Story - J. Larry Carroll and Arthur H. Nadel & Teleplay - J. Larry Carroll

Ed Friedman

Swift Wind shocks She-Ra with some joyous news about his personal life - this heroine's unicorn is going to have a baby! But the welfare of Swifty's bundle of joy is swiftly put into great peril, when the Horde decides to kidnap Swift Wind's pregnant mate!

Swift Wind, She-Ra

Catra, Imp, Mantenna, Shadow Weaver, Hordak

birds, Horde soldiers, Bibbets (including wizard, Koo, Scout), various unicorns (including the Unicorn King, Bright Wing), Star Wind, capture bots, Swifty's baby

Horde trucks, Sea Fright, Mantenna's air ship

Swift Wind has a surprise for his closest friend She-Ra, and he's very excited about it. But as the winged unicorn is flying his mistress towards this surprise, She-Ra spots dirty work afoot on the surface of Etheria. As usual, the Evil Horde is the cause: a convoy of Horde trucks, led by Catra, is rolling into a peaceful Bibbet village to cause some trouble. As Catra begins directing the raid, the little winged Imp appears at her shoulder to provide his usual brand of negative commentary. The arrival of She-Ra gives him plenty of material. Our heroine has never had much trouble handling the robot soldiers that make up Catra's forces, and today is no exception. When Catra herself changes into her big cat form and wades into the battle, She-Ra uses a nearby well to splash the feline foe - something we all know cats hate.

The defeated and doused Catra is forced to retreat, driving off with her dizzied and demolished soldiers; and a pleased She-Ra returns to Swift Wind so they can resume their journey to this super special "surprise." But their plans are overheard by the still lingering Imp, who decides to follow them in the guise of a bird. Imp tails the pair all the way to Unicorn Island, home of all Etheria's unicorns (all except Swifty, that is). There, Swift Wind introduces She-Ra to a pink unicorn named Star Wind - his mate! But that's not the only secret She-Ra's mount has been keeping from her; as the bashful Star Wind is eventually coaxed into admitting, she and Swift Wind are going to have a baby!

She-Ra is overjoyed and amazed at this incredible news, and congratulates the happy couple as all three share a loving embrace. Little do they know that the future of Swift Wind's offspring has already been put into danger; for the listening Imp is sure that this news will be of value to his boss, Hordak. The spy flits off to the Fright Zone to spill the beans. He at first finds the grumpy Hordak inclined to dismiss the information as useless - besides, Hordak hates babies! But the more devious and cunning Shadow Weaver, standing at the arm of Hordak's throne, sees possibilities. She carefully leads her slow-witted commander through the plot: stealing Swift Wind's mate will surely bring She-Ra, and if She-Ra comes to them, the Horde can capture her.

The enlightened Hordak gets on board with the plan - he even has a new invention which will surely trap his hated enemy for good. It's called a freezlin cell, and Mantenna demonstrates it on a curious and uninformed Catra. Mantenna pulls a lever on a control panel, which causes a beam to shoot up into the air, bouncing down from the ceiling and imprisoning the feline force captain in a cone-shaped force field. The pleased Hordak wanders off with Mantenna to put "his" wonderful plan into action, leaving the unhappy Catra to stew in the cell as punishment for her recent failure.

Over at Unicorn Island, Swift Wind and Star Wind decide to go for a flight and invite She-Ra to join them; but our heroine declines, feeling that the soon-to-be-parents should have some private time together. She-Ra relaxes in a beautiful field of wildflowers, happily contemplating the new life her friends are about to bring into the world. But Swifty and Star's flight is spotted by Hordak and Mantenna, who have been wandering Etheria's seas in their Sea Fright submarine in search of the unicorns. Hordak enacts "Plan B:" dispatching Mantenna along with a collection of capture bots to kidnap Star Wind. In the ensuing attack, Swift Wind tries desperately to fight off the pesky robots, but is outnumbered. They imprison his mate in their force beams, and the anguished Swift Wind, dashing about heedlessly, flies head-on into Mantenna's air ship. The plummeting Mantenna is plucked from the air by one of his bots, but his ship - and Swift Wind - crash to the ground.

