lost feathers. Uh-oh...

Red Eye returns to his would-be masters with the feathery prize, and Shadow Weaver explains that with these pieces of Kowl and a willing blood relation, she can cast a spell that will allow them to read Kowl's mind - or at least, see and hear what Kowl is experiencing in real time. An excited Hordak, eager to find out what the rebels are plotting, promises he'll confer the rank of Force Captain on the scruffy bird if things go well. They put the spell into practice right away, with Red Eye sitting on a little stool and clutching Kowl's feathers while Shadow Weaver holds his head. A picture forms before them, showing the rebels in the Whispering Woods, busily planning their next attack on the Horde. Kowl senses that something is wrong, getting that odd feeling that he's being watched; but his friends assure him it's only his imagination.

When the rebels subsequently try to put their ambush plan into action, it's clear almost immediately that something's not right. The Horde convoy they intend to hijack has no visible security force - an unheard-of oversight. A breezy Bow orders the attack anyway, and the rebel party rush headlong - into a trap! Instead of goods or supplies, the trucks are full of heavily armed Horde troopers. The rebels look doomed, until some quick thinking from Broom and Madame creates a pall of choking smog that effectively hides the heroes' retreat. Sitting in his accustomed battle post - atop a high tree branch well away from the fighting - Kowl is shaking his head at the military disaster when he's joined by a gloating Red Eye. The evil cousin boasts that he and Hordak engineered the whole attack, and when Kowl asks how they could have possibly known about the plan ahead of time, Red Eye cryptically crows that "a little bird told me."

Assembled back at camp for a post mortem, the rebels piece together the various clues they've been given, and consulting Castaspella (who for some reason is standing nearby, instead of sitting in her castle in Mystacor), deduce that Kowl's lost feathers have been used to give the Horde access to rebel intelligence. A horrified Kowl, seeing that he has unwittingly become a liability, makes a fateful decision. He confides to Spirit his intention of avoiding further betrayals by going away from his friends forever, to the Valley of the Lost. At Kowl's insistence, Spirit promises not to tell anyone else where the bird has gone - though the horse qualifies his promise by refusing to tell an outright lie.

The rebels may not know where Kowl has gone - but the Horde certainly does! Shadow Weaver is continuing to tune into Kowl TV, and relays the news of Kowl's self-imposed exile to Hordak. The Horde leader is vexed, sure they've lost their window into rebel operations; but Shadow Weaver suggests that they still might be able to pull a win out of the situation, if they just go and nab Kowl. After all, he's a valuable hostage - yes? This cheers Hordak right up; and to put the kidnapping plan into action, he unveils Monstron. It's a behemoth vessel, the largest ship in the Horde fleet, which Hordak has borrowed from Horde Prime for the purpose. The Horde cohort piles on board, and they all set off for the Valley of the Lost.

Meanwhile, a troubled Spirit doesn't like the secret he's carrying. When he asks Adora whether it's OK to break a promise if it would help someone in trouble, he spills the beans on Kowl almost before Adora agrees with him. To retrieve the misguided bird, who's put himself in great danger just by going to the Valley of the Lost even if the Horde hasn't found out about it, our princess finally decides it's She-Ra Time. She-Ra and Swift Wind catch up to Kowl in the valley, just as the bird has been driven by the approaching Monstron into the toxic clouds spewed by an active volcano. The smoke hides Kowl from his enemies but is also sickening him into near-unconsciousness! She-Ra swoops in and saves her friend from a fiery fate; but before Swift Wind can fly them to safety, a freeze beam from the Monstron strikes his wing. The disabled horse is unable to keep them in the air, forcing She-Ra to change her sword into a glider to give them a soft landing on the ground below. The trio sneak their way into a rocky cave to hide from the bombardment of the Horde ship and lick their wounds.

While She-Ra is using her healing powers to restore Swifty's injured wing, and wondering how they're going to get out of this mess, she cooks up a clever idea to use the Horde's ill-gotten intelligence against them. She-Ra loudly announces her intention to return to the Whispering Woods, eventually convincing her friends to play along with the make-believe. They all speak as if Swift Wind is flying them out near the treeline, on the way back home. Luckily for them, at this point Red Eye is without the video power boost he gets from Shadow Weaver, and his spying is limited to audio-only - so the ruse works. Hearing that his quarry have somehow slipped past him, Hordak turns the Monstron around and heads back toward the Whispering Woods.

