He-Man Reviewed: Season 1 Episode 16 “Reign of the Monster”

Cool. I like the sound of this episode. I expect that, as often is the case, it is a misnomer and there will hardly be an "reign" of what ever monster we are in for. We get right to the point as Skeletor is down in some cave surrounded by some cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers (C.H.U.D. for those of you that are not up on your 80s horror) wearing metal bowls on their heads while they stand around watching him conduct some magic ritual to revive the titular “monster” from its captivity in a crystal formation.

It doesn’t work so Skeletor pitches a fit and slaps his cauldron over like a little bitch. Seriously. I laughed so hard. I watched it at least three times in a row before I started making the GIF out of it. There are moments in each episode – sometimes more than one – where I say, “that’s it. That’s the fucking GIF moment”. This was definitely it.

So Skeletor is pissed at himself, and King Von, lord of the C.H.U.D., is bitching at him too, because Skeletor A) knocked over the vat of bath salts they were making and B) promised them that he would use his magic to find a crack in the crystal and free the monster. Skeletor bitches about the magic of the elder’s being too strong, which doesn’t make any sense because it has been alluded that Skeletor is ancient, so it seems like he would be one of the elders. Anyway, he needs something that belonged to the elders to generate enough power and magic to break the crystal.

Elsewhere, He-Man’s voice over is heard as we gaze upon the realm of some other city-state or clan or village or what ever it would be. It is even more ridiculously located than Prince Adam’s village, as it is built on top of and around the stalactites of a giant stalactite mountain. I bet this is where Stratos lives. Yep. It sure is. He-Man, Teela, Man-At-Arms, Ram Man, Battle Cat, Orko, and a bunch of Stratos’ people stand thanking Stratos for inviting them to his ceremony.

He-Man says, “It’s only once a year you take out that staff given to your people by the elders”. Orko says, “Just what does that staff do, Stratos”? What a fucking coincidence! Skeletor just happens to need something of the elders for his evil plot this week! Seriously, do the writers even care are little? Anyway, Stratos demonstrates is capabilities, which apparently is to blast fireworks into the air. I’m not impressed.

Apparently, those fireworks also serve as a beacon for Skeletor’s new friends who immediately show in up in flying crafts. Who knew the C.H.U.D. had engineers? I just remember Kevin McCallister’s dad trying to stop homeless people from getting eaten by them, so I didn’t assume the C.H.U.D. had time in between taking bath salts and eating the faces of the homeless to found an aeronautics discipline.

Teela and Man-At-Arms man some photon cannons while He-Man flies around on a sky bike shooting at them. The C.H.U.D manage to blow up the photon cannons just as Teela and Man-At-Arms escape. They shoot He-Man out of the sky. Teela and Man-At-Arms asking if he’s alright. “Just mussed my hair”. That’s really what He-Man said. He just “mussed” his hair. What a chode.

For some stupid reason, Stratos is just flying around all nonchalant, not even paying attention when the C.H.U.D. spy the staff of the elders in his hand. They easily extend a mechanical claw from their craft and capture him, reigning him inside. Having captured the staff, the C.H.U.D. take off. He-Man just stands there like a buffoon wondering who they are and what just happened.

Back at the cave of the C.H.U.D., Stratos is restrained and refuses to tell Skeletor how use the staff. Skeletor blasts him with some eye magic to brainwash him into telling. Simultaneously, over at Castle Grayskull, He-Man is asking the Sorceress about this Molkrom creature the C.H.U.D. mentioned. She uses her magic mirror to show them. He’s like a giant minotaur with weird whip-like appendages instead of arms that can shoot heat vision out of his eyes.

The elders had decided that the C.H.U.D. were too powerful with Molkrom on their side, and so they used their magic to imprison him in their caves. The staff’s fireworks can apparently melt the crystal he is trapped in. If freed, Molkrom has the power to destroy Castle Grayskull. Even worse, once the staff is used for evil, unless it is used to undo the evil, like, immediately, it will explode and take half of Eternia with it. The stakes are so high that Orko shits his pants.

