He-Man Reviewed: Season 1 Episode 10 “A Friend in Need”

I immediately thought of the Placebo song with the title in the lyrics. I just hope this episode is just as kinky. That would be interesting. The episode opens with a hooded old man with a nubile young blonde in the back seat. OK, off to a good start! After I’m disappointed to discover that the old man is her father, Zikran, she leaps from the vehicle to embrace with Teela, which renders the my disappointment innate with bliss.

Later, Teela and her friend Ileena rub their clits on the backs of some mechanical horses. Orko approaches them and announces that Jarvan the Sorcerer has escaped from prison, and he’s undoubtedly on the way to rape every body at the palace because he’s pissed that King Randor and He-Man imprisoned him all those years ago. Ileena is like, “Bitch, you live in the ghetto, if Jarvan be climbing in your window, snatching your people up”. Teela laughs it off and insists that its safe, and they gallop off to go get sapphic on a boulder somewhere.

Next we are treated by an introduction to Jarvan. He resembles a grown up version of Sesame Street’s The Count, if he were a pot bellied and had a porn-inspired fu-macnhu ‘stache. He happens to have materialized in the middle of the very desert that Teela and Ileena are riding through. They really are just serving themselves up, aren’t they? He ducks behind some petrified wood, which is what serves for trees in these parts, and uses a spell to cause geysers of noxious gas to erupt from the craters that pock this desert field. He figures they’ll be easier for the taking if they are unconscious.

The horses get spooked, which doesn’t make any sense because they are mechanical. You can even hear them squeaking when they kick their legs. Ileena freaks the fuck out and just stands there like a total rube as this geyser field erupts all around them. While trying to save her, Teela gets blasted off of her horse. One down, one to go!

Meanwhile, Orko is all worried about Teela and Ileena, but Prince Adam assures him that everything is OK, and busts out the fancy com-bracelet he is conveniently wearing to prove it. Ileena answers on Teela’s end and tells him that the bitch has been knocked out cold, so I guess its time for Prince Adam to turn into He-Man! He mounts Battle Cat and prances away on a cloud of recycled animation glory.

Ileena continues to flip out over a still-unconscious Teela as He-Man arrives, immediately smashes a boulder and plugs up all the geysers, which seems a little showy. Teela’s really out, and so they all stand around staring at her like dip-shits. He-Man loads up the girls on Battle Cat, because apparently the mechanical horses ran off all scared. Because that makes sense. Jarvan resolves to follow them so he can include King Randor in his rapey revenge plan.

Back at the palace, Ileena is sitting at a bench, still sobbing, while Jarvan creeps on her from behind a bush. He decides his game will probably be improved a little bit if he wears a disguise. I mean, he does have to get close enough to slip the roofie in her drink somehow, right? That porn ‘stache ain’t gonna do it. Instead of disguising himself as Ryan Gosling, he transforms into an old woman that looks exactly like the old woman version of Evil-Lyn except with a green hood on instead.

So the old lady steps and is all like, “What’s wrong, sweet cheeks, why you crying”? Ileena babbles about how awesome Teela is laments that she was strong and butch and confident too, and so the old woman offers her a sparkling vial of crack and tells her it will cure her sadness and make her strong! It will make her anything she wants, the old woman says. Man, she really sells it, now I want some too.

So Ileena does the crack and immediately starts twirling on the table top like a maniac. Because nothing is free, the old woman claims Ileena’s sweet, blonde honey-pot for her own by making Ileena wear her ring, which I’m pretty sure weds to the old woman. It’s a good thing this isn’t North Carolina (*cough* fuck amendment one *cough*).

Teela, all awake and chipper like nothing happened, finds Ileena in the court yard running around all cracked out and doing back springs and shit. Teela remarks that shes never seen Ileena so keyed up before, and Ileena assures her that she ain’t seen nothing yet. Ileena practically drags Teela by the hair to go scissor violently somewhere.

