Daily Cartoon: She-Ra & the Princesses of Power S04E02 “The Valley of the Lost”

Welcome back to another episode recap as we continue with Season 4 of Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power! We all know the deal by now: this show is great, I love it and I’m incredibly happy it’s back for me to enjoy.

Episode 1 was fun and laid all the groundwork for what will be coming this season and it totally nailed it. I came away even more excited to continue than I was even coming in which is saying something. So where do we go now? We’ve got now Queen Glimmer leading the forces of the Rebellion while – unbeknownst to them – Hordak’s GPS signal did go through and he know awaits the master Horde Prime to show up on Etheria. Catra, however, is done doing things Hordak’s way and is challenging him in ways I’d legit never expected anyone within the Horde to ever do as she becomes ever consumed with squashing the Rebellion for good.

How will they follow up on all these new happenings in Etheria? Time to find out!

Season 4, Episode 2: The Valley of the Lost

For her first act as Queen, Glimmer sends Adora, Bow, Huntara and Perfuma to the Crimson Waste to retrieve Mara’s ship so Bow can repair it and then the Rebellion can have access to a spaceship. Not gonna lie, this is a solid idea. Anytime you have the opportunity to get a spaceship, go for it. These chances don’t come along that often so you need to seize the opportunity when it presents itself. I had a spaceship once, but it was really just a G.I. Joe playset so not a real McCoy spaceship, but it was still badass. I broke it trying to squeeze my six year-old body into it. Looking back, that may have been an egregious error in judgment.

This was massive, but not massive enough to fit a massive six-year old.

Perfuma and Huntara have some static from the beginning. Huntara looks at Perfuma as a waste in battle while Perfuma doesn’t have enough plantlife available to her to fully access her powers outside of cacti which she can’t control.

When they come to the center of the Crimson Waste, they find that the ship is already gone. Obviously, the Horde has beaten them to the punch so they begin tracking it to the Valley of the Lost which is Huntara’s old home and a smuggler’s haven. Huntara’s completely confident that they’ll find what they’re looking for here since she was once the strongest in the Waste and nothing can get by her here.

We catch up with Catra and Scorpia who have the ship in their control. When Scorpia returns quickly from an errand, Catra is curious and the conversation takes a turn until the real Scorpia returns aghast and excited to see another her. This will mark the debut of Double Trouble, a shape-shifter who made some news in the run-up to this season for being a non-binary character.

Let’s take a brief interlude for a moment. I can’t be the only one who had no idea what “non-binary” meant and I don’t feel bad about admitting it in this space. So, I did what any sensible person in my position would do: I Googled it. Simple answer? The character doesn’t identify with being either exclusively male or female (outside the “gender binary” as Wikipedia tells me) and may have characteristics that are traditionally associated to both genders. If I’m getting any of this incorrect, I’m sure one of you will tell me, but I am trying here.

Basically, what I get out of this is that you don’t feel like a man or a woman so you just do you. OK, that works for me. I feel like a man and I do me too so we have that in common. Double Trouble is voiced by Jacob Tobia who Wikipedia also tells me is a “genderqueer writer and activist” and goes by “they”. Going down the rabbit hole now, I learned that genderqueer is just an older term for for non-binary so, using that logic lesson that Sister Anne taught me in 8th grade, I am led to believe that Jacob is a real life Double Trouble without the ability to do the shape-shifting stuff. Although, I would add that if they can indeed shape-shift, I would be absurdly impressed.

So what did we learn today?

• Double Trouble is a shape-shifter which is probably something that will be featured heavily in this season
• Double Trouble is non-binary which is probably going to be one of those “dude, you know better than to ready the comments” points on any article on the internet
• I learned something new today which is always good since knowing is half the battle (second G.I. Joe reference today)
• They/Them are the preferred pronouns

See? You come read some blog by some guy who just likes cartoons and now we’re all learning together and being better people. Or maybe I’m just really late to the party and should have known this already. But hey, I know now.

Back to the show, Huntara leads the crew to the home of one of her old running mates in the waste who is all too eager to sell them out to the Horde. Duhhhhh, never trust anyone in the Crimson Waste, Huntara!

We get a full monologue from Double Trouble to introduce themself and they definitely went to the Crimson Waste School of Acting. This is pretty much a big performance for them and they’re looking to barter their services to Catra for the right price.

Glimmer FaceTimes Bow and she’s so bored with Queen business already and just wants to hang out with her friends and get into trouble. Perfuma and Huntara are having all sorts of personal issues with being in the Waste and Adora is just trying to speed along the entire process so they can get out of there. Bow hacks into a Horde force captain badge because it has a tracking device built-in so they should be able to track down the rest of the baddies and, with that, find Mara’s ship.

And that’s exactly what they do! Our heroes engage the Horde forces and we get an almost immediate faceoff between She-Ra and Catra which…doesn’t feel quite right. I don’t know, probably just me overthinking things, but usually whenever Catra be rolling up, she gives the “Hey, Adora” line and she didn’t do that here. Kind of wondering if that’s actually Double Trouble. And if it is Double Trouble, do they have the powers and abilities of whomever they’re shape-shifting into? I’m sure that’ll be answered soon enough, I trust these writers.

Huntara and Perfuma team up to get to Mara’s ship and, after discovering that she’s able to control the roots of the cacti underground, Perfuma goes all super soldier on us raising the ship to the surface as the other three fend off the Horde. They celebrate for a hot second and Glimmer suddenly shows up, late for the party and upset she missed out on beating up some bad guys. Huntara addresses the Queen saying that she needs to remain in the Crimson Waste to take it back from the Horde and be able to continue to aid the Rebellion as Perfuma says she’d miss her new pal who’s been busting her chops and calling her “Flower Girl” for this entire mission. Hey, stealing spaceships from the Horde together will build relationships like you can’t imagine.

Cut to Catra and Scorpia speeding away with Double Trouble who was indeed disguised as Catra for this fight with Adora. Catra says that if Double Trouble was able to fool Adora into believing they were Catra then there’s going to be some big plans they can pull together.

Final Thoughts

Queen Glimmer’s first edict ended successfully and yet, you can’t help thinking that the Horde won the day with their addition of Double Trouble to their ranks. This is obviously a character that we’re going to be seeing a lot of this season.

It’s only been two episodes, but I really miss Entrapta and hope someone frees her from Beast Island soon. She’s the best and I really hope Mattel makes a doll of her to go with the other series they’ve put out. Yes, I bought the dolls. They were actually pretty hard to find, but I eventually found them at a Target while visiting family who were not at all shocked to see me walking into the house with a big bag of toys.

I never loved Huntara as a character so her staying in the Crimson Waste doesn’t feel like a big loss to me. Obviously, this won’t be the last we see of her, but I won’t be pining for her to get more screen time like I do with my girl Entrapta. I would watch a spinoff show of just adventures of Entrapta and Emily all day.

Another solid episode that has you excited to see the next and also gave Perfuma an opportunity to shine when you least expected it. These moments are important. The rest of the Princesses need to be built up as capable and proficient in battle for when Horde Prime finally arrives in Etheria. You can’t just sit back and let She-Ra do all the work especially as she still learns the magnitude of her powers.

Just spitballing here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Glimmer ends up starting some static with the rest of the Best Friends Squad. Her new role as Queen and the responsibilities that come along with that directly oppose her desire to be in the middle of all the quests and adventures her pals will be going on without her. Could lead to some questionable decision-making by the new Queen.

Once again, a lot of fun and can’t wait to do this again tomorrow. For now, get out there and do you.

Until next time.

Joe

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