Story - Michael Chase Walker & Teleplay - Larry DiTillio

Ed Friedman

When Shadow Weaver decides she's had enough of Hordak's demoralizing management style, she turns to the most inspiring substitute leader she can think of - Skeletor! Will this revenge-driven supergroup be enough to stop both Hordak and She-Ra for good?

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

Catra, Shadow Weaver, Hordak, Imp, Spikor, Skeletor, Leech, Mantenna, Grizzlor, Scorpia

Horde soldiers, various rebels

Crawler, ground busters

Trapped! Our heroes - Princess Adora, Kowl, Bow, and some other unnamed rebellious fellows - are hemmed into a canyon, with the robotic forces of the Horde - led by Catra and Shadow Weaver - perched above, lasers trained on their cornered victims. Adora makes a desperate dash for a nearby cave and is almost zapped for her trouble. She reaches shelter, however, which has the added advantage of putting her out of sight of her friends; so our princess raises her sword aloft to become She-Ra. For once feeling anxious about the sanctity of her secret, She-Ra discreetly smashes a hole in the side of the cave so she can sneak out a different way than her alter ego ran in, and is able to defeat the Horde forces seemingly without anyone knowing she was there. She accomplishes this through the use of her sword's shield form, hurling the object into the path of Shadow Weaver's deadly magic bolts and reflecting them back on the enemy. The result is a huge explosion, which puts the robot soldiers out of commission and leaves Catra and Weaver stunned.

Catra was particularly irritated with Weaver's magic causing the attack's failure, an irritation which is conveyed to Hordak during the post-battle briefing in his Fright Zone throne room. Hordak complains that this is Shadow Weaver's third screw-up that month. When Imp, flapping at Hordak's shoulder, piles on the abuse, Weaver snaps, threatening the winged spy with physical violence. Abusing Imp is a big no-no with our Horde commander: Hordak angrily sends the sorceress to her room. Off in Horror Hall, Weaver fumes: she's had it with her boss's bullying. But how best to get back at him? She'll need a powerful ally. After some little consideration, she decides the best person for the job is Skeletor. (Is it his fabled integrity, or his string of successes that most convinces her? Hard to say!)

Wasting no time in implementing her revenge plot, Shadow Weaver sends a holographic image of herself to Snake Mountain, where luckily Skeletor and his idea man, Spikor - in the midst of a morning brainstorming session - haven't yet devised any brilliant schemes for taking over Eternia. When Weaver proposes that Skeletor join her in destroying Hordak, leaving her free to take charge in Etheria, the bony villain is intrigued, but wants to know what he'll get out of the deal. As payment, the sorceress offers her prospective partner any aid he might need in conquering Eternia. Skeletor gleefully accepts - though, as soon as Weaver leaves to create the dimensional gate which will transport him to Etheria, he reveals in an aside to Spikor his intention to double-cross the double-crosser. Natch.

Returning to our heroine, we find She-Ra atop Swift Wind, on the way to answer the summons of mentor Light Hope. In the Crystal Castle She-Ra learns from Light Hope of the portal that has brought Skeletor to Etheria. Clearly some dirty work is afoot, and our blonde wonder is ready to wade in and stop it. To that end, Light Hope directs her to Snake Tongue Pass, where we next find ourselves. Shadow Weaver and Skeletor are lurking on the high cliffs, about to ambush Weaver's manager, currently making his unprepared way through the pass at the head of a Horde convoy. Weaver casts an avalanche spell that buries Hordak and his Crawler in chunks of the cliffside, and Skeletor finishes off the vehicle with his own magic zap. Hordak is down!

Skeletor's crows at his own success are interrupted by the reemergence of Hordak, who has drilled is way out of the wreckage. There commences a mighty duel, with both villains using their considerable powers (and talents for verbal abuse) to try to defeat the other. Hordak in particular tries out several bodily transformations, including a metal band launcher, a jackhammer arm, and a mini-tank. Skeletor evades every attack, eventually knocking Hordak out with sleep gas. It's at just this juncture that She-Ra joins the fray, flying overhead on Swift Wind. She announces her intention of stopping Skeletor's plans, even if they do involve defeating her worst enemy. With her focus on Skeletor, She-Ra fails to spot Shadow Weaver, still posted on the cliffs. The sorceress yanks the heroine off her horse with the use of her "shadow coils," and once She-Ra is on the ground, Skeletor sends her off to dreamland as well. Weaver then banishes Swifty with a blast of wind, and - that's that! In one fell swoop, this power couple have defeated Hordak and She-Ra.

