Snake Pit

Kobra Khan escapes the palace prison and joins Skeletor at Snake Mountain, secretly planning to free King Hiss and the Snake Men from the Void, the ancient prison deep inside the mountain. Man-At-Arms, Adam and Teela ask the mystic Zodak, who helped seal the Void long ago, for help, but he insists on going alone. Zodak overpowers Skeletor's warriors, but Kobra Khan opens the Void and frees General Rattlor. He-Man and Zodak fight the rising Snake Men together and reseal the Void, and Zodak admits he could not have stopped the threat on his own.

"It's a sign of strength, not weakness to admit that you need help."

Orko: "Uh, yeah. If you stay up past your bedtime."

Zodak: "I will handle this."

Skeletor: "How thoughtful of you, Kobra Khan, recruiting an entire army of Snake Men to help me conquer Eternia."

Kobra Khan: "Ye... Yes!"

He-Man: "We get out together."

Zodak: "It was foolish of me to attempt to stop this evil on my own."

Nobody in "Snake Pit" wants a partner. The episode opens in the palace prison, with moves being called in a board game ("Paladin to Emperor K6"), and by the time the alarm sounds Kobra Khan is out of his cell. He heads straight for Snake Mountain, where he pledges his loyalty to Skeletor and asks to join the army. Skeletor accepts him with "Your reputation precedes you," and each of them is plainly planning to use the other.

Man-At-Arms then tells the old story Adam had taken for a bedtime scare: King Hiss and his Snake Men nearly conquered Eternia, until the Elders and the mystic Zodak sealed them in the Void, a timeless prison deep inside Snake Mountain. The Sorceress sends Man-At-Arms, Adam and Teela into the Mystic Mountains to ask Zodak for help. He hears them out and answers, "I will handle this. Alone."

Steven Melching's script is about strength that refuses help, and it hands the idea to the heroes and the villains at once. Zodak goes alone and vanishes without a word of explanation; afterwards a hero tells the others "It's personal," because "legend has it that King Hiss killed Zodak's brother." Kobra Khan works alone inside Skeletor's camp, slipping down the stairway he was told was "none of your business." Skeletor assumes the operation is his. The best joke in the episode comes when the Snake Men start pouring out of the Void and he thanks Kobra Khan for "recruiting an entire army of Snake Men to help me conquer Eternia." Khan, trapped, can only manage "Ye... Yes!"

Zodak's solo campaign goes well right up until it does not. He walks into Snake Mountain, demands Kobra Khan, and leaves Skeletor's warriors in such a state that one of his would-be rescuers sighs, "Maybe Zodak didn't need our help after all." Down at the Void, though, Kobra Khan has already opened the prison and General Rattlor is free. Rattlor promises to feed Zodak to King Hiss "just like your brother," and the line stings because the audience heard about the brother only a few scenes earlier.

The standout line is He-Man's answer. With the Void open and the Snake Men rising, Zodak tells He-Man to get out because he has "unfinished business to attend to," and He-Man answers, "We get out together." Together they reseal the Void, the Snake Men swept away in a golden whirlwind. Zodak's last scene is an admission: "It was foolish of me to attempt to stop this evil on my own." The closing segment has He-Man call asking for help "a sign of strength, not weakness."

The art direction makes the Snake Men feel ancient. Snake Mountain sits under two moons with lava running down its sides; the chamber around the Void is walled in green snake skin, with glowing fangs over a swirling floor, and the pit below is full of giant pale eggs with creatures crouched among them. King Hiss, when he looms over the heroes, is the largest thing in the episode. The voice cast is good too, Kobra Khan's hiss and Zodak's clipped, unhurried delivery set against Skeletor's cackle.

The weak spot is a subplot that goes nowhere. Kobra Khan tells Skeletor about an unguarded entry to the palace Banquet Hall, and Skeletor announces that through it "we can easily seize control of the entire palace." The episode never mentions it again. It is probably a cover story, the price Khan pays for his welcome, but the script never says so, and the raid is left hanging. The episode has a lot to set up and spares the raid no attention.

The parting promise that "King Hiss will rise again!" leaves the door open on purpose, and the series walks through it later. As a standalone story, "Snake Pit" is among the strongest of the late season one episodes, because its lesson is acted out by the character with the most to lose by learning it. Zodak came down from his mountain to fight alone, and he goes home having needed He-Man to close the Void.

1. Voice cast: Zodak is voiced by Christopher Judge, Teal'c on Stargate SG-1, and Wikipedia's filmography lists him as Zodak's brother Zeelahr as well.
2. Continuity: The brother mentioned here is finally seen in Rise of the Snake Men, Part 1, which opens with "I am Zeelahr, brother to Zodak."
3. Production: Zodak had no link to the Snake Men in the original continuity. The He-Man wiki says Mattel's Ian Richter tied him to the planned season two Snake Men story while developing storylines with Mike Young Productions.
4. Toys: The He-Man wiki reports that the Four Horsemen first planned the modern Zodak as an alien before Mattel's call for a more diverse toy line reshaped him, and that Mattel settled on the spelling Zodak to end the original Zodac's spelling confusion.
5. Voice cast: Brian Dobson voices both Skeletor and King Hiss, and Scott McNeil covers Kobra Khan, Beast Man and Mer-Man.
6. Continuity: Kobra Khan and Rattlor are back soon enough. The Last Stand finds the heroes reckoning that "This would appear to be the work of Kobra Khan," and in Rise of the Snake Men, Part 2 the Snake Men go free after "Kobra Khan, Rattlor, and Evil-Lyn ambushed me."
7. Fan observation: The He-Man wiki identifies the prisoner who scoffs "You'll never catch him" as Odiphus, the future Stinkor, who turns up again in The Sweet Smell of Victory.
8. Fan observation: Frank's He-Man page lists Webstor in the cast, and the He-Man wiki describes a spider-like figure watching Kobra Khan from the shadows on his way to the Void.
9. Production: Writer Steven Melching went on to write for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Resistance.