Marc Scott Zicree

Gwen Wetzler

With Skeletor on vacation, Evil-Lyn hatches a plot to take He-Man out of the picture by tricking a powerful sorcerer named Kor into thinking the hero has kidnapped his daughter. At the same time, in a very convenient convergence of circumstances, Teela rashly decides to wander off to the Darklands, where Kor dwells! Both Teela and Kor will have to learn an important lesson about letting their emotions cloud their judgment - hopefully before disaster strikes.

Orko, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Prince Adam (He-Man)

Evil-Lyn, Tri-Klops

Kor, Mira (Kor's daughter), cute little pink hummingbird, reptile men, shadow fighter, the Red/Crimson Scourge

Collector, Basher, Attak Trak, sky sled

We open on Snake Mountain, where Skeletor's Collector rushes off into a lightning-strewn sky. Inside, Evil-Lyn has already gotten comfortable on Skeletor's chair and is telling Tri-Klops her intention to conquer all of Eternia. Tri-Klops points out one major stumbling-block: He-Man. Evil-Lyn decides that she can get He-Man out of the way by tricking the good wizard Kor into helping her. All she has to do is kidnap his daughter and make Kor think He-Man is responsible! Lyn and Tri-Klops head off to the Darklands to put the plan into action.

Over at the palace, Teela performs some impressive feats of combat against a training robot (operated by Orko) while wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses. She tells Orko that she's contemplating a solo trip to the Darklands to test her mettle. Duncan overhears and absolutely forbids her from attempting such a dangerous journey; when Orko catches her at some Darklands research later, he also expresses concern. Teela just angrily digs in her heels and decides to go anyway, using an underground river as a way in. Orko, still worried for her safety, follows her, and so is able to witness her being captured by a troop of reptile men. Unable to assist directly, Orko runs off to fetch He-Man.

Meanwhile, Tri-Klops has managed to zap Kor's daughter with a freeze ray and fly her back to Snake Mountain, so that Evil-Lyn can show up at Kor's castle and play him a doctored video on her scepter that seems to confirm that He-Man and Man-at-Arms are the kidnappers. An angry Kor, still reeling from these revelations, is presented with a captured Teela. When his reptile men tell him of Orko's promise to bring He-Man, Kor decides to keep his prisoner and await our hero.

Orko, as promised, brings his dire news to Duncan and Adam, who are having a friendly game of space chess. Adam does his transformation thing and the trio head off to the Darklands in the Attak Trak, giving Duncan a chance to explain that Kor is the elected keeper of the Red Scourge, a terrible monster. Once there, they are quickly captured by the reptile men and delivered to Kor, where recriminations are traded back and forth. ("You kidnapped my daughter!" "No, you kidnapped my daughter!!") Despairing of ever explaining himself (though he hears enough to learn Evil-Lyn is behind things), He-Man busts out of his cage and goes running about the throne room, shoving over reptile dudes and busting open walls. Orko and Teela manage to get free, but He-Man is distracted by having to fight his own shadow (which looks much taller and more gangly than him), while Duncan has his feet manacled. He-Man cleverly defeats his shadow by smashing the globe that Kor is using to project it; but Kor then transports him to a dungeon cave where the evil Crimson Scourge is imprisoned! It's a giant red cat that spits flame and doesn't like anyone.

Teela and Orko, meanwhile, have headed off to Snake Mountain, determined to follow Duncan's command to find and retrieve Kor's daughter Mira. They manage to catch Tri-Klops napping (literally), rescue Mira, and make a dramatic escape by swinging away from a crumbling bridge. Then it's just a quick sky sled trip back to the Darklands, where Mira is reunited with her very red-faced father, who had been verbally threatening the innocent Duncan and was just about to throw him to the Scourge. All this time, He-Man has been slowly pulling rocks out of the wall of his prison, all while avoiding being cooked alive by the Scourge's flame breath. He finally pops out a hole in the side of the cave just as Mira arrives - but he has short-sightedly allowed an exit for the giant flame monster!

Though having just displayed a disturbing lack of judgment, He-Man puts his thinking cap back on and realizes that his big muscles and a well-placed tree trunk can help him access the Darklands' underground river and douse the fiery kitty. It dissolves into nothing under the spray of water, and everyone is saved. A chastened Teela thoroughly apologizes for her rash actions and tenderly embraces her father, and a rueful Kor (now without a job) does the same.

End with a Joke: In a desperate attempt to add levity to the end of the episode, Orko giggles while shaking hands with the gauntlet that pops out of his hat.

• Evil-Lyn: With Skeletor away for a few days, now is my chance to conquer all of Eternia - for myself!
• He-Man (commenting on having to dodge flame breath): I like getting a tan, but this is ridiculous.
• He-Man (commenting on having to dig through a very thick rock wall while dodging flame breath): This just isn't my day.
• Tri-Klops (having allowed his prisoner and two intruders to escape from Snake Mountain): Uh-oh, am I going to get it when Evil-Lyn finds out.

• He-Man laughs, head back: In Evil-Lyn's magic crystal, amused at his capture of Kor's daughter
• He-Man punches the viewer: To smash the wall of Kor's throne room
• He-Man rolls along the ground: To escape the Scourge's flame breath
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: To plug up the hole he's made in the ground

One partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence)

Brought to you by Teela and Man-at-Arms
With no other lesson to impart than the one they just finished summarizing in the preceding scene, Teela and her father beat that dead horse just a bit more by emphasizing the necessity of keeping a clear head and listening to your parents when they say "No." Duncan says the last line ("Try to remember that the next time your mother or father says no to you") after having deliberately turned to face Teela, which seems in particularly poor taste, considering Teela has no idea who her mother is.

