The Forge at the Forest of Forever

Adam and Teela leave the others in Grayskull Tower, where Roboto, Andra, Evil-Lyn and Beast Man set about reforging the broken Sword of Power. On the walk, Teela refuses to explain why she came, and the two ride the Wild Hunt to meet King Grayskull, who offers Adam an eternal rest in Preternia. Moss Man tells Adam what going back would cost. Roboto fixes the Sword at the price of his life, and Adam chooses to return. In Eternia, Cringer and Man-At-Arms greet him, and he is told that the reforged Sword can call the magic back if he says the words. Skeletor, who survived inside Evil-Lyn's staff, interrupts the transformation, Adam ends up on the ground, and Skeletor claims the Power of Grayskull for himself.

Roboto: "No tears. Don't you see? I feel fear. Ergo... I feel."

Moss Man: "You think me unique, but I simply died and became a forest."

Moss Man: "But then again, at the scale of the universe, I'm terribly young. Only a million years old."

King Grayskull: "We're dead, boy! It would be unnatural!"

Teela: "He-man didn't hurt me, Adam. You did."

Roboto: "Oh, not at all."

Skeletor: "Look at my face, child! It has furnished for me a lonely life in which none would have me as a man. So... then let me be a god."

Skeletor: "Now I... Skeletor... am Master of the Universe!"

Part 1 closes in Preternia, where the party is stuck with a Sword of Power broken in two. Andra has explained that the door only opens in one direction, then offered a plan to get them out anyway. Roboto, Andra, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man and He-Ro stay in the Eternium hall of Grayskull Tower to reforge the blades, while Adam and Teela walk off to find the man the tower is named for.

What does a person owe the living once the dead have offered them rest? The episode is about that: whether anyone who has been offered a peaceful ending is still obliged to go back to the work. Every scene after the walk is a different answer. King Grayskull says he spent his whole life afraid of death and then found there was never anything to fear; Moss Man talks about dying as becoming a forest; Roboto, a machine with no cause to dread an ending, discovers fear and takes it as proof that he was never only a machine. Skeletor supplies the villain's version, blaming his face for a lonely life and concluding "So... then let me be a god."

The writing is best when two of those answers collide. Teela's anger at Adam in the forest is a quarrel about grief, not about the Sword: she could not mourn her friend because she did not know who he was, and Adam clearly has something to tell her and keeps stopping short of saying it. Moss Man then weighs in on the choice, and does not settle it. Roboto's farewell is the standout, because the sentimental version of the speech would have him reassured, and this one has him frightened, then proud to find that he can be frightened at all, a stranger and more affecting place for a robot to end up.

The Wild Hunt is the loud part of the animation: a chase on hover discs and crested beasts through a pink sky, followed by a rowdy parade of toyline deep cuts (Vikor and Kuduk are named aloud) and then a firelit scene in which Grayskull gets the room to talk. The forge hall is a different register again, with teal metal, cables, a screen warning that energy readings exceed the regulator threshold, and later black cracks tearing through the energy as a screen warns that core levels are critical. Cutting between that hall and the talk of paradise keeps one team in jeopardy while the other discusses death, and the pacing is smart.

On the page, the script gives Teela the sharpest lines in the forest argument, and Roboto's last words are short and plain: he says he feels fear, and the episode lets the line stand without a comment.

The weakness is the last stretch. Eternia, Man-At-Arms, Cringer, the rebuilt Sword, a transformation that breaks off mid-word, the reveal that Skeletor has been hiding in Evil-Lyn's staff and his grab for the Power all arrive in a rush.[1] Part 1 has to end on a cliffhanger and a half-hour slot is not elastic, so the squeeze is understandable; yet Skeletor deserved a beat for the audience to absorb the reveal before he began speaking, especially with Roboto's death still fresh.

As a verdict, this is the emotional peak of Part 1, an episode that commits to a single argument about rest and responsibility instead of a quest of the week. It ends with Skeletor holding the Power and calling himself Master of the Universe.

[1] The incantation is cut off at "I... have... the pow" before Skeletor reappears and speaks the words himself.

1. Powerhouse's Patrick Stannard told Toon Boom that the Wild Hunt chase in this episode was harder than expected because, in 2D, the team had no 3D environment for camera moves and moving backgrounds are difficult to produce.
2. The Outer Haven's review notes that the Wild Hunt race features past He-Man figures, including Vikor, Wun-Dar and King Greyskull.
3. The MOTU wiki says Vikor was first released as a Masters of the Universe Classics figure in 2011, with a design based on concept art for He-Man by Mark Taylor, and that his Revelation appearance has him on a sky-sled in the Wild Hunt.
4. TV Tropes lists Preternia as a tribute to the canceled Powers of Grayskull toyline, citing He-Ro and the dinosaur riders; Animation Magazine's cast list gives Phil LaMarr as the voice of He-Ro.
5. TV Tropes says Kuduk Ungol, the Sorceress's predecessor from the Filmation series, appears in Preternia alongside Wun-Dar, a variant of He-Man.
6. Justin Long voices Roboto, per Animation Magazine's cast list.
7. Patrick Stannard estimated 150 to 200 staff per episode across Powerhouse and DR Movie, with DR in Korea completing most of the animation and backgrounds.
8. Wikipedia reports Part 1 holds a 92 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating from 47 reviews and a Metacritic score of 72, and that Variety reported some fans reacted negatively to the show despite largely positive critics.
9. The same reply is used twice. At the hover discs, "Remember these?" gets "Some things you could never forget" (04:11), and before the transformation "Still know the tune?" gets "Some things you can never forget" (21:34).