Larry DiTillio

Bill Reed

Lady Arvela makes a bargain with the king of the Realm of Evil, Angast, to get back her captured father Landros: all she has to do is kidnap the Starchild! Should be fine, right?

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

N/A

Poole, Lady Arvela, Angast, pilot, Bowena, Starchild, Castle Landros guards, Realm of Evil guards, Landros, bat creature (butterfly)

air ship, Wind Raider

At an unfamiliar castle, we meet an unfamiliar young woman and her unfamiliar old retainer. The servant (who proves to be named Poole) brings the woman (who proves to be named Lady Arvela) a big pot, and she recites a summoning spell over it, calling forth the crowned, three-eyed head of a monster. The monster announces himself as Angast, king of the Realm of Evil, and wants to know why the heck she made him show up to this fiery video call. Arvela explains that she's the daughter of Landros, a magician who inadvertently intruded in Angast's realm and has gotten trapped there. She's willing to do anything to secure his release, and Angast has a task in mind: she should bring him the Starchild (whom MOTU scholars will remember from her previous episode in Season 1: "The Starchild"). But don't worry! Angast promises not to do anything bad; he just wants to "look upon her." (Uh-huh. Sure.) Arvela reluctantly agrees to the terrible bargain.

Back in more familiar territory, in the open-air courtyard at the royal palace, many of our well-known heroes have gathered to await (in Orko's case, impatiently) the arrival of the very Starchild we were just talking about. Soon enough, an air ship appears over the skies of Eternos - but it doesn't seem to be coming in for a landing. Instead, following orders from an as-yet-unseen female voice, the pilot swoops in low enough to allow for a rope to be shot by grappling arrow around a nearby tower, and a Robin Hood-clad woman swings in for a landing with the Starchild clinging to her back. This exciting entrance was brought to us by Bowena, who introduces herself as a bodyguard to the magically powerful little girl. Starchild (or "Little Star," as Bowena calls her) would make a valuable hostage for anyone getting a hold of her (as we learned in her previous appearance in the series), so it makes sense for her to have personal protection.

After an exciting and fun day hanging out with the Eternians (we assume), Starchild gets tucked into bed by the doting Prince Adam and Teela, with Bowena looking on. The little girl's only regret after the day's events is that she never got to see her friend He-Man. (Bowena comments that she would also like to meet He-Man, having heard that he's a very handsome fellow.) Adam assures Starchild that the blonde stud will be along at some point, and they all wish the kid good night. The prince immediately goes to his bedroom to fetch his power sword and transform himself and his tiger, so he can make a late-night call on the little girl. But it seems quite a few other people have the same intention! First, a glowing ball floats into Starchild's room through the open balcony, resolving itself into Lady Arvela. Next, Orko floats up to the bedroom doorway, having arrived later than the rest but still intending to wish a good night to the tot. He opens the door just in time to catch a glimpse of Arvela stealing away with the child. His cries bring He-Man, Battle Cat, and Bowena running, and Orko explains what he just witnessed. He's somewhat reluctant to admit that he recognized the kidnapper, since the heroes all know Lady Arvela and she's usually such a nice lady. They're confused at this seeming change in her behavior, but they know where to go to get answers: Castle Landros, the family estate.

He-Man instructs Orko to go inform King Randor of what has taken place; but Orko doesn't want to miss out on the episode's excitement, so instead magically transforms himself into an arrow and floats into Bowena's quiver. He-Man flies himself, Battle Cat, and Bowena (with her special Trollan arrow) out to the castle in the Wind Raider, where they politely knock on the door. A skittish Poole answers and tries to stonewall the visitors, claiming that Lady Arvela is not receiving guests at this time; but a determined and frankly rude Bowena shoves her way inside. The heroes are immediately attacked by a row of laser-gun-toting armed guards, leaving He-Man no alternative but to join Bowena in battle against them. During the fight, Bowena fires off her Orko arrow, and the stowaway magician reveals himself. He-Man is annoyed, but there's nothing he can do about it now!

