Bob Forward and Leslie Wilson & based on an idea by - Tom Tataranowicz

Gwen Wetzler

Skeletor manufactures a staged disaster that fools He-Man into believing he's killed an innocent villager. As a result, our hero surrenders his great powers and throws away the power sword - leaving Eternia without its mightiest protector!

King Randor, Prince Adam (He-Man), Man-at-Arms, Queen Marlena, Orko, Sorceress, Teela

Skeletor (bald villager), Trap Jaw

General Tataran (bald villager's brother), Zak villagers, goblin soldiers, thunder lizard mounts

Wind Raider (though oddly it never appears on screen, it is clearly used), sky sleds (heroic and evil), goblin ship

As Trap Jaw grips a struggling General Tataran in a headlock, Skeletor kindly thanks the goblin leader for consenting to visit him at Snake Mountain. It seems that the bony villain has another plan to defeat He-Man - one that he firmly doesn't want Trap Jaw to hear, as he brusquely ejects the minion before getting down to business with his visitor. Confirming first that Tataran, as a goblin, has no heartbeat, an excited Skeletor assures the general that this time, He-Man will be made to defeat himself.

In Eternos, Adam and Man-at-Arms bring news to King Randor of Skeletor's brashly undisguised building project at the distant Crystal Sea, near the tiny village of Zak. Randor is suspicious that the villain has some ulterior motive, given that the construction is proceeding so openly; but he concludes they have no choice but to go and see what Skeletor is up to. Therefore Adam, Duncan, and Orko travel to the Crystal Sea (because of course you need a court magician on all your reconnaissance missions) and find a high vantage from which to look over what they recognize as a half-built dimensional gate. Man-at-Arms remarks that the project is being poorly managed and executed - one tower in particular looks unsupported and ready to collapse. Adam decides it's time for He-Man to confront and stop Skeletor, so he makes his transformation and the heroes walk right into the villain camp, unaware of the devious plot waiting to unfold at their arrival.

He-Man angrily addresses his foe, objecting to Skeletor using the population of Zak as his slave labor; but the bony villain is flippant in reply, and aims a zap at Orko, enraging He-Man further. A chase ensues, with Skeletor leading the blonde oaf in circles around the weakened pillar, until a fed-up He-Man tries to punch his way through, and the entire gigantic structure crumbles to rubble around them. This, however, is exactly what Skeletor wanted to happen; for he has Tataran stationed under the falling debris, disguised as a Zak villager and wearing a hidden force field to protect himself from harm. All Orko and Duncan see is an innocent bystander crushed by the remnants of the tower; when they alert He-Man to the calamity, he frantically flings aside the boulders and rocks, until they find the "villager" motionless at the bottom. Leaning over the body, He-Man can hear no heartbeat: the man is dead, killed by the hero's own heedless power punch. Skeletor, having absconded himself and hidden nearby to witness the plot play out, now emerges to turn the knife, disguising himself as another bald villager. Claiming to be the victim's brother, he accuses He-Man of murder, and the nearby villagers join in the vocal condemnation. A heartbroken He-Man silently walks away.

Man-at-Arms urges Orko to give the hero some time alone, but the agitated Trollan follows He-Man anyway, trying to convince his friend that it was all an accident and he shouldn't blame himself. But He-Man is inconsolable: the vow he made when he took up his great strength and power was to fight evil and protect the innocent. Today, whether by accident or not, he has broken that vow. Dismayed by He-Man's words but unable to cheer up the hero, Orko is persuaded to head back to Man-at-Arms; but on the way, he overhears Skeletor and Tataran talking and realizes He-Man's "accident" was all part of an evil plot. Unfortunately, Orko also reveals his presence to Skeletor, who quickly traps the pesky eavesdropper in a bubble and takes him away.

Later, we see a mourning He-Man standing atop one of the towers of Castle Grayskull in the moonlight. Declaring that the breaking of his promise now makes him unfit to continue as He-Man, the hero changes back into Prince Adam and, with a heavy heart, throws his power sword into the bottomless abyss surrounding the castle. As a saddened Sorceress looks on, Man-at-Arms arrives to escort a now-powerless prince back to Eternos.

