Robert Lamb

Steve Clark

Prince Adam and Moss Man join royal archaeologist Melaktha on a sea voyage to confirm reports of the discovery of the lost Empire of Avathar. Their expedition turns up a very valuable mirror - but they don't realize they have a metal-jawed, hook-handed stowaway on this mission! And worst of all, a storm is coming and the lazy young lighthouse keeper, Opie, isn't paying attention at his boring job...

Prince Adam (He-Man), Moss Man

Trap Jaw, Two Bad, Evil-Lyn

Melaktha, Opie, Angus Og, Captain Falk, sailor, Mirror of Avathar

Fair Wind

It's that time - the time that Ishmael was talking about at the beginning of Moby Dick. Time to go to sea! Prince Adam is by the shore with Eternia's royal archaeologist, Melaktha, about to climb aboard a sailing ship - the Fair Wind. But why is that big mess of seaweed by their feet... staring at them? Turns out it's Moss Man, the third member of their party, who tends to turn into any nearby plants when he falls asleep. Adam makes the introductions for a very ambivalent Melaktha, who's not best pleased to end up with some spores on his palm after shaking hands with the felt-covered hero.

As the heroes set sail, we move back to land and are introduced to our Plot B characters: young Opie and his equally Irish-accented father, Angus Og, keepers of the local lighthouse. Angus is trying to school his son in the ins and outs of lighthouse maintenance, but Opie doesn't really want to hear it: the beacon rotational control (BRC) is boring, and they just checked the weather report! Angus insists that dull and boring jobs are important and necessary, in a moment that we know is destined to be the crux of the PSA.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Melaktha explains that the heroes' voyage is in search of the floating continent containing the ruins of the ancient empire of Avathar, lost until a recent discovery of a likely island. Moss Man gets some lessons in sailing from the ship's skipper, Captain Falk - who coincidentally assures the hero that most of the jobs on board ship are boring, but necessary. Adam, strolling around the deck, happens upon a seaman who looks very familiar. Is it that metallic, shark-toothed jaw of his? Is it the hook he has at the end of one arm? The sailor assures the prince, with many "yarr"s and "matey"s, that he is just a humble crewman; but we know it's actually Trap Jaw, who has smuggled himself on board and has already been in contact with Two Bad and Evil-Lyn via a handheld communicator. There's a fox in the henhouse, people!

Still ignorant of the mole in their midst, the heroes catch sight of and land on the island they've been seeking. They quickly find that they've hit paydirt: the island is dotted with picturesque ruins and impressively monumental statues. This must be the last remnants of the Avathar Empire! Melaktha quickly locates a rune on a stone wall that opens a secret door into an underground treasure hoard. The "museum" holds the weapons and artifacts plundered by the empire. But Moss Man claims there is even more to be found: due to his ability to communicate with the surrounding vines and plants, he says the legendary Mirror of Avathar is nearby, in an even more secret room. Melaktha is very doubtful; he's been down on Moss Man throughout the adventure, and finds his penchant for seemingly speaking to the air and walls kooky. He doesn't listen when Moss Man tries to warn him about the part of the wall he's poking at, and therefore triggers a trapdoor that drops both men into a pit!

To rescue the trapped pair, Adam makes a very brief sojourn as He-Man - just long enough to pry up the flagstone sealing the trap. Changed back to Adam, he lowers a rope into the opened dungeon, and Melaktha climbs out of the pit, also a changed man: Moss Man saved him by providing a mossy man-cushion to land on (and also the archaeologist really should have listened to the guy's warning in the first place). He won't cast anymore aspersions on green people! Turning into a vine, the helpful Moss Man grows himself out of the hole and then squirms his way through a tiny gap in the brickwork and into the secret room, where he's able to unseal the door for the others. Inside, as promised, is the Mirror of Avathar. When Adam asks just what the mirror does, it's able to answer for itself: a ghostly face (looking similar to the Spirit of Grayskull we met in "Teela's Triumph") appears in the glass and announces that it will be happy to answer any questions about Avathar, for it holds the entire knowledge of that great empire. Melaktha is just about squee-ing with delight, and he and Adam waste no time hauling the relic out of there.

