Turnabout

Skeletor digs the Diamond Ray of Disappearance out of an ice cave, He-Man reveals the weapon is broken, and the villain escapes after burying the Masters in ice. Taking a cue from Ram-Man, Man-At-Arms builds a belt powered by the last water of the magical Lake Vortex that weakens its wearer at every evil act or thought, and the heroes trap Skeletor in it. Tri-Klops answers with a device that punishes He-Man for every good deed and springs it during an Arthros attack on Felis Qadi. He-Man fights through it, saves Skeletor from a fall, and lets him escape rather than abandon the injured villagers.

"There's no force in the world more powerful than goodness. And when you practice kindness, it not only helps others, but it gives you a good feeling inside."

Ram-Man: "He might even be an okay guy if he wasn't so evil."

Skeletor: "Are you saying that I can never scheme again? Never lay waste to a village or torture an enemy?"

Skeletor: "Are you doing something different with your nails? The color is very becoming."

He-Man: "We've seen enough of Evil's face today."

Man-At-Arms: "He-Man's goodness will always be a more effective weapon than any I could ever devise."

Skeletor: "Mercy, hmm? You didn't say "please"!"

Can you build a conscience in a workshop and buckle it onto somebody else? "Turnabout" asks it with a straight face and then has enormous fun with the answer. It opens in an ice cave, where Skeletor and Trap Jaw dig out the Diamond Ray of Disappearance, a weapon the Elders sent away for good reason, and He-Man spoils the moment by pointing out that the thing is broken. Skeletor still gets away, burying the Masters under enough ice that he reckons they will need weeks to dig out.

Len Uhley's script finds its premise in an offhand remark. Ram-Man says Skeletor "might even be an okay guy if he wasn't so evil," and Man-At-Arms takes him at his word. The result is a belt powered by the last of the water from the magical Lake Vortex, which weakens its wearer every time he does something evil or even thinks about it. Adam jokes that the plan is to make Skeletor too embarrassed to be seen outside, and Orko giggles his approval before Man-At-Arms explains how the thing really works. Adam and Teela bait the trap near Snake Mountain, Skeletor ends up wearing the belt, and the episode settles into its real subject: whether goodness is something you can fit to a person from the outside.

It argues, cheerfully, that you cannot. The belt does what it was built to do, and it changes nothing about the man wearing it. Within a few days Skeletor is trying to game it, flattering Evil-Lyn about her nails and insisting that he is "nice in thought and in deed," and Tri-Klops builds a mirror image that punishes He-Man for every gallant act. As He-Man struggles under that device, the Sorceress's advice is to trust "that the good within you can never be drained from your being," and the closing talk between Adam and Man-At-Arms lands on the same idea: the inventor admits his device was useless against Skeletor, and that He-Man's goodness is the better weapon.

The theme comes through comedy, and the standout is every sentence Skeletor fails to finish. "Eradicate them," he says, and the belt zaps him, and he limps on with "Right off." He vows to triumph over the belt "if it is the last thing I," gets zapped, and finishes with a feeble "Do?" Best of all, at the moment Tri-Klops' device floors He-Man, Skeletor declares it "the most delightful day of my" and has to wheeze out "life?" after the jolt. We could listen to these all day; the timing never repeats itself, and each interruption lands on a different word.

The supporting villains get their share. The Evil Warriors work out that Skeletor cannot react to anything, and they scrape their nails and needle him while he grits his teeth, with one of them chirping that "He didn't say 'please'!" The payoff comes in the tag at the end, when Skeletor, free of the belt, hangs the mockers upside down over a lava pit and throws the line back at them.

The animation is busy and mostly clear: the ice cave and the avalanche give the opening some scale, and Felis Qadi under attack from a swarm of Arthros gives He-Man a village of frightened Qadians to protect while the reversed device punishes him for protecting them.

The weakness is the ending. The belt the episode built its story on snaps off Skeletor as he dangles from a ledge, He-Man pulls him up, and Skeletor escapes with a cackle about promises He-Man cannot keep. The rescue makes the moral point, and something has to give, but the belt is discarded with a sound effect rather than defeated, and Skeletor never gets the scene where he beats it on his own terms.

Still, "Turnabout" is one of the best uses of Skeletor in the first season, because it takes away his power to act and leaves him with only his voice. The episode's last word on its own gadget is the right one. Man-At-Arms set out to engineer goodness, and he ends the day conceding that the only kind that works is the kind He-Man already had.

1. Homage: The Diamond Ray of Disappearance comes from the 1983 Filmation episode of the same name, which the He-Man wiki says was the first Filmation episode screened; Skeletor was after it there too.
2. Continuity: Felis Qadi and Chief Carnivus come straight from "Dragon's Brood", where Carnivus accepted King Randor's offer of an alliance. Here the alliance pays off the other way, with He-Man coming to the village's defence.
3. Voice cast: The He-Man wiki credits Brian Dobson with both Skeletor and Buzz-Off in this episode.
4. Voice cast: Kathleen Barr doubles as Evil-Lyn and the Qadian mother whose scream signals that He-Man is in trouble, according to the He-Man wiki.
5. Voice cast: Paul Dobson is credited with Trap Jaw, Tri-Klops and Carnivus, so the two henchmen who take turns failing to get the belt off Skeletor are one actor.
6. Voice cast: Scott McNeil voices Ram-Man, whose offhand remark gives Man-At-Arms the idea for the belt, and Beast Man on the other side of the fight, per the He-Man wiki.
7. Continuity: Skeletor's pet Panthor, who the He-Man wiki says usually sits at the foot of his throne at Snake Mountain, is heard growling there as Skeletor gloats about the Masters' icy tomb.