Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E05: “Rise of the Snake Men Part 2”

It’s Friday! The best day in the week! And we’re going to be closing things out strong AF today. We’re finally in the middle of that long-awaited storyline with the Snake Men and yesterday’s first parter did not disappoint. Outside of the questionable cartoon stuff that you just have to let go because this is a cartoon. Sometimes things just are what they are.

Which is fine and isn’t hampering my excitement for what’s happening right now with this. I wanted Snakes and, by god, I’m getting snakes. If yesterday was any indication, then Season 2 is going to be chock-full-o-goodness and I’m all about that.

Need a quick refresher before we get started? Simply go back to the homepage and read yesterday’s recap and you’re back in the game. Which brings us to today. Let’s get to it.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E04: “Rise of the Snake Men Part 1”

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Finally I’m getting what I’ve been waiting for since Episode 21! Go ahead and check out the recap for that episode and you’ll see right away how excited I got when they introduced this story line. When they added Kobra Khan and Rattlor as a tiny wrinkle in the Season 1 finale? Loved it.

I’m here for it. I’m all-in on the Snake Men and – unless the title of this episode is just a bold-faced lie – I’m getting rewarded for my patience today.

I don’t even want to waste any time recapping or anything. I want to get this going right now.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E03: “Out of the Past”

Hump Day edition of the rewatch is here! We keep moving along as we near completion of this series and, honestly, I’m going to be a sad little panda when we finally get to that point. We’ve shared some really good moments along the way in the past month-plus and with only a couple of weeks to go, it’ll be bittersweet to put this show in the rearview mirror.

Yesterday was a bust with the only thing worth mentioning being the formation of a new council of good guys from all ends of Eternia agreeing to pool resources in protection of the land in defense of Skeletor and the forces of evil. An easy episode to skip, but we’re completists over here and I’m going to recap it all.

Obviously, I think we can expect a bit more substance today and, even though the episode title of “Out of the Past” can literally mean anything, I’m hoping we get some good advancement on the past arcs that were teased coming out of Monday’s episode.

With that all said, let’s hit play and carry on!

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E02: “To Walk With Dragons”

Welcome back! We’ve come off a dramatic finish to Skeletor’s best-laid plans which ended with him being thwarted once again by the Masters and leading to possible dissension within his own ranks now that Evil-Lyn knows that Skeletor himself was behind her capture and imprisonment that took place over the last few episodes.

We got a lot of good content out of what was really a three episode arc and it almost feels as if we’re now getting a fresh start with all the new angles that have formed from it. King Randor pledges to assemble a new council to aid in advising strategies for all the villages, the Snake Men are making a play for Skeletor’s underlings in an attempt to free their fellow humanoid reptilians while Skeletor can’t see the forest for the trees and is acting as if it’s business as usual.

With this season being only 13 episodes, there isn’t a lot of time to slow play these things and part of me is wondering if the conclusion will yield a satisfying payoff. I really don’t know if this chapter was meant to be just those 13 episodes all along or if the writing team was prepared and/or planning to go to 26 as they had in Season 1. Regardless, today’s episode gives me a renewed start feeling as the “season premier” that we watched yesterday was really just a closing of the Season 1 finale.

Now that we’ve gotten all the pleasantries out of the way, let’s continue our trek through the Eternian mythos.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E01: “The Last Stand”

Happy Monday, He-Fans, and welcome to the beginning of Season 2! We’re coming off a two-parter that concluded Season 1, but left us right in the middle of a battle sequence outside Castle Grayskull so this episode should have probably been titled, “The Council of Evil Part 3”, but what do I know? I’m just a mark with a blog.

To quickly recap where we are seeing as how we just took a three-day weekend after completing the season, Skeletor has put together a new crew of evil warriors after setting up his regular goon squad to be apprehended by the Masters to lull the good guys into a false sense of security. The Masters lower their defenses, go on leave and are picked off one by one by Skeletor’s new team which consists of Count Marzo, the Giants, Evil Seed and Webstor.

With all the Masters now captured and imprisoned in the dungeons of Snake Mountain, the only one remaining is Prince Adam who is without his power sword which was lost during a botched rescue attempt at Snake Mountain.

The Snake Men if Rattlor and Kobra Khan have emerged from hiding in the bowels of Snake Mountain and have free Skeletor’s old team from the Eternian Palace prison. When we left off, they were just arriving at Castle Grayskull and Skeletor still believes them to be on his side.

So yeah, there’s a lot going on and you can cut the tension with a knife. We’ve had plenty of time to let this all sink in so why wait any longer? Season 2! Let’s go!

