Rattle of the Snake

Fisto wakes with a new metal hand as war breaks out in Spelea, where the Caligars blame Lord Dactys' Speleans for nine missing tribesmen. The real kidnappers are Snake Men, strengthened by Webstor's ambrosia. While King Randor tries to broker a treaty, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Adam and Fisto track the captives to the Temple of Serpos, where King Hiss means to revive his god and the escaped Rattlor rejoins him. He-Man stops the Snake Men's feast, but Hiss takes the Medallion of Serpos and leaves. Randor arrives with both leaders, who fight together and make peace, while Fisto and Duncan's grudge stays unresolved.

"Holding a grudge never solves anything. It's always best to talk it out. The problem might be a simple misunderstanding or something that could be resolved with an apology. You'll both feel better about it if you do."

King Hiss: "You know, He-Man, I knew King Grayskull. I fought King Grayskull. And you're no King Grayskull."

He-Man: "Nobody eats my friends."

Robot guard: "According to my database, the sick tactic is often a trick employed by prisoners attempting escape."

Man-At-Arms: "I thought that, as long as you needed replacement, we'd go a little... bigger."

Fisto: "You gave me this fist. How'd you like it back?"

Man-At-Arms: "It's not the same thing. You never returned to battle."

Who settles a grudge, and how? "Rattle of the Snake" puts the question to warring peoples and to estranged brothers, and Steven Melching is honest enough to give them different answers.

The episode opens where "Web of Evil" left off. Fisto wakes in Man-At-Arms' armoury with his shattered hand replaced by a much bigger metal one ("we'd go a little... bigger," says Duncan), and before he can finish asking about the Great Unrest, Teela arrives with a summons from the King. In Spelea, Lord Dactys' Speleans and Ceratus' Caligars are tearing into each other over nine missing Caligars, and King Randor has to step between them. The kidnappers were Snake Men, made strong enough by Webstor's ambrosia-filled eggs to burst through walls, so Randor stays behind to forge a new treaty while Man-At-Arms, Teela, Adam and Fisto follow the tracks underground.

The episode is about what a shared fight can fix, and what it cannot. The Speleans and Caligars start the episode at war and end it side by side, because Randor gives up on the peace talks and brings both leaders to the battle instead. "You... fought well," one tells the other, and "As did you" is all the treaty they need. When word comes that one kidnapped soldier was devoured, the conclusion is that a war between their peoples can only let a greater evil flourish, and the episode has earned it.

The brothers do not get off so easily. Melching cuts their first conversation short with Teela's summons, and when Fisto finally tells his side, it is an admission rather than a defence: he does not know whether he deserted, because he remembers a big battle and little else. At the end, Fisto teases Duncan about vanishing from the fight, Duncan says he was injured, and Fisto points out that so was he, during the Great Unrest. "It's not the same thing," Duncan answers. "You never returned to battle." It is a cold, unresolved note for a kids' show to close a subplot on, and the episode is better for not patching it up.

Around those two stories runs the Snake Men's business, and here the script is thinner. King Hiss drives his diggers through to the Temple of Serpos, god of the Snake Men, and promises a power unseen in a thousand years. General Rattlor escapes the Eternian stronghold by playing sick, past a robot guard whose database warns that "the sick tactic is often a trick," and rejoins his king to quarrel with Kobra Khan. Hiss then calls on the Ancient Ones, takes the Medallion of the Mighty and terrible Serpos, and leaves. Even the heroes shrug at it afterwards: the King "found what he came here for. Whatever it was." Holding the payoff back for later is a reasonable choice in a serial, but it leaves the villains' half of the episode as set dressing for the next one.

The standout scene is the duel between He-Man and King Hiss in the temple, and one line makes it. Hiss is not impressed: "I knew King Grayskull. I fought King Grayskull. And you're no King Grayskull." Coming two episodes after "The Power of Grayskull", that sting works as both a taunt and a reminder of how old these enemies are. Brian Dobson voices Hiss with a hiss that never quite tips into comedy, and he doubles as Ceratus on the other side of the story.

The temple gives the animators plenty to do: a red hall of carved serpent coils, a crystal wall the heroes climb, a teal vault with robot guards, and giant red serpents with glowing green eyes once Hiss wakes the Guardians. He-Man's "Nobody eats my friends," as the Snake Men sit down to their feast, is the episode's best action beat.

This is a middle chapter, but it gives the newest face among the heroes a past worth arguing about. The peace holds; the grudge between brothers does not.

1. Voice cast: Richard Newman voices both Rattlor and Lord Dactys here, but the He-Man wiki notes he is credited only for Dactys in the end credits.
2. Voice cast: Michael Donovan voices King Randor, Roboto and Tung Lashor, and Brian Dobson voices King Hiss, Sssqueeze and Ceratus, so one actor plays both a Snake Man king and one of the leaders he is preying on.
3. Continuity: Fisto's metal fist gets an origin here: the He-Man wiki notes his hand was flesh in "Web of Evil" and that Man-At-Arms rebuilds it as a mechanical fist after he shatters it in the rescue.
4. Continuity: The general locked up in the Eternian stronghold is Rattlor, captured, per the He-Man wiki, after the failed attack on Castle Grayskull in "Rise of the Snake Men, Part 2".
5. Continuity: The He-Man wiki reads the Rattlor and Kobra Khan exchange as the start of a rivalry, with Rattlor furious that Khan knew where he was imprisoned and left him there while rising in King Hiss's favour.
6. Continuity: King Hiss's "I knew King Grayskull. I fought King Grayskull." looks back to "The Power of Grayskull", where Grayskull says his sword "was lost in battle with the Snake Men."
7. Continuity: The Medallion of the Mighty and terrible Serpos is not explained here; the He-Man wiki records the Snake Men going on to release the snake god Serpos in the series finale, "Awaken the Serpent".
8. Production: The series ended two episodes after this one. The He-Man wiki cites Mattel's Ian Richter as saying the toy line and show were cancelled after only half a second season had been ordered.