Skeletor conjures a cage of bone to hold his hated former teacher. Enlisting Shadow Weaver's help in dragging the Horde commander within, Bonehead is able to easily lock both Hordak and Weaver in the cage. Double-crossing the double-crosser: check! If you're keeping score, that makes three victories in one morning for our purple-clad villain! The thoroughly chuffed Skeletor levitates the bone cage into a cave and blocks it up with stones, happily remarking to himself that he's never had a lovelier day. All that's left for him to do now is head back to the Fright Zone to assume the throne and instruct his new team of minions to rally the Horde armies for the conquering of Eternia.

This is about the point, however, where Skeletor's lovely day and ambitious plans begin to crumble, from several different directions. For one, Hordak's minions don't really have a lot of motivation to listen to the orders of their new leader; Leech, Mantenna, Catra, Grizzlor, and Scorpia are all much too busy chasing down the annoying Imp, who they realize can no longer hide behind his imposing but absent best buddy. Second, Hordak is not about to stay imprisoned. He awakens in Skeletor's bone cage and, all ignorant of Shadow Weaver's earlier treasonous actions, joins her magic with his buzz-saw hand to break them out of the trap. Third, Swift Wind, having been blown away by the sorceress, finally makes his way back to the rebel camp in the Whispering Woods, where he gathers Bow, Kowl, Razz, and Broom to head to the Fright Zone and aid in rescuing the captured She-Ra.

For the Fright Zone's throne room is, indeed, where Skeletor is keeping She-Ra, trapped in a bubble and on display. The rebels make their way there and Bow frees She-Ra with a new-fangled electro arrow. Through a combination of the freed She-Ra's kicks, a few more of Bow's electro arrows, and Madame's magic, the rebels defeat the Horde soldiers on duty. Our heroine then makes quick work of Skeletor, flinging away the giant snake he tries to throw at her and then flinging him bodily out a window when he imprudently stands on one end of a see-saw-like piece of machinery (who put that there?). Landing out in the Fright Zone's river, the drenched villain climbs his way onto land, only to be confronted with the freed Hordak and Shadow Weaver. Playing his only card, Skeletor begins to reveal the name of the turncoat who aided in his defeat of Hordak - but before he can give up Weaver, the sorceress wisely zaps him back to Eternia. She claims afterwards that she was so angry on Hordak's behalf that she couldn't stop to listen to Skeletor's information - uh-huh. The pair are then met by Hordak's minions, who have pursued Imp out of the fortress and are very surprised to find their boss back on the scene. Imp appears at his boss's shoulder, wasting no time in tattling on his co-workers, who are likely all in for some trapdoor dunkings in return for threatening Hordak's favorite.

While all this was happening, our heroes have managed an uneventful escape from the Fright Zone fortress, and are on their way home. Bow pauses to reflect how their foiling of Skeletor has indirectly aided Hordak; but they really had no alternative. And after all, as Bow observes, "Hordak may be a villain, but at least he's our villain." His friends, clearly starved for amusement, laugh uproariously at this paltry bon mot.

