J. Michael Straczynski

Ed Friedman

The unexpected consequence of a new Horde weapon leaves both She-Ra and Catra stuck in the secret underground kingdom of Halfmoon - a city populated by cat people. Not only does Catra fit right in - she's mistaken for the felines' long-lost queen!

Princess Adora (She-Ra), Spirit

Catra, Hordak, Mantenna

Storm Cloud, Prince Orwall, Horde soldiers, Sir Tao, Percival, cat guards, Minister Cloudfoot, various cat courtiers, trapdoor creatures, cat queen

wagons, Horde flyer

A rebellion moves on its stomach, so Princess Adora has to spend a lot of time arranging supplies for her people. She's negotiating another shipment with one Prince Orwall this morning. The prince is happy to do what he can to strike against the Horde, but wishes it were easier to transport larger amounts of supplies: the watchful eyes of Hordak's troops make it difficult. Indeed, unbeknownst to the two conspirators, even now they are being watched by Force Captain Catra and a small army of Horde soldiers! The enemy suddenly strikes, spooking the prince's horse and sending it running. Adora has Orwall climb onto Spirit so he can make a safe escape; left to herself, the princess then finds a secluded hedge wherein to raise her sword aloft.

The pursuing Horde robots peeking through the foliage are dismayed to find She-Ra waiting for them instead of Adora. The golden heroine makes quick work of the soldiers through the use of a springy tree branch. But Catra is not defeated yet: she has a new weapon from Hordak, an oversized fork that gives her control over matter. The feline villain uses the weapon to lift a nearby clump of boulders, turn it into a cylindrical rock prison, and send it plunging down over her enemy. She-Ra dives out of the path of the rocky trap, but the impact of the reshaped boulders has a consequence that neither woman foresaw. The ground beneath cracks and breaks open, making a huge chasm that draws down first She-Ra, then Catra!

Having fallen at slightly separated times and to slightly different locations, the two women each find themselves alone in an underground maze of passages and doorways. Catra, either through luck or skill, navigates the maze much more efficiently and soon finds herself at the entrance of an expansive underground kingdom with a cat-like face for a main entrance. Inside, she spots a pair of cat people having a conversation, seemingly confirming the existence of a hidden underground civilization of humanoid felines. Catra decides she'll blend in with the local populace much better if she switches to her cat form. With her mask slipped on, the panther-like Catra begins slinking casually past the cat folk; but as soon as the two catch sight of her, they're utterly astounded, for - as they exclaim to one another - Catra looks exactly like their people's long-lost queen!

Sir Tao and Percival, the two cat people who made this discovery, quickly escort Catra to the main palace and a Minister Cloudfoot, who seems to be the regent around here while the throne sits empty. The cautious old man sees Catra's resemblance to his monarch, but wants to be certain, so he questions her about her past. Catra conveniently claims a case of amnesia, so to jog her memory, Cloudfoot projects a back story clip reel onto a magic orb. Accompanied by the visual aid, he explains that, back when the Horde first attacked Etheria, the cat people (who, we'll eventually learn at almost the end of the episode, are called Magicats, as the title screen suggested) suffered many losses and were forced to retreat to their current secret refuge of Halfmoon. The queen, intent on rescuing those of her people who had been taken prisoner, ventured out to the surface - and was never seen again.

Catra remembers that Hordak first gave her the mask that gives her her shape-changing powers about this same time, and deduces it came from the captured cat queen; but she's not about to tell Cloudfoot that. She instead claims that she's starting to remember her past. As a final confirmation, the minister requests that Catra demonstrate one of the many magic abilities of her queenly mask: that of its "freeze fire" ray. Seemingly unaware that this was even a feature of her accessory, Catra gives it a shot and finds that the mask can indeed fire a freeze beam when she shouts "freeze fire!" The cat people are convinced: surely this is their long-lost queen, because nobody else could have gotten hold of that mask, right?

Meanwhile, all this time She-Ra has been wandering with little success through the rocky maze on the outskirts of town. Eventually growing tired of this IQ test, our heroine decides to take a more direct route and begins spin-kicking a straight line through all the walls. This finally brings her to the same entrance Catra found earlier; but the city's guards are alerted to her presence, and bring word to the council chamber. Catra, hearing what's up, quickly explains to the Magicats that the intruder is the same one who caused her long imprisonment, and should be attacked at once. Accordingly, the entire city guard is sent out to fire their bright claws at She-Ra, and she's forced to do some dodging and defending. This gives Catra the time she needs to sneak behind our heroine and zap her with the new-found "freeze fire" ray, encasing She-Ra in a block of ice.