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S01E26: “The Council of Evil Part 2”

We made it. After a month of hitting play and pause and play again we got here. We’ve watched and rewatched and commented and discussed to get to this moment. This is the season finale. Folks, right here, right now…

THIS IS THE DANCE!

It’s the Season 1 finale and we’re coming off an absolutely awesome set-up from yesterday. When we left off, Skeletor sacrificed his entire allotment of evil warriors in order to lull our heroes into a false sense of security while he formed an alliance with other baddies we’ve been introduced to throughout the season in order to divide and conquer.

All of the Masters have been captured in some form with the only exceptions being Teela (who is still at the palace guarding the prison holding all of Skelly’s henches) and He-Man who, when we left off, was heading for Snake Mountain for what will surely be an epic confrontation.

The newly formed Council of Evil (Count Marzo, the Giants, Evil Seed and Webstor led by Skeletor) are fully expecting He-Man’s arrival and have incorporated it into their grand scheme.

We’ve made it here so there’s no sense in waiting anymore. Hook it to my veins!

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S01E25: “The Council of Evil Part 1”

Are you excited? Because I’m excited. We’re left with two episodes in Season 1 and it’s a two-parter! There just has to be so much good stuff here. I’m really fired up to see how the writers closed this out.

If you’ve been following along while I recapped the entire season, I thank you and am happy you decided to take this journey with me. Doing anything like this takes a measure of commitment and I’m happy to have had people genuinely interested as i revisited this series since He-Man has been such a big part of my life since as far back as I can remember.

Since we’ve come this far, let’s not waste a lot of time with recaps. We know how we got here and – if you’re just jumping on – the first 24 episode recaps are very available on the homepage for you to go back and read/watch. So, without further ado, let’s jump on our wind raiders and go for a ride.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S01E24: “Separation”

Folks, we’re in the homestretch. Just three episodes to go in Season 1 and we’ve stayed on track. We go through this everyday so there’s no sense in doing a lot of recap, but if you just happen to be stumbling upon this blog for the first time, feel free to go back and catch up on all the wordsy goodness I’ve been providing for this series.

For those of you who have been reading these for the past few weeks, thank you for your clicks and comments as it’s been a fun ride and I’ve enjoyed the discussion, but don’t get comfortable now! Once we finish this off on Thursday, we’re starting right back on Monday with Season 2! I’m excited for all of this so thanks for joining me as we re-experience a personal fave.

OK, so Episode 24. The title doesn’t give anything away. That’s cool, I don’t mind being surprised, but still waiting on those Snake Men to reappear. Who knows if that even comes about at the end of this season now? They sucked me in and now have me hanging. Oh well. Let’s get into this.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S01E23: “The Sweet Smell of Victory”

Welcome to a fresh week of episode rewatches and recaps! We’ve got four episodes to go in Season 1 and – against all odds – we’ll be polishing this off this week. You think you’re excited? Feel these nipples! (This is a BASEketball reference.)

We left off with a filler episode on  after all the wild shit went down the day before. Head back to the homepage and go back if you need to catch up, but it’s all there. I don’t have a damn clue about what today’s episode will consist off, but I’d like to get back to at least a bit of the Snake Men. Despite having the void resealed, Kobra Khan and Rattlor were able to escape and are still presumably lurking around Snake Mountain looking for another opportunity to open the void and free King Hiss.

Skeletor seems to be underestimating the threat the Snakes present to him and, although the Masters and Zodak seemed very aware of the danger, still have to focus on Skeletor since he’s what’s here and now.

It’s quite a predicament for the good guys, the bad guys and even us since we’re trying to figure out how they’re going to move this story along in the final week of the season. With that said, let’s see what they got.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S01E22: “The Island”

Welcome back to your Friday cartoon rewatch! We’re coming off what’s probably the most exciting episode of this series yet so now I can’t wait to see how they follow up.  If they follow up this soon, that is. I speculated yesterday that they may give this episode a week to breath in the story since even I was marking out so hard as it was happening.

That’s not a bad thing. I know the Snake Men play very heavily into Season 2 so it’s not like this episode will just be completely forgotten about and I’m cool with that. The people running this show have earned my trust. I keep coming back and watching the next episode. We gucci.

It’s not like I was losing interest in this series, but yesterday’s episode absolutely kicked my excitement up a notch because of how different and fresh the arrival of King Hiss and the danger the Snake Men presented felt. Even Skeletor was scared shitless of what would happen should the Snakes be freed. It’s an interesting dynamic that I definitely don’t remember being explored in the original and the way it was presented and sold made it feel like the stakes were at their highest.

But Snakes or no Snakes, we have a week to close out here. Episode title gives me no idea where this is heading so let’s just hit play and enjoy.