Gene Ayres

Tom Tataranowicz

Young, precocious villager child Lena wants to be just like She-Ra and fight the oppressive Horde. But she'll have to learn through some rather harrowing experiences how challenging it can be to act just like She-Ra - and how heroism can take other, less superpowered, forms.

Spirit (Swift Wind), Princess Adora (She-Ra), Bow

Modulok

various villagers, Lena, Hemley (Lena's mother), Lena's father, Horde soldiers, Arrow, chicken, Pinky, old man

Horde vacuum device, batmeks, jetmobiles

The Horde is at it again! They're stealing grain and food supplies from helpless villagers. One young village girl, fed up with it all, wishes her parents would fight back and be brave, like her hero She-Ra. Her parents try to tell her that their methods of resistance don't involve fighting, but the girl won't hear it and decides to run off and join the rebellion. It turns out the rebellion is just nearby, in the form of Princess Adora and Bow. From a neighboring height they can see the Horde soldiers at work, sucking up the grain with a vacuum device under the direction of its villainous inventor, Modulok. Adora wants to go find She-Ra to take care of the problem, but insecure Bow isn't having it today. He thinks Adora and he can handle this themselves, as long as they stick together (i.e., neither one of them wanders off to be mysteriously replaced by someone in a winged tiara).

Forced to agree, Adora accompanies Bow as they sneak into the village, looking for villagers to assist them. They wander into what seems to be an empty building and are ambushed by a troop of Hordesmen! Fortunately, robot soldiers are easy enough to defeat without any superpowered muscles: Adora holds the door for the dolts as Bow flings them out into the yard. Stepping outside to admire their handiwork, the pair find our little girl from earlier, who politely asks them the way to the rebellion. Her name is Lena, and she's very uninterested in dealing with any basic "friends" of She-Ra - she wants the real thing. Though she professes to be brave, a twitch from one of the beaten soldiers sends her running.

The spooked Lena races her way onto a flimsy rope bridge spanning a chasm, and sure enough, the bridge begins to collapse when she's halfway across. Jumping at the opportunity to split up, Adora leaves Bow to tidy while she chases after the girl. This gives our princess a chance to finally say those magic words, and Lena a chance to finally meet her idol, who comes flying in on the back of Swift Wind not long after Bow has arrived. She-Ra decides that her winged horse could damage the delicate bridge further, so she leaps off and asks Bow to use a diamond arrow to string a line across the gap, just under the hanging bridge. She-Ra then pulls a tightrope act, stepping carefully along the line (and in high-heeled boots, no less!). When she's positioned herself under the hanging Lena, She-Ra convinces the girl to let go, and catches her. Whew!

As soon as the girls are safe on the other side of the chasm, the bridge finally gives out, leaving Bow and Arrow stranded on the other side. This is bad news for Bow, Since Modulok has been alerted to the rebels' presence and has arrived in force on his jetmobile, supported by a flight of batmeks! She-Ra has to leave Lena for a moment to fly back and hold the bridge taut for her mustached friend and his horse to gallop across. Just one harrowing air chase later, our friends are all safe in the shelter of the Whispering Woods - which, being a magical forest, has moving trees that are perfectly capable of repelling the Horde aerial attack.

With a spare moment to hole up and catch their breaths at their secret camp, Bow and the (mysteriously reappearing) Adora discuss next steps; but they don't quite agree on how to foil Modulok and retrieve the food. Adora wants to develop a considered plan involving wagons and Twiggets, but Bow wants to get right back out there and attack the Horde, and the militant Lena backs him up. The outvoted rebel leader reluctantly agrees and stalks off to get She-Ra again. The trio return to the village to touch base with Lena's parents. Unfortunately, on reaching her home Lena is met by an old man who informs her that the girl's parents have been taken by the Horde! Mom and Dad were out looking for their daughter and got picked up under suspicion of being rebel spies. She-Ra and Bow urge the bereft Lena to stay safe in her home while they go off on their horses to do some tracking and rescuing; but the minute they're gone, the girl hops onto her elk pet, Pinky, and rides in pursuit.

