Bob Forward

Richard Trueblood

An attack on his adopted kingdom of Bright Moon convinces former Horde general Sunder, now a peaceful farmer, to once again take up arms - against the army he once commanded. The military mastermind's decision is made simple by the added fact that Hordak has kidnapped his wife and child!

General Sunder, Spirit (Swift Wind), Princess Adora (She-Ra), Bow, Queen Angella, Glimmer

Mantenna, Hordak

Telzy, Mally, bundas cows, Horde soldiers, Bright Moon guards, Sunder's horse, storekeeper, various villagers

Horde tanks, Crawler, Hordak-faced ship, wagon, Horde rocket flyer (skycycle), Horde flyers (batmeks)

Meet the Filmation MOTU universe's cutest tot: Telzy. She's busy playing soldier and being adorable while her loving mother looks on. Telzy's mom could be just about any generic Filmation village woman, but we soon discover that she must be the farmgirl Mally from 67053's "Unexpected Ally." We learn this when the threatening, axe-wielding silhouette creeping up behind them resolves itself into ex-Horde General Sunder. Sunder met and fell in love with Mally during the events of his previous episode, where he also just happened to defect from the Horde after hearing a convincing speech from She-Ra. In his past, he was a formidable general and an astute military commander; but we find that he's chosen to spend his hard-won freedom living as a peaceful farmer.

Sunder and his wife and child are enjoying an idyllic life in the safety of the kingdom of Bright Moon, raising bundas cows and crops; but just over the hill a storm is brewing. Hordak has sent a fleet of tanks and an army of robot soldiers to bombard Queen Angella's Castle Bright Moon. She-Ra arrives atop Swift Wind to find the battle already in full swing, and a very relieved Bow ready and willing to bring her up to speed. The rebels and Angella's royal guards successfully repel the attacking forces, convincing Hordak and Mantenna (who have been overseeing the battle from the rear in the safety of Hordak's giant Crawler) to retreat. But She-Ra knows Hordak hasn't given up; she'll need help defending against the inevitable followup attacks, and she knows where she can find it.

She-Ra takes herself over to a nearby village store to ask the storekeeper where she can find a General Sunder. The storekeeper doesn't know any generals by that name, just a farmer - and Farmer Sunder happens to be there right now, in the back room. Sunder - the one and only - emerges and greets the heroine. Together they ride back to his farm, She-Ra attempting to convince him to join the fight to protect Bright Moon. But the former general explains that he's not that guy anymore. He hasn't even revealed his previous occupation to his fellow villagers. He just wants to live in peace with his family in his lovely - farm house?!?! She-Ra and Sunder pull up to the house and are presented with a horrific sight: the building has been pummeled and the roof has caved in. Staggering inside and calling for his family, Sunder finds the interior empty and ruined. A pitying She-Ra explains to the distraught man that this is surely the work of Hordak, who has decided to kidnap the surrounding villagers to force Angella to surrender.

Sunder's griefstricken features harden to a look of grim determination. Looks like it really is time for this general to go back to war. The old soldier pulls out an old trunk, one he'd hoped never to open again, and from it takes his full set of Horde armor. After an impressive suiting-up sequence that rivals one in any Batman movie, Sunder does some target practice, shooting the heck out of a collection of bottles and cans with his pair of laser pistols. The impressed She-Ra (who must be secretly overjoyed that Sunder's family got kidnapped) says she'll meet him at Bright Moon and departs.

In the castle throne room, Sunder actually meets up with Princess Adora - along with the queen, her daughter, and some guardsmen. Angella informs them she's received a message from Hordak, demanding she surrender in return for the release of his hostages. Everyone agrees there's no use in meeting Hordak's demands, and Adora begins dictating a battle plan. Her idea is that Sunder, Angella, Glimmer, Bow, and the guardsmen all defend Bright Moon while she calls She-Ra to sneak into the Fright Zone and rescue all the prisoners. But Sunder nixes this plan: it should be him, not She-Ra, who infiltrates the Fright Zone. After all, the general knows best how to outthink Hordak. As proof of this, he advises the other rebels to prepare for an attack from the air: it was how Hordak stole away the villagers, so the predictable commander is sure to use the same ploy against the castle. Sunder then heads off on his rescue mission, making use of a stolen skycycle (AKA rocket flyer) that Angella had lying around.

