He-Man rides to rescue the captured Masters and walks into the Council of Evil's ambush, ending up bound in Evil Seed's vines. He escapes only by changing back into Prince Adam. Before he can transform again, Teela drags him toward Snake Mountain, where she is captured and Adam loses the Power Sword. With the Ram Stone in hand and Man-At-Arms and the Masters chained in his dungeon, Skeletor leads his forces against Castle Grayskull, while an unnamed ally frees the evil warriors from the Eternian prison. Swordless, Adam faces Skeletor at Grayskull, and the help he expects turns out to be a crowd of villains.
Skeletor: "How noble. How brave. How utterly predictable."
Roboto: "Correction. I detect no sign of Mekaneck."
Skeletor: "One more act of disobedience, and I'll have to take away your privileges. Oh, wait. You have no privileges."
Orko: "But Adam is He-Man."
Skeletor: "That's for me to know and you to obey orders."
How do you beat a hero whose job is to show up? Skeletor's answer, at the top of The Council of Evil Part 2, is to make showing up the trap. He-Man comes to rescue his friends, and Skeletor greets that with "How noble. How brave. How utterly predictable." Within minutes the Masters hang in chains in a red dungeon, He-Man is pinned under a pile of thorny black vines, and a faint voice crying "Help me" has turned out to be bait.
The ambush is the first time the Council looks like more than a crowd. A purple brute swings a stone hammer, He-Man hoists a slab of rock over his head, and the fight gets its own spin on the old line: the bigger they are, the harder they hit. Then Evil Seed's vines take over, with a boast about human muscle against the power of the vine, and the scene closes on the claim that magic is superior to all.
Part 2 is about what is left of the hero when He-Man is taken out of the story. The Sorceress gets him out of the vines by suggesting that Prince Adam might be of some assistance, and He-Man changes back with "Let the power return", so the transformation works as an escape hatch. From there the episode belongs to Adam. He is about to turn Cringer back into Battle Cat when Teela arrives and drags him off to Snake Mountain without waiting for He-Man, leaving Orko to mutter "But Adam is He-Man" to nobody.
The writing makes the most of a prince with no sword. In a cave near Snake Mountain, with Beast Man's searchers closing in, Adam starts to tell Teela something and gets as far as "Teela, I'm..." before the interruption. It is a near miss, and soon after Teela is captured and Adam has lost the Power Sword. The Sorceress warns him that Grayskull is in grave danger and the sword must be recovered. Adam spends the climax doing what he can without it, offering to distract Skeletor while the Sorceress does the rest. He-Man does nothing braver in the episode!
The standout scene is smaller. Man-At-Arms, chained, gets a radio call through to the palace, reaches Orko, and is cut off by Skeletor with a line delivered like a schoolmaster's: "One more act of disobedience, and I'll have to take away your privileges." The pause before "Oh, wait. You have no privileges" is pure Skeletor, cruel and delighted with himself, and the performance gets every ounce out of it.
The animation does its best work in the dark. Snake Mountain's dungeon is a red haze of hanging captives, the Grayskull sequence is a storm of lightning and crystal shards, and the villains' approach is a line of silhouettes on a ridge above a lava plain, with Skeletor riding a winged beast through the night sky.
The weakness is Teela's raid. The script needs Adam powerless at Grayskull, so Teela insists there is no time to wait for He-Man and lands them both in an enemy cave because, as one of them admits, that was the plan. It plays as a joke, but it makes a capable warrior look reckless to move the pieces. A middle chapter has to part Adam from his sword somehow, and Teela's raid is the quickest way to do it.
Elsewhere the episode quietly sets up the next one. In the Eternian prison, Beast Man boasts that his beast pals will come for him, a power that is not his opens the way, and the prisoners tell their liberator he can name his price. Meanwhile the Council asks pointed questions about what Skeletor means to share, and he tells them it is for him to know and for them to obey orders.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with Adam alone in front of Skeletor, the Sorceress overpowered, and the help he announces turning out to be a crowd of villains gathering in the jungle. As a middle chapter it is better than the setup, because it finally shows us what Prince Adam is worth on his own.
- Fan observation: The He-Man wiki notes this is the only time in the 2002 series that He-Man is shown changing back into Prince Adam, with "Let the power return" as in the Filmation episode The Problem with Power, and the only time in the franchise that Battle Cat is shown turning back into Cringer.
- Voice cast: According to the He-Man wiki, Scott McNeil voices Stratos in this episode but is not listed for the role in the end credits.
- Continuity: The Ram Stone, taken here from the Faceless One, first appeared in Lessons, where Skeletor sends his warriors after it because it is said to pierce any barrier, man-made or mystical.
- Fan observation: The He-Man wiki treats the two Council of Evil parts and The Last Stand as one three-part story, and credits Webstor with using his webbing to take the Sword of Power from Prince Adam in this chapter.
- Voice cast: The He-Man wiki lists Gabe Khouth as both Mekaneck and Orko, so the cries of "Help me" that lure He-Man and Orko's muddled radio exchange with Man-At-Arms come from the same actor.
- Continuity: The prisoners' promise that their rescuer can name his price is collected in The Last Stand, where Kobra Khan reminds Evil-Lyn of it.
- Production: Wikipedia's episode list files both Council of Evil parts under a single entry, the last row of the first-season table, with The Last Stand opening season two.
- Toys: The He-Man wiki records that the 2002 version of Evil Seed was released as a figure through Mattel's Club 200x subscription in 2015.
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