Down in the basement of the castle (or wherever she keeps her demon-summoning chamber), Arvela is busy re-summoning Angast, the Starchild clasped in her arms. When the evil dude reappears, she shows him her hostage and requests that he honor his bargain; but Angast, in a predictably evil move, reveals that he has no intention of doing so. He zaps the lady and the kid with a kind of freeze ray - and when the heroes arrive fortuitously just at that moment, he zaps them, too. They are all teleported to a cavernous room full of snaky decorations and nasty-looking guards. By the room's throne stands Angast, who's just thrilled that he's gotten a hold of the Starchild. Also present is Arvela's father Landros, so the daughter and her dad have a nice little reunion. He-Man explains to a bemused Orko that they are in the Realm of Evil (a fact that Angast already revealed to them, but whatever), the place where the Council of Evil was exiled after its defeat by the Council of Good. When Angast tries to have his guards grab his prize, Starchild zaps them, and a general melee ensues. Thanks to Bowena's flash and smoke arrows, He-Man's throwing of a table, and Orko's expert use of a pumpkin, the heroes all manage to escape Angast's clutches and find themselves out of the castle and in a barren wasteland.

Out in the open, Lady Arvela finally admits just what bargain she made with Angast to end up in the Realm of Evil, and her father is (understandably) disappointed in her for expanding into child endangerment and kidnapping. Wanting to save her dad is no reason for beginning a life of crime! The clearly remorseful Arvela is eventually forgiven, however, and He-Man interrupts the family quarrel to ask Landros if he has any idea where they can go to escape from the inevitable return of Angast. Landros leads the heroes to the Temple of Between, within which is a stone table that, with the right type of magic, could be used to open a doorway back to Eternia. The problem is that Eternian magic doesn't work right in the Realm of Evil - a nice logical reason for Landros to have been stuck here, unable to take advantage of this potential escape route. Orko's magic, though unimpeded, is also not strong enough; it's the Starchild's otherworldly power that can activate this spell - which, again, is a nice logical reason for Angast to have wanted her. With Starchild to open the gate, Angast and his army of guards can pile on over to Eternia for some conquerin' fun! It's therefore pretty darn important that He-Man defend the temple from the approaching hordes while Starchild does her thing.

Because Angast does show up, standing astride a giant flying bat creature, while his armies charge in on foot. He-Man, Orko, and Bowena are on defense, with Orko providing some stair-flattening magic to trip the guards. Angast deflects Bowena's sleep-gas bolt back onto her, taking her temporarily out of action; but He-Man is there to snag the bat mount by the feet, flinging Angast into a huge spider web, and Orko performs a transformation spell on the bat, changing it into a harmless butterfly. Inside the temple, Arvela realizes that Starchild is too uncontrolled to focus her magic on the portal, so she volunteers for a dangerous mind-melding procedure to assist the kid's performance. It works, opening the way for the heroes' escape. While everyone else hops into the tabletop, He-Man stays behind to shove over the most load-bearing of the temple's columns. As soon as it goes over, he leaves as well, and the temple collapses just as the portal closes and Angast and his men barge inside. A furious Angast, frustrated in his ambitions, teleports out from under the falling rubble. We're not sure what happened to his men; but our heroes have definitely escaped, as we soon see them assembled in Eternos's royal throne room, relating the events of the day to King Randor. Starchild professes her concern for Arvela's future, provoking some moralizing from the Eternian ruler; but it sounds like the lady will get a mere slap of the wrist for this first offense.

End with a Joke: Bowena expresses a wish that they never encounter the villainous Angast again. Orko boastfully claims that Angast is no big threat, and that if he were to come to Eternia, the Trollan would defeat him at fisticuffs. We see his true colors, though, when the silhouette of what looks like Angast appears on a nearby wall: Orko flings himself into a handy pot, magically sealing the lid on top. Adam walks over to chasten Cringer, who we find produced the shadow by manipulating his paws next to a candle. "You were scaring Orko," the prince accuses. "Yes," Cringer admits - "Fun, wasn't it?" And they all laughed...

• Arvela: Sky above, earth below, fire, water, to me show, the land beyond Eternia's plains, the realm where all that's evil reigns. / Angast (hissing): Who dares summon Angast, king of the Realm of Evil?
• Orko: I wish the Starchild would get here; I can't wait to show her my magic pinwheel trick. / Man-at-Arms: The last time you did that stunt, you blew the king's crown all the way to Eastfen.
• Angast (laughing): Foolish woman! Did you really think one as evil as I would keep his word?
• King Randor: Trying to do something good is never an excuse for doing something wrong. But I think Arvela understands that now.

• Angast laughs, head back: At the "foolish woman," Arvela, and her trusting nature in making their bargain

One full
Variation - Cringer interrupts the animation sequence to comment, "Seems like a lot of fuss for a visit!" This kind of cut-in used to be a fairly common addition to the transformation sequence, but it's been a very long time (MU104) since we've seen one.

