Steven J. Fisher

Ernie Schmidt

Princess Glimmer, annoyed at always getting outranked and ordered around by Princess Adora, decides it's high time she led her own battle against the Horde. If only she hadn't accidentally recruited Shadow Weaver to fight with her!

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

Imp, Hordak, Shadow Weaver (Mirror Glimmer, Wooble), Horde Prime (mentioned only)

Horde soldiers, various rebels, Twiggets (Sprag, Sprocker), various villagers

Horde tank, wagons, Horde food warehouse

Feeling hungry? The people of Etheria sure are! For the fifth time this week, Horde soldiers have robbed villagers of their supplies of food. As the heartless robots stock the stolen supplies in a giant metallic warehouse and trade comments about the gross things humans eat, a party of rebels looks on from a distant clump of trees. It's Bow, Glimmer, and rebel leader Princess Adora. The heroes agree that something has got to be done about this situation, or their people will starve - but they're not in perfect harmony on how to handle it. Glimmer is ready to stride right on over and fight the Horde forces right now; but Adora counsels patience. They need a plan, and they need more people. Glimmer only grudgingly turns about and follows the others back to the Whispering Woods. She's tired of always having to do what Adora wants. The Bright Moon princess has her own ideas, her own talents - why can't she play a starring role every once in a while?

Later that day, her mind brimming with thoughts such as these, Glimmer waits in a long line with other members of the Great Rebellion, so she can unburden herself in a one-on-one meeting with Adora. But when Madame Razz finally lets the crabby Glimmer into Adora's tent, the pink-haired youngster is told that her role in the coming battle will be to hang back and use her palm's laser jewel, producing a light show that will distract the Horde soldiers. When Glimmer objects, arguing that she wants to fight, and the magic-user Razz should be able to provide a spell that will be just as sparkly, Adora demurs: Madame just won't do. Glimmer is the only rebel for the job.

Disappointed and still stewing, Glimmer shrugs off Bow's glowing encomiums for Adora and wanders off alone, muttering imprecations. She's still sure that she can enact a battle plan that's much better than Adora's. Unfortunately, she speaks her feelings aloud, and within earshot of the lurking Imp. The Horde spy was hunkered in the bushes nearby, and after hearing Glimmer's complaints he can hardly wait to convey them to his boss Hordak. He flaps his way back to the Fright Zone to do just that. We find Hordak in a terrible mood, pacing irritably in front of his throne and spewing clouds of black smoke, while Shadow Weaver looks on. The Horde commander was sure that all these supply thefts would have broken the back of the starving rebellion by now, forcing them to surrender; he's very annoyed to find them still spunky and raring to fight back.

Shadow Weaver, at least, sees opportunity in Glimmer's jealousy, and assures Hordak that she can turn the situation to the Horde's advantage. The object of these prospective plots, meanwhile, is currently lying by the shores of Mirror Lake, contemplating her reflection in the lightly rippling waters. Glimmer wonders if she might be dreaming when her reflection begins speaking to her! Mirror Glimmer, who says she's very real, claims to represent Glimmer's "inner you," and helps stoke the princess's feelings of jealousy and ambition. Since the actual Glimmer has no idea where to begin acting on these feelings, Mirror Glimmer helpfully suggests that the girl go and recruit her own alternate army, made up of disillusioned Horde troopers. Once the suggestible princess strides off to take what is ostensibly her own advice, however, we find that the so-called "reflection" was an illusion - a magical projection of the wicked Shadow Weaver.

In continuance of her wickedness, Shadow Weaver rounds up a couple of Horde robot soldiers and takes them to the woods near the rebel camp. To the soldiers, she explains that they are to act as if they've turned against their master Hordak and intend to join the rebellion. Since that kind of claim won't hold water coming from the cloaked sorceress - even with the gullible Glimmer - Weaver magically disguises herself again, this time as a hairy Wooble. The evil trio contrive to bump into Glimmer, who's looking for the recruits her reflection spoke of. What luck! Here are three people who just happen to want to join the rebellion. Not asking for any references or resumes, Glimmer signs the convenient characters to her cause right away.