She-Ra awakes to find herself bound by energy rings, laid on the ground of a dungeon cell, her sword of protection strapped securely to a nearby wall. Percival, her guard, tells her there's no use struggling. Further conversation reveals to She-Ra the lies Catra's been telling about her, and our heroine tries to explain the truth. Thinking back to her time as a force captain under Hordak, She-Ra recalls the capture of an important prisoner and the seizing of a magical mask. Catra is a false pretender; the real queen is still slaving away in a Horde camp somewhere. The disturbed Percival, who already had doubts about this whole situation, is nearly convinced, but needs to see some proof. So he sneaks off to the tower room where a self-satisfied Catra is lounging with her mask off, looking forward to taking over as ruler of the Magicats and having a feline army at her command. Percival overhears the human woman chatting on her wrist communicator with an impatient Hordak, who doesn't understand why his force captain is so late getting back to the Fright Zone.

That's plenty of proof for Percival! He dashes back to the prison just in time to find She-Ra having loosed herself from her bindings. The cat admits his firm belief in She-Ra's story, but says they have to hurry and tell his fellow countrycats, as Catra's coronation ceremony is about to begin! The pair break into the throne room just as Minister Cloudfoot is preparing to put the crown on Catra's head. She-Ra and Percival announce the so-called queen is an impostor. The audience doesn't necessarily believe this story, but Percival argues that the real queen would be able to handle any single human in one-on-one combat; so everyone steps aside to let the pair of females fight it out.

In the ensuing fight, the enthroned Catra tries all the buttons on the arm of her royal chair, throwing various weapons at her blonde foe - laser beams, a trapdoor, a crystalline prison, an electrified force field - but of course She-Ra dodges or smashes through them all. An infuriated Catra finally makes a pounce at her opponent, but gets her mask knocked off in the process, changing her back into human form and revealing to the assembled bigwigs of Halfmoon that they were about to bow to the wrong lady. Seeing the game is up, Catra makes a dash out the window (recovering her mask but dropping her wrist communicator on the way out) and tries to escape; but it turns out these Magicats have a creepy magic ability that will take care of their unwanted visitor. The courtiers and soldiers all turn and direct green rays from their eyes out the windows of the throne room, making a giant, glowing, swirly ball outside, which zaps the fleeing Catra. The beam instantly transports the force captain back to the Fright Zone, with no memory of her encounter with the cat people.

That takes care of the impostor; but what about the real cat queen? Well, She-Ra has an idea about that, as long as the Magicats magic extends to illusion - which it does. She has Percival disguise himself as Hordak and contact the Horde through Catra's wrist communicator, requesting the transfer of their royal feline prisoner to an open field. The false Hordak receives the caged queen from a pair of Horde soldiers in a flyer, then tells the robots to get lost. It's just that easy! Revealing his true form to his queen, Percival (Purr-cival?) is happily reunited with the long-lost leader. As a thank-you to She-Ra for her help, the Magicats use their magic one more time, to assist the reappeared Prince Orwall by turning his giant wagon train of supplies invisible. The Horde won't be able to stop those supplies now! A satisfied She-Ra remarks that everything has turned out purrrrr-fect.

• She-Ra (sighing): It would be a lot easier to know which way to go if I knew where I was.
• Minister Cloudfoot: When the Horde came from the sky in their terrible machines, we ran to hide here in Halfmoon. Everywhere, prisoners were taken. Knowing that some of our missing people were being held captive, our queen left to search for them; and that is the last we saw of her. / Catra (to herself): Hmm, that would be about the same time Hordak gave me this mask. It must've belonged to their queen!
• Catra: Roww, welcome to my kingdom, She-Ra. I think you'll like it. In fact, I don't think you'll ever leave! ROOWWWREEOW!
• She-Ra: Long ago, I was under a spell - I worked for Hordak. He told me that he took the mask from a prisoner - a large cat - and gave it to Catra.
• Horde soldier: We're not supposed to think.
• She-Ra: It's more than wonderful; it's purrrrr-fect. / Percival: Why, She-Ra, you even speak our language! (both laugh)

