Glimmer Come Home

Horde robots strip another village of food, and Glimmer wants to fight them, but the Rebellion's plan gives her a light show to put on in the sky. Stung, and tired of hearing that Adora knows best, she goes to Mirror Lake, where a voice that calls itself her inner self tells her to start her own rebellion with Horde troopers. Hordak, meanwhile, has promised Horde Prime the Rebellion will be crushed by the end of the week. Glimmer's new recruits turn out to be two troopers and a Wooble, who is Shadow Weaver in disguise. She-Ra finds them, but Glimmer sends her away, and She-Ra works out who the Wooble is from a remark about the battle of dark woods. Shadow Weaver takes Glimmer prisoner. She-Ra frees her, and the two of them take on a Horde flying warship loaded with stolen food. With Swift Wind holding it up, they drop the supplies by parachute on Colonia and Greenfield Village. Glimmer admits she learned the Rebellion is a team, and Loo-Kee closes with a talk on teamwork.

Loo-Kee: "Hello everybody. It's your old friend Loo-Kee again. Did you see where I was hiding today? Well, if not, here's another chance. Can you see me? Here I am! In today's story, Glimmer felt that she was asked to do something that wasn't important enough. She forgot that she was part of a team, and that teams must work together, each one depends on the other. On a team, every member, every job is important. If everybody does their part, then you've got a winning team."

Glimmer: "I don't want to do some stupid light show. I want to fight!"

Shadow Weaver: "Your jealousy has kept you from thinking clearly."

Glimmer: "I'm sorry, She-Ra. It's my fault. Oh, I was so foolish."

She-Ra: "We're not beaten yet, Glimmer, but let's work together this time."

Jealousy is easy to write and hard to make fair, and this episode gets partway there by giving Glimmer a grievance that is half right. The Rebellion has a plan to take back stolen food, and her part in it is a decoy. She is told to throw colored lights into the sky with the laser jewel in her palm. She does not take it well: "I don't want to do some stupid light show. I want to fight!" Nobody in the camp argues that she has misjudged the job. They just tell her it is hers.

The early scenes build the sulk with small, concrete beats. Glimmer watches Horde robots load crates of food, hears that there is not enough firepower to stop them, and goes back to camp already impatient. Then Bow tells her that Adora knows what she is doing, and she mocks it by repeating it. By the time she says "Adora thinks she's so important," the audience has watched the resentment grow for two scenes. Madam Razz supplies the comic relief. She runs a clipboard check-in at camp and still has to be told Glimmer's name, and a rhyming fire spell of hers goes wrong. The jokes keep the camp warm while Glimmer cools.

The standout is Mirror Lake. Glimmer kneels at the water and a voice calls her name, then says: "I am you. The inner you." It tells her what she was already thinking, that her plan is "every bit as good as Adora's," and that she is tired of taking orders because "Adora gets all the credit, and you never get any." Each time, Glimmer agrees out loud. Then the voice supplies the next step, which is to start her own rebellion with Horde troopers. As she goes, a voice adds, "And I'll make sure that you find troopers. My troopers." The scene works because it flatters instead of threatening. The voice only needs to agree with her.

The weakness is how the trap gives itself away. A red Wooble and two troopers join Glimmer, and when She-Ra arrives, the Wooble tells Glimmer to ask her about "the battle of dark woods." That slip is what tips She-Ra off, since the only person who knows what happened there is Shadow Weaver. It is a tidy clue, but it asks a disguised schemer to blurt out the one detail that unmasks her, in front of the person she is trying to fool. Glimmer also accepts "We hate Hordak" very fast. A little more resistance from her would have made the fall land harder.

The fall itself is handled well. Shadow Weaver drops the disguise, takes Glimmer prisoner, and says: "Your jealousy has kept you from thinking clearly." She-Ra breaks in, and when Glimmer says "I'm sorry, She-Ra. It's my fault. Oh, I was so foolish," the answer is gentle and practical: "We're not beaten yet, Glimmer, but let's work together this time." Earlier, She-Ra had told her plainly, "Glimmer, this isn't a contest." The script never makes her pay twice for the same mistake.

The ending turns the lesson into a job. A Horde flying warship is running the food off on automatic, and the two of them clip its wings. She-Ra turns her sword into a rope, Swift Wind takes the weight, and Glimmer guides him. The food goes out by parachute to Colonia and Greenfield Village. Glimmer gets the active job she wanted, and the light show is never mentioned again. Hordak and Shadow Weaver also lose their stolen stock, which is the stakes the episode opened with.

This is a modest entry that knows what it wants to say. The Loo-Kee talk repeats the point that every job on a team is important, and the story has already shown it. It is a brisk story, and kind to a character who is wrong for most of it.

1. Continuity: Hordak tells Shadow Weaver he promised Horde Prime the Rebellion would be crushed by the end of the week, and the Horde has been taking food from villages to starve the rebels out.
2. Continuity: The Wooble's mention of "the battle of dark woods" is what lets She-Ra work out that Shadow Weaver is behind Glimmer's new friends.
3. Continuity: The food is returned to the village of Colonia and then to Greenfield Village.
4. Production: Written by Steven J. Fisher and directed by Ernie Schmidt; first aired 24 October 1987.