Flowers for Hordak

Hordak and Shadow Weaver plan to use the Black Ruby to darken the Whispering Woods so that the magic trees weaken and the rebels lose their protection, and Hordak sends a strike force to take the rebel Perfuma, whose powers make plants grow even in darkness. Troopers kidnap her at Crystal Falls while She-Ra, Bow and Mermista fight them off. Light Hope tells She-Ra to do nothing about Perfuma, so Glimmer wears herself out lighting the forest for an hour at a time. In the Fright Zone, Perfuma fills her dungeon and then the whole fortress with flowers, and Hordak's Troopers start singing and dancing. A desperate Hordak offers to free her if someone will take her away, She-Ra flies in, and he lifts the Spell of Darkness, gives up the Black Ruby and adds three months of supplies. He ends the day satisfied with his dreary fortress until a second dunking of Mantenna shows where the flowers were put.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's me again, Loo-Kee. Did you find me today? Well, here's another chance. Look closer! Here I am! Perfuma certainly loves flowers. Trees and flowers make our worlds more pleasant places to live. Take time to enjoy these special gifts of life. See you next time!"

Hordak: "Nothing in the Fright Zone should ever be beautiful."

Perfuma: "Oh, hello there, Hordikins."

Light Hope: "My magic says you should do nothing."

Hordak: "Just get Perfuma out of here!"

What does a tyrant do with a prisoner he cannot make miserable? Flowers for Hordak is a comedy of reversal, and the reversal is the whole shape of it: Hordak captures Perfuma to stop her undoing a spell of darkness, orders her put in the worst dungeon he owns, and loses his fortress to her. The first scene already says so. He has barely finished asking whether the Black Ruby explodes when he turns on Mantenna for bringing him something pretty and announces "I hate pretty!" A villain who states his one weakness in the first three minutes has told the audience how the story ends.

The plan that follows is clear and the writing enjoys it. Shadow Weaver, with the ruby, can darken the air over the Whispering Woods, and without sun the magic trees will weaken, leaving the rebels without their protection. Hordak calls this a brilliant plan, then calls himself a genius, and Shadow Weaver agrees and points out the one flaw: Perfuma. His reply is "Naturally, I had thought of that". The scene works because Shadow Weaver never openly contradicts him, and the audience watches her hand him credit for the idea, and for her correction of it.

The rebel half is a weaker engine, and its subject is idleness. The first scene at Crystal Falls is a rest, with Adora admitting she feels guilty about relaxing, and the Horde strike force that arrives to take Perfuma punishes her for it. The shock is mild, because Perfuma's own line ("What could possibly happen here?") has asked for it. When Light Hope tells She-Ra to do nothing about Perfuma, the rebels are left with the darkness and a dying forest. Glimmer, on Swift Wind, lights the forest for an hour at a time, and the episode spends some effort on what it costs her.

The sequence that makes the episode is Hordak's visit to the dungeon. He arrives to gloat and finds his Troopers dancing in garlands, and Perfuma greets him with "Oh, hello there, Hordikins." Her verdict on his robots, that they are sweet but a little clumsy, leaves him repeating the word sweet as a question. By then flowers have grown through the dungeon door, and over the next few scenes they climb the Fright Zone walls while the Troopers sing. It is a joke that gets bigger rather than repeating, and Hordak with his face in his hands on his own throne is its best image.

The weakness is Light Hope. She-Ra is told twice to do nothing about Perfuma, says she will, and then flies to the Fright Zone anyway on the grounds that "Giving Perfuma a ride home isn't doing much." The script never settles whether the advice was right. In effect it was, since Perfuma does the work, but nothing in the story makes She-Ra's choice matter: she walks into a patrol, Hordak calls it off, and the bargain is made by Hordak, who also hands over the ruby and the supplies. The Black Ruby is surrendered in a line, and the rebels' only real labour is Glimmer's.

It all ends where it began, with Mantenna in a bath. A slight, very funny episode in which the Horde defeats itself more thoroughly than She-Ra could.

cereal:geek's commentary on Flowers for Hordak, with behind-the-scenes detail on how the episode was made.

1. Continuity: Hordak sends Mantenna for a bath in the first scene and again at the close, and Mantenna also turns up in the Fright Zone wreckage at the end of Magicats, the previous episode in broadcast order.
2. Continuity: Perfuma, Mermista and Bow are at Crystal Falls when the Horde strike force arrives, and Glimmer rides Swift Wind to light the Whispering Woods against Shadow Weaver's Spell of Darkness.
3. Continuity: Light Hope tells She-Ra that Shadow Weaver's Black Ruby is strong enough to keep the Woods dark for months, and Hordak finally offers She-Ra supplies, money and anything else to take Perfuma away; She-Ra reports it as three months' worth of supplies.