J. Michael Straczynski
Ed Friedman
Devious Evil-Lyn takes advantage of Vokan, recently awakened (and impressively powerful) king of Stone City, telling him the Life Bringer that can restore his city's stone citizens has been stolen by He-Man and hidden in Castle Grayskull. Will the impulsive warrior accidentally hand the secrets of Grayskull over to the bad guys?
Prince Adam (He-Man), Orko, Man-at-Arms, Sorceress
Kobra Khan, Webstor, Evil-Lyn, Skeletor
tree creature, Stone City citizens, Vokan
Attak Trak, sky sled
Our heroes - Prince Adam, Orko, and Man-at-Arms - have been stumbling through the jungle for days using a half-disintegrated map, vainly searching for the legendary Stone City. Taking another look at the indistinct map, Orko claims to have a valid theory on how to interpret it; when Attak Trak's computer voice agrees with him, but in a way that insultingly evokes the saying about a broken clock being right twice a day, Orko storms off into the jungle to vindicate himself. Instead, he angers an ancient tree entity, who was trying to get in a good century-long nap. The aggravated creature uses its roots to unearth a bunch of buried objects and fling them at the Trollan, sending him running (or floating, I suppose - scooting?).
It so happens that one of the flung objects is a stone tablet engraved with a much more complete and helpful map to Stone City. When Man-at-Arms and Adam rejoin the magician and examine the map, they're thrilled; but so are the Evil Warriors Kobra Khan, Webstor, and Evil-Lyn, who heard that Stone City holds a legendary treasure and have been tracking the Heroic Warriors through the jungle waiting for just such a lucky break. Lyn and her buddies swoop in to nab the map, and the evil sorceress magically boxes up our friends with a series of levitated stone slabs. Normally Adam would be able to solve this problem easily by unsheathing his power sword; but unfortunately he unsheathed it a few seconds too soon (a problem sadly common in males), then clumsily dropped it where it could be trapped under the edge of one of the slabs. Precious time is wasted as the heroes must call Attak Trak over and have the vehicle push the sword from the outside, so a straining Prince Adam can finally pull it free and transform himself into someone who works out more.
The heroes' long delay has given our villains a huge head start, which they use to really screw things up in Stone City. Lyn and company find the city populated by a collection of stone statues of people of all ages and sizes. They spot an interesting-looking device installed within a mountain peak, which Lyn quickly teleports away to her lab in Snake Mountain for later study. Within a temple, they remove a rock blocking an opening in the roof; the sun shining in the exposed interior brings an impressive stone statue back to life. It's a man! A big one - and he introduces himself to the villains as Vokan, king of Stone City. All the other statues in the city, he explains, are his people - the true "treasure" of Stone City. (You can imagine this admission is a great disappointment to our greedy rogues, who were hoping for gold, or maybe some cool laser guns.) Vokan and his warlike people voluntarily turned themselves to stone to await a better, more exciting era in history. At this point they've seriously overslept, so the king is anxious to get everyone up again using his Life Bringer - but where is it?!
Evil-Lyn very quickly realizes that Vokan's Life Bringer is the gadget she zapped away earlier. But Vokan doesn't waste any time negotiating with the villains; instead, leaping to the (as it turns out well-founded) conclusion that they are the thieves, he attacks all three, and does a pretty fair job of handing their butts to them. A cowed but underhanded Lyn claims innocence: it was a guy named He-Man who stole the Life Bringer, and he would have brought it to his fortress, Castle Grayskull. She kindly offers to lead Vokan to the place, and he accepts.
At the castle, as Vokan approaches, determined to force down the Jawbridge, Lyn is standing a few steps back with Webstor and Khan, already gleefully counting her chickens. Soon, she'll have the secrets of Grayskull, and all without Skeletor's help! You can bet she won't be sharing the spoils with old Bonehead... There is at least one obstacle to Lyn's success, however, and that's the Sorceress, who appears as a floating head to ask Vokan to please go away. Vokan won't hear of it, and begins a bombardment of the door with his chest laser (the "Eye of Amagordo"). A confused Sorceress, who can't sense any evil in the heedless fellow, nevertheless sees that she's going to need some help, and calls up her slave - er, I mean protector - He-Man. He-Man and friends had shown up at the deserted city after breaking out of their stone prison and tracking the villains there. Unsure of where their quarry disappeared to, our blonde beefcake had asked Duncan and Orko to keep exploring the site while he took a spin around in the sky sled. He is still flying about when the Sorceress's SOS comes through, and is able to appear at the front gate just as Vokan forces the door open.