She-Ra, having been psychically alerted to the commotion, arrives at the shores of the island to find her equine friend badly hurt. She must use her healing powers to save Swifty, who then conveys the horrible news: Star Wind has been captured by the Horde. Worse, Swifty knows the baby will be coming soon, and if it's born anywhere but on Unicorn Island, it will be born as a normal horse instead of a unicorn. She-Ra wants to fetch help from the rebellion, but her friend insists there is no time: they must rush immediately to where Star has been taken, on the horrible Beast Island. Luckily, Unicorn Island is full of willing helpers: the Unicorn King and his royal guards, including Bright Wing, who all volunteer their aid.

At Beast Island, Hordak has Mantenna place Star Wind into a freezlin cell, then drape the entire Horde base in a pink force field dome. When She-Ra and the unicorns show up, they find the island blocked off. She-Ra has had to deal with just such a force dome before, however, and she knows exactly what to do: she leaps off Swift Wind into the water and uses her sword as a drill bit, digging into the ocean floor and up through the ground of the Beast Island fortress. Hordak was waiting for just such an entrance from his enemy, however, and traps She-Ra in her own freezlin cell. Yikes!

Outside of the dome, Swift Wind can tell things are not going well: he has a telepathic connection to his mate, and she informs him that this baby is going to come any second now. Forced to an act of great danger and bravery, Swift Wind dives into the sea. Even though horses and unicorns shouldn't be able to swim underwater, he finds a way to do it, holding his breath long enough to struggle his way through She-Ra's tunnel and into the base. Fortunately, his appearance is detected only by She-Ra, who loudly starts up a conversation with Hordak about how the villain managed to trap her. The arrogant Horde commander, flushed with his victory, is happy to explain how the freezlin cell works - allowing Swift Wind to promptly trap Hordak and Mantenna in their own cell and free the others.

They're saved! Now, time to get back to Unicorn Island ASAP and make sure these two crazy kids have a unicorn baby, right? But no; Star Wind, in the pains of labor, explains that it's too late now - this kid is coming. To make things worse, the watery tunnel She-Ra made to break her way in is flooding the room! Following in the footsteps of her hunky brother, our heroine decides the only solution to this problem is to change the tides; and the only way to do that is to move Etheria's moons. She dives back into the tunnel and out to the Unicorn King and explains her intention. She and the unicorn force then dash up into space, where with the help of She-Ra's grappling line, a chained-together team of the royal guards tow one moon out of orbit. Meanwhile, our heroine and the Unicorn King ride to Etheria's other moon, and She-Ra performs a somersaulting double kick that scoots the heavenly body away. Hooray! The moons are moved! Sure enough, down in the Beast Island base, we find the tides have receded - and there's a new addition to Swift Wind's family. It's a beautiful, brown, normal horse.

With everyone safely back at Unicorn Island, She-Ra watches with the fond eyes of a new aunt as her friends' newborn frolics about. She cautiously asks Swifty how he feels about his baby not being a unicorn; but the loving Swift Wind has no regrets, saying he and Star will love their child unconditionally. Still... She-Ra suddenly has an idea. Here she is with a magic sword that contains all the powers of Grayskull. Lifting the blade in the air, she urges her friends to recite the magic words with her: "For the honor of Grayskull!" The power of the sword, directed at Swifty's baby, transforms him into a unicorn. A grateful Star Wind, moved to tears by She-Ra's gift, thanks the heroine; and She-Ra, receiving playful licks from the baby as he flutters in the air before her, laughingly replies that she has all the thanks she needs.

• Catra: One of these days, She-Ra - rroowr - I'll get you! / She-Ra: But not today, Catra; not today.
• She-Ra (to Swift Wind): All right; let's go see this tiny but biggest, wonderful, super-secret, special surprise!
• Star Wind: She-Ra; we're (stammers bashfully) - we're going to have a baby. / She-Ra: Oh, Swifty - Star! This is the most wonderful surprise I've ever had!
• Hordak: I can't see why I should care about Swift Wind's baby. Besides - (snorts) - I hate babies.
• Swift Wind (greatly injured in a collision, and speaking slowly): She-Ra... Mantenna's got Star. Save her; save... our... baby.
• Hordak (to Mantenna): You'll see how easy it is to trap She-Ra - once a great mind goes to work on the problem. (gestures to his own mind with an arrogant forefinger)
• Unicorns (in unison): Hooray! We moved the moons!
• She-Ra: How do you feel about your baby not being a unicorn, Swifty? / Swift Wind: She-Ra, he's our baby.

