Beast Island

Madame Razz's spell shows the rebels that He-Man is held on Beast Island, and her badly worded magic eventually gets them a ship. Adora, who captured him, is dared by He-Man to look at how the Horde treats Etheria's people. She goes into the prison to prove him wrong while Bow, Glimmer, Kowl, Madame Razz and Battle Cat blunder through its corridors until Hordak paralyses them. Kowl frees He-Man, and He-Man destroys the prison on the way out. Adora sees slaves mocked, a boy's horse taken and a villager's home wrecked, then tells Hordak the Horde is evil, and Shadow Weaver's spell puts her to sleep.

He-Man: "Or are you afraid of learning the truth about the Horde?"

Adora: "The Horde is evil, cruel, unjust. The people hate us, and with good cause."

Shadow Weaver: "Surely you will not harm me, Adora. Am I not like a mother to you?"

Madame Razz: "I meant for them to fall asleep, not become sheep."

When Shadow Weaver tells Hordak that Adora should be watched, he answers, "My training and your spells of control guarantee that." The line comes early, right after Adora has handed over the captured He-Man, and the rest of the episode puts that guarantee to the test. Beast Island is the title and the setting, but the story is about Adora and what her loyalty has been built on.

The rebel half is the lighter half. Madame Razz muddles most of her spells. Her first one works and shows them where He-Man is held, but the rescue ship is asked for as a "frying ship", she tries to make the monster disappear and the vines go instead, and the troopers she means to put to sleep become sheep. Bow teases Kowl about having been worried for him, and Battle Cat carries a weakened Glimmer. These scenes move the rebels through the island's corridors and cells. Hordak's trap catches them in the end, and Kowl frees He-Man by fumbling through his restraints until something gives.

The spine is the cell scene. He-Man lies chained to a slab and Adora holds the sword he carried. She says it "feels as if it were made just for me," and he answers, "I thought it was." She says the people are loyal citizens, he says they are afraid, "and with good reason," and she calls him a liar. Then she admits she has "spent most of my life training in the Fright Zone" and has had little time to see the rest of Etheria. He-Man dares her: "Or are you afraid of learning the truth about the Horde?" She says she is afraid of nothing and will think about it, and soon after she asks Hordak's leave to go.

What she finds is three short errands. A slave begs for water and is mocked with it, a boy's horse Whitey is taken by a trooper while his father says there is nothing they can do, and a villager named Lars has his home destroyed after a trooper overheard him say the taxes were too high. The horse scene works best, because the boy shouts "That's my horse!" and a person is being hurt in front of her.

The weakness is that Adora does almost nothing in any of this. She looks aside beside two villagers, and the next time she speaks it is to Hordak, in the throne room, with the verdict: "The Horde is evil, cruel, unjust." Her change happens between scenes. She enters the prison as a Force Captain with the authority to order a gate opened, and she could have used it on the old man or the trooper with the horse. One moment of that would have shown the change on screen, and without it the episode reports her conclusion more than it earns it.

Shadow Weaver's reply is an appeal, not a threat: "Am I not like a mother to you?" Adora gets as far as "I...I..." before the spell puts her to sleep. Afterward Shadow Weaver has already said the spell has weakened, and Hordak's "remember who she really is" shows both of them still trusting it.

Verdict: a cheerful rescue plot wrapped around a good cell scene and a thin middle. The talk between Adora and He-Man is what is worth watching, and the horse is the one scene on the island that hurts.