Carol Baxter

Richard Trueblood

Magician's apprentice Eli thinks he's pretty hot stuff; he doesn't realize that his suddenly augmented magical powers are all due to the rock in his pocket. It's called the Serenity Stone, and Shadow Weaver wants serenity, now. What neither of them realize is that this stone is the only thing keeping Etheria from whirling off into space!

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

Shadow Weaver

Horde soldiers, Eli, Arrow, Candor, various rebels, Serenia guardian

wagon

Picture this: you're a young magician's student with just one lesson left before you graduate. Your teacher has sent you off to a woody corner of Etheria to meet someone named... Adam Shazz? Wait, no, sorry; it says, "Madame Razz." But on the way there you come across a group of Horde soldiers who have a rock. Surely you'd stop in your journey to take it from them, right? And slip it in your pocket?

Well, if you're Eli, the apprentice of the magician Candor, that's exactly what you'd do; but the soldiers chase Eli down and corner him in a little dell. There's nothing for it but to try one of those spells that Candor taught him. Eli's magic maybe isn't usually that dependable, but for some reason, today (cut to shot of rock glowing in his pocket) his spell works amazingly well, turning all three of the robots into trees - there to stand till the morning, per the words of his casting. A pair of strangers on horseback arrive to assist the boy, but by then he's already had time to not only take care of the problem, but get plenty boastful about it.

The strangers introduce themselves as Adora and Bow (hey! we know them!). When Eli explains his mission, the two reveal that they're great friends of Madame Razz, and can give him a ride to where she'll be - at the rebel camp in the Whispering Woods. Eli happily accompanies them, now fully of the belief that this old witch has nothing left to teach him. At the center of the camp he meets Flutterina, Peekablue, Perfuma, Kowl, and Glimmer. When they offer him food, Eli impresses the company by conjuring a huge spread on the nearby dining table. When Razz finally arrives, neither the older nor the newer magician make a very good first impression on the other; for Madame makes her usual airborne entrance, crashing Broom into the ground, and Eli brags of his abilities.

Regardless of what Razz may think of his manners, the witch dutifully begins her lessons with Eli, starting by showing him around the camp. They end up on a hill where the rebel laundry is being done and hung to dry. Madame hands the tour off to Adora so she can cast a spell to help tote some buckets full of water up to the hill; but her magic goes predictably wrong, with the pails floating and sloshing around her head. Eli has to help rescue her, and she ends up drenched. The boy suggests what he feels is a much simpler magical solution to the chore: why not move the entire river up to camp? Adora and Razz both nix the idea, seeing many potential pitfalls, and ask Eli to wait while the pair go off to get the witch dried. Though he promises to obey, as soon as the women are out of sight Eli casts a spell anyway, directing a new arm of the river into camp.

It seems to work perfectly, assuring Eli once again of his own considerable magical might; but before he can spend much time admiring his handiwork, the boy receives a message from (seemingly) the floating head of his teacher, Candor. The old man requests Eli's help back at Candor's mountain, and Eli rushes off to obey. Meanwhile, however, we see the negative impacts of the irrigation magic: for the redirected water floods the camp, finding its way even inside the home of Madame Razz, where the witch and Adora have gone to dry the old woman off. They rush outside to address the problem (which they quickly conclude was caused by their visitor), with Adora changing herself to She-Ra and her horse to Swift Wind. Once the heroine has dug out a quick channel and drawn away the flood waters, Madame returns in a panic. She went looking for the boy, and heard from Bow that Eli had gone off at the summons of his master. But Razz knows that the message couldn't have come from Candor: he takes a hundred-year nap after each set of lessons (which must make it hard to book him in advance).