• She-Ra spin kicks the viewer: To take out some Horde robots

Zero (!)
She-Ra remains She-Ra, and Swift Wind remains Swift Wind, throughout the whole episode. She-Ra uses her magic words several times during the story for other purposes, however.

2:05 - For his final hiding place, Loo-Kee has decided to challenge us. We are given but a brief moment to catch sight of him in a panning shot where only part of his body can be spotted peeking out at us from behind a tree on the left side of the screen.
Did I spot him? YES!

As he's done several times recently, Loo-Kee again implies by his opening words that his audience hasn't spotted him during the episode (but I did, Loo-Kee! I did!). After he jauntily prances his way out of his hiding place, Loo-Kee informs us that today's story discussed "the most wonderful thing in the world - the birth of a baby!" Skirting around the process whereby such wonderful things take place, Loo-Kee instead explains why a new baby is considered so wonderful. Rather than further editorialize on this very last PSA, or spoil its touchingly optimistic message with any cynical comments, I'll just quote Loo-Kee's explanation: "Because in every child who is born, no matter who his parents are, the hope for all things good and beautiful is born again." Aw. ...Well, all right, maybe just one cynical comment: why did you assume the baby was male, Loo-Kee? Isn't this show about girl power?

Love is in the air: You see, when two unicorns love each other very much, a magical thing sometimes happens...
Landmark Episode: Not only for the obvious fact that it's the last ever episode of She-Ra, but for the momentous changes it brings to one of our main characters!
Shadow Weaver weaves a wicked web: Not only does this last episode feature a plot instigated by Weaver, she also has to painstakingly walk the dense Hordak through it an inch at a time to make it happen.
Adora who?