She-Ra and Bow catch up to Modulok's train-like vacuum device, trundling its way toward the Fright Zone with its load of stolen grain and parental prisoners. Our heroine grabs the caboose and drags this terror train to a grinding halt. An angry Modulok sends out jetmobile-riding troops in response. With She-Ra returning to the air for her own part in the attack, Bow is given the job of ground assault, and nearly runs into Lena as he's attempting to draw the army of Horde troops away. Some quick thinking and horsemanship allows the archer to change directions and lure a pile of the robots into a shallow pit, which gives him time for a brief chat with Lena. He's not happy to see the precocious child, but decides to team up with her in his attempt to free the prisoners; an attempt which clearly backfires while we're not looking, as we next see Bow locked up in the same cell as Lena's parents. Doh.

That leaves She-Ra to tangle with the wicked Modulok in a thrilling one-on-one battle. (Lena is still free, but the best she can manage against the red monster is a few kicks at one of his many shins.) The Horde scientist transforms his arm into a new weapon he's cooked up, called a force converter. When he clashes with our heroine, the converter sucks away her powers! A drained She-Ra staggers away, exhausted, to be replaced instead by plain old Princess Adora. The contemptuous Modulok scoffs: he just defeated a superpowered lady. What could a normal-powered lady possibly do against him? Adora shows him just what, flipping the villain aside and tricking him into breaking the lock on the prison cell. The combined attack of Adora and the freed prisoners (especially Lena's mother Hemley, who hops on Modulok's back and gives him what-for) disables the Horde villain, and they finish the job by tying him up in a tarp.

Our epilogue has the reunited family trading compliments for their bravery in the preceding scuffle, while She-Ra returns to share some final words with Lena. The young girl admits that she has learned to appreciate non-superpowered rebels like Adora, and She-Ra claims that people like Adora and Lena have superpowers of their own: love, faith, and goodness, whose benefits exceed any of She-Ra's feats of strength. Our heroine urges Lena to use these qualities and, rather than seek to be just like She-Ra, strive to be true to herself.

• Lena (of Modulok): What a creepy crook! Why don't we fight them like She-Ra would? / Hemley: Be careful or you will get us in trouble, Child! We are not strong enough to fight the Horde.
• Lena: She-Ra isn't afraid of the Horde. I'm going to find her and join the rebellion!
• Lena: I have to find She-Ra, Princess of Power. / Bow (strangely annoyed, given that he usually has the hots for her): Hm; She-Ra again. / Princess Adora: Well, uh, maybe I can help you. What's your name, Child? / Lena: I'm Lena. But you can't help: you're just a regular woman.
• Bow: No offense, Adora, but how do you know so much about She-Ra? She's not like you at all.
• Adora: You bad guys never learn, do you? You see Modulok, just as you turned She-Ra's power against her, I, a mere woman, can also turn yours against you.
• Lena: She-Ra! You came back! / She-Ra: I couldn't stay away from my little friend, could I? But I hear you made a new friend, in Adora. / Lena: Mm-hmm (giggling). She's neat! She has powers almost as good as yours. / She-Ra: She has powers even greater than mine - and so do you. / Lena: Me? What are they? / She-Ra: The powers of love, and faith, and good. You have those already, Lena. So as you grow up, you'll find that you can be what you want - just like me. Or better still: just like you.

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: Just after transforming, and again later as she prepares to fight off some Horde soldiers

One full, two partial
Variation - it's been a while (67041) since we've had anything approaching more than one transformation sequence; today's second, coming after the full one, is incredibly abbreviated. Adora lifts her sword and says the first line of her magic words, and then a sparkly explosion transitions us to a fully transformed She-Ra, riding with her friends. You can also consider there to be a record-breaking third transformation at the very end of the episode, though it's even more abbreviated than the second, and only shows Adora unsheathing her sword. Previous episodes that came close to this number of on-screen transformations (67017, 67021, 67042) don't really count the same, as they were filled out with "aborted" or "alternate" attempts.