Back at the main rebel camp in the Whispering Woods, which has been bustling with preparations for the upcoming battle, no one has seen Glimmer all day, and her friends are really beginning to worry about her - especially considering the foul mood she was in before she left. Leaving Bow to lead the other rebels to the food warehouse, Adora says she's going to go hunting for the pink-haired princess and, as soon as she's in a private spot, raises her sword aloft. As She-Ra on the back of the winged Swift Wind, she can view a wide swath of countryside from the air, and very quickly spies Glimmer. But what's this? Her friend is walking along with a pair of Horde soldiers! She-Ra dives down to intercept the party, under the impression her fellow rebel needs rescuing; but the ardent Glimmer sets She-Ra straight in no uncertain terms. She has new friends now - real friends, who respect her and hate the Horde - and she's going to try her own plan to get those supplies back. When She-Ra tries to talk Glimmer down from this reckless idea, the strangely angry Wooble suggests that Glimmer ask She-Ra about the Battle of Dark Woods, where apparently She-Ra served as her own one-man army and didn't require any teamwork or team players.

Dismayed but unable to dissuade her friend, She-Ra departs. Later, we find the two alternate rebel sects - Glimmer, the Wooble, and her two soldiers, and She-Ra, Razz, and Bow - standing just a few feet apart from each other, hiding in the treeline by the Horde supply warehouse. The spiteful Bow, disappointed in his friend's orneriness, is willing to stand by and let her attempt the attack alone, even though She-Ra points out Glimmer might be in great danger - not only from poor planning, but from her suspicious new friends. Then She-Ra remembers that the events of the Battle of Dark Woods the Wooble mentioned earlier could be remembered by only one person - Shadow Weaver! Bow realizes that Glimmer really does need their help; but before the pair can rush over, Glimmer's attack has already begun!

Ordered forward by its pink-haired general, the rag-tag little army charges out into the open, heading for the warehouse. The two Hordesmen quickly reveal just how little fight they had in them, when they surrender as soon as they're caught in the beams of the warehouse searchlights. Their hands in the air, the robots turn to laugh at Glimmer's simplicity in believing them to be on her side. Glimmer is horrified, but still ready to fight on, with or without half her forces; but it's at this moment that the Wooble shows her true colors, grabbing Glimmer's hands and using magic to imprison them in a fluffy blob of stuff. Weaver Wooble drops her disguise, and the cloaked sorceress pauses to gloat at Glimmer's foolishness.

This gives She-Ra the opportunity to swoop in. The heroine uses her bracers to bounce Weaver's magical beams back at her. Weaver, crowing that the rebels still won't be able to get that food back, gestures to the warehouse building. As the laughing sorceress departs in a cloud of smoke, the structure transforms, turning into a giant rocket! Before the shocked eyes of our heroes, the whole warehouse takes off into the air. A very abashed Glimmer (who has, by this time, somehow managed to get the gross magic gunk off her hands) apologizes to She-Ra for her rash actions, which have left them in this pretty pickle; but She-Ra, seeing the girl has learned her lesson, tells her to buck up and help get that flying food back. Thus, both rebels leap on the back of Swift Wind, on the same team once more - and intent on chasing down the rogue warehouse.

As they catch up with the automatically piloted rocket, they discover it has its own defenses: robot lasers! Glimmer thinks fast, using her light powers to knock out the guns. She-Ra can then approach close enough to clip a few wings and lasso the building/rocket with her sword/rope. Leaving Glimmer with Swift Wind to tow the thing around, She-Ra leaps down to the outer hull of the warehouse and decides to make some air mail deliveries to all the pilfered towns and villages. She makes use of some very convenient parachutes that also happen to be there, to drop care packages to a lot of grateful Etherians - a sort of blonde, be-skirted Saint Nick. And just like Santa, they do it all in one night!

Afterwards, our princess duo (including She-Ra, who decided not to bother changing back into Adora for the epilogue) gather round the fire with Bow, Broom, and Razz to review what they've learned today. Glimmer has happily resigned herself to taking her assigned place on the Great Rebellion's "team," and She-Ra assures her that no position on the team is more important than any other (though one could argue that the one called the "leader," who gets her own tent where people have to wait to talk to her, is maybe a little more important than the rest). Razz, keen on extending the metaphor, points out that she and Broom are a team when they go flying. But the pair's chat quickly devolves into an argument over their many difficulties with navigation - to the amusement of the rest.