Unfortunately, the heroes have little time to mourn, and bigger problems than they've ever yet faced: for Skeletor, certain that his plan has worked to perfection, has continued his construction project in earnest, and now nearly completed the dimensional gate - the activation of which would leave him free to summon a goblin army through the portal. Hearing the news, King Randor determines it's once again time to call on Eternia's protector, He-Man; but a disturbed Man-at-Arms must inform his king that this time, He-Man won't be coming. Captain Teela pipes up with a desperate plan: though the combined forces of Eternia's guard won't be enough to get past Skeletor's defenses, one soldier, approaching by stealth, just might be able to get close enough to destroy the entire gate with a mesatronic bomb. Adam, hearing the plan, is aghast; everyone knows that Teela's mission is a long shot, and whether it succeeds or not will likely result in the brave woman's death. But without He-Man, it seems to be their only option.

All this time, our unlucky Trollan has been stuck in a magic-proof prison cell in Snake Mountain, trying every spell he can think of on the door without success. He finally has the clever idea to use his magic on himself, and in magically shrunken form flies out of the cell and all the way back home. On the balcony of a high tower in Eternos Orko comes upon the lugubrious Prince Adam, desperate with worry over Captain Teela but staunch in his decision to never again become He-Man. Orko immediately informs Adam of Skeletor's trick, and that He-Man was actually not responsible for anyone's death; but the shocked prince is still horror-struck, because even though he feels able to call again upon He-Man, he lacks the ability to do so - his sword is down a hole!

In a panicked rush, knowing that he must catch Teela in time, Adam leaps on a sky sled and races to Grayskull, then flies directly down into the abyss. The treacherous drafts soon blow him off his vehicle and send him falling into the dark. His descent is arrested when he strikes and sticks to a giant spider web. It seems to be where everything that gets thrown into the moat ends up, because his sky sled is stuck there - and so is the power sword. Just one problem: the giant owner of the spider web is home, and is straight-up salivating in anticipation of snacking on Eternian royalty. Adam breaks his hand free of the webbing and is able to reach his sword - and, after a short but scary hiatus, He-Man is back in business! With a throw of the sword, He-Man leaves the spider with a tattered web and our hero is off to save his lo - um, I mean Teela; he's off to save Teela.

Turns out Teela really needs some saving. She found the gate already completed, with goblin ships and soldiers coming through and beginning to gather in numbers. Revealing herself to the nearest group of soldiers, she managed to get herself in range of the gate with her mesatronic bomb; but her plan to warn everyone off and detonate the bomb is foiled by Skeletor, who zaps the captain, forcing her to drop the weapon. He-Man arrives just as Skeletor seems poised to finish off Teela, and stops the villain; but there's a new problem - Skeletor's magical attack seems to have broken the bomb's timer. It's going to go off! Skeletor, true to himself and his self-centered credo, hops on a sky sled and gets the heck out of there. He-Man, without better means of transport than his own feet, since he leaped off his sky sled in mid-flight (I don't see any tigers around here; do you?), picks up Teela and hoofs it at full He-Man speed. It's still not enough to escape the falling rubble when the bomb does explode, taking the gate with it (and either forcing or convincing the goblin armies to vanish back home); and Teela ends up being the second person in the episode to be buried under dimensional gate wreckage.

Fortunately, as a concerned He-Man learns after uncovering her and lifting her up, Teela has suffered nothing worse than a slight bump on the head. She's pleased by her rescuer's obvious anxiety over her safety, and also can't help but notice that he won't put her down, even after it's clear that she's essentially unharmed and can walk for herself. The pair continue this way, the man carrying the woman off into a beautiful Eternian sunset.

End with a Joke: You can consider a flustered He-Man trying to explain himself to the lady he's carrying as an amusing ending to this otherwise fairly serious and heavily emotional story.

• Skeletor (sounding weary): As you can see, General, when I require intelligent assistance, I have to look somewhere besides Snake Mountain.
• Man-at-Arms: We'd better go back to the palace and report. / Orko: You go; He-Man needs me. (to He-Man) It was an accident, He-Man - an accident! You can't blame yourself; the thing wasn't safe. It fell apart. / He-Man: It doesn't matter, Orko. The point is, I acted without thinking - and a man died. / Orko: But - but He-Man - / He-Man: Orko, when I first became He-Man, I swore to uphold what was right, and to protect the innocent. Accident or not - today, I broke that promise.
• He-Man (on a tower of Grayskull): Today I broke a promise, and proved myself unworthy of the great power that was given me. And if I am unworthy, I can no longer permit myself to be He-Man. (raising sword) Let the power return! (drops sword into Grayskull's abyss)
• King Randor: Then we must call once again upon Eternia's chamption: the mighty He-Man. / Adam (sotto voce): Oh no. / Man-at-Arms: Uhh... No, I'm-I'm afraid that He-Man is...no longer available, your majesty.
• Prince Adam (to himself): Teela's gone off on a dangerous mission, and only He-Man could save her now, but - no, I can never become He-Man again. I misused the power and a man died. No - never again; never again.
• Teela: You have four minutes left, Skeletor. / Skeletor: I don't need four minutes to defeat you!
• Teela: Why He-Man! I didn't know you cared.