True to the general's forecast, when the Horde attack comes it is in the air, with Horde batmeks led by Hordak in his own flyer - and the rebels are ready for it. The guardsmen are kitted out with some anti-aircraft guns, and they're aided by the winged Queen Angella, Glimmer (who flies now - go figure), and She-Ra, who magically appears atop Swift Wind just moments after Adora has ducked into a side room. Together the heroes take out piles of the flyers, with She-Ra making use of her sword's rope form in addition to its plain old slicing abilities. The frustrated Hordak, seeing his air force crashing to the ground in bits, decides to play his trump card, and turns back to the Fright Zone to punish his prisoners. She-Ra, realizing what he must have in mind and unsure of the success of Sunder's mission, follows in hot pursuit.

Over in the Fright Zone, Sunder has sneaked in via a drainage tunnel and broken out all the villagers, including his beloved Mally and the cute (but loud) Telzy. Telzy's joyful exclamations at seeing her daddy brought the guards running, however, and Sunder had to perform some of his fancy shooting to clear the way for everyone's escape. Given that he only brought a one-man vessel, I suppose the general was hoping to lead his rescuees all the way back to Bright Moon on foot; but the people have barely gotten out of the fortress before Hordak returns in his Hordak-faced ship. The ship's laser gun blasts Sunder, stunning him flat on his back. Hordak orders the helpless prisoners to file back into their cages, but that won't be happening - not if She-Ra has anything to say about it. The heroine having made her defiant presence known to the Horde commander, Hordak orders Mantenna to train the ship's laser on her; fortunately, however, General Sunder has just enough strength left to use one of his pistols and take the gun out of commission. She-Ra is then free to draw Hordak and his batmeks off, then cleave the vessels cleanly in two with her sword of protection, leaving the defeated pair of villains to float to the ground by parachute.

Conferring afterwards in a safer part of Etheria, She-Ra thanks the somewhat-recovered General for his big help in the rescue mission. Though making it clear that he intends to go right back to farming and leading his life of peace, Sunder assures the heroine that he'll be ready to assist the rebellion again should they ever need him. What a man!

• Mally: I can't imagine anything bad ever happening to us.
• Sunder: I wanted to live peacefully as a farmer, She-Ra. That's why I never told anyone in the village that I used to be a soldier. I'd like to forget I was once part of the Horde. / She-Ra: Adora was also a Horde soldier once, General. But both of you turned against the evil ways of the Horde and joined the rebellion.
• She-Ra (reacting to the kidnap of Sunder's family): It's a terrible thing, General; I'm sorry. / Sunder: I'm sorry too, She-Ra; but Hordak is going to be even sorrier.
• Sunder: As a soldier I learned that the biggest problem with peace is, that sometimes you have to fight to keep it. (Turns and flashily zaps a bunch of bottles and cans with his pair of laser pistols)
• Queen Angella: Once again, my daughter, we must fight for the freedom of our home. Are you ready? / Glimmer: Ready, Mother. / Angella: Then - for Bright Moon!
• She-Ra: You're a good soldier. / Sunder: I'm a good farmer, too, She-Ra; and I find I'd rather grow things than blow them up. But if the rebellion ever needs me, I'll be there.

• She-Ra rolls along the ground: Dodging some laser fire
• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: Just after transforming; the loop is interrupted by a closeup shot with She-Ra commanding her horse to fly

One full

6:20 - Loo-Kee can be found brazenly staring right at us from the left side of the screen, the top half of his body popping out over a bush, in an establishing shot of Sunder's village.
Did I spot him? YES!

Referencing General Sunder's great love for his own family, Loo-Kee addresses a topic we've heard him speak on before (67046, for instance): the love of the families of his viewing audience for their little She-Ra watchers. He advises us all to show our own love for our families by administering a "big hug - do it now!" Okay, okay, Loo-Kee. Don't get pushy.