Brought to you by He-Man
Standing back in the temple that he already destroyed at the end of the episode proper, He-Man gives us today's lesson: not to make questionable bargains like Lady Arvela did. Don't sacrifice your principles to get what you want. You shouldn't mess with episode continuity either, He-Man.

Starchild episodes: Though there are only two in which the Starchild appears, it's undeniable that this is one of them.
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2

• In the opening back-and-forth between our heroes, Man-at-Arms makes an offhand reference to "Eastfen." We've actually heard writer Larry DiTillio use this location before: in the beginning of MU034 (probably my all-time favorite MOTU story), Skeletor disguised himself as "Ambassador Therin of the Kingdom of Eastfen" in order to infiltrate the royal throne room.
• Finally, the return of the Starchild! We last saw her being fought over by the Cave Dwellers and Tree People in MU033's well-named "The Starchild." That episode was a bit of a sausage party (which, let's face it, is a problem unsurprisingly common to He-Man's series); in this one, we find the child has been given a lithe female bodyguard, in the form of Bowena - who makes a very exciting entrance in the episode! The co-paternal situation reached at the end of MU033 between the Cave Dwellers' Palos and the Tree People's Willen is never discussed here, though Bowena's Green Arrow garb seems to evoke that of the Tree People.
• Incidentally, it seems in Bowena (blatantly named, in the charmingly obvious manner of MOTU, after her chosen weapon) that we've pre-emptively been given a female counterpart to the male hero Bow who will eventually grace the episodes of She-Ra: Princess of Power. This isn't particularly surprising when we know that our writer for this episode is one of the co-creators of She-Ra.
• The air ship in which Bowena and Starchild arrive is seen only briefly; it has a similar - but not identical - shape and coloring to the Wind Raider.
• Due to the plethora of female voices needed for this episode, Queen Marlena is voiced by her throaty backup actress, Jay Scheimer. Arvela is brought to us by the somewhat inexpert stylings of the Scheimers' daughter, Erika. The character design for Arvela, by the way, is similar to that of Celice from MU022, or Mira from MU026.
• Bowena affords us one of the rare MOTU scenes alluding to male-female physical attraction (a specialty of Larry's), when she brings up her desire to meet He-Man: "From what I hear, he's very handsome." In the background, we see Teela giving her an irritated, jealous glare.
• Immediately following this cute moment is a scene in Adam's bedroom, last visited back in MU104. In an even rarer and more special moment, we get a split-second view of where the prince keeps his power sword when he's not wearing it. On previous occasions, this sword nook has been shown as being hidden behind a secret sliding door (MU043, MU092); in this episode we don't see the door, and it appears to be hanging out in the open. This may just be because Adam has already opened the nook.
• To convince Orko to admit who he saw taking the Starchild, Bowena conjures the Trollan to tell them "by the ancients," a fairly common expression in Eternia which we've heard used in several other episodes (the last one where I seem to have called it out was MU098's "Search for the Past").
• In the occasional habit of the series when handling secondary characters we've never met before, we discover that our main characters are all perfectly familiar with Lady Arvela, daughter of the magician Landros.
• This episode's villain is Angast, ruler of the Realm of Evil. He's a three-eyed fellow who seems to have a lot of phlegm in his throat (if his constant hissing is any indication). He-Man provides us some background on Angast's Realm of Evil: "According to history, this is where the Council of Evil was sent when they lost their struggle with the Council of Good." Angast himself reminds me of Kraal, King of Demons, from MU078's "Betrayal of Stratos." The two characters don't look very similar, but both communicate to others as a floating head wreathed in flames, and they're both rulers of nasty places. The story of the Realm of Evil reminds me of good old Zodac, who was identified as the last surviving member of the "Council of the Wise" in MU062. Any relation to the Council of Good? Maybe... As for the Council of Evil, Man-at-Arms made a passing reference to them all the way back in MU030, though since the two episodes were written by different people and aired over a year apart, it's hard to say whether the term was meant to refer to the same thing.
• Landros, a wise magician whose magic went too far, with a somewhat ignorant but beautiful daughter, reminds me of Walter Pidgeon playing Doctor Edward Morbius in the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956). Morbius delved into dangerous secrets when researching the ancient race of the Krell on his adopted planet, Altair IV. He also had a daughter, Altaira, but she didn't make any bargains with evil monsters... she just made out with all the astronauts who showed up to rescue them.
• The wasteland in which the heroes find themselves after escaping Angast is identical to the Eternian terrain where we first saw the wicked Jarvan the Sorcerer way back in MU010's "A Friend in Need." Weird, eh?
• Landros declares that the Starchild is "from another place," suggesting that she's not a native Eternian and comes from some other planet or dimension. Her birthplace was never discussed in her previous appearance (MU033), but this extraterrestrial (extra-Eternian?) origin makes a certain amount of sense given her status as an orphan and her ignorance of her real parents.
• The ending joke, where Orko is bragging about his ability to defeat a monster and then proves cowardly when he's tricked by a shadow into thinking the monster has returned, is identical to one used way back in MU014. Orko also tried reversing this trick and was himself the producer of the scary shadow for the ending joke of MU092. These are not the only occasions where Orko's boasting about being able to handle the episode's villain provided the impetus for the concluding zinger; see for instance MU090.
• This will prove to be the great Larry DiTillio's final script for MOTU. It's been a fabulous run! Larry co-wrote or was the sole writer on a record 17 episodes of the series, among them many classic stories and the series' only two-part plot (MU040 and MU041). Five of them I've tagged as "landmark episodes," and one of those is probably my all-time favorite, MU034's "The Dragon's Gift."
• Again this episode features the variant ending credits with the flat-painted Jawbridge.

