Black Snow

Frosta calls She-Ra to the Kingdom of Snows and shows her black snow falling on Galacia, where the Selkies blame the Snow People for ruined crops and sick animals. She-Ra heals the leader of a pack of sick Snow Howlers, while Modulok, working from a flying Weather Wheel, tells the Selkie Wesk that the Snow People are guilty and Frosta is snatched away by a blizzard and a whirlwind. She-Ra beats Multi-Bot and gets the secret of the Weather Wheel out of him, but the Selkie chief Narwhal puts Frosta in a cell, and Captain Bron marches the Snow Kingdom's army out in answer. Frosta escapes, freezing water into spikes to climb a wall, and Swift Wind, sick with black spots, is healed by She-Ra before they fly through lightning and a hurricane wind to reach the Wheel. Inside, She-Ra has a talk with Modulok about stopping the snow, and the black snow turns white just as the two armies meet. Frosta halts the fighting with her ice, Narwhal admits his mistake, the two peoples agree to live in peace, and She-Ra sends the Weather Wheel back to Hordak.

Loo-Kee: "It's Loo-Kee again, with another chance for you to find me. If you haven't already, look now. See me? Here I am. Today She-Ra healed a Howler that was sick. It's no fun being sick, but there are some things you can do to avoid that, like dressing warmly in cold weather and eating healthy foods. Ask your parents what to do. Because getting sick is just no fun at all."

Frosta: "No good ruler wants war."

Narwhal: "I ask you one more time, Frosta, stop the black snow."

Multi-Bot: "I compute that this means trouble."

How little does it take to start a war between two kingdoms that already half expect one? Black Snow's answer is a weather machine, three days of bad snow and two officers who are quick to fight. Frosta calls She-Ra to the Kingdom of Snows and shows her, in the View Crystal, the black snow that fell on Galacia, land of the Selkies, ruining crops and making animals sick. The Selkies blame the Snow People. Frosta explains that the two peoples were enemies for many years, made a truce when the Horde came, and still mistrust each other, and she has to calm Captain Bron because nobody has proof of anything. It is a sound beginning, and it gives the villains very little to build.

What the episode is about is where wars come from, and it keeps the Horde's share small. Modulok supplies the snow and tells the Selkie Wesk that the Snow People made it; the kingdoms do the rest. "No good ruler wants war," Frosta tells Narwhal, and he has her taken to a cell anyway and sends a messenger to her people. On the other side Bron, told that the Selkies hold his empress, says he is in charge of the army and wants to march at once. Nobody on either side needs the Horde after that.

The scene that does the most work is She-Ra's fight with Multi-Bot. It is the funniest stretch of the episode, and the plot changes hands in it. He buries her in the snow ("Now to dig her up again"), then ends up tangled in rope with his two heads detached and arguing about which goes where, and decides he has made "some sort of error." What She-Ra wants is the source of the snow, and she gets it by asking who could possibly give orders to a robot that tough. He names Modulok and says he built the Weather Wheel himself, and Modulok, watching from above, calls him a "nincompoop." Multi-Bot's pride in his maker is the leak.

The back half belongs to Swift Wind and to Frosta. She-Ra cannot reach Modulok without her steed, so she calls him by thought and tells him to fly above the clouds; he arrives feeling unwell, drops out of the sky with black spots on his face, and she heals him. Frosta is not waiting to be rescued. She freezes a rush of water into spikes on a wall and climbs out, and when both armies are marching it is her ice that stops them, and her order to Bron to withdraw. She-Ra does the plot's work inside the Weather Wheel, but the empress stops the war, and the story is right to give it to her.

The weak point is Modulok's defeat. She-Ra drops into the Weather Wheel after the lightning beam and the hurricane have failed, says "I hope you don't mind me dropping in like this," turns down a gift that crashes, and proposes a chat about stopping the black snow. After a cut to the armies she is congratulating him on a reversal formula that is already working. The villain who drove the story gives in off screen. The scene in which Modulok undoes his own weather is the one the plot most needed.

Black Snow closes in the right place. Narwhal says "I almost made a dreadful mistake," Frosta says they were all to blame, and the two peoples agree to walk in peace. Loo-Kee then talks about dressing warmly and eating well, because a Howler was sick, and nobody mentions the war. It is a quiet Horde scheme: the Horde needed a war and both kingdoms were willing to fight it for them.

1. Continuity: Frosta says the Snow People and the Selkies made a truce "when the Horde came"; both kingdoms still distrust each other, and the Horde works on exactly that.
2. Continuity: She-Ra calls Swift Wind by thought ("Follow my thoughts") from a distance, and he finds her by sensing her thoughts; her healing power is used on a Snow Howler and on Swift Wind.
3. Continuity: Multi-Bot says Modulok created him, and he works as Modulok's lookout; Hordak, with Imp at his shoulder, appears at the end when She-Ra says she will send the Weather Wheel back to him.