Teela does something dangerous by herself
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1: You could argue that this is not an entirely Skeletor-less episode, since presumably he's in the Collector that flies off in the opening shot, and he is also mentioned; however he does not appear and has no involvement in the events of the story, so I'm going to count him out of this one.
Evil-Lyn power punches the glass ceiling: A classic example of this category, as Lyn strikes out on her own while the boss is away.

• This is another episode where Evil-Lyn shows her ambition to steal a march on Skeletor by taking Eternia without him. The last time she tried this was in MU021's "The Royal Cousin."
• Things that come out of Orko: a metallic gauntlet on the end of an accordion extender comes out of his hat to catch something. The same device, holding a suction-cup-shooter, pops out again a little later; and once more at the end of the episode, so he can shake hands with himself. Hands have come out of his hat before, but not one that looked quite like this!
• Kor's daughter Mira looks exactly like Celice the Singer from MU022's "Song of Celice."
• We get a nice shot of the dashboard of the Basher when Evil-Lyn is talking to Tri-Klops through its dash screen. In this episode, in order to more easily capture Mira, Tri-Klops has had a freeze ray fitted to the front of the Basher - something it doesn't usually have.
• It seems unusual that He-Man doesn't appear in this episode until over 8 minutes in - and then only in an illusion created by Evil-Lyn. We don't see the "real" Prince Adam until 10 minutes in.
• This is another "Cringer was taking a long nap" episode, in which he is not featured. We also never see the king or queen.
• Adam and Duncan are seen playing the same goofy chess game that Duncan was playing with Orko in MU014. We will see this game again at the beginning of MU069's "The Gamesman."
• There is some cool lore giving the background behind Kor's position in the Darklands and the Red Scourge. Duncan's explanation to Orko will cover everything we need to know: "Ages ago, the Red Scourge roared across Eternia, burning everything in sight. Finally, it was caught and imprisoned. Each generation, a wizard is chosen as Keeper of the Flame, to see that the Scourge never escapes. Kor is the Keeper of the Flame now, and the reptile men serve him."
• Home invasion time again! It seemed in MU015 as if Skeletor had finally done a little bit to secure his home by adding an intruder alarm; however in this episode it is nowhere to be seen - or heard - when Teela and Orko just walk on in. Perhaps Tri-Klops switched it off for a while to ensure an uninterrupted nap in Skeletor's throne...
• Teela again makes use of her explosive string of beads, last seen when she fought off a gigantic centipede in MU022. She also later pulls a grappling hook on a line out of her form-fitting armor. Who knows? Maybe she's got a sleeping bag tucked in there, too, and my complaints in the commentary section about her lack of preparedness for the Darklands were unfounded.

• Teela's training exercise against the globe-shaped robot with her big shades and sword is reminiscent of the scene in Star Wars where a be-helmeted Luke takes on a tiny "remote" globe with his father's light saber. There are a lot of parallels with the Star Wars franchise to be found in the series, and I don't think this is just me being a Star Wars geek: the movies were especially huge at the time, with the concurrent 1983 release of episode 6, Return of the Jedi. It's unclear what the sunglasses are supposed to be doing for the person fighting - are they a protection, a vision aid, or are they handicapping the sight in the same way that Luke's blast shield did? (Note, we'll see Teela training with this robot again, in slightly different circumstances, in MU061.)
• Teela seems to be planning to stay at the Darklands "for a few days," but when she shows up there, she has absolutely no gear, no visible food or water, no bedroll - not even a weapon! I'm no captain of the guard, but this seems like a lack of preparation to me...
• The reptile men wear belts but, like many other denizens of Eternia, have no pants. In their case, disturbingly, there is not even any hairy underwear sitting beneath their belts, just bare hips and legs. One wonders what purpose the belt is actually performing...
• I find it hilarious that the animators used the typical loop of He-Man laughing with his head back in Evil-Lyn's illusion of him capturing Kor's daughter. Not only is he evil - he enjoys it, too!
• I suppose this wouldn't be so obvious if I wasn't trying to catalogue the names of all the characters in the episodes, but I notice that Filmation has an odd habit of not revealing the names of side characters until very far into the story. Kor's daughter's name is Mira; but you don't figure that out until almost 13 minutes into the runtime, when Kor finally happens to mention it.
• There's a hilarious little sequence of He-Man rushing around Kor's throne room and shoving a pair of reptile men aside by pushing their faces, which is used twice (the second time flipped so he's moving in the opposite direction).
• There's some inconsistency with the naming of the big monster in this episode. In the beginning of the episode, Evil-Lyn refers to Kor as "the keeper of the Crimson Scourge." When Duncan tells the back story it's called the "Red Scourge." But when He-Man is transported to its lair, he calls it the "Crimson Scourge;" as does Kor in a subsequent scene. Can it also be called the Ruby Scourge, or the Scarlet Scourge? Oooh, I like that last one, very alliterative...
• The sky of the Darklands is very oddly painted - it actually looks like the cracked ground of a sere landscape turned upside-down. I guess that's why it's so dark there...
• The usual "He-Man picks up and throws a rock" loop is used to show He-Man doing just that; but then he freezes with his arms still in mid-throw, just a little bit too long for realism.
• It's all well and good that He-Man was able to apparently dissolve the Scourge to nothing with a directed stream from the Darklands' underground river; but he seems to have taken Kor's job away! No more Keepers of the Flame when there's no Flame left to keep. I would think Kor would be a little annoyed about that, even though he did get his daughter back. Like, are the reptile men still going to hang around the castle now that there's nothing to guard? I hope Kor had a retirement account or a nest egg set aside...
• Teela pre-emptively apologizes for running off to the Darklands at the end of the episode, I suspect in an attempt to avoid having to peel a bunch of potatoes - which was her punishment for running off in MU005.