N/A

• Returning with his tenth POP script is the great Bob Forward. Today, he'll be revisiting several of the characters he introduced in his excellent story from last season, 67053's "Unexpected Ally."
• I suppose in the grand scheme of things it isn't particularly earth-shattering, but I was amazed to find that two of our characters from that last episode who seemed to be hitting it off well at the ending (the Horde defector General Sunder and the young farmgirl Mally) have gone and had a child together! Not only is it rare for a cartoon to address people having children, even through the indirect means used here; but we also get a fairly concrete idea of how much time must have passed between their last appearance and this one. Little Telzy is young, but she's old enough to be walking and talking, so her age must be at least 2. Tack on nine months for gestation and you're looking at a jump of nearly three years! This is quite shocking given my normal assumption that very little time is passing from episode to episode.
• The other way in which Sunder bucks our expectations is in his chosen occupation. It seemed at the end of 67053 that he had solidly joined the Great Rebellion, and that, even if we didn't see him again, we could be confident he was behind the scenes somewhere directing troops and training rebels to be soldiers. Instead, we find the great warrior has settled down to a quiet life of farming with his wife and child.
• The story of a general turning away from war in favor of tilling the soil, while unexpected in this context, is a very old one; examples include the Ancient Roman figure Lucius Cincinnatus, who followed the same career path as Sunder and then was (quoting Wikipedia) "summoned from his plough to assume complete control over the state. After achieving a swift victory in sixteen days, Cincinnatus relinquished power and its privileges, returning to labor on his farm." Cincinnatus was a great role model of America's Founding Fathers and was held up as an example for George Washington as he chose to give up his power as president and not seek a third term. Staying in Ancient Rome but moving to the historically shaky domain of cinema, we could also consider the life of Maximus, the title character from Ridley Scott's 2000 epic Gladiator. All that general wanted to do, before the course of his life was so rudely interrupted by the wicked plotting of emperor's son Commodus, was go back home to his farm and his wife and child after the fighting was done. Even the mighty Thanos from the Marvel universe, after having performed his horrendous act with the Infinity Gauntlet, retired to a life of farming (both in the comics and the movies, though for different reasons).
• Sunder identifies his cows as "bundas cows," which look like normal Earth cows except they appear to have the curving horns of a ram. This would be a slightly different type of cow than the very Earth-type ones Farmer Petro was keeping in 67052's "The Wizard."
• Sunder and Mally both mention that they are living in the relative safety of the kingdom of Bright Moon. As I was just discussing in 67066, Angella's kingdom is likely near the Whispering Woods, but not a part of it, since we know the forest is magically protected and the trees won't allow Hordesmen to enter, but the Horde at one time had possession of Castle Bright Moon, and we find them today bombarding the castle in full force. The Horde have also made a few previous attempts to take back the castle: see for example 67022 and 67041. Confusingly for my deductions, however, Mally denotes the kingdom as the "one place" where they're safe from the Horde. She doesn't want to camp out with the Twiggets?
• As sometimes happens in the series, we find She-Ra and Swift Wind already transformed in their first on-screen appearance. Adora doesn't show up until after the episode's halfway mark, and Spirit only appears very briefly as part of the full transformation sequence, which doesn't occur until the episode's fifteenth minute.