• This very last episode of the series will be brought to us by a writing team. J. Larry Carroll has written four scripts for POP, all coming in the last few episodes. Sharing the story credit with him today is one Arthur H. Nadel, who has never been credited as a writer before for either MOTU or POP. He seems to be better known as a producer, but was also (and most importantly) the executive vice president of creative affairs at Filmation for the entire run of the MOTU and POP series. I admit I'm extrapolating a little bit here, but this is what I'm picturing: Nadel corners a writer in the halls of Filmation and says "Hey! How about we have an episode about Swift Wind having a baby?"
• Now that we're at the end of the series, I'd like to talk a little bit about Loo-Kee, and this information didn't seem quite appropriate for putting into the "Where's Loo-Kee?" section, so I'm going to put it here. Personal achievement: I believe I've only missed spotting Loo-Kee three times in the 86 episodes in which he was hiding; and frankly, I think that third time (67071) was just not fair. Just to give a quick rundown on how I'm getting to that count of 86: there are 93 episodes of She-Ra all told, and Loo-Kee didn't appear at all in the first five, comprising the introductory Secret of the Sword (SOTS) story line. Loo-Kee also did not appear at all in 67018's "Horde Prime Takes a Holiday," to allow for a very special and unique PSA message. Finally, though Loo-Kee played probably the biggest part he ever played in 67055's "Loo-Kee Lends a Hand," the one thing he didn't do during it was hide. So 93 minus 7 equals 86.
• What?! Bibbets again?? Yes, Bibbets again. After just having been introduced to the little people in the previous 67092's "The Bibbet Story," we return right away to Bibbet Land and its wacky populace. This time, it's only for a short opening skirmish with the Horde.
• We'll get one more appearance of that Horde spy everyone loves to hate, Imp, who first shows up in the form of a blue bird to taunt Catra. The last time we saw Imp was in 67086's "Glimmer Come Home." Today, as soon as things start getting dangerous, Imp decides with very Kowl-like perspicacity to teleport himself on out of there - but not far enough away that he isn't able to overhear some very sensitive secret information...
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra opts for the usual shield form in her first battle, but commences the transformation somewhat unusually by pointing her sword directly at the camera, giving us a very foreshortened view of the weapon.
• To learn about Swifty's ultra-secret surprise (which is rather given away for the audience by today's title), we find ourselves revisiting Unicorn Island, site of 67036's "The Unicorn King."
• As with the recent events of 67091's "Assault on the Hive," which had Swift Wind introducing She-Ra to the winged Crystal Sun Dancer, today we again find that She-Ra's unicorn has been meeting all kinds of folks - and doing all kinds of non-G-rated things - without his mistress. The existence of the pink unicorn Star Wind - Swifty's "mate" - is a complete surprise to She-Ra, meaning that her beloved steed has been making trips to Unicorn Island without She-Ra's knowledge. See commentary.
• Shadow Weaver again has to hand-feed Hordak today's evil plot, highlighting the sorceress's invaluable contributions as a member of the Horde. (As usual, Hordak almost immediately claims the idea as his own, and Weaver is forced to go along with it.) The plan involves the oft-used location of Beast Island, site of many an episode starting all the way back at 67002's "Beast Island."
• Weaver's plan also incorporates a new "weapon" in the freezlin cells. I thought these would turn out to be a retread of the ice-barred wheeled wagon in which the Horde stuffed Sprocker, back in 67083's "She-Ra Makes a Promise;" instead, however, a freezlin cell is really just a force field created by a projected beam. For some reason it consistently operates by ricochet, with the beam bouncing off the ceiling - I guess so the cell can always be a cone projecting down from above.
• To return to Unicorn Island, Hordak makes use of the same vehicle he was traveling in when he first discovered the place: the submarine Sea Fright. The reminder of that discovery accentuates the strangeness of his command to Mantenna, "find Unicorn Island." He already found it last time!
• Continuing the parallels to 67036, we see the Horde employing even more of the same weapons and vehicles from their previous visit: Mantenna hops into his Mantenna-shaped air ship, and sends out the same capture bots that were rounding up unicorns in "The Unicorn King."
