Hello Hero Club, this is Darkon633 and I am back with a new review of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Today, we will be looking at the fifth episode of the series, which will feature She-Ra and the gang leaving for the Kingdom of Brightmoon on the open seas. As the title of the episode suggests a familiar face will be appearing in this episode. Without further ado, we will now move on to the review.
[Warning: The following review contains several spoilers]
Synopsis:
At Castle Brightmoon a meeting is being held to discuss how the Kingdom can strengthen its forces. Glimmer suggests that she and the others should continue their mission to seek out the other Princesses in order to strengthen their alliances with the other kingdoms. At first Queen Angella rejects the idea, but Glimmer explains her plan to recruit the help of Mermista, the princess of Selineas. Queen Angella eventually agrees and the team begins to search for a noteworthy sea captain to help guide them on their journey.
Glimmer, Adora, and Bow make their way to a bar where they encounter the captain, Sea Hawk; he seeks to assist our heroes, but his price is steep! However, Sea Hawk explains that his fee also includes his connections to Mermista. Understanding that they are unable to pay for Sea Hawk’s services, Adora decides to challenge him with a bet. The bet is an arm-wrestling match where if Adora wins Sea Hawk will help them free of charge. Luckily, Sea Hawk is gambling man accepts the terms unknowing Adora can best him. With Adora winning the bout the group proceeds to leave for Selineas, but unbeknownst to them a mysterious shadow begins to loom over them. Meanwhile in the Fright Zone, Shadow Weaver orders Catra to retrieve Adora, and informs her that Scorpia will be assisting her.
Sea Hawk and the others begin their voyage to Selineas, although Glimmer soon discovers that they are traveling through a ship graveyard. However, before Glimmer can fully talk to the others about the situation something hits the boat. Our heroes soon discover that a sea creature is attacking the boat, and Adora transforms into She-Ra to combat the creature. Glimmer discovers that Sea Hawk threw them off course on purpose in order to stop the creature himself to impress the group, however things clearly did not turn out as planned.Sometime later Adora, Glimmer, Bow, and Sea Hawk arrive at Selineas where they are greeted by one of the guards. They explain that they have come to talk to Mermista and he escorts them to see her.
Inside Mermista’s throne room, Glimmer explains that they seek her help. Mermista replies that she needed to stay with her kingdom since the gate protecting them has been deteriorating. In addition, Mermista explains she was not helping Castle Brightmoon because she felt they were not doing much to assist Selineas in return. During the discussion Adora notices a mural depicting the First Ones’ writing. Adora interjects to explain how the scripture says the gate is failing due to the Selineas’ runestone losing its connection to its power source. Upon hearing this, Glimmer asks Mermista if they can fix the runestone would she assist Castle Brightmoon once more. Hearing the offer, Mermista reluctantly agrees and our heroes leave to see the stone.
Adora transforms into She-Ra once more to use her powers to rejuvenate the runestone. Whereas, Glimmer notices that Sea Hawk is trying to abandon them, so she quickly teleports to stop him. Sea Hawk explains he tried to leave since he feels like he has not been much help to their cause. However, a minor pep talk from Glimmer convinces him to stay, as Bow notifies them that the Evil Horde has appeared. She-Ra tells the others to distract the Evil Horde, so she can continue to recharge the runestone.
In the battle to defend the gate, Bow and Mermista face-off with Scorpia, and Sea Hawk arrives to save Bow from falling from the battling boats. Meanwhile, Catra seeks into the kingdom to try convincing Adora to return with her. Adora refuses to listen her causing Catra to lose focus and be attacked by Mermista. Whereas, Glimmer and Sea Hawk make a final attempt to push back the Horde by colliding the ship into one another. The attack finally gives She-Ra the time needed to recharge the runestone, which in turn restores the gate defending Selineas. With the gate restored the Evil Horde retreats, and Mermista agrees to join Castle Brightmoon to fight against the Evil Horde.
My Thoughts:
Overall, I think this episode is better than some of the previous episodes since it introduced several new main characters in the series. Sea Hawk is better in a lot of ways in my opinion compared to his original counterpart. In the original series, I often found Sea Hawk to be rather bland, but he had more character than most of the other males; that was probably the only thing had back then going for him, was his character. Yet, the new Sea Hawk is not perfect either. While I enjoy his current/ modern personality it can be a bit too overbearing.
Then as for Mermista, she is entirely better in the series because I personally do not remember much about the original version. Unlike the other Princesses in this show, besides Glimmer, Mermista has shown that she seems to have a tougher attitude although seems a bit lazy. Mermista’s lazy attitude does cause some issues, as it just makes her seem rather boring. However, the character does improve for the better by the end of the episode at least.
With Scorpia’s introduction to the series I can easily say she outshines her original counterpart. The new version of Scorpia has a lot of character; she is not a genius, but a has a competent intelligence about her and immense strength. Whereas, the original Scorpia was an outright idiot that had a very strange and odd sounding voice. In addition, it does not help that Scorpia barely appeared in the original cartoon. Further there is a huge contrast between the two versions of Scorpia as future episodes will continue to feature her in a stronger role.
In conclusion this episode had a lot of hilarious moments, and it is nice to see to see more of the world outside of the kingdom and forest. The setting seemed to drag out a bit in the previous episode due to Plumeria being very similar to Castle Brightmoon, so the change in location is appreciated. The Evil Horde also had better moments within this episode as a whole, especially with the introduction to Scorpia. Hopefully this episode is the start to wonderful trend of new locations, and more dynamic characters or battles!