Elsewhere, Man-At-Arms is showing off this new transmutator ray that Zikran brought with him. It apparently turns anything into something else. Man-At-Arms demonstrates by turning a tree into gold. Hasn’t this douce ever heard of inflation?

You can’t just print more money like that. For the genius he’s supposed to be, he really doesn’t think shit out, does he? So it turns out the ring that the old woman betrothed Ileena with serves as a video transmitting device, and Jarvan immediately knows he needs that transmutator ray.

Later, Ileena is crashing hard from her crack binge. Prince Adam and Teela are all suspicious. Teela just got over her meth addiction, and the last thing they need is crack in the house. Ileena goes off to “get some fresh air”. Once in private, she uses the ring to summon the old woman to score some more crack. She just barley finishes with it when Prince Adam and Teela creep up on her and ask how she’s feeling.

She starts talking faster and faster as the crack kicks in rambles about how good she feels and gets all amped up about taking her dad’s ride for a spin. Teela and Prince Adam are more than a little sketched out about the whole thing, and Teela express serious doubt as to her driving abilities. She literally says, “I can do anything”! Prince Adam is apparently convinced and agrees to take a ride with her.

So the two of them take off in the saucer mobile. Prince Adam is having a conniption over how fast she’s going, and Ileena tells him not to be such a pussy. Then Prince Adam goes flying out of the thing as a result of her erratic driving because, God forbid a flying craft have a seat belt or something. I hope this is when we get to find out if Prince Adam can turn in to He-Man in mid-air! Prince Adam is begging her to land the craft as he desperately clings onto the back, but the dumb cracked out ho that she is, Ileena manages to buck him off instead.

To my joy, I actually did get to find out if Prince Adam can turn into He-Man in mid air. And the answer is yes. But he cheats at it, because they cut out the whole animation - because that would take longer than he has - and truncate it down to just the sword pulsing with energy. OK great, so he’s He-Man now, but even The Incredible Hulk died from falling out of a helicopter in the old TV series. OK, I didn’t buy it either. So as you might have expected, he not only survives, but then catches the wayward saucer as it comes crashing down to the courtyard. Because, what is he if not high and mighty, He-Man shits all over her for doing something so dangerous.

Later, Ileena is crashing again and getting really down on herself. See how quick the downward spiral is, kids? Drugs are bad. She says, “There is only one thing that will make me feel better”. And, poof, the old woman is there to sell her some more crack! Except wait, now there’s an even bigger price to pay! Did I mention that drugs are bad? The old woman wants the transmutator ray as repayment for all the crank she’s been dispensing. Ileena protests, but she knows she’ll give in for a taste of that sweet, sweet rock.

Prince Adam comes in to discover her sobbing over how hopelessly addicted she is. He tries to get her to tell him what’s wrong. She refuses to tell him so he storms off like a little bitch. Maybe he’s going to turn into He-Man and force it out of her at sword-point. Once he’s gone, Ileena continues her expository narrative about how she just can’t bear steal something, and yet she must have her fix!

So, Ileena goes to Man-At-Arms’ lab and apparently her voice is authorized for entrance through the security panel, because that makes sense. Everything is going pretty smoothly until the transmutator ray is too heavy for her to lift. Then Orko happens in, also apparently allowed in the lab, and because he can’t do anything if not fucking suck at life, asks if she needs some help. It’s even worse than I thought. Illena tells him she needs to take it to the terrace. Instead of helping, he just makes it float and tells her now she can just move it where ever she wants, and then immediately leaves her alone with it.

Out on the terrace, the old woman shows up and is mega stoked to have this machine that turns anything into gold, or, what ever else he wants. Like a k-y wrestling match. When Ileena asks the old woman when she gets her fix, Jarvan lifts the veil of his identity and laughs, “Fuck you junky, now that I got my golden goose, you can fucking die in a ditch”! She’s so totally blown from his deception, combined with her crack withdrawal, that she goes out cold.

