The Eldritch Mist

She-Ra and Swift Wind free the slaves of a Horde excavation camp on their way to visit Castaspella at Mystacor, and Shadow Weaver, watching, resolves to use a book to make the Rebellion helpless. At Mystacor, Castaspella's Pool of Vision shows Adora her brother Adam and pulls him into the castle. Kowl brings word of a Horde ship landing at the edge of the Whispering Woods, where Shadow Weaver reads from the Eldritch Book of Spells and shuts the forest in a mist of endless sleep that blocks every spell Castaspella knows. Light Hope tells She-Ra the book can be worked only by a magic-maker and the spell reversed only with it, so She-Ra, He-Man and Castaspella slip into the Fright Zone. Castaspella beats Shadow Weaver, He-Man and She-Ra take the book from Hordak's throne room, and Castaspella reads the reversing verse, waking the woods.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, it's me again, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding? If not, take another look. See me now? Here I am. In today's story, when She-Ra needed help, she went to someone whom she felt was more experienced. There are a lot of experienced people waiting to help you: parents and grandparents, teachers and friends. So ask for their help when you have a problem. Bye, now! See you next time!"

Castaspella: "I like to make pretty things."

Shadow Weaver: "Yes, look. I have become powerful."

Castaspella: "Mist of evil, disappear. Take your sleep far from here."

Whose episode is it? She-Ra opens it, He-Man arrives in the middle, and neither of them finishes the job. The Eldritch Mist turns on a rule that Light Hope states halfway through, that the spells in the book can be worked only by a magic-maker, and everything after it is a relay in which the strong characters get the book to the one person who can use it. Strength gets the book out of the throne room, and then Castaspella has to read it.

The first scene that matters is Castaspella's Pool of Vision, a flirtation with an alibi. Adora asks whether she can really see other planets, Castaspella shows her Eternia and her brother, and the pool pulls Adam through, so that he turns up in a bathtub in Mystacor. Castaspella says she left the pool on by mistake. The next line answers the word: "Mistake," my foot. By the end Castaspella is being teased with "I saw you making eyes at him," and she does not deny it.

The next three scenes strip the options away one at a time. Shadow Weaver reads a verse from the book to enclose the Whispering Woods in "a mist of endless sleep," and Castaspella's counterspell fails because the mist blocks every spell she has. Madame Razz tries to fly her broom through it, falls asleep, and has to be hauled out with a grappler. Light Hope then explains where the book came from: it was thought destroyed in the Great Fire of Birindale over a thousand years ago, and the spell cannot be reversed without it. None of this is a fight; it is a series of locked doors, each played as a short scene.

The standout is Castaspella against Shadow Weaver in the Fright Zone library, where the two talk as though they had known each other. Shadow Weaver says she serves the Horde now and Castaspella the Rebels, and the duel is a contest of taste: Castaspella tosses a bouquet and conjures a butterfly, "I like to make pretty things," while Shadow Weaver answers with a monster. Castaspella says Shadow Weaver is the one who needs taking care of, and a large orange bear ends up hugging her and will not let go. Castaspella gets the best lines in the episode, and the magic is funny rather than merely loud.

The weakness is how much the opening forgets. She-Ra and Swift Wind come down on a Horde slave camp, call it "some kind of excavation," and wonder aloud what the Horde is doing out there in the middle of nowhere, and the dig is never mentioned again. The freed prisoners pile into a transport, and the camp serves only to show Shadow Weaver the book and the line that the Rebellion will be made "prisoners of their own forest." The question is asked and dropped, and the first scene reads like a prologue to a different story.

The ending hands the credit around. He-Man takes on Hordak's projector and a burst of water cools Hordak off, but Castaspella reads the reversing verse, Madame Razz wakes up asking whether it is morning, and Adam and Castaspella make their goodbyes with a promise of a visit to Eternia. Loo-Kee's moral says She-Ra went to someone more experienced, and Light Hope is the hinge, yet the person who ends the mist is Castaspella. It holds together as a pairing episode, with He-Man and She-Ra spending most of it relying on a woman who has to read the page.

1. Continuity: Light Hope is consulted at the Crystal Castle, which opens at the words "Crystal Castle, I bid you open"; the place appears in The Crystal Castle.
2. Continuity: The Horde ship lands at the edge of the Whispering Woods, where the Rebels live, the setting of The Peril of Whispering Woods.
3. Continuity: Hordak calls Horde Prime to report that the Rebellion is finished, and a voice answers from a smoky viewscreen; Hordak cuts the call short with "Call you back later," then grumbles "She-Ra and that He-Man character again."
4. Continuity: Adora introduces Adam to Castaspella as her brother, he answers her with "sis," and the two transform in turn, matching the opening titles' "He-Man's twin sister".