It's true: the head Eli thought belonged to Candor was actually an illusion of Shadow Weaver. She knows the boy took the stone her soldiers rightfully stole, that it's been boosting his powers - and she wants it for herself. She-Ra and Razz, unaware of the specifics but sure something nasty is afoot that probably has Weaver at its root, take off to follow the boy. They head for the land of Serenia, where Candor's mountain is located; it was once Razz's home and, as she further explains, is also the source of magic that keeps all Etheria in balance. In trying to explain what might happen if Serenia's powers were disturbed, Madame accidentally falls off of Broom, requiring a quick-thinking rescue from She-Ra and Swift Wind. Soon after, and while still in the air, the heroes find themselves enveloped in a giant red glowing ball! The ball forces them on a different route, dragging the foursome into a cool-looking pyramid that we glimpsed at the opening of the episode.

In the dark interior, the bewildered heroes are met by a robed, monkish fellow, who explains that he's a guardian of the Serenity Stone, which has been stolen. It's the focus of Serenia's magical equilibrium, here in the Balance Center of Etheria. If the magic-augmenting stone isn't returned soon to its spot in the center of the pyramid, the entire planet will fly out of its orbit and off into deep space! She-Ra and Razz finally put some things together and realize that Eli must have the stone, and that's why Weaver wants Eli. With new urgency, they resume their journey to Candor's mountain.

When they finally make it to the cave and find Eli, he's already been bamboozled by the evil sorceress. She led him into the dark with Candor's voice, then wrapped him in foggy magical chains and told him about the stone he stole. Eli, abashed, realizes that all the cool stuff he's been doing is due entirely to the rock in his pocket. He's been a fool. Before She-Ra and Razz can stop her, Weaver has yanked the Serenity Stone from Eli and has it in her clutches. We're in for it now! Shadow Weaver's power has just increased by a thousand times! Surely not even She-Ra's strength will be enough to stop her! We're going to see some really amazing magic, right?

Well.... Not exactly. The sorceress gets off one zap with her new rock-enhanced powers, which She-Ra deflects with her sword onto Eli, breaking his chains. Then the planet itself begins to shudder, finally undergoing the effects of its loss of balance, and Shadow Weaver anticlimactically fumbles the stone into a crack in the ground. Razz urges the now-humbled Eli to join his powers with hers so they can zap Weaver and freeze her in place. While they're doing that, She-Ra climbs down into the crack and just manages to grab hold of the Serenity Stone before it tumbles off into the abyss. Whew!

Requesting that her friends keep holding that evil sorceress for a few more minutes, She-Ra hops onto Swift Wind for an emergency ride back to the pyramid, so she can replace the stone. She barely makes it: everything is shaking and jiving around her, and the pyramid is a crumbling mess. But once our heroine puts the Serenity Stone back on its high pedestal, Etheria subsides and all returns to a balanced calmness. She-Ra takes a quick moment to shove one load-bearing chunk of the shattered pyramid back into place, then flies off back to her friends - presumably leaving the guardian to start calling up masonry contractors.

She's again barely in time: for Eli and Razz have had a tough job keeping Shadow Weaver imprisoned. Some quick spell-casting from Madame saved the pair from a falling boulder, when the panicked Eli couldn't think of the right words (a nice turnaround from the bucket incident earlier); then the infuriated Weaver finally broke free of her magical bonds. She's just in the act of throwing her own foggy chains back at the good magicians when She-Ra returns. The blonde beauty sweeps up Weaver's spell and uses it against her, lassoing the sorceress and flinging her all the way back to her home in Horror Hall. All is again right with the world!

Back at the Whispering Woods, Eli regroups with the rebels (including Adora, who's taken the place of She-Ra) and apologizes for his earlier arrogant behavior. He thanks Madame and the others for their patience and kindness even while he was being big-headed, and says he's learned an important final lesson: good manners.