• Bow: Don't worry - Adora knows what she's doing. / Glimmer (in insulting mimicry): "Adora knows what she's doing! Adora knows what she's doing!" Ah! That's all I hear from you!
• Mirror Glimmer (to Glimmer): I'm you - the inner you. Mirror Lake helps you see yourself more clearly. You know - what you're really thinking? ... You're tired of taking orders. Adora gets all the credit - and you never get any. / Glimmer: That's right! I'm not taking a backseat to anyone anymore.
• She-Ra: I'm not your friend? / Glimmer: No! These are my friends. You're looking at the new rebellion. We're going to beat the Horde with my plan. / She-Ra: Glimmer, this isn't a contest: we're both on the same team!
• She-Ra (of Glimmer): Just because she's making a mistake doesn't mean we should make the same mistake.
• Shadow Weaver (reinforcing today's lesson, in case we weren't paying attention): Foolish girl. Your jealousy has kept you from thinking clearly.
• Glimmer: And I learned that the rebellion really is a team. / She-Ra: It's true; and everyone on a team has a job to do. Just remember: no one job is more important than any other.

N/A

One full

9:53 - Loo-Kee is in profile, standing just under the Loo-Kee-colored leaves of a little plant, looking off to the left from the bottom right corner of the screen. He's part of an establishing shot of the woods where Shadow Weaver and her supposedly turncoat soldiers are hiding. He used a very similar hiding spot in 67076 and 67077.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee reiterates what our heroes were just discussing a few seconds earlier, about how to work as a team, everyone has to play their own equally important part. "On a team, every member - every job - is important." Why, that sounds pretty socialist, Loo-Kee. Are you... a Commie? GET HIM!!!

Shadow Weaver weaves a wicked web: As is often the case, it's Weaver who thinks of the best way to capitalize on our pink-haired heroine's weakness today, and does all the heavy lifting. This also could have been a "wayward child" story if we were considering Glimmer to be a child; but, though our writers often like to treat her that way, I don't think she counts.
Glimmer learns a valuable lesson: Naturally, this category applies to today's Glimmer-based tale.