This gives She-Ra the opportunity she needs to launch a sneak attack. The Monstron is a formidable weapon, so for reinforcements, our heroine calls out to the local bird population via animal telepathy. A flock of various beaked and winged allies is soon swarming the Horde ship, blocking the view screens and beaning the jetpacked troopers Hordak sends out to stop them. In counterattack, Hordak turns into a jet and fires a laser into the nearby volcano, starting an eruption. He thinks he's left She-Ra with an impossible choice: stop the Monstron or stop the volcano. But She-Ra decides she can solve both problems, with a move that really flexes those muscles of hers: she grabs the entire Monstron from the bottom and shakes it like a gift on Christmas morning. All the passengers are flung out, landing ignominiously in some goopy mud below. She-Ra then flings the emptied craft into the caldera of the volcano, plugging the lava flow and thoroughly ruining Hordak's rental.

As the frustrated Hordesmen are throwing recriminations, and the dense Red Eye is slowly discovering that he might not be getting that force captaincy after all, She-Ra heartily thanks the birds of the valley for their assistance in the battle. The birds assure her that they hated Hordak anyway, so it was no biggie. Kowl remarks that his kind and the humans have a lot in common, and She-Ra cheekily replies that that makes them "birds of a feather."

• Hordak: Kowl's feathers? What for? / Shadow Weaver: To bring an end to the rebellion - once and for all.
• Red Eye: Hello, Cousin Kowl. / Kowl: Oh Red Eye, what are you doing here? Up to no good, I'm sure.
• Shadow Weaver: With these feathers, I can cast a spell that will let us read Kowl's mind. / Red Eye: Exactly! (long pause) ... But... what good would that be? / Shadow Weaver: Because, you silly furball, if we could see into Whispering Woods, we can see what the rebels are up to.
• Kowl (to his cousin): How could you know we were going to be here today? / Red Eye: A little bird told me, Cousin Kowl; a little bird. (laughs evilly)
• Hordak: Well - what do you think? / Red Eye (laying down a major burn on himself): Think? Think? I don't think much; it hurts my head.
• Hordak (of Monstron): That is the mightiest ship in nine worlds; what could happen to it? / Tung Lashor (helpfully): You might crash it, or the rebels might get a hold of it; or you could - / Hordak: Silence that tongue of yours before I tie it in knots!
• Hordak: Oh, no! Not my Monstron! / Catra: Rowr! You mean Horde Prime's Monstron. He's not going to like this. I'm glad I don't have to tell him. / Red Eye (with impeccable timing, and just after splattering Hordak with some very juicy mud - or lava): When do I get my force captain uniform?
• Kowl: Actually, we birds and you humans really want the same thing. / She-Ra (getting in that episode title): That's right, Kowl. You might even say we're all birds of a feather.

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: Just after transforming; and again at the end of the episode

One full

12:39 - In what is perhaps the most unimaginative hiding of Loo-Kee to date, we find him using exactly the same hiding spot he used yesterday (67047), a Loo-Kee colored plant on the right side of the screen, in a scene set in the Whispering Woods. Not only that, the context of his hiding spot is the same as yesterday's, since in both cases we find him hanging around just as Adora is making her transformation. In 67047 he showed up just before Adora changed; here, we find him just after.
Did I spot him? YES!

Beginning his spot with a cry of "Heeeeere's Loo-Kee!" that's disturbingly evocative of a stir-crazy Jack Nicholson, Loo-Kee quickly indicates to us that his lesson for today is just as uninspired as his hiding place. Grasping at the vague idea that "Kowl had a problem" today, our elf advises that, should we also (like Kowl) ever encounter a problem whose solution is unclear, we should "talk it over with someone who cares." Who do you talk to, Loo-Kee, when you can't come up with a suitable accompanying moral for a half-hour of children's television?