Back on the ship with their precious cargo, the heroes think they're sitting pretty. But Able Seaman Mr. Trap Jaw has informed Two Bad and Lyn about the mirror, and the villains are planning to nab the thing as soon as possible. Not only that, but the weather isn't looking too good: as the Fair Wind approaches home, the clouds roll in and the sea gets heavy. Melaktha is off his soup! Adam and Moss Man go below to check on the treasures in the hold while the archaeologist tends to his tender tummy; they arrive in time to overhear Trap Jaw making a report to Snake Mountain. Caught red-handed (red-hooked?), the villain gets popped into a cage; but the heroes have a more dangerous enemy to face: mother nature!

Well, mother nature and the ineptitude of Opie, who's been left in charge at the lighthouse by his father. Opie didn't think it was important to check the weather, or to maintain the machinery; so when the storm rolls up and the beacon's rotation breaks down, he's off in his room playing Minecraft (or something). With the light stuck pointing the wrong way, the sea-tossed Fair Wind swiftly drives itself against the rocks, staving a hole in its side. The sea rushes into the hold; as Moss Man is sucked out into the tempest, he advises his princely friend to have no concern for him. Adam, more than ready to oblige, turns into He-Man and focuses his attention on saving the ship. He leaps into the water and onto the nearby rocks, then grabs the foundering vessel, lifting the entire thing free of the waves. Luckily, Moss Man is in fact fine, having managed to vine his way over to another set of rocks, and he uses his plant telepathy to convince some seaweed to seal the hole in the hull. He-Man then takes a line from the Fair Wind, ties it about himself, and begins to tow the whole ship. But the storm is still raging, and the skies are dark - if only he knew which way the safe shore lay!

At the rainswept lighthouse, Angus appears and finds his son paralyzed with panic amid the failing machinery, receiving distress calls from the nearby ship. After administering a thorough tongue-lashing to the boy for forsaking his duties and getting them into this mess, Angus wishes they had some way to redirect the badly positioned beacon. Opie suggests using a mirror, a redeemingly good idea which they immediately put into practice. Using not a magic mirror with a face living in it, but a normal mirror held at the correct angle, they bounce the beam of the beacon back out to sea, giving He-Man a light to swim by, so he can bring the ship and its priceless cargo into shore.

Later, with the storm passed and the ship safely sailing into port, Opie promises his father that he will never again complain about his boring job. A laughing Angus, looking out over the now-sunny horizon, comments that it is looking to be a beautiful day.

End with a Joke: You could consider Opie's ending comment to be a paltry little joke, given that Angus laughs at it.

• Two Bad (to himself, about Avathar): You ever heard of this place? / Two Bad: Course I've heard of it! Where have you been?
• Captain Falk (reciting today's lesson): Even the dullest jobs can be interesting - and even fun! Heh heh. It's just how you look at it.
• Melaktha (in a mean aside to Prince Adam): I knew we shouldn't have brought your green friend; now he's talking to the wall.
• Evil-Lyn (describing the title mirror): According to legend, it contains the total knowledge of the ancient empire and its magic - especially the lost spells of Avathar!
• Melaktha (clearly seasick during a storm on the ship): Ugh... I don't think I want anymore soup.
• Opie: Father, I promise I'll never complain about any job being boring ever again.

N/A

Two partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence), one reversed
Variation - In a rare occurrence, just after his first partial transformation to He-Man, we see part of the process (though the beginning of this sequence is hidden off-screen) of He-Man changing back into Prince Adam by raising his sword. Energy comes off of it as usual, and the camera pans down to show Adam in He-Man's place.

Brought to you by He-Man
Addressing the obvious lesson from today's episode, He-Man claims that "no job is unimportant" and "any job worth doing is worth doing well," even the boring ones; thus preparing a generation of 80s children for their eventual shifts at McDonald's.

Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities: Glad to see this category showing up again, after a lengthy absence!
Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: And another common MOTU trope returns, as young Opie must learn that boring jobs are important, too.
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2: Though the villains' fearless leader is mentioned several times, he does not make a physical appearance.