Wasting no time, He-Man et. al. go exploring the caves in Attak Trak and immediately encounter some kind of giant rock rhino anteater. They drive circles between its legs, but it easily catches them and picks up Attak Trak, shaking it. Oh, this one’s easy. He-Man will activate an electric charge and it will drop them, they’ve done this before. Yep, that’s exactly what fucking happens. Then He-Man gets out (along with everybody else) and grabs the thing by the tail, and flings it across the cave. Then another one shows up.

They all take off on foot into some smaller passages, only to be confronted by the C.H.U.D. Man-At-Arms is the most freaked out because, with that mustache and old man face, he’s the closest thing to homeless person and is liable to get his face eaten. Just as Battle Cat is going to show the C.H.U.D. what it feels like to get their face eaten, Skeletor appears behind door number one with the staff of the elders. Behind door number two is the brain washed Stratos. Actually, there’s like a bunch of Stratos’. What the fuck?

So one of them is the real Stratos, but they are all brain washed. So this way, He-Man can’t just murder them all, because he has no way of knowing which is the real one. The group of Stratos’ attack and fly up to the ceiling, ineffectually shooting at them. He-Man and crew try various things like throwing boulders and bolos, but to no avail. Conveniently, Stratos’ sister, Delora, is with them. She flies up and tries to talk them out of their brain washing. The real Stratos grabs his head as he tries to fight it, while the fake ones keep on blasting. Stratos overcomes the brain washing, and wills the other Stratos’ away, causing them to just disappear, which doesn’t make any sense, what so ever. That was easy.

In another part of the cave, Skeletor is holding the magic staff and speaking his evil incantation, hoping to rouse the dormant Molkrom. As Skeletor exposes the weak point in the crystal, He-Man and crew show up to stop him. Skeletor just hurries up and finishes breaking the crystal, freeing Molkrom. Skeletor commands Molkrom to vanquish his enemies, so Molkorm blows them into a cave with super breath, then uses his weird vision power to create a stone door over the thing, which you know He-Man is just going to use a recycled animation sequence to break. But Skeletor is too stupid to realize this. He-Man and friends sit in their temporary quarters and listen to Skeletor recite his plan before he takes off on Molkrom’s back to go dominate Castle Grayskull. I realize I’ve already seen too many He-Man episodes when He-Man humors me and uses a recycled animation punch to break the stone barrier and escape. He-Man, Ram Man and Man-At-Arms (that’s a lot of mans!) take off to go stop Skeletor and Molkrom while everyone else stays back to rescue to the staff of the elders.

At Castle Grayskull, the Sorceress looks down from a castle window at Skeletor and Molkrom. She causes fire to rise up from the moat surrounding the Castle in the hopes that it will stop Molkrom. Just when I thought this show was predictable and that Molkrom would use his super breath on it, instead he makes it vanish with his eye powers. Not only that, but he makes a stone bridge appear too, thus traversing the moat.

Skeletor boasts that Molkrom’s magic is stronger that the Sorceress’, then commands him to break down the drawbridge. I’m again surprised when he doesn’t use magic, but instead rams the thing with his head. On his second attempt, these mechanical tendrils come out of nowhere and take hold of Molkrom, softening the blow. It’s He-Man, piloting another one of the palace's many military craft. Skeletor uses his magic staff to ensnare Man-At-Arms and Ram Man in a giant, barren tree, while Molkrom is winning in a game of tug of war with He-Man and his vehicle.

At the cave of the C.H.U.D., Teela commands Orko to distract the guards (bet he fucks up a magic trick for them) while she runs up and grabs the staff. She doesn’t even wait for Okro to run his distraction before she runs in. Women. They’re so reactionary! I’m just getting too good at this. Orko uses magic to dazzle them and lift the C.H.U.D. up into the air so Teela can run underneath them into the open door to the treasure vault where the staff is being kept. Proving the accuracy of my prediction, Orko fucks it up and drops them before Teela is even close. What a chode.