N/A

• Leslie Wilson (story) and Francis Moss (teleplay) are the same writing team that brought us 67026's socially conscious "Book Burning." Moss has only written for POP and will be credited (mostly in the role of teleplay) for seven total episodes, of which this is the sixth. Wilson will only write two MOTU and two POP episodes, but all of them so far have been pretty special (MU085 and MU110 are both landmarks in my database). This last Wilson story is perhaps not quite as special as the others - but that's just my opinion!
• Hordak transformations: In a unique occurrence, our Horde leader begins the episode with his arm already transformed into a cannon, since we find him in the middle of a skeet shooting session. Also unusually, the arm remains transformed during his entire opening scene.
• It's trapdoor time! Hordak's last confirmed use of a trapdoor was the epic trapdoor-in-the-liferaft scene at the end of 67036's "The Unicorn King." Here, he dumps the Horde soldier in his throne room who (following Hordak's own order) almost hit him with a target disk.
• Meet Red Eye, Kowl's evil cousin! Not surprisingly (for various reasons), Red Eye sounds very much like his cousin. As for looks, Red Eye is like a purple version of Kowl that had a really rough night and is still shaking off the hangover: his wing-ears droop, his fur is scruffy and unkempt, and his eyes (which are colored orange, not red) have big bags under them. (The more obvious inspiration for his disheveled appearance is his name: Red Eye looks like he just landed after hopping the red-eye flight to Etheria.)
• Given what Kowl mentioned about his species being on the verge of extinction (see 67038's "Zoo Story," another Moss teleplay credit), it rather strains credulity that we've now happened to meet a female Kowl and Kowl's cousin. Kowl does mention to Adora, when explaining the existence of Red Eye, that "there aren't many of my relatives left on Etheria."
• The old lady buying an orange in the village scene looks similar to the enchanted version of Castaspella seen in 67019's "Enchanted Castle." Also noteworthy is the fact that the vendor selling the oranges (or whatever they're called - goosh fruits? bloranges?) has a pipe in his mouth - a rare suggestion of tobacco use, both in a modern children's cartoon and on Etheria as a whole!
• As in yesterday's "The Price of Power" (67047), we again get to see Princess Adora successfully using her sword to defend a friend, without changing into She-Ra. She's able to rescue Kowl from an attempted kidnapping via some fancy acrobatics and a thrown blade. (Yesterday Adora threw her blade to destroy a trigger-happy attack bot.) Our princess also goes on the rebel raid and survives the Horde ambush without transforming. Have our writers decided not to rely as heavily on the big blonde guns? This episode takes an unusually long time playing the She-Ra card, contrasting with many preceding episodes that either had Adora immediately making her transformation, or not appearing in the story at all in favor of an all-She-Ra day.
• Hordak surprisingly offers Red Eye the chance at winning the title of Force Captain - and all the bird has to do is snatch some feathers, and agree to be the subject of a magic spell! We know that Catra is a force captain, Adora was a force captain, and that the title has been conferred on one or two others at least (see the offhand reference to "Force Captain Kacker" in 67006); but it's unclear how widespread the rank is. It seems to be a pretty high rank, since at the end of the episode Red Eye tries bargaining his way through many other lower ones (lieutenant, sergeant, etc.).