• She-Ra "can feel" that Swift Wind is in distress, hinting at the psychic connection between the heroine and her steed which we've seen in action in other episodes. She summoned the unicorn via telepathy in 67058's "Black Snow" and again in 67041's "Glimmer's Story." We'll also see that a similar connection has been formed between Swifty and his mate.
• Swift Wind's shocking and upsetting injury from a head-on collision causes She-Ra to have to make use of her healing powers. She first discovered her healing powers by bringing her steed back from the brink of death in a similarly dramatic scene in 67005's "Battle for Bright Moon." Here, as in 67005, She-Ra activates the healing by reciting her magic words, "For the honor of Grayskull." It looks like this will be the first and only time She-Ra uses her healing abilities in this season, because the last time she used them was in 67064's "Wild Child."
• A restored Swift Wind explains a strange bit of lore associated with his baby: if it's born anywhere other than Unicorn Island, it will just be a normal horse instead of a unicorn. It's unclear whether this situation is limited to any child of Swift Wind, based on his own unique lineage having been born as Spirit the Normal Horse, or if it would be true of any unicorn's child. If the latter, it would add drama to the Unicorn King's intentions in 67036 to flee the island with his people - as that would have meant the end of the unicorns as a race!
• Speaking of the Unicorn King, it turns out he'll be appearing in this episode - which is cool! Also appearing - which I only discovered after She-Ra mentioned him by name - is Bright Wing, the crippled unicorn our heroine healed in 67036.
• Clearly today's writers paid very close attention to the script for 67036 - which, it's worth noting, was not written by either J. Larry Carroll or Arthur H. Nadel, but Kathryn M. Drennan (so many initials!). The eventual force field which Mantenna generates over Beast Island is identical to the pink bubble that was placed over Unicorn Island in that previous episode. She-Ra bypasses the force field in exactly the same way, by drilling underground with her sword.
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra changes her sword to a grappling hook on the end of a chain.
• And why does She-Ra need a grappling hook, you ask? Why, to move Etheria's moon - again! She already moved a moon to solve an eclipse problem, in 67028's "Bow's Farewell" (and as told again in the chronologically challenged 67073's "The Time Transformer"). She learned this all from her brother, who did it first by shoving one of Eternia's moons out of orbit to solve a flooding problem similar to today's, back in MU091's "Jacob and the Widgets." Today, She-Ra ups the ante by moving two moons, apparently in an attempt to prove she's two times better than He-Man.
• This is the first time She-Ra ever moves a moon under her own power, and not just by getting Swift Wind or some other unicorns to tow one: the second moon she handles personally by doing a somersaulting kick onto it. It's also worth noting that She-Ra and the unicorns must necessarily achieve all of this by going into space - which they do without the use of any space helmets or the need for breathing oxygen. This ability is one that She-Ra has exhibited only inconsistently (see 67018).
• As with several other recent episodes (67090, 67091), this one completely omits Adora, leaving our superpowered heroine in charge for the whole episode. As a consequence, we get no Spirit either. This now makes a total of six episodes with only She-Ra and no Adora.
• As happened in the recent 67090, this episode also has She-Ra and a collection of nearby friends reciting "For the honor of Grayskull" in unison, thus enabling the sword of protection to perform a special function - in this case (spoiler alert!), permanently transforming Swifty's baby into a unicorn, and allowing the proud parents to have their cake and eat it too.
• It's perhaps fitting that this Filmation series should end with a Filmation hallmark: not giving us the name of an important side character. Today's title character remains unnamed at the conclusion, forcing me to identify him in my characters list as the episode title did: "Swifty's baby."
• Ending credits variation: We close out the season with the Castle Bright Moon background painting once again - meaning that every episode of this season except its first (67066) featured this alternate credits image.

