Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E13: “Awaken the Serpent”

Friends, we’ve made it. It’s not the results, it’s the journey and I’m happy to say that the last two months on this journey through the telling of the mythos of the happenings on Eternia has been incredibly fun.

From the beginning, I’ve been upfront about my love for all things MOTU and when I decided to go back through the wormhole of rewatching this series I was admittedly a bit nervous to see how it would hold up since I had remembered enjoying this reboot very much when it was new and hip and fresh and I’m pleased to report that it has confirmed my feelings as well as further stoking my love for the property.

It’s been a really fun ride and although I’m happy to have gotten to this point, I am already feeling a tinge of sadness that we’ve come to the end. We can delve more into my feelings at the end once we’ve finished the episode, but right now we’ve got a story to complete. There is no “until next time.”

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E12: “History”

Friends, we’ve got so much to get into and only about 44 minutes of actual He-Man time to go. With just two episodes remaining, we’re coming off a dramatic turn of events in yesterday’s episode where King Hiss was able to escape with the Medallion of Serpos that – I’m assuming – give him super snake powers. Which is wild because he was already pretty powerful as a regular snake with no medallion.

I mentioned this in my final thoughts yesterday, but I’m really worried about getting left with a cliffhanger as there just feels like so many unanswered questions remaining, but I’m hopeful for a satisfying conclusion. Doing this rewatch of the entire series has been a lot of fun and a nice, tidy finale would leave me with a very good and lasting memory.

If you feel like you missed out on anything prior, simply head back and read all the other recaps (which I obviously encourage you do regardless) and come right back here to watchalong.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E11: “Rattle of the Snake”

Welcome back! This is it, people. Our last three days with the 200X He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series! Thirty-six down, three to go and let’s hope these last 90 minutes knock it out of the park and leave us with nothing but fond memories.

When we left off, the Snake Men decimated all of Webstor’s spider-children who had been fed ambrosia, the potent food of the bee people that normally toxic to non-Andreenids, but – because of Webstor’s insect-biology, it mutated him into a more powerful version of himself.

As the Snakes combed through caves and mountains looking for fresh meat to bring to King Hiss, they came across the spiders, murdered and consumed them and, with that, the ambrosia that filled them. The final scene left us with a silhouette of Hiss feeling the surge of power caused by the ambrosia.

We can take guesses about what today’s title will lead to, but that would just be wasting time. Let’s hit play and do this, Brutus.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E10: “Web of Evil”

Welcome to your Friday episode rewatch! We’re coming off one of the better episodes in the series to date and with only four remaining, let’s hope we get a goodie to close out the week strong.

Let’s recap everything going on:

• King Hiss and his Snake Men are alive and well
• Skeletor just welched on his promise to serve Hordak by destroying his sanctuary so he’s unable to return to Eternia from Despondos
• Evil-Lyn is still acting as if she’s down with Skeletor after having allied herself with the Snakes and is the only one – outside of He-Man – who is aware of what Skeletor has done to Hordak
• Zodak is deep into his meditation and can’t help with anything
• The Sorceress is fucking useless and for someone with a ton of power, she’s not very effective at using it
• The Masters getting overwhelmed. They’re dealing with threats from the Snake Men as well as Skeletor and had the looming threat of Hordak over them and it’s an awful lot to take on seeing as how all these great allies King Randor has made with his council are never around to help when the battling happens

With that out of the way, we are ready to rock ‘n roll.

Daily Cartoon: He-Man & The Masters of the Universe S02E09: “The Power of Grayskull”

We’re back with another He-Man episode rewatch! This is Episode 35 overall and what a ride it’s been!

When we left off yesterday, the Masters had foiled King Hiss’s big plans to turn everyone in Eternia into Snake Men, but the Snakes were able to get away and will, no doubt, return to fight again. Up until this point, the Masters had been unaware of the Snakes survival after the battle for Grayskull in which it appeared Hiss had been killed by Zodak and dropped into the abyss.

Also unaware of Hiss and the Snakes’ survival is Skeletor and that dynamic should begin to get fleshed out now that they’ve reappeared into public consciousness.

There’s a lot of angles in play here and you can fantasy book a lot of wild shit. Personally, I’d have He-Man and Skeletor team up to fight the Snakes and then have an Eternian pizza party to celebrate. But that’s just one man’s opinion. Let’s see what people who actually got paid to come up with this stuff did.

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 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.