The Best Friend Squad heads for the Heart while the princesses attack the spire so Entrapta can disrupt the chip network. Horde Prime makes his move.
Tropes:
- Apologetic Attacker: Sea Hawk hopes that Mermista will forgive him for tricking her into letting Perfuma knock out her chip while her guard was down.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In the illusory world, Mara asks Adora what she wants after all this is over, making Adora realize that she hasn't planned for it.
- Big Damn Heroes: Glimmer singlehandedly knocks out all the clones on the ground with a single blast.
- Call-Back:
- Shadow Weaver uses a vial of the same blue dust she used to escape from the Horde to teleport herself, Catra and Melog to the Crystal Castle. And afterwards she is shown coughing up shadows much like what happened when she showed up in Bright Moon.
- Catra tells Bow and Glimmer that it's time for her to make good on a promise she made to Adora long ago.
- Cliffhanger: Fittingly for the first part of the series finale the episode ends on quite a few. Entrapta has been captured by Horde Prime forcing Bow to go to the spire to activate her signal. Once there he and Melog are confronted by the still brainwashed Scorpia. The Rebellion has just barely managed to defeat Mermista when Micah arrives and uses his dark magic to immobilize all but Glimmer in place leaving her alone to fend off her brainwashed father. And finally Horde Prime's virus has almost reached the Heart of Etheria and Prime infects the Heart's defense system using it to attack Adora which knocks her out of She-Ra's form and leaves her to defend herself against the monster.
- Crazy-Prepared: It's revealed the First Ones always suspected that a She-Ra might turn on them, so they placed a "defense system" consisting of a venomous tentacled monster in the depths of the Crystal Castle to deal with such a situation. When Horde Prime gets control of it, it inflicts a wound which knocks Adora out of She-Ra's form and poisons her with Prime's 'planet hacking' virus as well.
- Drowning My Sorrows: It's implied that Shadow Weaver was hitting the bottle when Catra found her; Noelle Stevenson confirmed in a Twitch stream that Shadow Weaver was “30% wine drunk” during this scene.
- The Fog of Ages: Yet again, reference is made to Horde Prime being really, really old, when he sees the projection of Mara, who he can't recognize despite knowing that they must have met at some point.Horde Prime: How strange. I must have fought her, must have known her face...but I have no memory of it.
- From Bad to Worse: The Rebellion were just barely able to take down Mermista when suddenly Micah arrives and paralyzes everyone except Glimmer.
- Ground Pound: Glimmer makes her entrance into the Princesses vs. Clones, Mermista & Scorpia battle this way, teleporting in among the group of clones, and punching an energy blast when she lands.
- Headbutt of Love: The Crystal Castle's hologram of Catra does this to Adora just before the illusion vanishes. As the hologram was drawn from Adora's memories of Catra, it disproves Catra's belief that Adora doesn't have feelings for her.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Mermista magically controls water. She generates a small tidal wave in an effort to take out the Princesses, but Glimmer & Castaspella first block it with a shield, then reshape the shield to hold all the water and hurl it back, nearly knocking Mermista out.
- Hope Spot: A very short-lived one. The 'drill' positioned over a crystal leading to the Heart of Etheria stops dead once it makes contact, and the glow of its energy vanishes as well. But Horde Prime had no intention of wasting time and energy trying to drill through the crystal; he just needed direct contact to start his hack of the planet.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Sea Hawk gets through to Mermista the only way he knows how: being so annoying that she has to break free of her programming just to complain about it.
- Insult of Endearment: Glimmer affectionately calls Catra "Horde scum" as she and Bow leave Catra behind to rescue Adora. Catra returns the favor by calling her "Sparkles".
- Love Confession: We get two!
- Before they head into battle, Glimmer admits to Bow that she loves him, and he returns it.
- While distracting her, Sea Hawk tells Mermista that he loves her, and though she doesn't reply (she's still chipped at the time) it does momentarily break her possession, seemingly proving she feels the same for him. It's also worth noting that her usual Tsundere feelings towards his antics breaks through as well.
- Meaningful Echo: Catra repeats Glimmer's appeal to Shadow Weaver to "do one good thing for once in [her] life".
- Noodle Incident: Horde Prime is sure that he and Mara must have met and fought each other at some point, but The Fog of Ages means that he has no memory of it, so we don't have any details on what happened.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Catra's reaction when she realizes that Horde Prime is hacking Etheria.
- Bow's reaction when Catra mentions that Horde Prime has Entrapta, meaning she never got to send the signal to deactivate the mind control chips.
- Glimmer when she sees Castaspella and the others immobilized by a shadow magic spell.
- Power Incontinence: Adora's emotional turmoil and confidence issues cause her to briefly shift in and out of She-Ra several times.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Done by Catra to Shadow Weaver when the older woman begins to wax philosophical about Adora's course of action.Catra: Adora! Adora!
Shadow Weaver: She's not here.
Catra: What do you mean "she's not here"? Where is she?!
Shadow Weaver: She's gone to the Heart of Etheria to free the magic and become the hero she was born to be. If you are still so selfish as to try and stop—
Catra: ENOUGH! This isn't about you and your messed up power trip anymore. - We Need a Distraction: Sea Hawk flirts with and annoys Mermista to distract her so Perfuma can break her chip.
- Wham Line: After nearly five full seasons, one line from Catra finally removes any ambiguity about what her feelings for Adora are.Catra: Adora doesn't want me! Not like I want her.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- Melog tries to tell this to Catra — who can understand their meows, comforting her after she thinks Adora has chosen Shadow Weaver over her and trying to get her to go back.
- Mara begs Adora to stop being so self-sacrificial, that she's worthy of love and a happy ending too. Sadly, the conversation is interrupted by Horde Prime.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Adora fears that even after she broke the sword, she's still following her destiny as She-Ra.