• She-Ra spin kicks the viewer: Finding her own inimitable way out of the underground maze; and again later, to break her way out of a crystalline blob
• She-Ra rolls along the ground: To avoid Catra's throne lasers

One partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)

1:21 - As he has done a few times before (see 67022, 67041), Loo-Kee chooses to appear immediately after the title screens today, very blatantly sitting in profile in the left foreground of the first establishing shot. In fact, he's barely hiding at all, as a good two-thirds of his body is visible on screen. In terms of timing, this is the opposite end of the episode from yesterday's appearance (67061), where Loo-Kee was hiding in almost the last scene.
Did I spot him? YES!

It's hard to see what lesson Loo-Kee could pluck from the events of today's episode (don't fall down holes? don't try to take over someone else's kingdom?), and he doesn't try; instead, he advises us not to litter. More than that, Loo-Kee urges us to be litter police, and stop others if we see them showing signs of becoming litter bugs. It is true that littering is the laziest form of poor behavior, as it's incredibly easy to avoid. In fact, not to put words in Loo-Kee's mouth, but you're trash yourself - literally a garbage human - if you intentionally leave trash on the ground. (Having thought about it for a while, I'm thinking maybe there is a connection to today's story in Loo-Kee's lesson. Because this tale was all about kitties, and they use litter! Ha! Ha-ha! ...I'm sorry.)

N/A: It could be argued that this episode warrants a "changing hearts and minds" tag, since She-Ra ultimately gains help for the rebellion from the reclusive title cats. But I don't think this quite qualifies, since the Magicats' aid appears to be a one-time case of quid pro quo; and She-Ra didn't exactly convince anyone to turn against the Horde, since the cats were clearly enemies of the Horde already - they're just hiding instead of fighting.