• The Horde's attacking force includes the typical Hordak-faced tanks and Hordak's giant Crawler, a bad-ass ride seen before in 67029 and 67056.
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra uses her sword's shield form to block the incoming fire of Horde soldiers. The transformation sequence uses the impressively smooth morphing animation last seen in 67063. Shortly thereafter, She-Ra steals Bow's thunder by changing her sword into an oversized version of the archer's eponymous weapon.
• She-Ra's "old trick" drawing the fire of the troopers with her propped-up tiara affords us the rare chance to see the heroine without her headgear. We recently saw Catra without her headgear in 67062's "Magicats."
• Bow sends an armor-piercing arrow over to She-Ra, which looks like a regular arrow until it transforms to steel - in midflight! Snazzy.
• It's worth noting that, during the entirety of the Horde attack on Castle Bright Moon, we see hardly any evidence of the moat and/or body of water that proved such an important part of one of the most recent Bright Moon stories, 67041's "Glimmer's Story." Unlike in that episode, where it seemed a huge lake was right at the foot of the castle, here the only water we see is a thin rivulet of a stream off to the side.
• Another chapter in the long story of confusing Horde vehicle naming today. Sunder explains to Adora that Queen Angella has obtained a stolen Horde "skycycle." We've heard vehicles in the past referred to by this name - but not the one that Sunder eventually climbs onto. The vehicle he uses is one that was previously introduced under the generic name of "flyer" in 67031's "The Reluctant Wizard." It's a cigar-shaped one-man airship, ridden rather like a motorcycle. Ironically, I chose to call it a "rocket flyer" in order to differentiate it from other vehicles previously called "flyers" (which also appear in this episode - under the name "batmeks"). The vehicle last called a skycycle, in 67063, was one that was previously called a "jetmobile" (67011), and most closely resembles the old MOTU sky sleds. See? Confusing!
• Today we get several looks at Angella's royal guards, some blue-garbed soldiers defending her castle. These guys do look identical to guards we saw in 67022's "The Crystal Castle;" but different than those seen (briefly) in 67028's "Bow's Farewell," where their clothes were the same, but colored orange and yellow instead of with shades of blue.
• Don't get me wrong, I do like it when Glimmer is given the chance to show off her powers. But today she suddenly seems to show an ability that she never had before: flight! When the final battle begins, Glimmer casually glows and just hops into the air, to float next to her winged mother. Huh? See commentary.
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra's "sword to rope" command changes her whole blade into a sword-shaped pile of the stuff. This is the more typical transformation; recent alternate versions (see 67064) have had the jewelled part of the blade staying in place, and only the section above changing to rope.
• Ropes are all very well, but it's also nice to see that She-Ra gets a chance to actually use her sword as a sword a few times in this episode, slicing open some vehicles. In fact, she slices Hordak's Hordak-faced ship entirely in half - making us wonder how the ship's occupants avoided being split in half themselves in the process. I guess Hordak and Mantenna were (luckily for them) standing on either side of the cut? Given that she probably doesn't want to be labeled a murderer, She-Ra is also lucky about that - and the fact that both Horde villains happened to be wearing their parachutes.
• In a very rare variation on the ending credits which has only occurred once before by my reckoning (see 67021), the background painting used is one of Castle Bright Moon instead of the much more usual one of the Crystal Castle. This will prove to be the beginning of a major trend in the second season's credits.