• The return of Melaktha, my favorite royal archaeologist! We last saw him in a flashback detailing the origin of "Battlecat" (MU096). This story marks his sixth - and final - appearance in the series.
• Also making his return is Moss Man, getting a larger role for his second appearance in the series (his first being a short cameo in MU116). As hinted in that episode, we see on display here the character's ability to change into any nearby plants - and leave bits of himself on people's palms after a handshake (ew). Later, we find that Moss Man can talk to plants the same way Aquaman talks to fish.
• The child whose job it is to learn the lesson in this episode is an Irish-accented young layabout named Opie, whose character design mimics that of the wayward Glitch from MU087's "Things That Go Bump in the Night."
• This episode soundly hits several much-used MOTU tropes, including the categories I've listed above and one of my favorite sub-categories, "only a legend." As Melaktha explains, the ancient island continent of Avathar they're seeking is legendary in character: "According to legend, it's an island empire that ruled over much of Eternia. That empire fell when the continent disappeared." Hmmm... sounds like Atlantis to me, except that Avathar didn't end up underwater. The thing is, Adam already went on a sea voyage to find a legendary Atlantis-like kingdom, the "Aquatica" featured in MU051's "City Beneath the Sea." But he never found a legendary sea-based city with Melaktha! This is all-new territory, people.
• We see Trap Jaw dressed as a piratic sailor, in a fabulous disguise that should fool absolutely no one (though he was wise to use his hook hand attachment!). He sported similarly unconvincing camouflage while standing next to Beast Man in MU086's "A Trip to Morainia." And who could fail to be reminded of Prince Adam's short-lived run as a faux seaman in MU032's "Search for the VHO"?
• Adam's resorting to He-Man to save Melaktha from an ancient trap in the ruins is almost identical to the transformation he had to pull to save Melaktha from a trap in the ruins in MU066's "The Cat and the Spider."
• After the brief rescue scene with He-Man, I was getting ready to write a sarcastic comment about what a bad job the hero did keeping his secret identity safe. After all, how could he possibly explain the convenient presense of He-Man on a remote, just-discovered island? But He-Man shocked the heck out of me by actually being sensible and transforming back into his princely form before revealing himself to his rescuees! This also provides us with an incredibly rare instance of He-Man changing back to Adam on-screen, something that has only happened once before (during one of MOTU's most dramatic moments, in MU110 - technically also in MU105's "No Job Too Small," though in that case He-Man walked behind a rock first). Here, He-Man seems to be able to shift back by silently raising his sword. In MU110, he had to recite the line, "Let the power return."
• When it first appears, the Mirror of Avathar greets the heroes with the phrase: "A question;" which is exactly what the time-traveling arch called the Guardian of Forever first said to Captain Kirk and his crew in what is probably the most famous Star Trek episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." I'm sure this was no accident! This is only the latest in a long line of scenes and characters clearly influenced by the classic sci-fi series. (For one of the most obvious, see MU081's "The Arena.")
• In answer to Adam's question, the mirror describes itself as a sort of backup hard drive, holding the entire history and knowledge of the Avathar Empire. Like Alexa!
• In another resort to trope, this story repeats the oft-held assumption, common during Earth's Middle Ages and also in this series, that ancient civilizations were inherently smarter and wiser than those in the current era. The MacGuffin mirror holds knowledge that is naturally deemed by Heroic and Evil Warriors alike to be superior to anything the Eternians have. See also MU095, and my discussion of this trope in the lore section of MU118.
• Angus Og, the lighthouse keeper, is one of the very few MOTU characters to have a spoken last name! Good for him. We met some Earthlings in MU119's "Visitors from Earth" who had the typical first and last names of our planet (along with their fellow Earthling, Marlena Glenn); but having paged through my table of character names, I find there are very few other two-named Eternians. Some examples: Kodak Ungor, the previous entity to hold the title of Sorceress, who we met in MU073's "Origin of the Sorceress;" and Jed Hansen, the superstitious Ruxtowner from MU120's "Monster on the Mountain."
• To keep He-Man's secret identity safe, the writers conveniently have Moss Man sucked out through a hole in the Fair Wind's side. Adam immediately raises his sword as soon as this happens - but he was also last seen standing right next to a caged Trap Jaw! We have to assume that some shifting of boxes in the hold put Adam out of line-of-sight of his enemy; otherwise, old Trappy will have a very interesting story to tell Skeletor later...
• Speaking of Skeletor: as noted in the connections section, though he gets a lot of name drops this episode, old Bonehead never manages to appear. Still, this is that rare episode that has a higher Evil Warrior count than Heroic Warrior count. The story's immediate sea voyage precludes any visit to the palace and therefore omits many of the show's regulars (Orko, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Cringer).
• The string of episodes featuring the variant ending credits continues.