• This episode will be J. Michael Straczynski's ninth and final script for POP. He contributed exactly the same number of scripts to MOTU, and has been among the most dependable and solid of writers for both series. JMS, who co-created the POP series with veteran Filmation writer Larry DiTillio, would go on to write for comic books and create the beloved sci-fi series Babylon 5, among many other things.
• Bucking the more usual Filmation trend of avoiding introducing us to secondary characters, today we immediately learn that "Prince Orwall" is the guy giving supplies to the rebellion. We even learn the name of his horse! (It's Storm Cloud.) We'll also very quickly learn the names of some random cat people when we get underground.
• The situation of Adora and/or other rebels receiving supplies from a sympathizer, as Adora does from Prince Orwall here, is a very familiar one in the series. I'm particularly reminded of Farmer Carliss in 67042's "Enemy With My Face" - and oh look! That's another J. Michael Straczynski script.
• Catra has a potentially very useful weapon in the beginning of the episode, one that can make things lighter or heavier and change their shape. It's hard to see how it works, because it's basically just a big fork. After triggering today's plot, it conveniently vanishes.
• The setup for this episode is surprisingly similar in many ways to yesterday's 67061 (also JMS): Adora finds herself separated from her horse, flung into an unfamiliar place by a Horde weapon, and left to find her way out without the aid of her usual friends. The added factor is Catra, who will be forced to share this adventure with our heroine.
• A race of cat people with an impressive hidden civilization, of which the human population of the planet knows nothing? We've had that before, too! King Randor and the Eternians discovered they had a cat problem in MU066's "The Cat and the Spider." That one wasn't written by JMS, but his buddy, Mr. DiTillio.
• Etheria's cat people are quickly given many quirky behaviors and unique phrases to help establish their own specific culture and set of mannerisms. There's their parting expression, "Good eating to you," their exclamation, "By the whiskers of Saz," and the fact that they sometimes stand on two legs but also go around on all fours. One feature of the cat people that's definitely not very unique for Filmation is the long-lost parental figure (in this case, the cat queen). We viewers are old hands at encountering long-lost characters...
• Catra, by the way, gets her own uniquely villainous expression this episode, exclaiming "By all that's evil!" when she sees Halfmoon's architecture.
• Minister Cloudfoot's flashback video of the Horde attacking Etheria with swooping air ships is identical to a sequence we've seen two times before - and, as is quickly becoming a theme of this lore section, it came from episodes that were also the work of J. Michael Straczynski. In JMS's first MOTU script, MU073's "Origin of the Sorceress," the animation represented an early version of the Horde attacking Eternia. It was also used to represent what it's representing here - the first attacks of the Horde on Etheria - in Norwyn's flashback story from 67047's "The Price of Power."
• With Catra forced to retain her cat form to maintain the deception that she's a cat person, I suddenly began wondering whether she was going to be able to talk to anybody. I can't remember if we've ever heard her speak while in her cat form in previous episodes, and I couldn't find evidence of it in a brief search of the database. Before now, she didn't have much opportunity for kitty chit-chat, since I don't think we've seen the villain staying in this form for more than a few seconds at a time; but I always got the impression she became a full (nonverbal) animal when she slipped down the goggles. Today, we discover that she can talk in her cat form with the same voice that she has in her human form. We'll see this ability on display in later episodes as well (for instance, 67071).
• Our flashback to the disappearance of the cat queen incidentally gives us a bit of an origin story for Catra's powers. As Catra herself internally monologues, she received her magic mask from Hordak about the same time the queen vanished - meaning the Horde commander must have taken it from the queen to give to his force captain. (This fact is later confirmed by She-Ra, in a rare reference back to our heroine's previous life as a pawn of Hordak.)
• Catra seems surprised by the "freeze fire" ability of her mask, suggesting that it's a power she never knew she had until now.
• Catra's machinations in Halfmoon once again give us the sense that J. Michael was heavily mining his own past scripts with this final POP effort. In fact, his final MOTU script (which also happened to be the final episode of the series), MU130's "The Cold Zone," also has a recurring villain character attempting to take over the kingdom of a race of animal people - and, in the process, deceiving the animal people about the intentions of our title hero. In "The Cold Zone" it was Skeletor's minion Kobra Khan returning to the realm of his own snake people, and trying to take the throne by tricking the snake people into thinking He-Man was their enemy. Here we see Catra taking the throne of the cat people while tricking them into thinking She-Ra is their enemy.
• The cat guards are armed with confusing weapons (called, I believe, "bright claws") that look like light sabers, are hurled like spears, but strike She-Ra's sword like laser bolts, with no visible hilt. Huh. It's like having a laser gun, but having to throw away the gun every time you fire it. Not very efficient!
• Contemplating her good fortune - and the mask that brought it to her - Catra treats us to the rare sight of her head without its characteristic headgear.
• Catra's contemplations include the idea of betraying Hordak - or at least cutting him out of her queenly success - something she's already tried a couple of times. She colluded with Scorpia to foil Hordak's potential replacement minion, Huntara (67045 - a great episode!); and she colluded with Skeletor to poison Hordak nearly into oblivion, in 67051's "My Friend, My Enemy."
• We find Catra speaking to Hordak through a video wrist communicator, something that Imp and False Face have done before her (67032, 67041). The gadget proves a critical plot device here.
• Most of the way through the episode, Percival the cat person announces to She-Ra: "You're about to find out why we are called Magicats." Um, I think we just found out that you're called Magicats. Nobody mentioned it before now! (Episode titles don't count!) Turns out these Magicats can all shoot beams out of their eyes, which when directed out the windows of the palace coalesce into a swirly ball that... causes amnesia? That's a strangely specific racial ability.
• The Magicats explain that since their queen's mask has been used for evil, it can no longer be used for good ever again - thus precluding any attempts of the good guys to take away Catra's one defining fashion accessory. This reminds me of the staff of Avion from way back in MU016's "Reign of the Monster," which when used for evil would eventually, just, explode!
• After having done an amazing job of naming everyone else we encountered, the episode trips at the finish line by failing to give a name to the cat queen. Well meow, what a cat-astrophe.
• Hordak just barely makes an appearance in this episode, as a tiny talking head on Catra's wristwatch. The full-body version we see at the end is merely Percival's illusion. On the rebel side, as with yesterday's episode (67061 - discounting all the faces Granamyr plucked from She-Ra's thoughts), we again get only Adora/She-Ra, and a very brief cameo from Spirit. In fact, the last time we saw our usual rebel suspects was in Episode 58's "Horde Prime Takes a Holiday" (67018).
• It took me a long time to make this connection, but it's very likely that the subject for this episode was inspired by the musical Cats, which opened on Broadway in 1982 and was still going strong in its initial run at the time.

