Enemy with My Face

After She-Ra wrecks Scorpia's new tank, Hordak demands a way to stop her and Modulok's new computer answers, someone just as strong, which leads Shadow Weaver to conjure a Melog out of swamp mud, a creature that absorbs the strengths and abilities of anyone it touches. Shadow Weaver springs it on She-Ra from inside a hollow tank, and the Melog, having touched her, matches her in a tug-of-war that She-Ra calls her first loss, though Kowl says it was a tie. Light Hope tells her that her strength comes from the heart and that she must ask what else the Melog now has. In a village where Shadow Weaver has set a trap, Shadow Weaver and the Melog throw illusions, a force field, cracking ground and a storm at her, until She-Ra realizes the Melog took her feelings as well and appeals to them. The Melog stops obeying Shadow Weaver, who cries that the light blinds her and is gone, and She-Ra holds out the sword and calls on Grayskull so that the Melog becomes a red-haired woman who can speak. The woman who was the Melog declines to join the Rebellion yet, and says she must first go out and learn what it is to be alive.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, here's Loo-Kee again. Did you find where I was hiding? If not, take another look. See me now? Here I am. In today's story, Shadow Weaver treated the Melog as if she had no feelings. And that hurt her. Think twice before you make fun of people, call them names, or put them down. Treat people the way you'd like them to treat you. Bye, now!"

Hordak: "That is, if you want to get back your title of Horde Scientist, instead of Horde Cook."

She-Ra: "I lost. For the first time, I lost."

Light Hope: "The true strength of She-Ra comes not from the sword or the arm that holds it."

She-Ra: "Find your real feelings."

What do you copy when you copy a hero? Enemy with My Face is built around that question, and its answer is that Shadow Weaver gets the part she asked for and the part she did not. The new computer is asked how to make She-Ra stop and answers by finding someone just as strong. Hordak objects that no one is, and the screen fades into a voice repeating "Melog." Shadow Weaver raises the creature from a swamp pool with a rhyme and tells Mantenna what it does: it absorbs the strengths and abilities of whoever it touches.

The first scene that carries the idea is the tug-of-war. She-Ra ropes the Melog with a lasso, the Melog pulls back with She-Ra's own strength, and the contest stalls. Shadow Weaver finally orders it to let go, and it does so so abruptly that She-Ra goes sprawling. Her first words afterward are "I lost. For the first time, I lost." Kowl insists it was a tie, and her reply is that she is not so sure. It is a small, human moment for a hero who usually has the better of every exchange.

Light Hope names the spine. She-Ra's strength comes not from the sword or the arm that holds it but from the heart, and since the Melog now has her powers she must ask what else it has. Here is what the episode is about: the Melog copied her feelings along with her strength, and the villain who made it is the only character who never checks. Everything afterward serves that. In a wind-torn village She-Ra frees a girl, the Melog seems to take a liking to her, and she remembers the question and says it aloud: "Feelings." She pleads with it to find what she feels somewhere inside it, Shadow Weaver insists it will only listen to her, and the creature stops obeying her.

That payoff is also the standout, because it turns a copied weapon into a character without a speech. The Melog's change is expressed in small things: it declines an order, hears a plea and acts on one. She-Ra's answer is characteristic too: she calls on the sword, and the Melog becomes a red-haired woman who can finally speak. The woman who emerges says she is free and like everyone else. Offered a place in the Rebellion, she says she wants it but must first learn what it is to be alive, a candid answer from someone only now free.

The weakness is how much road it takes to get there. The village is a trap built around a tax-collecting scene, Light Hope's clue is played back to She-Ra before she answers it, and a stretch of the middle fight is stock spellwork: illusions, force beams, cracked ground and a storm. Shadow Weaver herself complains that the two are too evenly matched. The Melog does not become a person until the plot needs her to. A clearer beat earlier in which she hesitates or looks at She-Ra with curiosity would have made the turn feel prepared.

Still, the idea is the right one for a show whose heroine is defined by heart. Loo-Kee's closing words about not treating people as if they had no feelings land because the episode has just shown it done to someone, and the last gag, spoken over a shot of Swift Wind, is that the new woman has everything of She-Ra's except "Me!"

1. Continuity: Hordak's plan is to send She-Ra to Mondor on a starship of slaves, since "no one has ever escaped from that dark planet," the place of The Mines of Mondor.
2. Continuity: The rebels carry supplies back to Whispering Woods, the rebel ground She-Ra also names in Treasure of the First Ones and the setting of The Peril of Whispering Woods.
3. Continuity: Modulok is under threat of being demoted from Horde Scientist to Horde Cook, and his new computer is the one that names the Melog.