Hi folks! Welcome to our weekly recap of Masters of the Universe: Revelation. This week’s episode is named “Land of the Dead” and they are going to fight against Scare Glow, the ruler of Subternia, and the main theme here is “overcoming your fears,” let’s dive right in.
1. Alone in Subternia
The group is now in Subternia, and Orko stars reciting an old poem about the effects of the place on the people that visit it, and he says “…the only wealth you’ll need to bring is the currency of fear.” That is the key of this story, our heroes are tasked with a mission to beat their fears and anxieties in order to be freed from Eternia.
As they begin walking everybody disappear and Teela is left alone in Subternia itself, she will be haunted directly by Scare Glow. Meanwhile, Andra, Roboto and Beast Man appear on a wasteland, and Orko and Evil-Lyn travel to Trolla.
2. In the wastelands
This is the most straightforward subplot of the episode, Andra, Roboto and Beast Man have to fight, videogame-style, hordes of monsters, first they fight zombies, and then they fight Shadow Beasts that feed from fear.
Andra admits being scared for the situation, and it contrasts with Roboto’s lack of emotions that allow him to be more focused, that helps her clear her head and she comes up with a plan and uses Roboto’s body to create a “light bomb”, and as they defeat the beasts they appear back in Subternia.
3. Oracle
Orko and Lyn show up in a desolated Trolla, his birthplace. There’s no one there and magic appear to be absent from the place, they have a moment of peace and start talking about their lives, Orko reveals that he is asamed of himself, he was never a good magician and he never was able to live up to his parent’s big expectations, reflected at birth by his real name: Oracle.
I chuckled a little bit at the revelation, I’m a sucker for this kind of cheesy reveals, but then I realized what that meant for Orko. As I said last episode, Orko is one of those people that hide their true feelings behind a smile and jokes, and now we look at him in a different light, opening up and sharing something that was deep inside him.
Orko is a good man, I mean, he is a magic Trollan, but you get me, he is ultimately a good person, he tried to make everybody around him happy and did his best in battles, and after He-Man’s death, the only thing he wants is redemption from what he sees as a failure.
At the end, he and Evil-Lyn bond and they defeat a giant Shadow Beast working together. I really hope that Lyn doesn’t betray the team in the future, because she is now a friend to Orko.
4. Scare Glow
And the main plot involves Teela, confronted by Scare Glow –in his first appearance on TV!–, she is looking for something and he, the ruler of Subternia has it, so he challenges Teela, if she wants the first half of the Sword of Power, she has to pay with her fear.
She accepts and her test starts, at first she fights an evil illusion of He-Man, and she has to face her feelings again, the betrayal that she felt and what it implies, maybe she was never worthy of being trusted, maybe nobody expected something from her. But that is not her biggest fear…
5. No ordinary
The fake He-Man transforms into Teela herself, and we discover that she is scared of facing her real destiny, her purpose is to do big things, but there might be consequences. In this confrontations some of the words used to express Teela’s feelings are ‘inadequacy,’ ‘abandonment,’ ‘fraility,’ and ‘isolation.’
I am astounded by the use of those words, this is not your regular show, this is not your toy-ad, we are dealing with real emotions, and how to deal with them. Teela choses to own her inner power, to embrace her destiny, magic comes out of her and she invokes the sword, after all, she is the daughter of the Sorceress, she was born with magic inside of her, and her future is bright.
Continued belowThey defeat Scare Glow, but he is not losing that easily, and he uses all his powers to kill our heroes, but a renewed Orko contains him, saving the team, but apparently he is now dead, and just as we are about to mourn him, Adam appears on Preternia and the episode ended.
And that’s it for this episode, I am very happy whit the pace of the story, some people read the synopsis of the show that implied a “journey” and expected the show to be ten episodes of just traveling around the world, but it is not that at all: the first episode served to “end” the original series’ story, the second episode set up the premise, in the third the team was formed, in this one they recover the first half of the sword and it seems that the journey will come to an end of sorts with the next episode. And while all of that happened, we have had character development and emotional stakes, amazing!
What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on the next episode, “The Forge at the Forest Forever,” the mid-season finale.
