Paul Dini

Marsh Lamore

Teela goes on a dangerous solo journey to the Crystal Sea in an attempt to learn the identity of her mother; unbeknownst to her, Mer-Man has plans to sacrifice her to a sea demon to avenge an old defeat at the hands of Duncan and the Sorceress. Can He-Man reach Teela in time - and will she uncover the mystery of her birth?

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

Skeletor, Mer-Man

fish men (Mer-Man minions), Oracle, shadow beasts, Bakkull

Valiant, Wind Raider

Lieutenant Marlena Glenn, astronaut, is in trouble. Her spaceship Valiant has been swept into an asteroid shower by a cosmic storm and she can't reach anyone back on Earth to help her. She's going to land on the nearest planet...These are the memories of one Queen Marlena, which are projected onto a screen for her and her son Adam to watch because she's wearing Duncan's latest gadget, a memory projector. Though she misses Earth sometimes, Marlena tells Adam that her real home is now Eternia and she wouldn't give up her life with Randor and Adam for anything. Teela arrives and uses the memory projector to discover Adam's great secret! ... That he went fishing today instead of training with her.

In an oddly disconnected side story, Orko is busy messing around in Duncan's workshop trying to make a musical box as a surprise for the king and queen; he uses bomb parts to build it, with typical hijinks resulting. Duncan discovers the wizard's transgressions and tells him off. Teela arrives to tell Duncan about how big a hit his memory projector was with Adam's mother, prompting a surprisingly deep conversation about Teela's own mother. Duncan reminds her that her biological father died in battle, and says her mother's identity has to remain a secret. "Some day you will learn that secret, Teela; but not from me." Teela returns to the memory projector to recall her childhood being raised by Duncan, but droops in grief when she is unable to bring up any memories of her own mother. Orko tries to comfort her and she tells him her determination to visit the Oracle of the Crystal Sea, who can surely reveal the identity of her mother. Orko tries to convince her not to go, citing the many dangers; but she flies off anyway. Having promised not to tell, Orko immediately blabs the secret of her journey to Adam and Cringer. Adam promptly turns into He-Man and rides off to help her.

Meanwhile, Skeletor and Mer-Man are hanging out eavesdropping and have learned Teela's intentions. Mer-Man recounts the fact that Man-at-Arms once rescued a victim that Mer-Man wanted to sacrifice to the sea demon; now he wants revenge! Skeletor gives his blessing and then proceeds to sit out the rest of the episode. Teela gets into trouble with the local shadow beast population mere seconds after landing in the Crystal Sea, but manages to fight them off and reaches the Oracle - a floating white-haired head in a globe. The Oracle tells Teela a story about a young Man-at-Arms, who is psychically drawn to Zoar in the Evergreen Forest. It turns out the falcon was the victim Mer-Man had in mind for the sea demon; she needs his aid because she has something in her nest that she needs to defend. Together Duncan and Zoar fight off Mer-Man and his minions. The Oracle is just about to tell Teela what was in the nest, when they are interrupted by a fish man. Mer-Man now has Teela captive, with a "very special destiny" planned for her.

As He-Man closes in on the kidnapped captain, Orko decides to just swing by Grayskull and let the Sorceress know what's up. She turns into Zoar and flies off to help. He-Man tracks Teela to the cave and meets the Oracle, who lets the hero know what happened; Battle Cat sniffs up the trail and they head off for a climactic battle! Mer-Man has Teela chained to a rock and, using his Crimson Pearl embedded in a spear, summons Bakkull the sea demon. With the pearl, Mer-Man can happily give orders to Bakkull; the demon just needs a tasty snack-rifice first. Fortunately He-Man arrives in time to free Teela, and Zoar arrives in time to steal Mer-Man's spear (the exact thing she'd done twenty years before). Without the pearl to hold him back, Bakkull runs amok and seems willing to have Mer-Man for dinner; so He-Man, ever the gentleman, rescues the evil warrior. Mer-Man, safely out of danger, happily scoffs at the hero's gullibility and runs off. Then He-Man buries the sea demon under a pile of rock and leaves the problem for a 20-year-older He-Man to solve.

Teela returns to the Oracle and finally learns the truth (SPOILERS AHEAD!): that she was the baby in the nest, and her mother is the Sorceress. After Mer-Man's attack, the Sorceress saw that a human baby is not something that a single mother-falcon in modern Eternia, who has a magical castle to supervise, can handle on her own; and so Man-at-Arms started the adoption process. The Sorceress arrives to admit that she is the mother, and also that she intends for Teela to one day take over as guardian of Grayskull. Then she quickly wipes Teela's memory of this very important fact, leaving He-Man with another secret identity to keep.