Back inside the Palace, Zikran is freaking out because the transmutator ray is missing, never mind his daughter. Before he can ramble on any more, Orko comes in and announces that there’s something wrong with Ileena. As they all rush out to see what’s the matter, Ileena comes too and admits she sold the ray to Jarvan to support her crack habit. Immediately, Prince Adam runs off and turns into He-Man for the third time in the episode! I’m pretty sure that’s a record!

Jarvan materializes in the courtyard. Showing a little brains, he realizes that He-Man will be coming after him and hides behind a tree, waiting to blast turn him into gold. Or a gay k-y wrestling match. As I’ve gotten farther into this show, some of the episodes are starting to bleed together, but I’m pretty sure I remember another episode in which He-Man gets turned to gold. But He-Man definitely has not been in a gay k-y wrestling match. At least, not that they’ve shown.

He-Man dodges the first blast. Jarvan then sets the ray to freeze mode and causes a bush to turn into ice. Since that didn’t work, he causes the ray to make fire as He-Man runs toward him. He-man backs up and takes a running leap and easily clears the fire line. Jarvan uses a magic flash grenade and stuns He-Man long enough to start blasting at him again. As he blasts away, Jarvan explains that he is turning the air around He-Man into stone. Well, at least we have the explanation for why He-Man doesn’t just die from having all his organs turned to stone.

Next, Jarvan uses the ray to shrink the palace, hopefully so he can just stomp on it like an ant hill or something. Maybe this guy is smarter than I thought! He-Man easily breaks out of the rock bonds that he’s in, but Jarvan just makes a force field around himself for protection. He-Man doesn’t bother trying to break through it and runs off in favor of trying to hold the palace up from the center in the hopes of stopping it from being shrunk. Yeah, good call. He does what is probably the seventeenth somersault in this episode just in time to enter a shrinking room. He braces himself against the wall, which actually stops the palace from shrinking, at least for a moment, because that makes sense.

Not only does it work, but He-Man overcomes the shrinking and is able to shove the walls outward, which causes the transmutator ray to explode. The He-Man song plays while Man-At-Arms explains how it was possible for He-Man to overload the ray by forcing the walls outward, all while Jarvan escaped. However, Ileena realizes they can summon Jarvan with the ring the old woman gave her so she could call him for crack. He-Man can’t resist the urge to guilt trip her for getting tricked into drug addiction by an old lesbian woman.

So Man-At-Arms juices up the ring with an amplifier and they use it to summon Jarvan. He immediately puts up a fight and binds He-Man in a band of gold and runs off. Ileena, trying too hard to prove herself, takes off after him. But on account of his beer belly, she catches up to him pretty easily. Once she’s caught him, she tries to scissor his neck to death, because it’s the only thing she knows how to do, scissor.

Her musk is so strong that Jarvan gets woozy and falls to the floor. He-Man, freshly freed from his bonds steps over to piss on his face and kick him in the ribs a few times. The he assures Jarvan that he’s going back to prison. OK, so as far as I can tell, Jarven is a fuck of a lot smarter than Skeletor, yet Skeletor somehow manages to escape incarceration at the failing of every single one of his schemes?

Later, back on the terrace, He-Man is being all high and mighty about how bad drugs are for you. He tells Ileena that the only way to feel good is to feel good about your self. Accepting herself as the young, crack addicted lesbian she is, Ileena embraces her lover, Teela, and gazes into her eyes, longing for acceptance.

Time for this week’s moral! I think it’s going to be about how drugs are bad and lesbians are good! I’m not too far off, because He-Man comes on to say that drugs are bad. He says you should never take drugs from anyone but your doctor or your parents. So it’s OK to take my parents’ drugs? I seem to remember an 80s anti-drug commercial in which a kid sitting on a bed with a herion kit says to his dad “I learned it from watching you! And He-Man”! Yeah, real good moral, douche.