• Madame's Magic: Returning to her old mixed-up ways, Madame casts a spell that causes "smog" - instead of the intended "fog" - to spew out of Broom's rear end. Close enough! I doubt the sparsely populated Etheria has the same level of fossil fuel exhaust problems as we do here on Earth, so a little smog shouldn't hurt too much.
• Kowl brings up the Valley of the Lost, a location that's been part of the series since as far back as 67003 - though with very inconsistent lore. Our heroes have actually visited the valley a couple of times now, for a library trip in 67020's "Three Courageous Hearts" and to meet 67044's "The Rock People;" but in this episode, Spirit reminds us of the place's original formulation by remarking to Kowl that "no one ever comes back from there." They do so, dummies!! Even in this episode, contrary to Spirit's claim, no one seems to have any difficulty returning from the valley.
• The latest in the Horde's endless parade of vehicles is Monstron! This one is special, and not only because it actually has a pretty cool, non-generic and unique name; according to Hordak, it's "the largest of all Horde ships" and "the mightiest ship in nine worlds." It's also a loaner: as he tells Catra, Hordak has borrowed the ship from Horde Prime (giving us today's reference to the Horde's overlord). In terms of design, it's not quite so unique, mimicking the Horde slave transport that we've seen a few times before, starting as far back as 67001. We'll meet the Monstron's sister ship in the upcoming 67018's "Horde Prime Takes a Holiday."
• As hinted earlier, Adora waits an unusually long time before choosing to transform into She-Ra today, not lifting her sword to say the words until over twelve minutes of runtime have elapsed.
• When the Valley of the Lost finally appears on screen, we find the animators reusing the same background for the place from 67003, when Hordak transported a wrecked Horde vehicle there via Magnabeam.
• Some impressive character lists today, with eight members of the rebellion and something near a half-dozen for the Horde (depending on how you count your Horde members). But no Imp! I have to admit, after his seven-episode run (which ended after 67046) I'd rather gotten used to the little guy.
• Swiss army sword: Gaining perhaps its greatest amount of surface area, She-Ra's blade turns into a huge glider so she can slow her fall when Swift Wind gets a case of iced wing. Kind of makes you wonder why Bow's hang glider in 67041 was such a big deal!
• She-Ra also makes use of her healing abilities to fix up Swifty, powers that were last used to very helpful effect in 67024's "The Mines of Mondor."
• ...And not long after the healing, we get She-Ra's other bonus power of animal communication, as she calls up the local avian population in the Valley of the Lost. Her voice as she's mentally calling out to them sounds kind of freaky, with a doubled distortion placed on top of it. In the final scene of the episode, you have to wonder why she bothered using telepathy, since at least one of the birds seems capable of human speech.
• Hordak sends out "jet troopers," which are pretty much what you'd expect them to be: Horde soldiers with jetpacks. We saw Tung Lashor using a jetpack in 67043.
• Hordak transformations: He opts for a full-body change late in the episode, turning himself into a sort of mini jet with a gun sticking out of the nose. It's slightly different than other rocket forms he's used in the past, though probably closest to a model he used at the end of 67017 and near the beginning of 67039.
• In his final threat to Red Eye, Hordak references the "energy mines," which may or may not be the ones of Mondor. Bow was on his way to the "energy mines" in the Dark Mountains before She-Ra rescued him in 67009's "The Missing Ax."