• Shadow Weaver (to Imp): You pig-faced little worm - I'll turn you into a sausage!
• Hordak (to Shadow Weaver): I said go, you useless trickster! / Imp: Yeah - take off, Shadow Wimpy!
• Shadow Weaver: Useless, am I? I'll show them - get rid of him - yes, yes! That's what I'll do. But I'll need an ally. Oooh; it must be someone who hates Hordak as much as I. Someone evil and powerful; but who?
• Skeletor (to Spikor): Well, Nail Head, what shall we do to make life miserable for King Randor today? / Spikor (stupidly): Gee, I don't know-oh.
• Shadow Weaver (to Skeletor): I'll create a dimensional gate for you to come here to Etheria. Then, together we will trap Hordak, and I will become ruler of Etheria. / Skeletor: That's just peachy for you; but what do I get out of it? / Weaver: For your help, I'll give you everything you need to conquer Eternia; whatever you want.
• Hordak (to Skeletor): Try it, you bone-headed bog waddler! / Skeletor: Chew on this, Bolt Breath!
• Skeletor: Hordak and She-Ra both defeated in one day. (chortles) I should come to Etheria more often!
• Skeletor: Behold my mystic cage of bone!
• Skeletor (laughing): I can't remember when I've had a more pleasant day.
• Skeletor (daydreaming): I think I'll make King Randor my court jester when I conquer Eternia - if he's funny enough. (laughs)
• Skeletor (of She-Ra): Blast that woman! She's worse than He-Man!
• Shadow Weaver (smoothly): Who would dare try to betray the great Hordak?

• Adora rolls along the ground: In a poorly executed attempt to avoid a Horde laser barrage
• She-Ra spin kicks the viewer: Making a new exit from a cave; and, much later, smashing up some Horde soldiers
• Skeletor shakes his fists, three-quarter view: This oldie but goodie gets used as our bony villain celebrates his seeming defeat of Hordak
• Skeletor laughs, head back: Enjoying his conquest over Hordak, Shadow Weaver, and She-Ra

One partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)
In a rare but not unique goof, we can see She-Ra very briefly twitch her sword towards the absent Spirit before the sequence is cut off. We can infer that at some point after this early transformation, She-Ra switched back to Adora and then back to She-Ra again, this time transforming her horse; but all this occurs off-screen.

14:03 - Loo-Kee is just daring us to spot him today. Appearing in a shot of the Whispering Woods where Swift Wind flies into the frame, a good portion of Loo-Kee's body is popping up from above a bush on the lefthand side of the screen, and he's staring right at us.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee urges us not to emulate Shadow Weaver, who turned to vengeance when Hordak was mean to her. Should we find ourselves in a similar situation, we should forgo revenge in favor of forgiving and forgetting, which - as Loo-Kee states with disturbing equivocation - "usually works."