End with a Joke: The Sorceress knowingly asks He-Man if he is able to keep a secret, and he replies wryly: "I've had lots of practice."

• Teela (in reference to Adam's playing hooky to go fishing): Aren't you ashamed of yourself? / Adam: Yeah - I didn't catch a thing.
• Man-at-Arms (to Teela): Your father was one of the greatest men I ever knew. He gave his life in battle so Eternians could live in peace. I was honored to adopt you as my own daughter.
• Orko: Why the long face, Teela? Did Cringer use your shield as a water dish again?
• Mer-Man: I now demand revenge! / Skeletor: So be it!
• Sorceress: To Teela's side I go - on falcon's wings.
• He-Man: Any life - even an evil one - is worth saving.
• Sorceress: She will only remember that her mother was a woman who loved her very much. (Close-up on Sorceress's cheek, lens flare on the single tear drop there)

• Skeletor shakes his fists, front on from below: (Without the actual fist shaking) As he gives Mer-Man permission to seek revenge
• A look through widespread legs: Teela drops down from the Wind Raider
• Sorceress spreads/unspreads her wings: Just before transforming to Zoar in Grayskull
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: While speaking his ending zinger line

One full

Brought to you by Teela
Teela, standing beside the Wind Raider and not yet fully mind-wiped after the day's adventures, reminds us of what happened and asserts that whoever raised you, no matter of their biological ties to you, is your real parent. Kudos to Filmation for this positive familial message.

Main character flashbacks: MU085, "The Rainbow Warrior," will feature more flashbacks of Marlena's time as an Earth pilot and her meeting Randor - though in that episode her spaceship will have a different name. For more flashbacks of the youth of our main characters, see MU018, "Creatures from the Tar Swamp," where we see a young Adam and Cringer. MU024 has more Teela flashbacks.
Teela does something dangerous by herself
Mer-Man's in charge!
Landmark Episode: With all these other connections, it should be no surprise that this episode qualifies as a Landmark Episode.

• Paul Dini's second He-Man episode (for the first see MU002) is jam-packed with juicy lore and important character development and discoveries. Not only do we get to see Marlena crashing on Eternia, we also learn that Teela is adopted, about the secret connection between Teela and the Sorceress, and hear Teela's (unnamed) biological father mentioned. Dini gives us another flashback to Teela's youth in MU024.
• Orko performs some fairly impressive magic tricks in this episode, commanding parts and tools to float around and manipulate his musical box, summoning a glass of orange juice from nowhere, and vanishing to avoid being hit by a low-flying falcon.
• The first appearance of the Wind Raider, which Teela uses to travel to the Crystal Sea (while He-Man must rely on tiger power).
• The first episode where Marlena appears but her husband does not. Believe it or not, this happens only once more in the entire series: MU111.
• Cringer whines at the necessity of having to "be that dreadful Battle Cat again." It's interesting not only that Cringer clearly dislikes turning into Battle Cat, and is essentially forced to do it against his will; but also that his alter-ego seems to be different enough that they might be considered different entities entirely. (For instance, Adam points out that Battle Cat is a better tracker than Cringer.) It makes one wonder at the difference between Adam and He-Man: are they the same person? Or is Adam being possessed by some timeless hero spirit whenever he uses the power sword? (See the Firsts/Lore section of MU010 for more musings on this subject.)
• The Crystal Sea, as Skeletor tells us, is Mer-Man's "home territory." Only fair to mention that when he was called by the transport beam in MU004, Mer-Man was wrestling a big fish in a swamp that looked very unlike the Crystal Sea. Perhaps he was on vacation.
• This episode is one of the first in which Skeletor is barely featured, and is not the prime mover of the evil plot. That honor goes to Mer-Man, who gets to play a central role for once. Not that he's very GOOD at it, but still...
• Our first look at the shadow beasts, an enemy that will appear again in the series (though not always under the same name). They're a sort of unicorn-ape type creature. Teela recognizes their high shrieking cry without having to see one. They apparently hunt in packs and dislike bright lights. We will see one next in MU015.
• Teela reveals that she has a string of beads hidden behind her breastplate that can produce bright flashes of light. (We'll see these again, with a different purpose, in MU022.)
• This episode is somewhat unusual in that it doesn't really end with the typical slapstick zinger or "they all laughed" joke of other episodes. The closest it gets is the comparatively subtle exchange I've noted at the end of the plot summary. Viewers looking for an Orko gag will have to go back to the beginning and enjoy his exploding musical box.
• This episode is one of three that were edited together and screened in movie theaters across the US to kick off the airing of the television series. The other two are the pilot, MU004, and MU014. This premiere occurred on September 24, 1983. The three-episode compilation was titled "The Greatest Adventures of All" and was later released on VHS. The movie included added-in segments of the Sorceress introducing the episodes as pictures on the "living windows" within Castle Grayskull.