• Hordak's amusing cries of "Take that, Adora!" and "Take that, Bow!" as he shoots down disks reminds me of Dark Helmet playing with his dolls again in the movie Spaceballs.
• Continuity error: In the scene where the target-launching Horde soldier is dropped down the trapdoor, the target launcher that should be just next to him is nowhere to be seen.
• Animation error: For a very brief moment as he speaks to Shadow Weaver, Red Eye's tail feathers turn white instead of the correct shade of purple.
• It would have been quite a challenge for Red Eye to get a loop of rope around Kowl's head and gigantic wing-ears, as he somehow manages to do during a conveniently off-screen moment; but when he begins to fly away with his roped cousin, we see that the loop around Kowl's neck is far too loose, and seems likely to slip off in the air. Luckily, in the very next shot, the rope has shifted down to Kowl's midsection and gotten much tighter.
• Both the Horde and especially Red Eye demonstrate some amazingly crappy spycraft in their execution of Shadow Weaver's clever plot. The most important part of gaining intelligence on your enemy is to not let your enemy know that you're spying on them; but the Horde make no attempt to guard their truck convoy in the normal way, and plant a very obvious ambush inside the vehicles, making it abundantly clear they were aware of the rebels' plans to attack them. The cherry on top is Red Eye dropping in to brag to Kowl of his complicity with Hordak in the evil plot. At least in 67043's "Welcome Back, Kowl," the spying Imp made an attempt to place the blame for a rebel intelligence leak on a traitorous Kowl - as unlikely as that story was to almost everyone. (Ironically, Kowl actually is to blame for this leak, though all unknowing.) You could understand Red Eye taking time to gloat if the trap had been even the slightest bit successful, thus making it safe to hint how it came about - but it wasn't successful, at all! No rebels were captured in the attack, no territory changed hands, and no materiel was confiscated. I don't think that force captaincy is coming anytime soon, Cuz!
• Note that Shadow Weaver has a firm hand on the steering wheel of today's plot. The feather spell is her idea, and when it fails (due to others's incompetence), she has another idea ready to feed to the stumped Hordak. This is not the first time our dark sorceress has driven the Horde scheme of the day! 67011, 67017, and 67020 are just a few examples out of many others.
• We find Castaspella very unexpectedly hanging out with the rebels in their camp when Kowl recounts his conversation with Red Eye. It's obviously because she needs to be there to offer her knowledge of Weaver's feather spell; but the rebels could hardly have known they'd need a magic expert for their conference (could they?), so her presence there is awfully fishy.
• Returning to my discussion of spycraft from earlier - She-Ra takes advantage of her knowledge of the Horde's surveillance in the way that any good counterintelligence officer should, by planting false information with the enemy. The scene does rather call into question how the feather spell is supposed to work, however. Red Eye's connection to Kowl is described as "mind reading," but if that were the case, Red Eye would absolutely know he was being tricked, because surely that information would be in Kowl's thoughts. In practice the mind reading seems much less intrusive, like having a bug in the room with the person you're "reading." The fact that Hordak unwisely chose to leave Shadow Weaver off his mission (maybe?? see later comments) also seems to limit the detecting powers of the spell - which is very lucky for our heroes, since otherwise their enemies would see Kowl's surroundings and cotton to the ruse.
• It's hard not to feel some mixed emotions about She-Ra's use of the valley birds in her plan to save her friends. The mixed flock happily comes when called, swarming the Monstron's forward windows and tossing rocks onto the jet troopers; but didn't She-Ra just put a lot of innocent wildlife in danger of getting murdered by freeze rays? How much free will do the birds have in this situation? Does She-Ra's telepathy enforce obedience, and if so, isn't that sort of like slavery? I've got an icky feeling about the whole thing, honestly - though the ending scene with the birds does suggest they assisted of their own volition.
• Continuity error: In the scene aboard the Monstron where Hordak is asking Red Eye to use his feather powers on Kowl, he specifically wants to know if Red Eye can do it "without Shadow Weaver." What I took from this was that Shadow Weaver was not present on the ship. But later, after the bird army has had its way with the vessel and She-Ra is shaking the whole thing, we see Hordak swaying back and forth inside - along with Shadow Weaver. Huh?
• Having been shaken free of the Monstron by She-Ra before she tossed the ship into the cone of a volcano, all the Horde members end up wallowing in pinkish-red mud. I decided to be very generous in my plot summary and refer to it as mud, though the logical assumption, given its color and everyone's proximity to a spewing volcano, would be that it's lava. But it's just too absurd to imagine the animators and writers choosing to break the enemies' fall with room-temperature lava that just makes them messy instead of administering third-degree burns. Are Etherians naturally lava-proof? When were we told this? To be fair, given the low probability of the viewing audience encountering an active volcano, I don't think there's any need for Loo-Kee to show up at the end of the episode and advise us that lava is actually pretty hot. But still: what gives?
• I was waiting all episode to see whether this story would qualify under my episode category, "Kowl DOESN'T avoid capture," or my sub-category, "Kowl avoids capture." In the end, I don't think it quite falls into either, though the closest, given that the bird never does get captured, would be the latter. However, I usually like to reserve that sub-category for cases where others around Kowl get captured, and the bird avoids their fate, which doesn't happen here. Still, I've managed to mention it anyway!
• At the end of the episode, we're apparently meant to believe that the danger posed by Shadow Weaver's spell has ended; but there's no clear reason for that to be the case. Did anyone destroy the feathers? Did Casta perform some mojo that canceled the spell? I didn't see nothin.
• This story had its issues, and strangely my main reaction to it was frustration that the Horde didn't better manage their fantastic opportunity to obtain some really damning intelligence on the rebels. But I liked the use of espionage concepts, even if they were clumsily handled. It would have been perhaps a more enjoyable story if Kowl's cousin were a more effective or believable villain; but he just seemed to be a stupider version of Kowl, who for no discernible reason was evil and had poorer grooming habits.