• Skeletor leans in close to the viewer: To punctuate his dialogue with General Tataran, and again to yell at Trap Jaw
• Skeletor shakes his fists, three-quarter view: Celebrating his plan to make He-Man defeat himself; and again later, from the opposite angle, as he rages against the cowardly goblin army
• A look through widespread legs: He-Man lands after leaping over Skeletor's magic bolt
• He-Man punches the viewer: Punching the support tower of the dimensional gate; one of the most fateful instances of this loop!
• Skeletor laughs, head back: At Orko trying to escape from a prison cell
• He-Man juggles his sword: The unsheathing part of the loop is used as he faces off against Skeletor

Two partial, one reversed
Variations - the first partial transformation is the typical version that is just missing the Cringer/Battle Cat sequence. In the "reversed" transformation atop Grayskull, for the only time, He-Man transforms back into Adam on screen by saying "Let the power return!" (He will make this reverse transformation again, but never so fully, and never by saying these magic words.) The second partial transformation is an even more abbreviated one than the first, and includes only the "By the power of Grayskull" line and matching shot (with Adam/He-Man standing, even though at the time he/they should by all rights still be stuck to a spider web), without the "I have the power" follow-up.

Brought to you by Man-at-Arms
Recalling He-Man's unsafe actions in today's story, Duncan talks to us about being safe: wearing a seatbelt in a car and not playing with matches, for instance. If you carelessly light a match, it could burn important things - like your toys! Don't incinerate your He-Man toys, kids; that's valuable merchandise.

Dealing with Adam's secret and his connection to the power of Grayskull
Teela does something dangerous by herself: To the max! This is perhaps the ultimate example of this category.
Landmark Episode: The most landmark of them all? You decide!