11:49 - Loo-Kee is prominently visible, though facing away from us, perched high in a tree in the upper-right corner of an establishing shot of the Whispering Woods.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee confesses he is constantly dazzled by She-Ra's super strength; but he informs us (echoing She-Ra's final words) that she has other powers as well - ones we can have also: love and kindness and fairness. "They work for She-Ra, and they can work for you." It might have been helpful also, Loo-Kee, if you'd advised our young viewing audience that, like Lena in today's story, they should consider themselves unprepared to join a war against an oppressive dictatorship. At least make your way through basic training first, kids!

Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: Though not as wayward as our usual brand of child, Lena nevertheless has the wrong idea about the heroism of She-Ra and must learn the hard way not to be quite so reckless and willing to leap into battle. Or maybe she has to learn to appreciate her own winning qualities, instead of hoping for superpowers.
Hordak-less episodes in Season 1

• This will be the only POP episode written by Gene Ayres. He didn't come out of nowhere, though; a google search reveals that the same Gene Ayres wrote a great many episodes of Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as The Smurfs and The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show.
• Our favorite evil Horde scientist, Modulok, is back, and he's brought a new vehicle to add to the Horde's endless list: this one is a gigantic tractor-type thing which has a train of flatbeds snaking behind it. The front of it looks a lot like a train engine, with a cowcatcher painted to look like a fang-filled maw; but Bow notices its ability to suck up grain from silos and dubs it a "vacuum device," so I've adopted his name for it.
• For what seems to be the first time in the entire series (it took them until the fiftieth episode!), Adora actually experiences difficulties with her secret identity. She wants to go and fetch She-Ra to help deal with Modulok's supply theft, but Bow thinks they can handle it themselves, and won't let her leave. The situation, unusual as it is, leaves Adora noticeably grumpy!
• In her request to be taken to She-Ra, Lena (for what I believe is only the second time in the series, after He-Man's usage of the phrase to conclude 67005) explicitly refers to our heroine using the show's subtitle, "Princess of Power."
• Bow again plays up the value of his diamond arrow, which can "shoot into anything." We heard him bragging about this same tool to the wizard Catillus, in 67015's "He Ain't Heavy."
• Swiss army sword: It's a "sword to shield" day for our heroine; she generates a particularly large one to block the incoming laser barrage of a wing of Horde flyers.
• We again see the mystical protective powers of the Whispering Woods in action, a quality we learned they had in 67011's "Peril of the Whispering Woods."
• Adora makes a passing reference to the Twiggets, reminding us that we haven't seen the forest folk for quite a while; the last time they showed up on screen was in 67043 - and that after a nearly ten-episode hiatus. They also don't appear in this episode, beyond the single verbal mention.
• Lena has a weird domesticated elk for a pet; he's pink, so his straightforward name is "Pinky."
• Lena's not particularly affectionate mother, in the classic Filmation fashion, is finally given a name very late in the episode when Lena's father calls her "Hemley." Lena's father is not so lucky: we never learn his name.
• Bow pulls a move that tricks an entire battalion of troopers to leap into a shallow gorge and form a sparking pile of broken robots. He must have gotten the idea for this from She-Ra, who did the same thing in 67017 (though she had to carve her own crack to do it).
• She-Ra shows up near the end of the episode to battle Modulok, adopting her casual leaning-on-the-sword pose that we've seen before in 67005 and 67030.
• Modulok shows off an impressive tool today when he transforms his arm to a "force converter," a long metallic shaft which, according to him, turns She-Ra's powers against her. It proves to be one of the most effective weapons we've ever seen used against our heroine, since it leaves her exhausted and seemingly forces her to change back to Adora.
• We can consider this episode the thus-far high-water mark for on-screen She-Ra transformations, at three, though two of them are severely abbreviated.