• Kowl (scoffing): That Eli thinks he's pretty smart. / Bow (with no irony or sarcasm at all, somehow): Wait 'til he meets Madame. She'll teach him a thing or two.
• Eli: Madame Razz, I've come to meet you. Candor has sent me to you for my final lesson. But since I already know all I need to, I'm not sure what you could teach me. / Madame Razz (aside, to Broom): I hope he sets aside a little time to work on his bad manners.
• Madame Razz: Eli might need work on his manners, but he's a magician - and we magicians stick together.
• Madame Razz: Come on, Eli - we can put our magic together to help She-Ra. / Eli: You want my help? After all the trouble I put you through? / Razz: Well, I was young once myself; you'll get over it.
• Eli: I now know why my teacher sent me here. He knew I would learn something even better than magic. Through your kindness and patience, I've learned not to brag and show off. / Princess Adora: That's right; there's always room for excellence, no matter how old or young you might be.

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: Just after transforming; and twice more later, just the take-off portion of the loop is used - once when She-Ra is taking off to find Eli, and again when she's taking off to replace the Serenity Stone

One full

2:13 - Loo-Kee is peeking out at us from the right side of a tree trunk, screen center, in an establishing shot that brings us to our heroes. He's very easy to spot since none of the surrounding vegetation shares his color palette.
Did I spot him? YES!

After revealing a hiding place that looks very little like the one he was actually hiding in today, Loo-Kee opts for the direct and straightforward route with his lesson, and advises us to take Eli's example: learn not to brag. "Just let your actions speak for themselves."