• Just to address the elephant (myrtlephant?) in the room - this episode is one that almost always gets chosen in top lists of MOTU episodes. Then, as a result of this high profile, you get a bunch of MOTU nerds having counter-reactions and finding reasons why it's not the best episode. Regardless, it is definitely one of those must-see stories from the series.
• The return of General Tataran! We last saw him in charge of the goblin army Skeletor hired for MU081's "The Arena" - one of those non-landmark episodes which nevertheless seems to come up in my references all the time. Unfortunately, given that the powerful alien Om wiped the villains' memories at the end of the story, Tataran and Skeletor have likely forgotten all about that particular escapade. An added note about General Tataran: it took me a long time to notice this, but the goblin's name shares many letters with the family name of Tom Tataranowicz, a storyboard supervisor on MOTU who is credited with the original idea that led to this script. I don't think this is a coincidence!
• Skeletor reveals that General Tataran is literally and figuratively heartless - like all goblins, he has no blood-pumping organ, which turns out to be crucial to the bony villain's devious plan.
• This episode brings us back to the Crystal Sea, site of the important events of another landmark episode, MU006. According to Duncan, the sea lies on the other side of the planet - which seems farther than it was before. It also lies near a small village: the village of Zak, which Queen Marlena claims she's visited previously. Those Zakites must have to deal with a lot of shadow beast incursions!
• Skeletor traps the spying Orko inside a bubble - something he's actually done before, in MU036's "The Search." He employed bubble-trapping technology in MU099 as well.
• For the first and only time in the series (kind of), we witness the process of He-Man reverting to Prince Adam. "Let the power return!" He-Man cries, with his sword held aloft; the energy surrounds the sword, and he transforms to his mortal, pinker self. (For another somewhat abbreviated form of this transformation, see MU127.)
• The cell Orko is put into in Snake Mountain, as Skeletor explains, has been "magic-proofed." Nice! Maybe he should work on some defenses for his front door?
• Some unusual and late appearances in the episode: Sorceress appears for only a moment in the background of the scene where Adam gives up his power, but has no dialogue. Teela appears and has an important role in the episode, but we don't see her until the runtime is more than half expended. In this most important crisis in Adam's life, his closest sidekick and beloved pet, Cringer, is nowhere to be seen: the biggest absence in this episode, in a long trend of tiger-avoidance evident this season.
• Teela introduces us to some heavy Eternian firepower: the mesatronic bomb. It's powerful enough to blow up the entirety of Skeletor's completed dimensional gate. For another Eternian explosive, see the nodroxine of MU046.
• Interestingly, the heroes theorize that the dimensional gate will bring a goblin army to Eternia; but a goblin army already attacked Eternia, the last time we saw General Tataran (MU081), and they didn't seem to need a dimensional gate to do it. I know that Om made the bad guys forget about this incident, but I didn't think he'd done it to the good guys, too!
• Orko shines in this episode. When Duncan suggests that the Trollan leave a grief-stricken He-Man alone, the loyal magician demurs, stating: "He-Man needs me." When he's trapped in the magic-proof cell in Snake Mountain, he eventually realizes that, though he can't magic the cell to open, he can use his magic on himself to escape. Nice job, you little wind bag.
• Adam seems to require tall towers to do all his heavy thinking. He climbs to the top of one of Grayskull's towers to surrender his power, and he climbs to the top of Eternos's oft-seen balcony-ringed tower to contemplate Teela's dangerous mission. (We've seen this tower used on several memorable occasions: Duncan was turned to stone while standing at the balcony in MU014; the royal page Thad seemed to be bunking there in MU049; and it seemed to be a location for the royal chambers when Duncan's remote-control rocket smashed into it in MU068.)
• The prince's perilous journey into Grayskull's moat recalls Teela's unscheduled visit there in MU083's "Into the Abyss" - another important episode for character development, which introduced the dangerous cross-winds seen here.
• I'm embarrassed to say that I spent several minutes tracking down almost every giant spider I could remember seeing in He-Man before I finally found the match for the one here that (ironically enough) both saves and attacks Prince Adam down in the abyss: it's a clone of Fisto's evil sidekick, Arachna, from MU070's "Fisto's Forest." Other candidates I explored: the "crybon" from MU046, the spider Adam and company accidentally anger at the beginning of MU086's "A Trip to Morainia," and Lord Tyrin's unnamed spider pet from MU035's "The Sleepers Awaken." I will struggle again to identify this same exact spider as the "Jawlik" of MU122's "Search for a Son."
• As usual, we get to see Skeletor run off and escape at the end of this episode - but in an oddly prosaic style, by sky sled, and not by one of his more magical methods.
• Having carried us to such dramatic extremes with our characters' feelings and explored some unique highs and lows, it's perhaps unsurprising that this episode gives us an unusually romantic ending. He-Man carries a slightly injured Teela off into the sunset, providing in an endearingly abashed manner some unconvincing excuses for why he's still carrying her. It's incredibly rare that stories ever address the potential romance between these two - the only other time that comes to mind, aside from some brief moments of one or the other seeming to express jealousy at perceived rivals, is their discussion on what they mean to each other in MU061's "Pawns of the Game Master" (thank you Paul Dini!).
• This script was brought to us by Bob Forward and Leslie Wilson, whose only other MOTU script - MU085's "The Rainbow Warrior" - was also a landmark episode. Nice. I give some more trivia about these writers in the lore for that episode.
• Another variant ending credits sequence, with the flat-painted Jawbridge in the background.