• Today's writer, Steven J. Fisher, previously gave us two other POP scripts: 67025's "Small Problems" (which has a strong connection to today's story) and 67006's "Duel at Devlan." This will be his last writing credit on the series.
• The title of today's episode may be a reference to the canine-starring movie, Lassie Come Home - which doesn't bode well for the respectful treatment of our long put-upon rebel princess, Glimmer.
• One of my long standing issues with She-Ra has been its inconsistently human treatment of the Horde "robot" soldiers. At the beginning of today's episode, we find the robots disgusted with the rebel food supplies they've been stealing, and thankful that they don't need to eat that stuff: "All we need is a little oil for our gears." This puts our Hordesmen solidly in the robot camp; the only problem is, even one of this episode writer's own other scripts depicted the same Hordesmen carousing in an inn, apparently drinking and enjoying pies (see 67006). Maybe they can eat, they just don't always want to...?
• By the way, a story dealing with food supplies touches on the main thing the Great Rebellion seems to be concerned about - supplies. Should they be fighting for their freedom from the oppressive forces of the Horde? Probably. But the much more important thing is being able to eat! We've seen our main characters concerned about supplying themselves in 67015, 67042, 67051, 67055, 67062, and 67063 - and I'm sure that just scratches the surface of times when it's been mentioned.
• Switching focus to the rebels, we see an interesting sight in the middle of their camp: a pitched tent in front of which a line of people is waiting, apparently to have one-on-one conferences with rebel big-wig Adora. If you were going to be made jealous of a member of the supposedly co-equal guerilla forces, this would be a good way to make it happen! We've never seen Adora taking audiences in this kingly fashion before; it calls to mind the special day on Eternia when anyone could come and talk to King Randor - see MU121's "The Magic Falls."
• Glimmer chafing under Adora's rule and getting jealous of the rebel leader's influence is an area this series - and today's writer - have explored before, albeit briefly, in 67025's "Small Problems." There, a puffed-up Glimmer, bolstered by her one-time lucky success in a battle against the Horde, decides she's actually a pretty big deal, and needs to be given more important jobs to do in the rebellion. Her overconfidence results in an inevitable snafu - just as we'll see happening today. The main difference is that in the former story Glimmer needed to learn a lesson about boasting; in today's story, she needs to learn a lesson about teamwork and everyone playing their part.
• For the first time, the source of Glimmer's light powers is identified as "the laser jewel in [her] palm." (Glimmer later calls it her "laser diamond.") We've never seen any evidence of a jewel being embedded in Glimmer's palm - and we won't see it today. I guess it's in there pretty deep!
• Madame's Magic: Or lack thereof. The reason Glimmer is deemed integral to Adora's attack plan is that she's the only one who can conjure a light show to distract the Horde - Razz can't handle it. In a way, it's nice for Glimmer's light powers to be needed (since in many episodes it seems their existence is forgotten altogether); but it also serves to highlight how unreliable Razz's spell knowledge can be.
• Imp - who, after a slow start this season, has been making fairly regular appearances - shows up again. His last role was in 67083's "She-Ra Makes a Promise." Today he's doing his usual job of spying, but he doesn't find the need to transform himself at all to accomplish the task.
• Our amusing introduction to Hordak today shows him irritably pacing back and forth in front of his throne, emitting black clouds of smoke. Shadow Weaver suggests that he "really should stop smoking." Should this episode come with a tobacco use warning? No; obviously the exhaust is coming from our Horde commander's machine parts, not his nicotine habit.
• Are Mom and Dad fighting again? "Maybe you were wrong," Shadow Weaver tells Hordak provocatively; "maybe the rebels were smarter than you thought." It's a comment sure to enrage her boss, and it immediately does. The last time this happened was in 67080 - and the results here are eerily similar. Give Weaver some credit, though: this time she doesn't back down from her statements, and Hordak doesn't punish her directly, as he's sometimes done (see 67017, where he downright tortures the recalcitrant sorceress).
• Hordak transformations: He turns his arm into the old-fashioned miniature cannon with spoked wheels and lit fuse, which we've seen used in 67033 and 67080, among others. He uses the cannon to once again blow up the abstract "OBEY" sculpture in his throne room - a hilarious case of deja vu, since we've now seen the same sculpture in that same spot five times - and he's blown it up four of those times (the other episodes being 67001, 67015, 67032, and, yes, 67080).