The ensuing duel is an impressive one, with the powerful fighters seeming evenly matched; but eventually He-Man deflects Vokan's beam back at him, knocking the fellow over. The spectating Evil Warriors, disappointed in the performance of their dupe, yell some verbal abuse at him, in the process accidentally revealing the fact that they are the true thieves of the Life Bringer. An abashed Vokan realizes his mistake and turns on his deceivers. Lyn demands entry into Grayskull as the price for the return of the Life Bringer, then teleports herself and her lackeys away. He-Man, who has no intention of bowing to the villains' demands, reassures his new friend that he has a pretty good idea where that Life Bringer ended up.
Yes, it's over at Snake Mountain, where the trio of baddies have retired to gloat over their stolen machine. Lyn is still imagining that they can leverage the artifact for the secrets of Grayskull, and all without cutting in her erstwhile bony master, when Skeletor himself wanders into the room. He hasn't heard from Evil-Lyn all day and was just wondering what she was up to. Before Lyn can work up a plausible story, the villains are interrupted by some banging outside. Leaning out a nearby window, Skeletor spots He-Man and Vokan busily smashing away at his house, and asking after the Life Bringer. After a quick consult back in the room to confirm with Lyn that the gadget she's standing in front of is, in fact, the Life Bringer, Skeletor leans back out the window to inform He-Man that he totally hasn't seen the thing. This doesn't fool our clever He-Man, however, and he threatens to keep pounding away until Snake Mountain turns into Snake Valley if Skeletor doesn't give up the gadget. Skeletor, as a respectable and determined archenemy, would rather do anything than accede to the demands of his foe; but, being a sensible man, he also knows when to cut his losses. He hands over the device.
Back at Stone City, Man-at-Arms hurriedly assists Vokan in hooking the Life Bringer machine back into its nook at the top of the mountain. But it's all for naught! The machine can only work when the moonlight shines through the tiny hole at the top of the mountain and through a crystal, and by the time the installation is done, it's too late: Vokan will have to wait another thousand years before the moon returns to the correct position. Not to be thwarted by a little thing like astronomy, He-Man decides the solution is to move the mountain: he gets down to the base and shoves the whole thing over, putting the moon back into the sights and allowing the Life Bringer to work its magic. The people of Stone City are restored to life! Now they have a couple centuries' worth of catching up to do (though since people are still fighting with swords, subsisting mostly on farmed crops, and being ruled by kings, they maybe won't have a lot of studying in their future).
His troubles overcome, Vokan apologizes to He-Man for his rash actions at Grayskull; he realizes that if he'd just taken the time to discuss matters with the hero, things would have gone differently. He-Man waves away the mistakes of the past, urging Vokan to look towards the future of himself and his people. Man-at-Arms is left wondering what kind of fallout Evil-Lyn is going to see for having attempted to bypass her boss...
End with a Joke: Cut to Snake Mountain, where it seems Skeletor's stone-themed punishment for Lyn and Webstor is to have them spend a month or so carving a gigantic lifelike statue of - Skeletor. It's so lifelike, in fact, that it comes to life to urge its sculptors to get back to work! A very pleased Skeletor laughs heartily.
One partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence)
Brought to you by Orko and Man-at-Arms
Orko rushes through the lesson of today's story - that we should listen to people before acting rashly, to avoid being like Vokan - without listening to Man-at-Arms, who is trying to impart the important message that dinner is ready. Um, that wasn't really all that important, actually; couldn't you have waited two seconds until the Trollan was done talking, Duncan? Maybe next episode we'll learn an important lesson about not interrupting people...
Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities: Because our heroes start out the episode on an Indiana Jones-type adventure to locate the ancient Stone City.
Landmark Episode: I just really enjoyed this one, and I haven't tagged an episode as landmark in quite some time.
Evil-Lyn power punches the glass ceiling: It's been quite a long while since I've been able to tag this category! But this one definitely qualifies, as it sees Lyn trying to manipulate Vokan and leverage the Life Bringer without Skeletor finding out.