• Animation error: In the first closeup dialogue shot of She-Ra and Swift Wind, the colors on Swift Wind's left wing abruptly change partway through the pair's conversation.
• I enjoyed the joke of Catra in cat form being defeated by a splash of water; and I loved the shot of Catra driving off from the failed attack with a bunch of beat-up Horde soldiers piled in the back of her truck, many of them looking like they've had a particularly rough night out on the town.
• Today's story raises a whole lot of equine-related questions, the first of which I already touched on in the lore section. Namely: just how has Swift Wind been wandering around Etheria (and apparently into space) while She-Ra hasn't been paying attention? He already met the interstellar flyer Crystal Sun Dancer before our heroine did, and now we find he's been doing the nasty with a side unicorn while She-Ra has been - what? Asleep? Adora? There have been a few episodes in the series, such as 67041, where the exigencies of the plot have required that Swift Wind suddenly be around, even though we never saw She-Ra zapping Spirit. We could therefore (very leniently and graciously) interpret those seemingly illogical sequences as suggesting that Swift Wind has the ability to come into being at a distance from his mistress, and presumably do unicorn-y things while she's fighting evil without him. We could also point to the many times She-Ra has ditched her steed somewhere, usually outside the Fright Zone (just as a few examples, see 67014, 67015, or 67019), making opportunities for Swifty to "study abroad," as it were. Still, given that on the surface She-Ra should be the only person capable of summoning Swift Wind, and that she always does so for a specific purpose, all these extracurricular activities seem very suspect.
• The central idea for this final episode is actually fantastic - it's lovely to see Swift Wind and She-Ra brought closer together, and able to share some very touching scenes, over the impending birth of his foal. Once Star Wind is kidnapped, the fact of her pregnancy adds huge emotion and tension to what would otherwise be a fairly typical rescue-the-Horde-prisoner plot. But as with any cartoon that directly deals with the birth of babies, our Filmation staff run the risk of generating that most awkward of questions from its young audience: where did that baby come from? The same risk was taken with the introduction of Telzy in 67067's "Return of the General." I wonder if any angry calls from 80s parents had to be fielded after the airing of this finale? "I had to avoid talking about sex with my child! How dare you?"
• Another glaring issue raised by this plot, though the writers attempt to deftly deflect us from it through the lack of She-Ra transformations: Swift Wind is not always a unicorn. He was born as a regular horse that Adora happened to own, and it was only the power of Grayskull that turned him into a unicorn. Indeed, one could argue that most of his life has been and will be spent as a non-winged, non-horned, vanilla-flavored horse; and much of his future existence, be he unicorn or no, will of necessity be spent near the Whispering Woods, fighting the Horde. So how is he going to support his unicorn family and pay sufficient attention to his unicorn mate and baby? And - based entirely on his own genetics, and regardless of any added lore surrounding Unicorn Island and its race's offspring - will his baby be half-regular-horse? A quarter? I have questions, people!
• I've quickly grown fond of J. Larry Carroll's writing over the course of watching these four late episodes he's given us, and I do think one of his true gifts (like fellow Season 2 carrier Bob Forward) is in humorous villain lines. I found Hordak's hilarious delivery of "Besides - I hate babies" worth listening to again and again. I also loved the scene where Mantenna pauses during his abduction of Star Wind to open his cockpit and laugh evilly into the open air. Sometimes you've just got to let it out, I guess!
• As usual, we find our friends with an unlikely intuitive knowledge of their enemies' actions: She-Ra is sure that Hordak will have taken Star Wind to Beast Island, even though she's gotten no hints to that effect, and the much more common place to store Horde prisoners is the Fright Zone (or, occasionally, Horror Hall).
• Hordak has a lot to say about how big-brained today's plan (which he stole from Shadow Weaver) is - but the method he uses to draw in She-Ra is confusingly complex and seems unlikely to work. He has Mantenna drape a huge force field over the entirety of Beast Island. This has what I can only assume is the intended effect of ensuring that only She-Ra makes it inside the dome (at first, at least). The rest of the attacking force, all unicorns, is left outside. But it's hard to see how Hordak could have predicted this would happen. You'd think that the only reason for turning on the island force field would have been to stop anyone from getting in - which of course would have defeated Hordak's purpose of catching She-Ra. You could argue that Hordak knew what would happen since he remembered how She-Ra got past this same force field when he used it on Unicorn Island - but then you'd have to struggle with the additional fact that, between that adventure and this one, Hordak somehow forgot where Unicorn Island is located. Just how selective is his memory?
• I greatly enjoyed the cleverness of the scene where She-Ra tricks the boastful Hordak into revealing how the freezlin cell controls work, allowing Swift Wind to trap the villains.
• Just a quick note about the moving of those moons; as usual in these situations, we're going to calmly move past any questions we might have about one human's ability to physically reposition a satellite. What bothers me about She-Ra's feat today is the fact that we never see her or her unicorns moving the moons back afterwards. Are the tides of Etheria now permanently changed? Let's not forget that after He-Man moved a moon to save the Widgets in MU091, he flew up there again and put it back!
• Though the deus ex machina of the power of Grayskull made for a joyful resolution to today's story, it left me with somewhat mixed feelings. All through the exciting second half of the episode, you hear She-Ra, Swift Wind, and Star Wind in great distress over the prospect of the foal being born as a "normal horse." In the end, we found the proud parents happy to love their child no matter what (as they should be); but it was still a little off-putting to hear them being so worried about it beforehand. There are plenty of real-life, human parallels to this situation, which will resonate strongly with any parent. She-Ra's decision to transform the horse into the baby his parents really wanted therefore comes off as more than contrived - it feels kind of wrong, like changing a disabled infant into a "normal" infant. The stronger message to end on here would have been to leave the baby as a horse, with a pair of unicorn parents who love him anyway; but our cartoon show writers probably felt that was too disappointing an ending for their immature audience.
• I was very pleasantly surprised by this last episode, which gave me plenty to comment on and discuss, and brought a deep and affecting finale to this series which has often proven itself more mature and thoughtful than the MOTU series that gave birth to it. (He-Man's baby, you might say!) When you think about how very mediocre this second season's premiere (67066) and many of its subsequent episodes were, and how anticlimactic MOTU's series finale (MU130) was, it's doubly nice to go out on such a high note as we get here - however vaguely troubling I found its final message to be. As with all endings, I'm sad that it's over - but so pleased and fulfilled for having gone on this adventure. I hope, if there's anyone else out there who has gone on it with me, that you enjoyed it as well. For the honor of Grayskull!