• Adam is pretty lucky he wasn't thinking about turning into He-Man when Teela stuck the memory projector on his head...
• Duncan deserves everything he gets for keeping an unsecured crate of bomb parts lying around in his workshop. A few minutes after we learn that Orko has been messing with the bomb parts, we see an open doorway behind Teela stocked with missiles and a hanging sign: GRENADES. What the heck, Man-at-Arms?
• Continuity error - after Orko's musical box has exploded (off-screen), we see Duncan climbing a ladder in his workshop right next to the unharmed, open musical box.
• In the close-up of Cringer's face just before this episode's He-Man transformation, Cringer's nose is the same green color as his surrounding fur, instead of its more correct darker green.
• There's a lovely panning shot of the interior of Snake Mountain, leading over to Skeletor's throne/conference room.
• Right after He-Man has ridden off, Skeletor chats with Mer-Man about Teela's mission, as if he's just been spying on the heroes; but apparently without having happened to notice Adam's transformation. Lucky, right??
• The idea of a bird giving birth to a human baby and keeping it in a nest is pretty strange; but it also gives a very strong mythological vibe. I think of Zeus in his various animal guises, or Hippolyta fashioning Wonder Woman out of clay. The later scene where Bakkull comes out of the water to eat a chained Teela is also very strongly reminiscent of the Kraken scene at the end of 1981's Clash of the Titans.
• It's interesting that in the Oracle's flashback, Zoar already has this psychic connection to Duncan, calling him to her side for aid well before Adam is old enough to become He-Man. I suppose the Sorceress could have sent out a call to anyone in the vicinity and Duncan just happened to be the one who got the message; then later, perhaps it was his knowledge of her secret parentage that made Duncan the perfect person with which to share the knowledge of Adam's secret identity. But we can also read into this some potential mystical foresight on the part of Zoar - maybe she chose Duncan on purpose, because she knew how things were going to fall out.
• Bakkull can only be summoned once every twenty years; so it's awful lucky that Teela happened to pick this one day to have her parental crisis. This number is surprisingly exact and thus pinpoints the approximate age of Teela, who after all was a newborn during the last summoning. And, given that Teela and Adam are expressly revealed by the queen to be the same age in the beginning of MU058, it ALSO pinpoints the age of Prince Adam rather nicely! See further discussions of Adam's age in MU072, where it is the royal heir's birthday.
• The high level of Mer-Man content in this episode gives us a chance to see the full range of personality and expression the animators were forced to bring to his character. There are plenty of fantastic facial contortions to be seen here. Fun times!
• I love how, even though the outline of the plot reads very much as the male hero saving the female in distress, He-Man and the writers seem at pains to point out that Teela is an independent actor and not a helpless damsel. "I know Teela can take care of herself," he mutters while tracking her down; and when he arrives to save her from Bakkull, he throws her his own sword, which she uses to free herself.
• The show also is at great pains to very thoroughly explain to viewers how "the pearl is the only thing controlling Bakkull," so that we understand why the critter turns on Mer-Man in the end. Multiple characters mention the idea that only the pearl is keeping the demon in check.
• It takes He-Man quite a lot of effort and several seconds of straining with his impressive leg muscles to bring down the rock tower that buries Bakkull. It's quite hilarious to see Bakkull hunkered over and curiously staring at He-Man while he accomplishes this, doing nothing to stop him.
• It's quite frustrating that Teela learns the truth about her mother and then is immediately made to forget it again. Like He-Man's secret identity, one is left wondering: why? Will it hurt Teela too much to know (again, spoiler alert, though I imagine anyone reading this won't be surprised by any of the information herein revealed) that her mother is living in the next castle over but can't (for some reason, presumably related to her mystic stewardship) interact with her in any way, and has had no part in her rearing? Honestly I suspect the reason has less to do with any internal logic of the series, and more to do with its release format. Since this episode was produced in a vacuum and could be aired before or after any of the others, it would be super awkward were Teela to, say, call Sorceress "Mom" before she (or the viewers) have had a chance to find that out. Much safer to just forget the whole thing and never bring it up again. Though unless the Sorceress pulled some extra mind influencing while she was mucking about in there, we're left wondering what exactly will stop Teela from attempting this reckless venture all over again the next time Marlena pulls out the memory projector. Let's just hope if she does, Teela will pick a day that doesn't coincide with the summoning window for another horrible sea demon.