Comes With Everything You See Here

Evil-Lyn, newly a god, tells Skeletor she will kill He-Man, while Scare Glow stands over King Randor until Orko, returned from the dead and fearless, faces him down. Prince Adam raises the Sword of Power and fights beside Skeletor. Inside Grayskull, Teela refuses her mother Teela-Na's creed of letting go and decides her friends are the source of her strength. Andra and Man-At-Arms hold the line against the horde, an air strike arrives, and Teela, in golden armour, shows Evil-Lyn the universe as magic rather than chaos. The power returns, Andra is named Man-At-Arms, and Adam and Teela share a balcony. Skeletor, back with his followers, smashes the idol of Motherboard, and Motherboard rises and takes him over.

Orko: "I heard you say a king's fear tastes best of all. So that means the king of fear must be delicious."

Evil-Lyn: "I'm going to do what you never could. I'm going to kill He-Man."

Teela-Na: "But we were born with a sacred calling. To protect the power."

Teela: "I don't ever have to let go, Mom."

Teela: "Because holding on to the ones I love only makes me stronger."

Evil-Lyn: "There is no grand design. The universe has no master!"

Evil-Lyn: "I'm sorry... But the castle's under new management."

Man-At-Arms: "Family is what you make of it."

Teela-Na, the mother Teela meets inside Grayskull, tells her that attachments in life limit the ability to give protection, and that a Sorceress must give up the people who were ever there for her. For a few minutes the episode lets that sound like wisdom. Then Teela refuses, and the rest of the episode is a long argument for why she is right.

The writing is busy, and it needs to be: Eric Carrasco has a great many loose threads to knot off in about thirty minutes. Randor lies under Scare Glow's spear, Orko is back, Andra inherits a title, Skeletor and Adam fight side by side for a stretch, and a god is talked down from the edge of the universe. The opening is the easiest part to enjoy: Scare Glow says a king's fear tastes best of all, and Orko, newly restored and unafraid, hands the line back to him ("So that means the king of fear must be delicious."). Orko is no longer the joke here.

The finale is about holding on. Teela's fight with Teela-Na and Evil-Lyn's fight with the universe both come back to it; Evil-Lyn's creed is that there is no grand design and no master, so nothing matters, and the heroes answer with people, one at a time, from the villagers with pitchforks to Man-At-Arms presenting his successor to the court. His own line is the summary: "Family is what you make of it." Teela-Na offers a bloodline and a calling, and the episode sets a family chosen by love against both.

The best scene is Teela and Teela-Na arguing in a field of stars. Teela refuses her mother's terms and rebuilds the job around what she already has: "Because holding on to the ones I love only makes me stronger." The art direction gives that argument violet light and open sky, and later a swirl of coloured light over a night lake answers Evil-Lyn's golden halo. The confrontation at the centre of the universe works along the same lines: Teela grants that the universe is chaos, hurt and death before adding that it is everything else, too.

Evil-Lyn has a speech about the infinite and, earlier, the line "I'm sorry... But the castle's under new management.", so her turn, when it comes, follows a stretch of triumph. Orko's goodbye is short: "I knew I'd have to go back." He adds that he is thankful for the chance to say goodbye this time. Man-At-Arms hands the title to Andra in a single sentence: "It is my honor to present your new Man-At-Arms, Andra!"

The weakness is the crowding. The air strike, the village stand and Ram Man's arrival all happen at speed in one stretch of the battle, and none of them gets the beat it would need to register as more than a cameo. The likely reason is that a finale has to close one story while leaving a door open for another: Skeletor smashes an idol of Motherboard in the closing scene, green circuitry spreads over his skull, and a possible second season is set up.[1] Evil-Lyn's turn also comes quickly; after an episode of conviction she is talked down by Teela in a single exchange, with the plea she gets early on ("You weren't born evil, Lyn.") the main groundwork this episode has laid for it.

Even so, the shape is right: Teela wins by choosing her friends, and Skeletor's skull crawling with green circuitry is the sour counterpoint. Among the ten episodes it sits near the top, because it settles Teela's arc and Orko's return together and still finds room for Andra's promotion.

[1] Motherboard is the machine a cult of hooded followers worships in two Part 1 episodes, The Poisoned Chalice and The Most Dangerous Man in Eternia.

1. The MOTU wiki says the title refers to the slogan often printed on toy vehicle and playset packaging to flag the accessories included in the box, which usually appears alongside the line action figures not included.
2. TV Tropes describes Orko's return as Orko the White, in an upgraded white robe with red tabard and gold-trimmed scarf, and says the finale sets up a Motherboard reveal tied to Hordak.
3. Gizmodo's Rob Bricken speculated that Skeletor's infection could lead to a version like the one in The New Adventures of He-Man (1990), which he said completely bombed, and noted the Horde set-up for a possible season two.
4. Wikipedia reports Part 2 holds a 92 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 12 reviews; IGN's Matt Fowler gave it 7 out of 10 while Starburst's Chris Jackson gave it 2 out of 5, citing exposition and a lack of action.
5. Wikipedia notes Netflix later announced a sequel series titled Revolution in June 2022, with Mark Hamill having said in May 2022 he was recording more episodes.
6. The MOTU wiki notes Stephen Root is credited as Cringer and Battle Cat in this episode, yet Battle Cat never speaks.
7. The plea "You weren't born evil, Lyn." echoes the line in Land of the Dead that nobody is born evil.
8. Motherboard, worshipped by a hooded machine cult in The Poisoned Chalice and The Most Dangerous Man in Eternia, is the idol Skeletor smashes in the closing scene.