• Mally's extremely ill-timed pronouncement, "I can't imagine anything bad ever happening to us," is hilariously ironic and such an obvious setup for the coming events that it made me guffaw. As if that weren't enough, Mally piles on the foreshadowing a minute or so later by commenting, "At least this is the one place that is safe from the Horde, where we can live in peace." Her overly optimistic statement is immediately followed by a foreboding crash of thunder.
• I don't think of myself as a particularly militant person, but I have to admit to being a little disappointed in General Sunder for not turning his considerable martial powers to the support of the rebellion. I thought he liked his new-found freedom and was willing to fight for it? Of course, I'm writing this complaint having not finished watching the episode, and I have a feeling (based on the heavy-handed foreshadowing just mentioned) events will draw him into battle. But why wasn't he already aiding in the fight? You'd think She-Ra's persuasive words in 67053 would have fired him up sufficiently.
• Continuity error: Having just turned her sword into a shield to block some lasers, She-Ra gets distracted by some bushes and runs off. We find that her shield has abruptly reverted to a sword again.
• Since we just endured a whole episode about how our rebel friends have grown too dependent on She-Ra and need to learn to fight for themselves (67066), it was particularly galling to see our heroine borrowing an arrow from Bow and basically doing his job for him, using her own bow to fire her friend's arrow through a line of tanks. That's the one thing he's good at, She-Ra! Let the archer take the shot! (Well, he's also good at cheap magic tricks and making music of dubious quality, but those aren't particularly helpful in battle.) It's only fair to note that She-Ra was probably at the better angle for making the shot, since from her perspective all the Horde tanks were arranged in a line. But still; this feels very much like a "stay in your lane" situation.
• Bow's method for getting the arrow to She-Ra also struck me as a bit hinky: he fires it at her. I suppose it was the quickest, most efficient way, but just think how horribly that could have gone wrong!
• I found it humorous that the amiable Farmer Sunder, who must visit his local shop all the time to get supplies and swap gossip, affectionately refers to his favorite storekeeper by the name "Storekeeper." Smooth; real smooth.
• I've noted before that one of writer Bob Forward's great skills is at amusing villain hijinks (see 67063 and 67049 in particular); but he also excels at emotionally moving and tragic scenes. Viz. the heartbreaking moment when Sunder arrives at his home to find it destroyed and his wife and child missing.
• Sunder is lucky that, in contrast to every other member of the Horde, his old armor didn't have the Horde logo on it! No need to remove anything from that chest piece.
• Also... I know naming is not Filmation's strong suit, but... doesn't our general have a first name? She-Ra rather provokingly continues to refer to the farmer, who is clearly trying to leave his military past behind him, as "General," and everyone else - even the mother of his child - calls him Sunder. (Little Telzy, of course, calls him Daddy. Aww.)
• I like the scene where Sunder straight up countermands Adora's attack plan, deciding that he'll go after the prisoners instead of She-Ra. Though Adora has long been labeled as the leader of the rebellion, the title never made much sense, and (as I've argued previously - see commentary of 67017) was more a forced promotion from our writers, who must have felt their viewers wouldn't stand for She-Ra's alter ego holding an inferior position in the organization. Here, Sunder exhibits his superior military knowledge and experience with Hordak's tactics, the qualities that really impressed me in his previous appearance (67053).
• Counting his chickens before the attack, Hordak gloats to Mantenna, "Very soon - Bright Moon will fall, and the whole planet will be mine again." This seems to imply that Angella's kingdom is the only non-Horde holdout on Etheria. But we've already seen or heard of the rebellion successfully freeing several towns from the grip of the Horde: see for instance Devlan from 67006's "Duel at Devlan," or Elberon in 67010's "The Laughing Dragon." Are we to believe that in the intervening years (apparently, while little Telzy was growing up), Hordak has re-conquered all those places? Or what about Castaspella's kingdom of Mystacor, or Frosta's frigid domain? Is Hordak claiming those?
• A note about Glimmer's seemingly retconned flying ability. Recall that the pink-haired princess required the aid of She-Ra's winged steed to get airborne for her replacement sun duties in 67063's "Flowers for Hordak" - which was also a Bob Forward script, so you'd think he'd know better. Also, in that episode Glimmer seemed very afraid of heights - not a quality you'd think a flying person would have. Also also, remember that time she was hanging off a cliff and had to call She-Ra for help (67046)? She wouldn't have needed any help if she'd remembered she could fly!
• Animation error: In one of the scenes where Glimmer is so improbably floating around in the sky, the usually purple parts of her outfit are incorrectly colored a drab gray.
• Continuity error? There's a little bit of weirdness with ship counting in the final battle scene, where She-Ra leads off Hordak and his forces. Depending on which of the various shots of the chase you watch, it seems that either two batmeks, a batmek and Hordak's ship, or two batmeks and Hordak's ship are chasing She-Ra. At the conclusion of the fight, She-Ra only cuts apart one batmek and Hordak's ship, leaving the phantom second batmek unaccounted for.
• Continuity error: When Loo-Kee returns at the end of the episode and shows us his hiding place, it looks markedly different than the hiding place where he was in the main episode. The bushes and trees surrounding him are the same, but the general store in the village has moved and is now directly behind him, whereas before it was a good panning shot's length off to the right.
• General Sunder is a fantastic character and it was great to have an opportunity to spend time with him again. This was a great story with some emotional moments, hefty action scenes, and clever, brave actions by our farming soldier. I do wish, as I noted before, that he'd agreed to become a more active member of the Great Rebellion, as it seems Sunder's strategic mind and in-depth knowledge of the enemy, deployed consistently, could easily have turned the tide in Etheria's war. But much as I find myself railing against it, I do understand and embrace the comfort and predictability of the unchanging world of a cartoon series - an unchanging world that won't stand for movers and shakers like Sunder.