• This special episode begins with a wonderfully amusing scene: Skeletor thanking General Tataran - who has clearly been drug to Snake Mountain against his will by Trap Jaw and is currently being held in a headlock - for coming to visit. A few moments later, we get another laugh when Trap Jaw shows how impervious he is to subtle suggestions that he should make himself scarce, eventually requiring Skeletor to just straight up yell at him to get the heck out.
• It's funny that, of all the minions he could have commanded to physically restrain someone, Skeletor picked the guy with only one operable arm. (Though I suppose Clawful would have been an even more awkward - and potentially uncomfortable - choice for the general's abductor!) Why not Kobra Khan?
• Nice to be able to watch Trap Jaw switch out his arm attachments, which is what is distracting him from catching Skeletor's drift. The lackey starts out with a hook, then (seemingly just for fun) swaps it out for his laser gun arm.
• He-Man already seems more emotional than usual in this episode, from the moment he confronts Skeletor at the half-finished dimensional gate: "Why, you..." he growls at his foe's enforced labor practices, and even shakes his fist at the bony villain when Skeletor has the temerity to throw a magic zap at Orko.
• To be honest, and regardless of what consequences it actually has (a subject I'll expand more on later), He-Man's punching of the support column was reckless and downright stupid. Adam was standing right next to Duncan a few moments before when the engineering expert pointed out how poorly built the thing was - Duncan even repeats the comment to Skeletor - and He-Man knows there are a lot of village laborers milling around, potentially in range of the resulting rubble. What was he thinking?
• Though it undeniably works exactly as he intended, Skeletor's plan was strangely complex and - for him - highly labyrinthine. What would have been really interesting, much simpler, and truly evil - though, for obvious reasons, impossible in the show's context as a children's cartoon - would be if Skeletor had contrived to place a real person under the falling column, and had He-Man actually murder someone. Instead, he must manufacture a fake fall guy with no heartbeat, who wears a magical disguise and a personal force field. The cherry on top is Skeletor's performance as the dead man's "brother."
• The episode features several scenes that are truly moving and seriously heart-rending. You can feel the tension as He-Man frantically searches through the rubble for the person trapped underneath; and his sorrow at the breaking of his hero's vow is palpable.
• We catch only a glimpse of the Sorceress in this episode, and only after Adam has thrown away the power sword; but her appearance reminds us of several important questions. What is she planning to do now when she needs her butt saved from the forces of evil? Clearly she must have let He-Man into the castle, or at least been aware that he was there and had some inkling of what he was going to do when he looked at her with his sad puppy-dog face and trudged determinedly up to the top of the tower; why didn't she stop him? (Even Orko, when he eventually learns what Adam has done, immediately sees this was a terrible idea.) It's bad enough that she has lost Eternia's protector; but did he have to throw away her magical weapon as well? Maybe she could have convinced someone else to take up the sword (Duncan? Teela? ... Ram Man?). This also raises the question of whether anyone else can take up the sword, something that I feel is suggested in the series but never stated right out (see my musings on this subject in MU073 and MU047). Far be it from me to denigrate anything in this episode, which is most definitely a cut above; but I feel like it would have been really fascinating to explore this story from the Sorceress's point of view.
• Another crushing and shockingly dark scene: the one where Teela introduces the plan of bringing an incredibly powerful bomb to Skeletor's gate and blowing it up. The way she then expresses her love for Duncan and embraces him makes it incredibly clear that this is, in all likelihood, a suicide mission. She's not coming back! Holy @#@% people. We're a mighty long way from Crackers the Clown and his lovable little circus, aren't we? And think about how Man-at-Arms must feel in this scene: I can only assume that he doesn't try to stop his daughter because he can think of no other solution. There must be more than a little part of him that is tempted to blame Adam for the horrible mess they are now in, and the circumstances that have forced Teela to this deadly extreme. You can feel it behind his final comment to the prince: "She's the only hope we have - now."
• We miss another chance to see the Sorceress when Adam hastily returns to Grayskull, determined to retrieve the power sword he so rashly discarded. You'd think he'd at least stop by the front door to see if there was any magic she could cook up to fetch the thing for him.
• It's very amusing that, as soon as Adam regains the sword he threw away and again turns into He-Man, his first act is to... throw away the sword. He throws it at the spider's web to keep the creature from reaching him - and the weapon miraculously (and unbelievably) wings its way back to him, like an unkinked boomerang. We will actually see him use this trick again in MU114 and MU122.
• The big turning point of the story is of course when Orko is able to get back to Adam and reveal to him that the supposed villager's death was all a trick from Skeletor. Like Orko, the audience is meant to assume at this point that everything is all right now, and Adam will never again question his duties as He-Man. But is that what we should really take from this? I've always found this moment hard to swallow. The fact is that He-Man did, in fact, act rashly, regardless of the actual consequences. He didn't actually kill anyone; but he absolutely could have, and the fact that he didn't doesn't change that. It's very similar to the actions of Teela in another great episode, MU052's "Teela's Trial;" in that story, she believes that her untrained use of Duncan's teleporting device has accidentally caused his death. As a result, she tragically determines that she must resign her post and go into exile. Of course, it turns out that she was mistaken and her father is (relatively) fine; but again - he could just as easily actually have died, and the final results of her dangerous actions don't change that. What would have been a more powerful "trial" for both characters would have been for them to have to find a way to live with the terrible (real or potential) consequences of their incautious actions.
• Regardless of any quibbles I might have with this episode, the fact that I'm able to raise them at all, and go into such in-depth analysis, just serves to show what a three-dimensional, sophisticated, and mature story we've been given here. This is without a doubt one of the great episodes of the series. We get an exploration of what it means for Adam to be He-Man, how the slightest of missteps could forever change him and the fate of Eternia, and the possible consequences for the heroes around him should He-Man ever disappear. We also get some fun villain antics and large-scale sci-fi stuff. If I had to choose one single favorite episode of the series, there were some slight niggling issues I had with this one that would probably still lead me to choose MU034's "The Dragon's Gift;" but I think this one would be a very strong runner-up.