Ascension

Two boys hunt for their father's hidden stash of fruit juice, and the flashback widens into an argument between King Miro and Queen Amelia over whether the elder boy, Keldor, should be sent home to Anwat Gar. In the present, a blue-skinned Keldor tells Adam he would not have accepted the crown back then, and the two talk about the sword and the scepter. Duncan interrupts: Skeletor is attacking. Someone dubs him SkeleTek and he likes it; he throws smoke bombs laced with nanotechnology that spread Motherboard's techno virus, and a Techno-Titan follows. Keldor shares Gar technology to bring it down, and Keldor lines Andra up for the last shot. Elsewhere Teela, in her Sorceress costume, asks the dying dragon Granamyr for the snake magic of Ka and finds Evil-Lyn in the cave. After a riddle, Granamyr says perhaps she is ready. Adam hands the Sword of Power to Orko, then presents Keldor as king. In a last scene, one voice says "Speak of the devil" and another answers "devil in disguise."

Keldor: "Destiny can be quite confounding when it's met out of time."

Adam: "Why would the power reveal itself to me if I was only ever destined to give it up?"

Granamyr: "I learned long ago that the only reliable human trait is lust for power."

Teela: "You know, your being here, helping Granamyr, looks a lot like penance."

Orko: "I won't let you down, He-Man."

Battle Cat: "I have loved being your Battle Cat."

Adam: "I no longer face an impossible choice."

Ascension is the second of the five episodes of Revolution, and Tim Sheridan's script opens on a flashback in which two boys hunt for their father's secret stash of fruit juice. It cuts from that to a king and queen arguing over whether the elder boy, Keldor, should be sent home to Anwat Gar. Amelia is the one who presses for it, asking which is kinder, keeping him close in service of a crown that should by right be his, or sending him home where he can build a life out from behind the shadows of kings. Keldor, narrating, says Miro knew she was right, and that he was gone within a week.

The grown Keldor, blue-skinned, appears with Adam in a room where the captions show rain on the windows and a candlelit desk. He tells Adam that back then he would not have accepted the crown, because it was not his duty and certainly not his desire, and Adam asks why the power would reveal itself to him if he was only ever destined to give it up. The crown goes to the man who says he never wanted it. William Shatner voices Keldor, who answers that destiny can be quite confounding when it is met out of time. In the same scene he says he does not desire the throne and thinks Adam does not either.

Skeletor, who is told he is more like SkeleTek and says he likes it, stands under a purple hood with green circuit lines glowing along his arm, and his smoke bombs carry Motherboard's techno virus. A giant purple Techno-Titan with yellow eyes looms over He-Man and Battle Cat, and the plan to stop it rests on Keldor, who explains that the Titans were developed from ancient Gar technology and says to aim for the central processor. Andra is given the last shot, asks what happens if she misses, and is told that if anyone can make it, it is the Man-at-Arms of Eternos. Keldor's knowledge solves the fight, a convenient turn.

The cave is the best scene. John de Lancie voices Granamyr, who is chained between two burning braziers, and Teela arrives in her Sorceress costume to ask for Ka. He says no to war, to death and to her. Evil-Lyn, voiced by Lena Headey, is already in the cave, and she says that her tampering with the cosmic balance caused his condition. When Granamyr will not listen, she tells him that he spent centuries hating humans for a power he gave them, and asks whether he thought he could heal himself of that responsibility by hiding in a cave and hoping for the best. Earlier Teela tells Evil-Lyn that her being there, helping Granamyr, looks a lot like penance. It is the most direct writing in the episode. Granamyr then sets a riddle, power is guessed and rejected, and the answer turns out to be footsteps.

The weak point is the coronation, which comes quickly. Adam hands the Sword of Power to Orko, Battle Cat tells him that he has loved being his Battle Cat, and Adam then announces that the repeal of the cruel law that denied Keldor the crown means he no longer faces an impossible choice. It leaves little room to weigh Keldor before the crowd calls for King Keldor. The last scene is a pair of unseen schemers: one voice says "Speak of the devil" and another answers "devil in disguise," and neither is named in the dialogue.

So Ascension closes on Keldor presented as king and Adam relieved of the choice, then cuts to the villains.

1. Voice cast: Harley Quinn Smith, who voices Queen Amelia in this episode, is the daughter of series showrunner Kevin Smith, according to her Wikipedia entry.
2. Voice cast: Tim Sheridan is credited as a writer on the series and also voices King Miro, so the episode's flashback king is played by one of its own writers.
3. Voice cast: John de Lancie, who voices the dragon Granamyr, is best known as Q in the Star Trek franchise, as Animation Magazine and a trailer write-up both noted at the time of his casting.
4. Casting: Kevin Smith told SFX Magazine that William Shatner's name was the first one suggested for Keldor, and TVLine reports he liked the idea of Captain Kirk sharing a cast with Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker.
5. Continuity: Granamyr comes from the Filmation cartoon episode "The Dragon's Gift". The He-Man wiki says writer Larry DiTillio created him so He-Man would face a foe he could not beat physically.
6. Continuity: When a character in the Granamyr scene says "Oh, my Zoar", the phrase invokes the falcon from the earliest mini-comics. The He-Man wiki says Zoar began as He-Man's male messenger bird and became a form of the Sorceress in the Filmation cartoon.
7. Toys: Preternia, the lost afterlife realm Teela wants to resurrect, was first developed as the setting for Mattel's canceled Powers of Grayskull toyline, according to the He-Man wiki.
8. Continuity: The He-Man wiki notes that a late 1987 mini-comic hinted at a link between Skeletor and Randor's missing brother Keldor, and that in the 2002 series Keldor's face was burned by acid, where Revelation and Revolution use the Havoc Staff instead.
9. Continuity: The He-Man wiki says Keldor is the firstborn son of King Miro and a Gar woman, and that Miro promised to return him to Anwat Gar when he came of age. This is the promise argued over in the episode's opening flashback.