• I love the cat person line "I'm afraid I slept through the council meeting again." Classic cat behavior! It looks like JMS is going to avoid the "cats are evil" animated trope that annoyed me in 67059 and 67060's "Anchors Aloft" story. I also love that the cat people's customary farewell phrase is "Good eating to you."
• According to Minister Cloudfoot's story, the cat people were up on the surface of Etheria when the Horde first arrived, and had many of their people taken prisoner. This should mean that our fellow human Etherians should remember that Magicats exist, and have maybe even seen some in the Fright Zone or Beast Island dungeons... right? I'm willing to believe the hidden underground kingdom would have been (literally) below their radar before now, but they shouldn't be surprised that there are intelligent cats walking around the planet. In fact it now seems odd that She-Ra wasn't pleasantly surprised to discover where Etheria's race of cat people got to.
• Well... I said "intelligent" cats... but old Cloudfoot misses a pretty big loophole in his logic when he concludes that anyone wearing the queen's mask must therefore be the queen. Do they not have stealing down in Halfmoon?
• In order to explain Catra's evil plot to Percival the cat person, She-Ra mentions that she herself once "worked for Hordak," and remembers when Catra got the mask. She's in danger of revealing her secret identity if this story ever gets told around! It clearly connects She-Ra to Adora, in a way even Grizzlor would have no trouble deducing.
• Just as with Shadow Weaver's origin story in 67047, we're left wondering whether Catra was always called Catra. Shadow Weaver is only ever referred to as Shadow Weaver - even when Norwyn is telling the story of her life before she turned to evil. Did she just happen to have an evil-sounding name? And was it pure coincidence that someone with "cat" in their name was given a cat mask? Or did Hordak think of her for the mask because of her name? "I know somebody who would be just perfect for this thing!" The more reasonable explanation is that her name was Carol, or something like that, and was changed when she got the mask; but if so, our writer must have felt that was too confusing to bring up. After all, how can children be expected to understand that the same character can have two different names? (Ha!)
• When we finally get a look at the Magicats' queen, it gives us a rather poor opinion of her people's ability to recognize their own leader. I suppose it's been quite a few years since they saw her last, but surely someone should have remembered that the genuine article is a completely different color than Catra! Does this have something to do with cats not being able to recognize certain colors?
• She-Ra certainly wrangles some short-term aid for the rebellion from the grateful Magicats; but it's interesting that she doesn't try harder to draw this powerful ally into the fight against the Horde. She seems fine with the queen rushing off into her hidden bunker, where Her Majesty can presumably huddle with the rest of her people and wait out the remainder of the Horde occupation. Are these magical creatures so vulnerable to the attacks of Hordak and his minions that they have no option but concealment? I mean, She-Ra seems to have convinced many other crabbier, formerly evil, or even staunchly pacifist individuals to join the fray - why not the kitties?
• The rescue of the queen is nice and all, but it gives me a sort of queasy feeling about what our rebels have been up to all this time. After all, if the queen disappeared during the early days of the Horde occupation of Etheria, she may have been in prison for as long as twenty years (see my calculations on this score in the commentary for 67018, and further details in 67059)! True, She-Ra hasn't been around for nearly that long, but she's not the only member of the rebellion; and both She-Ra and her friends have shown themselves perfectly capable of breaking people out of Horde prisons, and have done so on numerous occasions. What secret hole were the Horde keeping this cat queen in, that no one ever tried to rescue her? Just what is the Great Rebellion doing with its skills of rebelling? Seems like their main occupation is acquiring supplies! (For more ruminations on the potential criminal laxity of our rebels with regard to rescuing prisoners, see the commentary for 67071 and 67079.)
• That being said, this was a fun story and an enjoyable watch. Sure, Straczynski could have gone out on more of a high note, maybe something impactful and lore-heavy like his fabulous Shadow Weaver story in 67047, or even yesterday's satisfying Granamyr encore (67061). As I say, today's plot had the distinct feeling of having been cobbled together from various copy-pasted bits of other scripts. It still managed some originality, however, and the bits that were recycled were still good bits. You can't accuse JMS of throwing away an idea unused - this writer is no litter bug!