MOTU crossover

• Story writer Michael Chase Walker previously gave us one MOTU script, in MU106's "The Bitter Rose." Today's writing team of Walker and She-Ra co-creator Larry DiTillio previously brought us the first two Sea Hawk episodes of this series (67007 and 67016).
• In a rare consideration for the safety of her secret identity, She-Ra decides she can't go out of a cave the same way Adora went in. In previous episodes, Adora has casually stepped to the side to transform and then stepped back out again as She-Ra, seemingly with no anxiety and without raising any concerns from her fellow rebels. Today, her use of She-Ra is so subtle that it's unclear whether anyone on either side of the battle is aware of her presence at all!
• Swiss army sword: It's a "sword to shield" day, with She-Ra using her typical winged shield. The defensive weapon defies the laws of physics by flying forward to pause in the air and deflect Weaver's spell, then reversing itself straight back into She-Ra's hands, where she turns it back into her sword. It's another in a lengthening list of cases of She-Ra flipping Weaver's magic back onto the sorceress (see the ending of 67049's "For Want of a Horse," or the ending of 67033's "A Talent for Trouble").
• The failure of Weaver's attack, before prompting Hordak's disastrous tirade, first prompts some complaining from Catra about the inefficacy of magic - a recurring argument in the series since Hordak's complaints on the same theme in 67017's "A Loss for Words." Weaver was just arguing the other side of this issue in the previous episode (67055).
• Imp, appearing in his third consecutive episode, acts as an important crux in today's plot. It's Weaver's frustrated threats of physical violence against the Horde spy that spark Hordak's excessive abuse against his sorceress, and drive her to a fateful (and treasonous) decision. Later, Imp's status as Hordak's spoiled favorite (well established over the course of several previous episodes) will get him into hot water with all the other Horde minions, when Hordak is temporarily out of the picture. The absence of all Hordak's minions, having run off to punish the hated Imp, is what makes the rebels' rescue of She-Ra so painless.
• Mom and Dad are fighting again! In fact, the rift between the formerly co-equal Hordak and Shadow Weaver widens to the breaking point in this episode, after surviving some tense moments in previous stories (see 67015, 67017). We'll have to keep watch and see whether this sore spot is probed in later stories, or develops into something along the lines of Evil-Lyn's ambitious plotting to supplant Skeletor.
• We return (briefly) to Horror Hall, Shadow Weaver's home from home, most recently used as the setting for 67047's "The Price of Power," one of my favorite episodes of the series so far. We see some familiar features, such as Weaver's curvaceous winged throne, and some not-so-familiar features, such as the fiery platform on which she conjures Skeletor's head.
• Yes, it's our second MOTU crossover episode in a row, because Old Bonehead is back again! Today he'll be taking a more central role than he did in 67055. The chosen flunky sharing Skeletor's introductory scene is Spikor, appearing for the first time in the POP series. (We last saw him in the late MOTU story, MU128's "The Games.") Unlike in his previous MOTU appearance, where Spikor had two normal hands, we catch a brief glimpse that proves Spikor is wearing his toy-accurate trident hand today.
• Right about the point where Shadow Weaver comes to Skeletor with the proposal to make a dimensional gateway to bring him over to Etheria and do some conquering, you begin to realize how much this plot has in common with 67035's "Gateway to Trouble." To save you the "trouble" of going back to that entry to refresh your memory, I'll sum up quickly here: Modulok the scientist becomes so fed up with Skeletor's bad treatment of him that he abandons his bony boss to switch sides to Hordak, bringing the Horde commander a gateway device to help him conquer Eternia. So this episode is sort of 67035 in reverse. Don't get me wrong, though: I don't feel like this is a retread. The circumstances and characters are changed enough that it's a welcome variation on the theme. The paired stories also emphasize the fact that neither evil boss is particularly good at employee retention.
• Another similar plot can be found in the more recent 67051's "My Friend, My Enemy," which had Catra colluding with Skeletor to betray her boss. Yeah, Hordak isn't exactly keeping morale up around here!
• It's a Spirit-less episode today, since the horse is not present for the opening battle, and after we spend some time with the bad guys we cut to find She-Ra riding Swift Wind, the pair already well on their way to visit Light Hope. We infer Adora and Spirit were telepathically summoned to the Crystal Castle (as happened for the first time in 67040), but we don't see it happen on screen. This is the third recent episode (see 67054, 67052) to omit the non-winged horse.
