Brigis

Hordak and Shadow Weaver watch a glow over an empty field, and Shadow Weaver explains that the village of Brigis returns there for one day every 500 years, guarding a good witch's box of magical powers. If any villager ever leaves, the spell breaks and the village is doomed. Mantenna lures a girl named Jarine out of the village with talk of a field full of flowers, and Adora and Bow help her escape. Told to stay in the woods, Jarine is soon alone and unsure of the way home, and Shadow Weaver takes her to Hordak. Adora, Bow and Madam Razz find the village and its worried people, and She-Ra sends Hordak's robot troopers back to the Fright Zone. She-Ra then slips into the Horde dungeon, breaks Jarine out, and rides her home on Swift Wind as the hourglass runs out of sand. When Hordak attacks with his tanks and tries to flood the village, She-Ra turns the water on him, and Brigis departs back into time. Loo-Kee closes with a talk about why rules matter.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, it's me again, your old friend, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? If not, take another look. Here I am. You know, in today's story, little Jarine put her village in great danger when she broke the rules. You can be in great danger from breaking rules, too. Have you ever tried to cross the street against the stop light? That's breaking a rule. Sometimes rules aren't that clear, but there's a very good reason for having them."

Bow: "I call this my back-up shot."

Jarine: "I'm picking flowers. I love flowers."

Hordak: "This time you've gone too far, She-Ra."

She-Ra: "Sorry about the redecorating, but I do like the open air look."

Jarine: "I put the village in great danger when I broke the rules."

Brigis hangs on a rule that sounds easy to keep. The village lives outside time and comes back for a single day. Its safety depends on a warning: if any member of the village ever leaves, the spell will be broken and the village will be doomed. Hordak needs no clever scheme. He needs one child to step across a line. The episode asks how little that takes, and who carries the blame when it happens.

Hordak and Shadow Weaver watch a glow on the view screen. Shadow Weaver lays out the old bargain, in which a chief agreed to guard a good witch's box of magical powers. The Horde does not want the village. It wants the box. The village is the lock, and Jarine is the key. Mantenna does the picking. He crouches beside her basket and says he knows a field full of pretty flowers. Jarine answers like a child who has heard the rule many times, with "Oh, no. I'm not allowed to leave the village." She wavers, then gives in with "But, just for a minute." His reply, "Oh, that's all it will be, just a minute," is a small mean joke, since a minute is the one thing the village cannot spare.

The heroes come off less well in that stretch. Adora takes Jarine to the woods while Bow holds off the Horde, and leaves her with a plain order: "But don't go out of the woods." She says, "I won't." A few scenes later she stands alone among the trees, wondering which way leads back to Brigis, and Shadow Weaver is reaching for her. The script never says how she came to be alone. Jarine is no victim of bad luck. She is a kid who left the village on a stranger's say-so, and the ending lets her own it with "I put the village in great danger when I broke the rules." Nobody shouts at her. She-Ra tells her that rules are hard to follow at times and usually have a very good reason behind them. It is a kind way to write a mistake.

The standout is the dungeon. She-Ra leaves Swift Wind outside, and he asks to come along, then offers "Well, remember, if you need me, just whistle." Inside, a robot guard lies on a bench beside a furnace while Jarine peers through the bars of her cell. A guard tells her that Hordak said she was going nowhere, and She-Ra answers, "Don't be too sure about that." She asks for the cell to be opened and gets "No way!" for her trouble. The cell does not stay shut, and her parting line is the best joke in the hour: "Sorry about the redecorating, but I do like the open air look." Then comes the ride home. Someone in the square says the sand has almost run out, and the picture agrees, because the hourglass is nearly empty when She-Ra and Jarine arrive.

The weak point is exposition. We hear the terms of the spell from Shadow Weaver, who knows them by heart. Madam Razz starts the legend again. The story cuts away to the Horde in mid-sentence, so she must finish it off screen with "So, that's the story of Brigis." A villager then states the stakes a third time with "If we don't find her, the spell will be broken forever." The water that finally stops Hordak is barely set up either. Hordak shouts "Flood them out!", She-Ra says "Here I am," and he is soaked. The only word on how it worked is a passing mention in the last scene.

That last scene is a gag worth keeping. Someone claims the water was his idea and appeals to Madam Razz. It ends on "You're right, I am kidding." Then Loo-Kee closes with a rule of his own, "Have you ever tried to cross the street against the stop light?" It is a modest lesson from a modest episode. Brigis is a tidy fable with a decent trap, a good rescue and one real laugh. It does not reach for more, and in a Season 2 run that sometimes reaches too far, that counts for something.

1. Note: The villagers are taken to the safety of Whispering Woods while the Horde troopers attack the empty village.
2. Note: After Bow's "back-up shot" and Adora's "good shooting, Bow", the next line is "And I call that rotten flying, Madam Razz."
3. Note: Mantenna and Grizzlor are sent to capture someone from a village they cannot see at first, and one of them asks, "What village?"
4. Production: Written by Coslough Johnson and directed by Bill Reed, first aired 1986-11-22.