My Friend, My Enemy

Catra and Skeletor feed Hordak a pie made with doom-berries, which make a person sick and then make them fade away, probably for good. After Hordak crashes his own missile in a raid on the rebels' supply pickup at Whispering Woods, Madame Razz explains the berries and Light Hope tells She-Ra that the only cure is for someone to shed tears for him. Hordak names Noah, the old wizard who taught him magic, so She-Ra carries him up to the wizard's cave and sends Catra's pursuing aircraft gliding off on the way. There she finds Skeletor holding Noah prisoner and Noah refusing to help, until She-Ra's own tears for Hordak's wasted life cure him. Noah sends Hordak back to the Fright Zone, and she is told he will remember none of it. She-Ra and Bow free Glimmer from a cell and escape as Hordak sounds the alarm.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, it's Loo-Kee again. Did you find where I was hiding today? Look carefully. I'm over here! In today's story, She-Ra was saddened because Hordak didn't have a real friend. Maybe you know someone who doesn't seem to have any friends. If you do, try to be a friend to them. If it works out, you might be as happy about it as they will be. Bye now, and see ya next time."

She-Ra: "Enemy or not, I don't like to see anybody suffer."

She-Ra: "I'm crying for the saddest thing I know: a wasted life."

Noah: "Not nobody, She-Ra. You care."

She-Ra: "What's important is that I know I helped another human being."

What would it take for anyone to cry for Hordak? My Friend, My Enemy builds its whole plot on that question and makes the cure for a poisoning depend on it. Hordak is dying of a pie, the only remedy is that someone weeps for him, and the episode keeps asking who in the world that could be.

The first scene is a joke that carries the idea. Catra brings Hordak a pie from a secret admirer, and Hordak, who has to be told what an admirer is, cannot get over the thought that anyone could like him. He eats everything. Then Skeletor and Catra, the empty plate in hand, gloat over the doom-berry pie, and the plan is that Hordak will vanish and Horde Prime will have to choose a replacement, and each of them has a candidate in mind: themselves. The bait works because Hordak is lonely, and the script knows it.

The structure then works through the answers one at a time. Madame Razz knows the berries make you sick and then make you disappear, that nobody has ever come back, and that she knows of no cure. Someone in the camp asks why they should help him, and She-Ra gives the reason in one line: "Enemy or not, I don't like to see anybody suffer." Light Hope supplies the cure, tears shed for him. When She-Ra asks Hordak who might do it, he reaches for Noah, the old wizard of Woeful Mountain who taught him his magic, because Noah likes him. Noah turns out to have seen what Hordak did with the training, and says so.

The standout is the cave, where Noah refuses and Skeletor stands by enjoying it. She-Ra does not argue that Hordak deserves rescue. She says that once he was powerful and now he is "alone, abandoned, unloved," and that this is sad and wrong. Then she cries, and when Skeletor asks how she can weep for someone like him, she says she is crying for "the saddest thing I know: a wasted life." Noah answers, "Not nobody, She-Ra," and the line does two jobs at once, correcting her claim that nobody will care and handing the credit for the cure back to her. The cure comes with a warning that Hordak will remember none of it.

The weakness is the Glimmer thread. She-Ra and Bow keep asking after her, Skeletor says they have her, and when she next appears it is in a cell with her head in her hands. The last four minutes are a rescue chase through the Fright Zone that could be lifted out of any other episode, with robots wrapped up, an escape on Swift Wind and Hordak, cured and forgetful, back on his throne sounding the alarm. After the cave, the quiet shot of She-Ra's hand on his shoulder does more than the whole chase, and the chase plays like a separate story. Catra, sent gliding home earlier, is back in the Fright Zone at the end, startled to find Hordak up and about.

The closing exchange is the right place to stop. Bow complains that Hordak will never know she was the only one who helped, and She-Ra says that what matters is that she knows she helped another human being. The sign-off about being a friend to someone who has none finishes the thought in plain terms. This is a serious episode, and it earns that by making She-Ra's kindness cost her something: no thanks, no memory on his side, and a pie joke for the last word.

1. Continuity: Imp tells Hordak the rebels pick up supplies at the edge of Whispering Woods, the same woods as in The Peril of Whispering Woods.
2. Continuity: Light Hope, named in the opening narration among those who share She-Ra's secret, answers her from a column of pink-white light and first tells her to do what she knows in her own heart is right before naming the cure.
3. Continuity: She-Ra says Skeletor and Hordak were once friends, and Hordak says Noah, the old wizard of Woeful Mountain, taught him his magic.