Wayward child learns a valuable lesson
Hordak-less episodes in Season 2

• This is the third POP script by Carol Baxter, who previously gave us 67037's "The Anxious Apprentice" and 67051's "My Friend, My Enemy." She'll provide one more.
• Interesting trivia: Ms. Baxter is also an actress and starred in the original Battlestar Galactica and The Incredible Hulk TV series.
• Today's young boy, our second wayward child in two episodes, reminds me of Link from The Legend of Zelda in the same way that the young elf prince Storm did in 67054's "The Light of the Crystal."
• His name, however, is not Link or Storm, but Eli; and to connect him to another POP episode, he's the misguided apprentice of an old wizard in the same way that young Arden was of Norwyn in 67047's "The Price of Power." No offense to this episode, which is fine in its own way, but 67047 was a much better story (in fact, IMO it was better than almost any other POP story).
• Good on Filmation, by the way, for actually giving us the names of our new characters right away; Eli mentions that his wizard teacher is named Candor, and he politely introduces himself to Adora and Bow, so I didn't have to struggle to fill out my character lists.
• Candor, oddly enough, never actually appears in the episode, though he's mentioned frequently; the only version of him we see is an illusion produced by Shadow Weaver. I've chosen to list him among the characters anyway - I think he's important enough to the story to warrant it.
• Speaking of characters I had to list: though Flutterina, Peekablue, and Perfuma do appear in both the beginning and ending scenes in the Whispering Woods (Flutterina for her third consecutive episode), they have no lines of dialogue and add nothing to the story. One gets the distinct feeling they were included as the ticking of a box: "three additional action figure characters - check!"
• Glimmer gets it even worse than the preceding three ladies, since she only appears in one shot of the opening scene, and doesn't return for the ending one. People are always hating on poor Glim!
• For the second episode in a row, we return to Shadow Weaver's home at Horror Hall. I'm always happy to return to her dank, book-lined and pickling-jar-filled domain!
• Madame's Magic: Today's story, being a magic-themed one, will be big for this sub-category. The first instance comes when Madame attempts to magically transport some buckets of water up a "hill," but substitutes the word "wheel," and ends up all wet.
• I've already mentioned a couple of other episodes this one reminds me of; but Eli's idea to change the course of a river reminds me of another Carol Baxter script. Her "Anxious Apprentice," Ariel, tried to dam up a stream at the beginning of 67037. Really the two stories share a lot more than that in common: both deal with a precocious apprentice who thinks they're better at casting spells than they actually are, and both overconfident youngsters cause trouble with the magical artifact they steal.
• In fact, Baxter's only other script up to this point, 67051's "My Friend, My Enemy," also dealt with the strained relationship between a magician and his wayward former pupil; only in that case, the former pupil was Hordak! Clearly this teacher-pupil dynamic is one close to Carol's heart.
• For our second sorceress house visit of the day, we find ourselves at Madame Razz's domicile - and for only the second time in the series! The first time we ended up here was in 67052's "The Wizard," when an excited Broom tried to interrupt Madame in the middle of an important potion brewing.
• Eli's poorly thought-out irrigation spell forces She-Ra to do her own hydraulic engineering, a thing she and her brother are quite good at. In fact, She-Ra just redirected a body of water at the end of 67068. There, she decided to transform her sword into a "digger;" here, she opts to simply drive the untransformed blade into the ground and prize open a channel.
• We get more evidence today that our magical characters, at least, tend to have very long lifespans. Razz explains to She-Ra that Candor takes rests of "at least a hundred years" between his tutoring jobs (must be a great way to earn interest in your bank accounts!). Later, we get another reminder of just how old Razz herself is, when she recalls something that she believes happened "600 years ago." Broom remembered Razz doing something 200 years ago, in 67052.
• Actually, the thing Razz was doing 600 years ago was living in the land of Serenia, apparently the location of Candor's house and (in the typical obvious fashion of Filmation naming) the usual resting place of the Serenity Stone. As She-Ra helpfully comments, Serenia is "supposed to be a very mystical and powerful place;" and as Razz adds, it's "the one place that keeps all of Etheria in balance." So why are we only hearing about it now?
• The robed, monk-like guardian of the Balance Center of Etheria - the poorly lit but sweet-ass pyramid where the Serenity Stone is housed - reminds me of the badly voiced Spirit of the Ancients He-Man met in MU067's "The Energy Beast." Today's guardian seems to have gone to mime school; even though he can speak just fine, he utilizes a lot of sweeping hand gestures. It's particularly amusing to see how he acts out the phrases "out of balance" and "go spinning off!"
• Madame's Magic: In a somewhat unusual use of her powers, without saying a single rhyming word, Madame shoots beams out of her hands in concert with Eli, so they can join forces to trap Shadow Weaver. Razz: "This was always my favorite spell; I just love the color."
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra changes her sword to a sword-shaped pile of rope with a multi-barbed grappling hook on the end, so she can climb her way down into a hole and fetch out that MacGuffin stone. We saw her use something similar in 67025 and 67040.
• Madame's Magic: Showing her experience has given her the ability to think on her feet, Madame remembers the other line of a magic spell that a panicked Eli can't come up with, and stops a falling boulder from crushing the pair of them. Whew!
• As our heroine often does, She-Ra today defeats Shadow Weaver by using the sorceress's own magic against her. Usually - as in, for instance, 67049 - that involves She-Ra using her sword to deflect the attack. In 67033, She-Ra blew a spell back at the sorceress. Today, she physically grabs hold of a floating, smoky magic chain that Weaver is trying to bind around Razz and Eli, and uses it to lasso its wielder.
• Ending credits variation: With its fourth consecutive appearance, I really am getting the idea that the background painting for the ending credits has permanently changed, and will from now on be the Castle Bright Moon image.

