Friendship

Adora learns from a letter that Hordak plans to send her old Horde friend Lohni to the slave pits on Horde World, and she sets off for the Fright Zone alone while Bow and Kowl follow anyway. Lohni, whose father is a prisoner on Beast Island, has been made to lure Adora into Hordak's hands. Kowl smuggles the Sword of Protection to her cell, She-Ra frees Lohni's father from the Vulture's Perch, and a Tyrosaur she healed earlier carries them clear of Beast Island.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's me again, Loo-Kee. Did you find my hiding place today? If not, want another chance? Okay. Do you see me? Here I am! In today's show, She-Ra helped a Tyrosaur, and became a special friend. Have you ever thought of how many special friends you have to help you? Like teachers and doctors, policemen and of course parents. We're lucky to have special friends like that."

Bow: "Adora said she wanted to go to the Fright Zone alone. And so she did, but she never said we couldn't follow her there."

Kowl: "Oh, I know I shouldn't have come, but I couldn't stand the suspense."

Hordak: "I don't have time to bother with these trifles. I have other things on my mind. Such as what to do with Adora."

Adora reads a letter from Lohni at the rebel camp and tells Madame Razz that Lohni "was my second in command and my friend." Hordak means to send Lohni to the slave pits on Horde World because Adora left the Horde, and Adora's answer comes at once: "I've got to help her." Nothing else in the episode is argued as quickly or as plainly.

The camp scene is also the funniest in the episode. Adora announces "No, it's personal. I'm going alone," and Bow answers, "Oh, no, you're not. Kowl and I are going with you." Kowl protests that he does not recall volunteering, then agrees with Adora so loudly ("Fright Zone's no place for a sensitive fellow like me") that Bow turns on him. Later Bow supplies the loophole for the trip: "Adora said she wanted to go to the Fright Zone alone. And so she did, but she never said we couldn't follow her there." Kowl answers, "I hate it when you have an answer for everything."

The spine is simple. Adora believes the trouble is hers alone, and the people and creatures around her keep showing that it is not. Bow and Kowl follow her into the Fright Zone. On the way she stops to heal a Tyrosaur's hurt wing ("Steady now, big fella"), and Swift Wind, watching, mutters "Hmm, some friend." That same Tyrosaur is waiting on Beast Island at the end, and She-Ra gets Lohni onto its back with "He's a friend of mine. Isn't that right, Tyro?" Kowl is the reluctant one. He turns up at the window of her cell saying "I know I shouldn't have come, but I couldn't stand the suspense," fetches the sword from the desk she points to, and later reports that he "almost lost a couple of tail feathers bringing this here."

The Vulture's Perch sequence puts the idea on screen. Lohni's father hangs in a dome-shaped cage under spotlights and tells his daughter "Save yourself, Lohni, you can't get me out." The odds are stated flatly: "No one has ever been rescued from the Vulture's Perch." She-Ra answers "Oh, no? Just watch," calls "Sword to lasso!" and swings across to the cage, using the sword Kowl nearly lost his tail feathers delivering.

The weak point is Lohni, who carries the moral weight of the story and gets almost no scene to do it in. She betrays Adora ("Oh, I wish I didn't have to do this"), and Adora first says "You betrayed me, Lohni, and I thought we were friends." A minute later, when Lohni explains that Hordak holds her father, Adora says "It's all right, Lohni. I understand now." In the closing minutes Lohni announces "I'm going to join the rebellion too!" and She-Ra replies "I'm glad to hear that, Lohni." The script plants the objection itself, when Bow says "I'll bet you do, to betray her again," and then settles it in one exchange, when Lohni says Hordak's men are "after me this time." Bow's doubt is never paid off. A last scene in which the rebels had to decide whether to take her at her word would have made Adora's forgiveness cost something.

Friendship works as a rescue story, and its best material is the early banter. Adora starts out insisting the matter is hers alone and finishes riding off Beast Island on the Tyrosaur she once stopped to heal. Lohni's turn is too thinly drawn to carry the title, but Bow, Kowl and the Tyrosaur do the work.

1. Hordak promises to send Adora and Lohni to Beast Island "for a very, very long time." Shadow Weaver is already there, announcing a spell "to capture Adora's mind" so that she will forget the rebellion.
2. In the junkyard, the line "I thought they only lived on Beast Island" is spoken on seeing the Tyrosaur. The Tyrosaur She-Ra heals there is the one shown on Beast Island at the end.