• Wilting into his throne with the same defeated slouch that he used in 67049's "For Want of a Horse" (there at the prospect of having to come up with a good birthday present for Horde Prime), Hordak again mentions the name of that Horde overlord. It turns out that Hordak has "promised Horde Prime the rebellion would be crushed by the end of the week." See commentary!
• We find the brooding Glimmer having retired to the solitude of Mirror Lake - a new Etherian location that proves very useful to Shadow Weaver and her machinations. Since Weaver is able to project herself there, we have to assume (as with Imp's eavesdropping spot earlier) that the lake lies outside the bounds of Whispering Woods. It's unclear how true Weaver's pronouncements are about Mirror Lake allowing a person to see themselves more clearly - is she just making this stuff up to suit her purposes, or do people regularly visit the lake for personal enlightenment?
• Madame's Magic: Requesting a fire "clear up to the sky," Madame accidentally causes a bonfire's worth of firewood to launch into the air, requiring that she follow the wood on Broom-back to retrieve it. You know actually, a flying bonfire would probably have produced the exact "light show" that Adora's plan called for...so maybe two Madame wrongs make a right!
• We've seen Shadow Weaver disguise herself on several occasions to trick our heroes: she was a young trash-talking girl in 67020's "Three Courageous Hearts," and adopted varying female forms in 67049, 67055, 67078, and 67085 (the latter of which had her posing as the apian Sweet Bee). Today, Weaver opts for an entirely non-female, non-human alter ego: a "Wooble." This never-before-seen Etherian species seems to be a sort of Sasquatch race of hairy hominid. Fun!
• She-Ra does not appear in today's episode until well after the halfway mark, since we had to give Glimmer plenty of time to get jealous of our heroine's non-superpowered alter ego. Spirit makes the briefest of appearances, as he sometimes does, only in the full transformation sequence.
• Weaver Wooble bitterly suggests that Glimmer ask She-Ra about "the Battle of Dark Woods" - a mysterious past conflict between our title heroine and the Horde, the details of which, as we later learn, could only be known by Shadow Weaver (and She-Ra). So I guess this "battle" was a 1v1 type of thing?
• Shadow Weaver uses an interesting form of magic to restrain Glimmer, shooting a beam out of her finger that coats Glim's hands in a sort of pink foam sealant spray.
• It's yet another case today of She-Ra deflecting Weaver's spell back onto her; the nice thing about this trick is that, even though we've seen it quite a few times, She-Ra brings it off by various means. We've seen her blow a spell back (67033), reflect it from her sword's blade or shield form (67080, 67077, 67065), physically grab the magic (67070) - and today, she bounces Weaver's finger rays off of her wrist bracers, just like Wonder Woman.
• A miffed Weaver uses the insult "muscle maiden," an epithet for She-Ra we first heard uttered by Entrapta in 67079.
• In a surprise transformation oddly mimicking Madame's flying bonfire from earlier, we discover that the Horde's food warehouse doubles as a rocket! It doesn't appear to have been intended as a manned form of transportation, but since She-Ra and Glimmer end up riding the thing, I've decided to indulge myself by including it in the list of vehicles today.
• Now working successfully as part of a team, Glimmer uses her light beams to explode one of the warehouses "robot lasers." This is one of the more destructive results we've seen from her abilities.
• I've noted in the past the rarity of She-Ra using her sword as a sword (67067), but it seems to be becoming a more common occurrence these days. Today she uses the blade to slice off a couple of the warehouse's wings.
• Swiss army sword: ...But that sword has many other uses! For instance, with the old "sword to rope," She-Ra has a nice lasso for towing food-filled rocket warehouses.
• During the strangely Santa Claus-like "air mail" sequence, She-Ra delivers food to a couple of named Etherian towns: Colonia and Greenfield Village. According to Wiki Grayskull, the latter village is the same one Bow and Adora visited in 67050's "Just Like Me," but I don't know how they know that, since from what I can tell the town remained unnamed in that earlier episode.
• Razz and Broom's ending spat about their separate jobs of steering and flying includes a reference to "that time when you said we should go north and I said we should go south;" it's a long shot, but this could actually refer to the argument they had over whether to visit the North or South Growling Sea, in 67064's "Wild Child."
• Ending credits variation: The credits are still hanging strong with that Castle Bright Moon background painting.

