Micah of Bright Moon

Micah, King of Bright Moon, escapes Horde World in a cruiser while Horde Prime lets him go and tells Hordak to deal with him. On Etheria it is Micah and Angella's twentieth wedding anniversary, and Glimmer, daydreaming about her missing father, falls into a gorge until She-Ra rescues her. Micah crashes in the Talon Mountains and is taken prisoner by the harpy Hunga, who offers to free him if Angella will take his place. Angella agrees and goes alone, despite warnings that Hunga cannot be trusted, and Hunga promptly decides to keep Micah as her slave as well. She-Ra and Glimmer follow. Hunga flies out to meet Tung Lashor's robot squadron while they slip in to free the prisoners, and Angella insists on facing Hunga herself. She-Ra steps in with a blanket to finish the fight. The family returns to Bright Moon, and Micah vows to go on fighting the Horde.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, here's Loo-Kee again. Did you find where I was hiding? If not, look for me now. See me here? Here I am. In today's story, we saw Micah reunited with his family. You know, sometimes we don't realize how important our families are to us. When was the last time you told your parents and brothers and sisters how much you love them? Why not do it now? Okay? Bye, now!"

Queen Angella: "For the chance to save your father or you, I would risk anything and everything."

Micah: "Nothing could keep me away, Sunshine."

Queen Angella: "My husband is what's good for me, and I'll not let you take him from me."

What does a family pay to get one member back? Micah of Bright Moon puts the price in plain terms: one parent for the other, with the daughter told to stay behind and wait. Glimmer remembers her father as the man who put her on his shoulders and galloped her around the garden, and the episode lets her daydream about him while he is still racing toward Etheria. It starts in space, where Horde Prime sends a robot squadron after an escaped prisoner and Micah, helped by a ship that answers his questions politely, shoots one fighter down and jumps to light speed. Horde Prime lets him go; he knows where the cruiser is headed and will have Hordak deal with it. Down in the Whispering Woods, Bow asks Glimmer to give her mother his best wishes on the wedding anniversary. Left alone, Glimmer dances with an imaginary father, slides down a tree trunk and ends up in a gorge until She-Ra hauls her out. Twenty years to the day is a tidy bit of timing, but it gives the daydream a reason.

Here is what the episode is about: everyone who loves the man in Hunga's grip is ready to take his place, and the writing keeps asking the youngest of them to hold still. Hunga appears in a glowing portal at Bright Moon, announces that Micah is her guest, and says Angella may have him back by coming to take his place. She-Ra warns that Hunga will not keep her word and Angella goes anyway. Glimmer volunteers first and is refused: her mother says "I won't risk losing both of you." Glimmer is left with nothing to do but watch her mother go.

The goodbye is the best thing in it. Angella tells her, "You're a big girl now, Sunshine," and asks She-Ra to look after her, and Glimmer notes through her tears that her mother has not called her Sunshine since she was very little. Later, when she finds her father chained in the cave, he greets her with "Nothing could keep me away, Sunshine." Both parents use the pet name within a few minutes of each other, one on her way out the door and one in chains.

The queen then does her own fighting. Glimmer talks She-Ra out of waiting ("I knew you'd understand"), they reach Talon Mountain, and when Hunga confronts the freed family, Angella says it is her fight. She-Ra answers "I understand" and hands her a sword rather than taking over. Angella duels the harpy herself, and She-Ra steps in only when it turns, finishing it with a blanket.

The weak link is Hunga. She says she and Angella have "an old score to settle," and the episode never says what the score is, so she is a villain with a grudge that exists to justify a hostage swap and then a change of mind about wanting a slave. The Horde thread suffers as well: Horde Prime's decision to leave Micah to Hordak ought to matter, but Tung Lashor's squadron arrives at the mountain and Hunga sees it off within a couple of minutes, leaving the tongue-on-the-console gag as its main contribution.

It is a small, warm episode that works because the grown-ups are allowed to be decisive and Glimmer gets to be a daughter instead of a plot device. For all the Horde pursuit in the opening, the real fight takes place between a harpy and a queen in a cave, and the closing vow to go on fighting is where the larger war comes back in.

1. Continuity: Bow and Glimmer talk about Micah's long absence in the Whispering Woods, and the Horde is said to have captured him though he is not in any prison as far as anyone can tell. He turns out to have been on Horde World, and Bright Moon recurs in Battle for Bright Moon.
2. Continuity: Glimmer says she was just a little girl when her father left to fight the Horde, and Angella's farewell uses the name Sunshine. Glimmer says she has not been called that since she was very little.
3. Continuity: Tung Lashor licks the buttons of his controls and Hordak scolds him for it, a gag that returns when he takes the controls of the Horde craft before takeoff. Horde Prime is heard giving the order to chase the prisoner and then handing the matter to Hordak.