Welcome Back, Kowl

Kowl is napping when three new Horde tanks chase him off, and he overhears Hordak's plan to test them on a village the next morning; he drops a goosh-fruit on Imp, who is sent after him and decides to frame him by leaving Horde money in his bed. That same night Madame Razz, convinced she is no use to the Rebellion, meets Kowl privately and makes him promise to tell no one, which leaves him without an alibi. Next day Tongue Lasher snatches her out of the air in the middle of a spell, She-Ra stops the tanks, and back at camp the rebels find the coins and turn on Kowl. Kowl sets out alone for the Fright Zone and She-Ra goes with him; he dodges the freeze beams at the secret entrance to the Fright Zone and they find Madame in Shadow Weaver's cell. Madame's spells chain Shadow Weaver and freeze Tongue Lasher's tongue, and the three escape, with Kowl dropping Imp into the mud on the way out. Back at camp Madame explains where Kowl was, the rebels apologise, and they welcome him back.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, there, it's your friend Loo Kee again. Did you find me today? If not, here's another chance. See me now? Here I am. In today's story, Madame Razz felt bad because her magic spells didn't work. But nobody does everything right all the time. We learn from trying. And it's certainly better to try and not get something right than not to try at all. So keep trying, okay? Okay!"

Madame Razz: "Power soften ground to glue."

Imp: "I'll just put this Horde money in Kowl's bed."

Kowl: "We want you with us for what you are."

Kowl: "Oh, well, they're only freeze beams."

Why would a cartoon owl take the blame for something he cannot explain? Because he gave his word, and Welcome Back, Kowl is built around what that costs. In the dark, in a tree grove outside the village, Madame Razz tells him she thinks her usefulness to the Rebellion is "over with here" and asks him to promise that he will tell nobody they spoke. Kowl says he will. Within a few scenes the camp is hunting a spy, and the only two who know where Kowl spent the night are Madame, who is by then in a Horde cell, and Kowl, who has sworn to say nothing.

The setup is petty on purpose. Kowl, trying to nap, is run off by Horde tanks; Hordak has no real interest in a bird and would sooner try the machines on a village over the hill the next morning, and Imp, who has just been splattered by a goosh-fruit that Kowl dropped on him, is sent to make sure Kowl does not spoil the test, after cleaning himself up. Imp has other ideas. He wants to pay Kowl back, and what he comes up with is a handful of Horde money tucked into Kowl's bed so the rebels will think he is a paid informer. It is a mean little trick that has nothing to do with the tanks, and it works only because Madame's confession has pulled Kowl out of the barn at exactly the wrong hour.

Madame's half of the story is the funnier one. Her first rhyme for turning the ground to glue ends in a bubbling noise and a groan from her broom, and it takes a second go with different nonsense syllables before the shimmer comes; the next morning she is a syllable off again in mid-air and Tongue Lasher's tongue wraps around her. The camp scene that follows is where the episode turns on its title. Kowl is the only one unaccounted for, the cloth the two villagers brought him turns up with the coins in it, and the broom, furious, blames him for Madame being taken. Kowl's answer is the flat "That isn't mine." and nothing more, because more would break the promise. One voice in the room says "I just don't believe Kowl would betray us", and the scene ends before anyone is persuaded.

The best sequence is the rescue. Kowl sets off for the Fright Zone alone, grumbling that he cannot believe he is doing it, and She-Ra stops him only to say she is coming too. He asks if she really trusts going in with him, and she answers, "Of course I trust you." At the secret entrance she remembers from her Force Captain days, a field of red laser beams has appeared, one She-Ra figures Hordak added, and the job of getting through falls to Kowl, who tells her "they're only freeze beams" and then does it. Madame, who spent the night sure she was useless, gets two spells right inside Hordak's own fortress: one chains Shadow Weaver and the other freezes Tongue Lasher's tongue.

The weakness is the village. The glue ambush gets a full demonstration, a plan for the crossroads and a sleeping place for Kowl, and then Madame is cut off in the middle of a garbled spell and a rope from She-Ra stops a tank on screen. After that nobody mentions the village again, and the tanks that were supposed to flatten it get one line from Hordak about two of them being lost, while the story turns to a quarrel over a few Horde coins.

Loo-Kee closes with Madame's spells and the value of trying, while the characters in the story close with a different lesson, that nobody should pass judgment before getting all the facts. The second fits the episode better; the first only fits Madame. Still, Kowl gets one defender in the camp scene before a single fact is known, and that earns the welcome at the end more than the glue does.

1. Continuity: She-Ra recalls "my days as Force Captain Adora" and a secret entrance to the Fright Zone, and notes that the freeze-beam corridor "didn't used to be here"; she uses her old Horde knowledge to get Kowl in.
2. Continuity: Madame Razz's garbled spell words are a running trouble in this episode, and Beast Island puts her and Kowl among the rebels again.
3. Continuity: The opening narration says only a few others share She-Ra's secret and names Light Hope, Madame Razz and Kowl among them, so two of the three are at the center of this story.