Skeletor finds the Mind Lens of Denebria, which carries a warning about misusing it, and tests it on Grot, who tears up his own plants. He then turns it on Captain Hydron, who calls off an attack on Flogg's ship, urges the council to trust the Mutants, and takes the Starship Eternia toward Levitan. He-Man stops the ship, only to be taken over himself. The answer to the lens turns up in the Library of Humanity, and the council, divided over whether to exile He-Man, focuses its minds on him, with Werban joining in. The lens turns on Skeletor, who is made to tell the Mutants the shield is down. Hydron closes with a warning to Caz about running with sharp objects.
Never run while carrying a sharp object: walk, keep it by your side pointed down, and slow down for safety.
How do you fight an enemy who can make your own friends do his bidding? "The Mind Lens" answers by moving the danger from the battlefield to the council chamber, where the real question is whether Primus will keep trusting a hero who has been turned against it. Skeletor turns up the Mind Lens of Denebria in the opening scenes, and once the inscription is read out, that whoever misuses it will shatter a dream, he declares that the dream he intends to shatter is He-Man's.
The first test subject is Grot, a gardener who is admiring his own plants one moment and ordered to rip them up the next. It is a small, cruel, funny scene, and Skeletor's side treats it as a trial run: controlling Grot was only a warm-up, and next comes someone who can really hurt Primus.
That someone is Captain Hydron, and the strongest stretch of the episode follows him. In the middle of an attack on Flogg's ship Hydron suddenly orders Flipshot to scrub it and retreat, and Skeletor tells Flogg to let them go, because Primus will soon be a shooting gallery. Afterwards, when he is asked why he did not open fire, Hydron says he does not remember giving the order and wonders aloud whether he is losing his mind. Then he does something stranger still, turning up before the council to argue that Primus should lay down its arms and trust the Mutants, a case a council member answers by saying that the Mutants may put aside their arms first.
In plain terms, the episode is about trust under pressure, and it asks whether a community can believe in its friends after those friends have been made to act against it. The scene where He-Man is called a dangerous madman, with one voice proposing exile to the furthest asteroid and another insisting that he is a friend, is the heart of it. The answer to the lens turns up in the Library of Humanity, where someone discovers that an evil wizard made it long ago to take over the minds of his foes, and the remedy is not a weapon at all: everyone must focus their minds on He-Man.
The payoff has a good sting. Werban hesitates, is told that he is either with Primus or against it, and settles the matter with a line that he may be many things but is no traitor. The lens then turns on Skeletor, who is ordered to tell the Mutants that the shield is down and to please begin the attack, and the politeness of that request is the clue: the Mutants crash into the shield, and Skeletor snaps afterwards that please is not a word he says. What a lovely joke to hang a victory on!
The weakness is how briskly the council's fear is handled. The exile argument gets a handful of lines, the remedy is announced rather than explained, and Hydron's peace speech is answered and dismissed in a few lines. The likely reason is the 22-minute slot: a demonstration on Grot, Hydron's turn, He-Man's turn, then a climax, and a lot of ground to cover.
Verdict: a tidy, clever mind-control story that spends its best energy on friends doubting friends. It sits comfortably in the middle of the run, and it closes on its own spine, that the lens can bend one mind at a time but has no answer for a room of people who decide to stand together.
- Continuity: The He-Man wiki's page on the artifact says the Mind Lens carries the inscription: He who misuses the Mind Lens will shatter a dream.
- Fan observation: The wiki notes that people under Skeletor's control begin to speak in a manner like his, and sometimes burst into laughter.
- Continuity: Werban, who here announces He-Man's exile, is a recurring Don Brown character, per the He-Man wiki cast list.
- Voice cast: Don Brown also voices Hydron in this episode, according to the wiki.
- Voice cast: Garry Chalk voices He-Man and Grot, and Ted Cole is credited with various voices, per the He-Man wiki cast list.
- Voice cast: Scott McNeil voices Flipshot, BH and Krex, and Tracy Eisner voices Drissi, according to the wiki.
- Behind the scenes: In the closing safety segment Hydron warns Caz never to run while carrying a sharp object, per the He-Man wiki.
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