Well, it doesn’t matter because all the C.H.U.D. take off after Orko, Stratos and Delora while Teela sneaks out from behind a rock near the door and slips inside. Just as Teela is about to take hold of the staff, the C.H.U.D. king reaches out and snatches it away from her. She’s all like, “give it back”, and The C.H.U.D. king’s all like, “I’ll give you this giant studded dildo instead”! Teela has to think about it for a second while she closes her eyes and imagines how good it would feel in her ass.

Back at Castle Grayskull, Man-At-Arms and Ram Man struggle to escape their bonds. He-Man continues his game of tug of war with Molkrom. Molkrom gains the upper hand when he flings the vehicle. He-Man severs the mechanical tendrils and then ejects a sky bike from the main vehicle hull, kind of like the Bat-pod in The Dark Knight. He flies around Molkrom’s head trying to dizzy him until Molkrom snatches him out of the air with one of his whip-arms and tries to eat him.

The Sorceress comes to his rescure, turning into her falcon form and flashing a bunch of lights in Molkrom’s face. Molkrom smacks her out of the air while dropping He-Man. He-Man makes sure she’s OK before he goes to stop Skeletor from opening the castle drawbridge. He-Man is pretty confident that the act of opening the drawbridge will sap all of Skeletor’s power, making it all the easier for He-Man to corn-hole him.

Back at the cave of the C.H.U.D., Stratos is coming under fire. Orko and Delora steal one of the C.H.U.D. craft and use it to blast at the C.H.U.D., scaring them away. The go to rescue Teela, and discover that she’s already dominated the C.H.U.D. king. I don’t see that giant studded dildo, so I’m assuming she put it up his ass. Or maybe her ass, its impossible to tell. She gives the staff to Stratos to take to He-Man before it explodes.

At Castle Grayskull, Skeletor continues blasting the drawbridge with this staff, trying to open it. The Sorceress is on the other side using her magic to pull it closed as Skeletor tugs from the other side. Stratos shows up just in time and tosses the staff of the elders to He-Man. Before he can use it, Molkrom blasts it out of his hands and the staff falls over the edge of the moat trench and lodges in a rock.

He-Man gets into a brawl with Molkrom and tosses him aside just long enough to recover the staff. He tosses it in to orbit (yes, orbit), just before it explodes. It explodes harmlessly in space. When it does, it causes Molkrom to become trapped in the crystal again, the trees that bind Mat-At-Arms and Ram Man disappear, and then the staff falls back to Eternia, not having actually exploded, which doesn’t make any sense.

Skeletor, however, is still struggling against the Sorceress to get the drawbridge open. She calls to He-Man telling him that she is weakening. Skeletor gets it open and, as usual, celebrates his victory a little too early. As he is about to set foot on the draw bridge, He-Man catches him by the shoulder and then bear hugs so he can bugger Skeletor’s anus. See? I knew He-Man was going to corn-hole him! Skeletor disappears in em-bare-ass-ment (get it?).

Back at Avion, they are about to really set shit off, now that they have the staff back, when Orko flies by crying for help. He is being chased by what looks like a tiny RC version of the C.H.U.D. craft. They all laugh at his dumb ass while fireworks go off in celebration.

Time for this week’s moral lesson! I think it’s going to be about how you should drive to the nearest firework permitting state and buy illegal fireworks like everyone else, rather than use an ancient magic staff to put on a fireworks display. This way you can avoid awakening an ancient minotaur monster. Keep this in mind as the Fourth of July holiday nears, kiddies. Instead, Orko comes on screen to tell us that even things that look and smell good could be dangerous, and we shouldn't eat them. Like antifreeze. He tells us to always ask our parent’s permission before we eat any antifreeze.