• Continuity error: We know from Eli's conversations with the Horde soldiers that they were sent by Shadow Weaver; but he never reveals this information to Adora and Bow on their meeting, so there's no good reason for Adora to be telling the boy, "We'd better get out of here before Shadow Weaver comes looking for her troops." That is, unless we're to believe that all the Horde troopers somehow belong to Shadow Weaver. This is highly unlikely given the show's oft-professed philosophical dichotomy between science and sorcery: magic-wielding Weaver would never stoop to tinkering with automatons.
• It's odd that, between Razz and She-Ra, She-Ra is the first one to think of Candor's mountain as the place where Eli must have gone, and also seems to know better the way to get there - particularly since, as Razz herself points out, she's the one who used to live there. Razz is also a magician who clearly knows Candor and how he operates - why not give her the know-how here?
• I also found myself wondering why, if there's a magic stone that keeps the entire planet in balance and has immense power, it's not being hidden in Light Hope's Crystal Castle. It's one of the few places on Etheria whose location is a successfully kept secret, and has remained secure from any villainous intrusion. It also seems to be the home for plenty of other super important secrets and power (like the First Ones - see 67021). Is it too hard for that robed monk to relocate his pyramid?
• This episode had me contemplating what a stressful life Broom must lead. He spends an inordinate amount of time with his hands at the sides of his head, aghast over his rider's clumsy and senile antics. He's constantly telling her to be careful of her landings and "save your stories for when you're on the ground," and all to no avail. I feel for the guy. He also gets a bit of a raw deal today with his screentime, since he's somehow missing from the entire ending battle with Shadow Weaver, even though he served as Razz's transportation to the cave where it takes place.
• I know it's wrong to want the bad guys to succeed, but I was really looking forward to seeing what Shadow Weaver would do with the thousand-fold powers she gained from possessing the Serenity Stone. It was very disappointing when she only got one good zap off before dropping the thing. I will say, though, that the animation of Weaver fumbling the rock looks really good.
• Madame's seemingly cutesy, throwaway line to Eli - "I was young once myself; you'll get over it" - is one of my favorite lines from She-Ra. It's so rare that Razz gets to say anything meaningful, and this line is a lovely statement about the advantage of maturity over youth - as well as its rather comforting inevitability. It's exactly something someone several hundred years old might say - even if it's maybe not a line that a child viewer would get much out of.
• Animation error/Continuity error? When She-Ra arrives at the Balance Center (which really sounds like a place where you'd go to take yoga classes) with the stone, we see the mystical pyramid and the grounds surrounding it are completely spiderwebbed with cracks - prompting the guardian to comment, reasonably enough, that "our castle has been badly damaged." Clearly the use of the word "castle" signals that Ms. Baxter had a different building in mind than the pyramid the animators ended up giving her; but that's not the continuity issue I even wanted to discuss. Because She-Ra's response to the damage is to shove one single dislocated corner of the pyramid back in place. "That should do it," she declares. Really - that's it? You don't want to maybe change your sword to a trowel and get some grout or cement into all those cracks? This is apparently the most important building on Etheria... You feel like the guardian must have thought the same thing, because as She-Ra takes off, we can see him reaching out to her, as if he wants to call her back.
• The other weird thing about this near-disaster is that no preventative measures are taken to keep it from happening again. When He-Man found a dangerous time wheel, it blew up at the end, so we knew there wouldn't be any other interruptions of the Eternian space-time continuum (MU097); when an eclipse threatened Queen Angella's fortress, Light Hope assured She-Ra afterwards that steps were being taken to solve the vulnerability (67022). But at the end of this story, She-Ra puts the all-powerful stone back in the same place it was just stolen from (stolen, I might add, by some usually incompetent robots), simply advising the single and clearly insufficient guardian to "take good care of the Serenity Stone." Maybe buy him a bike lock?
• In a strange continuity trend that has me thinking I should have paid closer attention to it in earlier episodes, Loo-Kee's hiding place within the episode varies strikingly from his hiding place as seen at the ending reveal. The first time he showed up, Loo-Kee was in a fairly bright woodland scene, at the center of the screen. At the end of the episode, he's behind the same basic tree trunk, but he's been shifted far to the left; the foreground has been dotted with many more and much shaggier vines; and the background is completely different, gloomy and swamp-like. This latter hiding spot actually looks identical to the one Loo-Kee used in 67054's "The Light of the Crystal," which oddly enough shared a similar character design with this story. Did the animators pull the wrong cel? Similar disconnects happened just recently with Loo-Kee's before-and-after hiding places, in 67067 and 67066.
• This episode had some silly qualities to it, and was a blatant "lesson" story; but it was charmingly well-meant and positive, and I enjoyed watching it.