• Arvela's castle is surprisingly cobwebby. Does she just have that one old servant, Poole, to help around the house? Get out a dust cloth young lady, and do some work around here!
• There's a lovely nighttime painting of the exterior of Eternos that leads into the shot of Starchild being tucked into bed.
• Oddly, though Arvela enters Starchild's bedroom through an open balcony doorway, she leaves via a waist-high window. Why go out a different way than you came in? Also worth noting that this marks another in a very long line of cases of home invasion in the series. If I were Bowena, I would be pretty darn disappointed with the palace's security! We see that Man-at-Arms still hasn't managed to whip up that teleport- and/or magic-proof defense screen...
• I'm always looking for proof of my pet theory that Larry DiTillio hates Orko, even when he actually includes the troublemaking Trollan in his stories. This episode might be a bad example, though it has moments where it seems the writer was getting a little bit of sadistic joy out of torturing our magician friend. On the positive side, Orko proves a valuable asset in this episode, providing several saving spells and earning a verbal compliment from He-Man (and a very forceful pat on the back from Bowena). But the only reason he joins the heroes is because he disobeys He-Man's request to stay behind (and out of the plot) and warn King Randor of the Starchild's seizure. To stow away with the others, Orko magically disguises himself as one of Bowena's arrows, and ends up getting fired off at a guard. Did Larry contrive this situation just to give Orko a sound bump on the head? The episode's ending joke is definitely made at Orko's expense, and finds him cowering in a jar, reminiscent of his ignominious finish at the conclusion of MU079's "Disappearing Dragons" (another DiTillio script).
• If you're considering getting a job as a guard at Castle Landros, think twice! Have a look at the guards' livery (see stills above). It's amazingly stupid-looking. I once worked a summer at a movie theater and I felt demeaned just at the necessity of having to wear a baseball cap!
• Angast wanted the Starchild, so you have to assume he had some knowledge of the extent of her powers. If so, however, he seems remarkably ill-prepared to deal with them, allowing his guards to get zapped by the little kid and letting the heroes slip through his fingers.
• In the final face-off, Angast appears astride the back of a giant bat creature ("my pet"), holding a scepter or staff that looks like it's topped with the Evil Horde logo. It seems like the kind of thing you'd see on the cover of an 80s heavy metal album. Noyce. (Makes horns symbol with hand)
• At the end of the episode, we see Angast teleport out from under the collapsing Temple of Between, in classic Skeletor escape style; but all his guards were following him in there, too. What happened to them? Are they hamburger meat now?
• You learn just how handy it is - as long as you're a member of the upper crust - to live in a kingdom whose justice system is overseen by a very forgiving king like Randor, when in the final scene he suggests to Starchild that he's going to let Arvela off with a warning after her blatant home invasion and kidnapping plot. Oh, has she learned her lesson, then, your majesty? Well isn't that nice...
• I have to admit that this last script of Larry's is not his best, but it's entertaining enough. I like all the new locations we get to see (Castle Landros, Angast's place in the Realm of Evil, the Temple of Between), and the bad guy is cool-looking.