He-Man saves Teela, shields the Masters from Evil-Lyn's magmatite shower and drives Skeletor's forces back, then rides off on Battle Cat to rescue the king. Mer-Man's flying fish creature swallows Man-At-Arms, and Teela gives chase. He-Man confronts Skeletor, who threatens to drop Randor from a cliff unless he is allowed to go free. He-Man agrees, Skeletor drops the king anyway, and He-Man leaps after him and saves him. At the palace, Randor hails the new hero and Adam keeps the secret by calling He-Man a friend, while in Snake Mountain Skeletor vows to be rid of He-Man.
Skeletor: "Have you the faintest inkling to whom you speak? I am Skeletor, Overlord of Evil."
He-Man: "And I am He-Man, defender of Eternia."
Skeletor: "Mercy? What a ridiculous concept."
Skeletor: "Your sentimentality is your weakness, He-Man."
He-Man: "I, um, hadn't planned that far ahead."
Skeletor: "How I loathe heroes. Always getting in the way and acting so-so heroic."
A villain is most dangerous when he understands the hero better than the hero does, and in the last act of The Beginning Skeletor thinks he has worked He-Man out.
He-Man pulls Teela clear, introduces himself as "a friend," and lets Man-At-Arms cover for Orko before the little magician can finish saying "And you'll never guess." When Evil-Lyn turns her magmatite shower up to a sizzle, He-Man hoists a slab of ground over his head and tells the Masters to gather around him, and even one of her own warriors tells her to knock it off. Then he names the defenders "Masters of the Universe, all" and rides off on Battle Cat, because the king is still missing.
The turn arrives with the standoff. Skeletor has Randor at the edge of a long drop, threatens to blast him over with his Havoc Staff and offers a trade: let him go free, and the king lives. Randor argues against the trade, telling He-Man to pay no heed because Skeletor's destruction is all that matters, and the moment hangs on whether the new hero will put winning ahead of the king. He will not. He gives way, and Skeletor laughs at him: "Your sentimentality is your weakness." The rest of the episode exists to prove him wrong. Skeletor drops the king anyway ("Oh, and He-Man... I lied."), and He-Man goes over the cliff after him without a plan for getting back up.
Dean Stefan's writing is at its funniest in the aftermath of that leap. Randor, falling, takes the man diving after him for a flier. "Well, no." Once they are clinging safely to the cliff, the king asks how they will get back up, and He-Man admits he "hadn't planned that far ahead." Then Mekaneck finds them, and the rescuers up top offer a lift. The jokes land because they come out of the choice the episode has been arguing about: he jumped because the king mattered more than winning, and the script lets him look a little foolish for it.
The duel itself is the action the first two parts were saving up. Battle Cat and Panthor go at each other while He-Man and Skeletor trade sword and staff across a cracked field with lava glowing in the fissures. Skeletor cheats at every turn, offering a surrender with his fingers crossed and dropping a pile of rock on his opponent before gloating to Randor that "his end game was a bit rocky." Brian Dobson relishes every line, and Skeletor's introduction ("Have you the faintest inkling to whom you speak?") is a better entrance than most villains get in a full season!
The weakness is the side trip. While the duel plays out, Mer-Man's winged fish monster swallows Man-At-Arms and Teela chases it over the sea on a flying disc, and the subplot is mostly gurgles, a smell joke and a belch. It pulls Teela away from the one fight that matters, after an opener that has shown her as one of the sharpest fighters in the palace. The reason is easy to guess, since a large cast and a new toy line both wanted screen time, but we would have traded the fish for more of the duel.
The closing scene in the throne room brings the cost from Part 2 home. Orko nearly blurts out what he saw in Castle Grayskull until Man-At-Arms makes him swear on his Trolla honor. Randor declares He-Man the most powerful man in the universe, while his son is reminded that He-Man, at least, doesn't go running off like Cringer when the going gets tough. When Queen Marlena asks who He-Man is, Adam answers "a friend," which is what He-Man told Teela on the battlefield, and Teela notices. Cam Clarke plays the line with a smile the audience is in on.
Back in Snake Mountain, Skeletor complains that heroes are always getting in the way, and Evil-Lyn flatters him with a straight face. The Beginning Part 3 is the payoff the opener needed, and its strongest chapter. Skeletor was wrong about sentiment; caring about the king sent He-Man over that cliff, and the king is alive to sing his praises because of it.
- Fan observation: Skeletor's introduction here, "I am Skeletor, Overlord of Evil," is the quotation the He-Man wiki uses to open its page on this version of the character.
- Continuity: Orko almost gives the secret away on the battlefield before Man-At-Arms cuts in to say the Sorceress told him of He-Man, the He-Man wiki notes, and back at the palace Man-At-Arms makes him promise never to speak of Castle Grayskull.
- Fan observation: The He-Man wiki says Battle Cat gets only a few fight scenes in the first season, and it lists his one-on-one with Panthor here first among them.
- Continuity: The next episode, The Courage of Adam, has the villains plotting to draw He-Man out through the people he protects, remembering "how quickly he came to King Randor's rescue."
- Voice cast: Scott McNeil adds Stratos to Mer-Man, Ram-Man, Clawful and Beast Man in this episode's cast as the He-Man wiki lists it.
- Voice cast: Apart from California-based Cam Clarke as Adam and He-Man, the series used a Canadian voice cast, Wikipedia notes.
- Voice cast: Michael Donovan, the voice of King Randor, also voiced Roboto and the first appearance of Hordak in the series.
- Broadcast: The He-Man wiki records that, after the feature-length premiere, each part of The Beginning was also shown as a standalone episode in the weeks that followed.
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