• Since it's rare when anyone in the show actually mentions its subtitle, just pointing out that Light Hope refers to She-Ra as "Princess of Power." (We last heard this phrase spoken aloud by the starstruck Lena in 67050's "Just Like Me.")
• Light Hope gives us the Etherian location of Snake Tongue Pass, a well-named spot for Shadow Weaver's act of betrayal.
• Hordak's awesome Crawler vehicle gets another look in, after its impressive debut in 67029's "The Price of Freedom;" but the vehicle's scale seems to have changed. It has shrunken so that it's only slightly bigger than the truck-like ground busters trailing behind it - in 67029 it dwarfed the other nearby vehicles.
• Hordak transformations: The exciting battle between Skeletor and Hordak gives our Horde commander the chance to use many transformations, the first of which surprises his opponent, though it really shouldn't, because Hordak changed his whole body into a very similar drill machine to escape a similar burying by Skeletor in their duel at the end of 67004's "Reunions."
• By the way, for another Hordak/Skeletor face-off, see 67035 (yes, I've already mentioned the similarities between that story and this one).
• Hordak transformations: Here's a rundown of the different forms Hordak tries during his big battle with Skeletor. First he takes a page out of She-Ra's book by spinning one arm into a shield (his version, naturally, is in the shape of the Horde logo). His other arm changes to a pointed pincer launcher, which girds Skeletor's midsection in a metallic band. That failing, Hordak changes one arm into a jackhammer to crack open a gaping fissure in the ground. He quickly shifts the jackhammer-arm over to what is apparently a freeze ray, but looks more like a machine gun; but, finding that Skeletor has squirmed his way out of the crack, Hordak again changes tack. As in yesterday's opening battle (67055), he makes a full-body change into a tank, with a battering ram projection in place of the usual cannon; but this tank is a smaller, blue-topped model, significantly different in design to the destructo-like one of yesterday.
• Skeletor demonstrates a new trick when he conjures a "mystic cage of bone." Its magic apparently makes it impervious to Hordak's abilities.
• Skeletor's delighted remark to himself after having defeated his enemies, "I can't remember when I've had a more pleasant day," is the central sound byte to a lovely YouTube video that clips together many of Skeletor's zanier moments. It's called "Skeletor has a pleasant day," and if you haven't seen it, I urge you to seek it out. It's marvelous.
• We've seen Bow share a Swift Wind ride with She-Ra before (67044, 67049), but I believe today is the first time the archer rides the horse by himself. He politely asks permission first, which is nice.
• Hordak transformations: That's right, Hordak's still not done morphing! To get out of Skeletor's bone cage, he changes his arm to a "cutter" - a spinning buzz-saw attachment. He used a similar attachment to threaten Orko in 67033's "A Talent for Trouble."
• Let's pause for a moment to admire Skeletor's amazing success in today's episode - which, let's not forget, basically fell into his lap when Shadow Weaver called him. He defeats Hordak and She-Ra with Weaver's help, then easily double-crosses her, and for a few brief moments finds himself sitting in Hordak's throne, bossing around Hordak's minions. Enjoy these precious moments, Boney, they won't last! Even in the He-Man series, where he was the main villain, it was rare for Skeletor to enjoy this level of success. The story I always go back to as his pinnacle is MU009's "Dragon Invasion," which would be sad if it really were his best, since it means the subsequent 121 episodes were all downhill. But consider that, at the climax of that episode, Skeletor is inside Castle Grayskull with his minions, the heroes are locked outside, and the Sorceress is trapped in a Dragon Pearl, seemingly about to lose all her powers. It doesn't get much better than that!
• Bow has been itching to try one of his new electro arrows. It's a glowing dealie with a sort of horseshoe magnet for an arrowhead, which proves quite explosively effective.
• Madame's Magic: Razz pulls off an error-free spell that magnetizes the metallic Horde robots to each other. As Broom comments: "Cute. Very cute."
• Skeletor's creation of a giant snake to battle She-Ra reminds me of that time he had a giant snake in his basement (see MU062's "The Golden Disks of Knowledge").
• Though we don't see any trapdoor-ings from Hordak today, we're reminded of his love for the gadget when Imp suggests his boss "get that old trapdoor ready" so Hordak can punish all his minions, who so quickly turned against the spy while Daddy was gone.