• Given that the Eternians had some high-tech, remote controlled, electronic- and sonar-equipped vessels in previous episodes (MU032 and MU051), it's odd that Melaktha, et al. set to sea in an old-fashioned sail-powered ship (named Fair Wind). Budget cuts?
• Trap Jaw's sailor disguise is hilarious - but even more amusing is his conversation with Prince Adam, who is sure he's seen the sailor somewhere before. To add verisimilitude to his get-up, Trappy spices his dialogue with all kinds of piratic phrases: "arrr, matey, me bucko, scurvy knave, anchors aweigh."
• The ruins on Avathar Island are totally awesome - very impressive sculptures with the creative fantasy flair I love to see in MOTU.
• I love Melaktha, but I wish he didn't have the habit of evincing unpleasant character traits, putting him in the wrong with the main characters. In MU095 he showed himself as not only crabby and whiny, but unreasonably mistrustful of his young assistant, Stanlan. In this episode he's similarly skeptical of Moss Man, and has to learn that unusual-looking people can be helpful too. Can't we just have a cool, smart archaeologist who's good at his job?
• Adam decides to turn into He-Man to save Melaktha and Moss Man from a springed trap in a temple on Avathar Island, after finding he can't pry open the sliding heavy masonry tile in the floor. But why doesn't he just find something to wedge it open with, stand to the side, and push the same trigger he watched Melaktha hit to open it? He-Man is a crutch!!
• As has happened a few times before, both partial He-Man transformations are goofed up by a split-second glimpse of He-Man beginning to turn his sword on an absent Cringer.
• Melaktha is super thrilled to hear the mirror describe itself, clearly showing that there is an intelligence and sentience residing in the artifact. So why doesn't he ask it first if it's OK with being moved somewhere else, before getting Adam's help to lug it off to Eternos? Seems kind of rude to find a guy living in an ancient temple and then just carry him away!
• Trap Jaw's defeat at the hands of the Heroic Warriors is so quick and easy that it doesn't require He-Man, and so uneventful that it happens between scenes. We cut back to find the villain already placed in a cage belowdecks, presumably by Moss Man. ...So where did that cage come from? Does Captain Falk have a creepy mode of punishment for recalcitrant sailors?
• Moss Man, pulled out into the stormy ocean, cries to Adam, "Don't worry about me - save yourself!" The prince obeys this command without hesitation. Turning into He-Man, he saves the ship, showing no evidence of consideration for his lost companion. He does seem relieved when he later finds that Moss Man has saved himself, but we're still left with an impression of callousness on the part of our usually caring hero. To be fair, it was a sort of moralistic trolley problem that He-Man was faced with: save one guy, or save the rest of the crew.
• This is the second script in a row by Robert Lamb, who just gave us the prosaic return of Zagraz in MU126. This one, again turning against the writer's past penchant for realism (on display in MU083 and MU101), leans more into fantasy and adventure, with plant people and magic mirrors. But it still has a strong real-life message about making the most of drudgery - a sort of depressing, "this is life - get used to it" kind of lesson somewhat at odds with the escapism of its surrounding universe. Still, it's a fun tale with some exciting moments and settings. I do feel that the episode's title MacGuffin is sorely underused. The mirror is played up as an amazing find with potential to increase the learning of Eternians by leaps and bounds, but we only get one tiny scene with it and will never see it again!