• The humorous scene outside Adora's tent, where Madame refuses to let Glimmer enter without giving her name, had me just a little bit worried that Madame, in fact, couldn't remember Glimmer's name, and was just playacting like it was necessary to give herself time to wrack her brains. "Of course I know it's you, um - Gary?"
• This episode of course addresses the position of a character whose treatment has always been one of my major pet peeves with the series. Glimmer - who as I'll never tire of reminding everyone, was dubbed the "leader" of this little rebellion back in 67001 - has ever since that first episode been consistently pushed to the sidelines, treated like a child, insulted, patronized, and depicted as helpless and kidnapping-prone. It's no wonder she would get a little jealous! If you have any hopes that this story will finally exonerate the pink-haired princess, or treat her with the respect a legacy member of the Great Rebellion deserves, you're in for a big disappointment. This is just another in a long line of "learns a valuable lesson" stories, where our silly little empty-headed girl is easily bamboozled and needs She-Ra to sweep in and save her. But I'm not bitter! Nooo. Not at all.
• I love how completely tone deaf Bow is in the opening scenes, when even the densest person should have already detected Glimmer's beef with Adora. As the steamed Glimmer stalks angrily out of her meeting with the rebel leader, the oblivious archer happily declares, "Adora sure knows how to get things moving, doesn't she?" Read the room, bro!
• There's a definite sense in the early scenes of the episode that some work has been done to pad out the runtime. We get several lengthy panning shots, including a particularly long one leading us from the Whispering Woods to the Fright Zone.
• Imp's overhearing of Glimmer's jealous rant seems highly unlikely, unless we're to believe that the princess took about five strides from the center of the rebel camp and found herself outside the protective bounds of the Whispering Woods. Otherwise, it's hard to see how the Horde lackey could have gotten within earshot. Recall that we've been reminded countless times of the Horde's inability to penetrate those woods without assistance, most recently and centrally in 67080's "The Perils of Peekablue" and 67078's "When Whispering Woods Last Bloomed."
• I think it's fair to once again judge Hordak a terrible manager in this episode, as he foolishly and unrealistically has promised his boss that he will have the Great Rebellion crushed "by the end of the week," when he hasn't crushed them in the preceding twenty years of his Etherian occupation. (For the basis of my estimate of Hordak's reign, see lore/commentary discussions in 67046, 67018, and 67059.)
• In the lore section above I touched on the issue of the Horde robot soldiers exhibiting human traits. Most of their human-like traits have proven to be liabilities: robots who can sneeze (67073)? Robots who fall asleep (67074)? Robots who get itchy (67031)? Robots who get scared (67063, among many)? Robots who spend time at inns (67006)? Today's story, more subtly, explores another vulnerability that I'd argue is distinctly human: treason. Wooble Weaver wants Glimmer to believe that her two robot buddies "don't like what the Horde is doing" and have decided to switch sides. But if you're a robot, aren't you programmed to obey? Obviously Weaver's robots aren't what they claim to be, and are still entirely loyal to Hordak - but the fact that Glimmer buys the story could either mean she's even more gullible than usual today, or we're to understand that robots rebelling against their creators is a valid possibility. Given the current prevalence of AI, it's a thought that's more than a little scary!
• Speaking of Glimmer's judgment... I like to give her the benefit of the doubt, what with the raw deal she's constantly getting from our show runners; but even if her "army" had turned out to be a real one, four guys seems a pretty paltry force to throw against the well-defended food warehouse - especially given the comparatively huge force Adora preps for her attack.
• Again striking a shockingly discordant emotional note, to go along with his tone deafness from earlier, Bow is amazingly callous when he finds that Glimmer is set on enacting her own battle plan independent of the rest of the rebellion. "Well, if she doesn't want our help," he says of his old friend, "it's her tough luck." So...you're planning to let her get killed? It reminds me of that time he completely crushed Kowl with a single accusatory sentence, sending his best bird buddy off behind a tent for a good sob, to set in motion the events of 67052's "The Wizard."
• Continuity error: I could swear when I watched this the first time, I saw a clear scene where She-Ra broke Glimmer free of her foam seal bonds. But in my rewatchings I discovered no such scene exists: Glimmer is bound in one scene, free in the next. It's magic!
• The ending gift-giving sequence is nice enough, but may leave you wondering: what happened to everyone else? Where were all the rebel people from earlier who we saw stacking up weapons and arrows, and who were supposed to be led by Bow to the battle? Where were the Twiggets (who proved so inconsequential to the story that I haven't mentioned them in my entry at all until now, apart from listing them among the characters)? Or even if we narrow ourselves to the people who were actually on site at the battlefield: what happened to Bow and Madame? What happened to those two robot soldiers? She-Ra, Glimmer, and Swift Wind leave them all in the dust to make their food redistributions. Bow and Razz at least return for the ending campfire scene.
• She-Ra asks Swift Wind if he can handle towing the huge flying warehouse. Um, yeah he can, She-Ra: that horse has towed an entire moon! (See 67028, 67073.)
• Even the random villagers of Etheria manage to stick it to poor Glimmer. As the food warehouse flies overhead, a farmer holding a pitchfork points into the sky, crying "Look! It's Swift Wind! And She-Ra!" A grateful old man says, "Thank you, She-Ra, thank you." Glimmer's up there too, jerkwads!
• I usually like to differentiate between Etheria's "rebels" and "villagers," but today's story made it hard. By starving the planet's villagers, Hordak believes he can defeat the rebellion; but it's unclear how direct the causation is there. Is every "villager" also a "rebel"? I suppose starving the entire human population will necessarily defeat those humans who happen to be rebels - along with everyone else.
• Due to my own pet peeve with the treatment of Glimmer, I found it a bit difficult to really warm to this episode. It also has one of those strong "lesson" plots that rub me the wrong way. But it didn't have any major logical issues, and was surprisingly light on the animation and continuity errors recent episodes have been racking up. There were some fun moments!