• Adora says she's "going to try and find a way out of here," then proceeds to roll along the ground and lie unprotected out in the open, a perfect target for the laserfire of multiple Horde soldiers. Um, that didn't work very well. She's very lucky she didn't just get nailed right away, but the Imperial-stormtrooper-quality aim of Hordak's robots saves her.
• Animation error: As noted in the transformations section, there is the slightest fraction of a second at the end of the transformation sequence showing She-Ra beginning to turn her sword towards Spirit, who is not present at the battle (or in the episode at all, as noted in the lore section).
• The first spell Shadow Weaver uses against the rebels speaks of destroying the stones "behind which they hide;" however when her lightning-like blast strikes, we clearly see the rebels out in the open, in front of some stones. They certainly should have been hiding, but they weren't!
• I always like to point out moments in the series where Hordak shows himself to be an absolutely terrible manager, and here he is giving us the opportunity again. His constant browbeating of his employees drives the best of them - Shadow Weaver - to an act of treason and revenge. (I don't think I need to provide any evidence that Shadow Weaver is the most competent of Hordak's employees; any viewer of the series will have seen ample proof of this.) I'd noted in the commentary for 67036 that a betrayal of Hordak hadn't yet happened in the series, mostly due to his being a very scary guy; but we saw Catra making a move against him in 67051, and today he finally manages to throw down enough straw to break Shadow Weaver's back.
• Even though, like many battles between main characters in both the MOTU and POP series, it decides nothing and has no lasting consequences, it was nevertheless a ton of fun to watch Hordak and Skeletor have their spiteful, trash-talk-laden battle. As I noted above, Hordak makes use of plenty of inventive transformations during the fight, and Skeletor is at his boastful best.
• Continuity error: You can explain it away with a single word - magic - but it's strange that Skeletor clearly fights the entire duel against Hordak without using any weapons, yet is suddenly holding his havoc staff at the battle's conclusion.
• Animation error? During her conversation with Skeletor, She-Ra is sitting astride Swift Wind in the air. The pair are clearly not in motion apart from the slight riffling of the breeze through their hair. Swifty is not flapping his wings, so we could imagine he's gliding; but the background is not scrolling by behind them. The effect is of them being eerily stuck in place.
• We can't let it go by without at least pointing out the bizarrely seductive moment that Swift Wind interrupts when he flaps his way into the Whispering Woods. Bow is strumming his instrument in a private concert for Kowl, who is draped over a rock, seemingly posing for a boudoir photoshoot, and gazing at Bow through heavy-lidded eyes. What the heck is going on here? I mean, isn't Kowl always complaining about the poor quality of Bow's music?
• I congratulated Skeletor on his rare success in the lore section, but it's hard to see how his position was tenable, even if the rebels hadn't arrived to screw everything up (and Hordak hadn't escaped thanks to the flip-flopping of Weaver made possible by Skeletor's own betrayal). Having barely secured his rule in Etheria, he immediately orders Hordak's "slugs" to gather themselves for an attack on Eternia. I suppose Skeletor is easily egomaniacal enough to believe he can conquer both worlds, but he doesn't seem to have taken into account the fact that Etheria isn't actually conquered yet. What will the Great Rebellion do while he's busy making Randor his court jester? Also, he's no Horde Prime: ruling over more than one world would spread our bony sorcerer too thin. Finally, there's a major problem with his conquest plans that he doesn't seem to have considered: how exactly are the Horde armies going to get to Eternia? In 67035, Hordak could attempt his own foray thanks to the one-of-a-kind dimensional gate from Modulok. A certain pair of blonde twins thoroughly smashed that thing; and Skeletor was only able to make it to Etheria via the gate made by Shadow Weaver, whom he then betrayed - I don't think she's going to do him anymore favors.
• Note that both of Hordak's betrayers so far (Catra in 67051 and Weaver here) are saved by their boss's complete ignorance of their betrayal. They both just sort of luck into this ignorance, though Weaver helps it along by zapping Skeletor away before he can spill any beans. This, interestingly, seems to give Skeletor some leverage over the evil sorceress: why shouldn't Bonehead threaten to reveal to Hordak Weaver's part in the treasonous plot, and extort something out of her?
• At the very end of the story, Bow points out an issue with the preceding plot. "You know, it's kind of odd. By fighting Skeletor we actually helped Hordak." She-Ra argues that they "had no choice" - a convincing argument if you just consider the actions of her friends, who really did need to foil Skeletor in order to rescue their kidnapped friend. But what about She-Ra's choice to attack earlier in the episode, when she first came upon Skeletor standing over Hordak's unconscious body? Why not let the two villains fight it out? No matter who wins, the good guys will benefit. Bow's final comment (which everyone finds so unaccountably amusing), that "Hordak may be a villain, but at least he's our villain," is almost like the show writers speaking through the characters, pointing out their self-made limitations. How many times have we seen She-Ra nearly defeat Hordak, only to throw him back home, so they can start all over again next episode? Do the rebels ever feel like they're just hamsters running in little wheels?
• It's episodes like this that make me realize how much I miss Skeletor. Hordak is a great villain, but he lacks Skeletor's hilarious foibles and just the pure joy the skeletal scoundrel gets from his evilness. It was great fun to see him in action, and interesting to see the evolution of Shadow Weaver's position vis a vis Hordak. I'm tempted to tag this one as a landmark, but will abstain - for now.