Reason and Blood

Savage He-Man, Adam after calling down the power without the sword, tears through Skelcons in the Royal Palace throne room and grips Skeletor's blade before Teela, Andra and Cringer hurry him out and Teela's magic carries them all to the Mystic Mountains. Skeletor demands to know how Adam did it empty-handed and presses Evil-Lyn on whether she gave him the power; in the dungeon he questions Man-At-Arms, who tells him Adam became a hero by giving the power away. Teela pleads with the rampaging Savage He-Man, and the three reach Point Dread, where he charges King Randor's camp. Randor apologises to his son, Adam returns, and the two embrace. Beast Man tells Evil-Lyn she is the Sorceress now, and Evil-Lyn alone with a shimmering mirror demands to be shown every instance of the power being relinquished.

Skeletor: "This is a new era. The bumbling idiocies of the past will no longer be tolerated."

Skeletor: "Adam, He-Man, or whatever he is now, is to remain alive until I learn this new secret."

Man-At-Arms: "Isn't this usually the part where you start cackling?"

Skeletor: "Oh, I'm pretty sure this is what winning looks like, Duncy!"

Man-At-Arms: "He gave it away! That's what made him a hero!"

Teela: "I don't have any answers! I'm not the Sorceress!"

King Randor: "Because it takes incredible strength to wield power. Yet it takes even more might... to let the power return."

Evil-Lyn: "Now turn and leave this room as quickly as your filthy seditious paws can carry you before I skin you alive and wear you like a fur coat!"

Adam has called down the power of Grayskull without the sword, and the episode opens on what answered: Savage He-Man, a creature who is nothing but the power, wordless and furious. He wades through Skelcons in the Royal Palace throne room, grips Skeletor's own blade, and has to be hurried out by Teela, Andra and Cringer. In Skeletor's hall, meanwhile, the man holding the sword cannot work out why the power ever answered anyone else.

Nobody in the episode knows how Adam did it. Skeletor, declaring "This is a new era," demands the secret of the empty-handed transformation and presses Evil-Lyn on whether she handed it over; Teela tells Andra she has no answers and is not the Sorceress, though Andra points out that she has just made magic and zapped them to the Mystic Mountains.

The spine is plain enough: the power was never what made Adam a hero, and the proof is that he gave it away. Man-At-Arms says so to Skeletor's face from inside a cell, and everything afterwards tests the claim. Skeletor, who has taken the power, can only ask questions; King Randor, who has just found his son, apologises for having looked at him for years and seen only the man he thought Adam should be.

The art direction helps the contrast. Skeletor's courtyard is lit in purple, his hall is skull-lined and his dungeon is full of purple coils, while the Mystic Mountains are a pine-ringed meadow and Point Dread is a camp of white tents. When the guards chain him down, the staging has the king watch from behind the guards, facing him but not yet speaking.

The standout is the dungeon. Man-At-Arms is locked in with the Orlax of Primeria and still gets the better of Skeletor, first by asking whether this is not usually the part where he starts cackling, then by answering a demand for everything he knows about Adam's "manipulation" of the power with the point that the word itself is why Skeletor will always lose. Skeletor fishes for the secret, Duncan will not give him an inch, and the line about the hero who gave it away is the answer to Skeletor's questions about how Adam did it.

The weakness is the finish. Randor's apology is well written, but one speech settles the rage and the rainbow light follows almost at once; Teela has laid groundwork by pleading with Savage He-Man, yet the moment he calms is the moment the king speaks. With only five episodes in this half of the season there is little room to let a reconciliation breathe. The scene with Beast Man and Evil-Lyn that closes the episode is more patient: a follower tells her she is the Sorceress now, she threatens to skin him for saying it, and then, alone before a mirror, she asks to be shown every time the power was given up.

Skeletor wants to learn the trick of calling the power without the sword, and Evil-Lyn is left studying instances of the power being given up. This is one of the stronger chapters of Part 2 [1], carried by its quiet scenes more than its fights.

[1] Randor's "let the power return" echoes Man-At-Arms's earlier jab that Skeletor has never "left the power return", as the subtitles have it; the phrase comes back in The Gutter Rat and in Comes with Everything You See Here.

1. The MOTU wiki notes Stephen Root is credited for Cringer and Battle Cat in this episode although Battle Cat never appears.
2. The MOTU wiki notes Chris Wood is credited for voicing both Adam and He-Man, yet his He-Man does not appear; the Savage He-Man version does, credited separately to Dee Bradley Baker.
3. Kevin Smith told Den of Geek the Part 1 and 2 approach was a World Without a Superman idea, removing He-Man and Skeletor to see how the rest of Eternia reacts, since the two are the poles every other character circles.
4. Kevin Smith told Den of Geek that Mattel would never let the show kill off its core toy characters, answering fans who said the series betrayed the original cartoon.
5. The escape word "Zoarvazeka" is chanted in this episode and is also heard in Cleaved in Twain, the only other episode whose dialogue contains it.
6. The Orlax of Primeria is named in the dungeon scene and returns in later dialogue: The Gutter Rat mentions bullying it, and Hope for a Destination mentions its slime.
7. Point Dread, the hidden camp Teela and Andra reach, was already named in Cleaved in Twain as the rendezvous point, and The Gutter Rat refers to bringing a family there.