• I almost wish I hadn't googled up the writer's IMDB credits before watching this episode, because I may be projecting certain opinions based on what I found there. For instance, I feel there is some unwonted tension being generated here between Bow and She-Ra, an out-of-character emotional dynamic inserted by a newbie writer unfamiliar with his subject. It's true that in just the previous episode (67049), we saw Bow chafing a bit under She-Ra's constant attempts to shield him from harm; but he was very apologetic to She-Ra afterwards, and clearly just eager to be of help. Today he seems positively jealous of her fame, itching to burnish his own reputation as a rebel hero. I also thought Lena's vain attempts to be brave rather Scooby-like.
• This episode features the familiar Horde flyers, AKA batmeks; but when Lena warns She-Ra of their approach, she calls them something that my DVD captions interpreted as "lift bats." Just another confusing label for these confusing vehicles (and as I've now noted several times, if you'd like to read my lengthy complaint about confusing Horde vehicle names and identities, see the commentary for 67038).
• I've noted in previous episodes the writers' disinterest in examining Adora's secret identity or creating any tension between herself and other characters because of it (see commentary for 67012 and 67058). Our new writer, seemingly unaware of this trend, instead focuses heavily on the secret identity, with Bow and Lena contrasting Adora with She-Ra, and the archer making it difficult for Adora to sneak off and transform.
• Continuity error: the Horde vacuum device or train is depicted with a wildly varying number of cars trailing after it. In early scenes it appears to have several flatbeds for carrying all the stolen food supplies; later, it looks to just have one attached car, holding Lena's parents (apparently the sole prisoners from the village raid); later still, the flatbeds reappear, followed by an ending car.
• In the final battle against the vacuum device/train, She-Ra splits up from Bow, telling the archer, "It's time for me to do my thing, and you to do yours!" Just what her "thing" is, though, is very unclear, since she proceeds to vanish from the fight for the next few minutes, apparently accomplishing nothing until she instigates the duel with Modulok.
• We get an interesting and unusual transition which seems to tactfully smooth over a rather embarrassing failure on Bow's part. He enlists Lena's help in a plan to retrieve the stolen grain and the girl's parents; but we then dissolve to Bow behind bars along with Lena's folks in Modulok's mobile prison. Guess that plan didn't work out! Normally the show wouldn't gloss over an entire action sequence like this, so (and again I may be making incorrect assumptions based on my knowledge that we have a newbie writer) it seems like the script went over the running time, requiring scenes to be cut.
• When She-Ra is struggling against Modulok's converter, she cries, "My power!" A phrase which my DVD captions somehow managed to transcribe as, "My sword!"
• Is this another chapter in the evolving character of Modulok? The villain seems to have a slightly different look and voice than we've seen or heard in earlier episodes - see for instance his previous appearance in 67058's "Black Snow." He seemed less impressive and commanding in that story than he does here. Perhaps it's partly as he has to carry the Horde duties alone today, with only the incompetent robot soldiers backing him up.
• Though this is an episode espousing girl power, it still manages to come off as a bit sexist. Young Lena, a female child, expects nothing impressive from the female Adora, and has to learn better. Even Adora, in describing herself, uses the phrase "mere woman," seemingly unironically. More than that, Lena's mother, after having shown plenty of spunk in leaping on Modulok's back and pummeling him, gets laughed at when she comments the villain will "think twice before tangling with me again." Ha, ha! Silly woman, pretending to be tough.
• This was a unique tale, more grounded in reality than we've seen lately, and with a fairly tight and logical storyline. But I can't say I'm a huge fan of a lesson-heavy plot like this, and as I noted above, it seems to depict our familiar characters evincing atypical traits and reactions. Let's call it an interesting experiment.