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She-ra Season 5 Thoughts and Review

I believe that she-ra stuck the landing with its final season. I did have a few issues, but overall I really loved it. I remember when the first season initially released I watched it because I had just finished watching trollhunters and had just started voltron and was excited to see what dreamworks had in store next. The first season contained one of my favorite animated episodes of that year with “Promise”. I was struck by how good the character writing was for Catra, Adora, and their dynamic. That wasn’t the only surprise I experienced when it came to the character writing, Angella and Glimmer’s relationship also had more depth than I was expecting. It became one of my most anticipated animated shows right after that season and I’ve been on board ever since and I don’t regret the ride one bit. So of course I woke up at 2 am my time despite having to work in the morning to watch the entire 5th season of she-ra. Here are my thoughts and there are a lot.

I know the season is new so I’m putting my thoughts below the cut because there are spoilers. 

I want to start with what I loved most about the season. Catra’s redemption. This arc was easily my favorite part of the season, maybe even the whole series. This is what I’ve been waiting for since the series started and I wasn’t disappointed. Catra has been, in my opinion, the show's best and most consistently great character. She’s incredibly complex and trying to write about everything that makes her well written in a single paragraph would not do it justice. (That’s the subject of a meta that would need to split up season by season) I liked that we finally got to see Catra admit out loud what she must have been thinking for awhile. That she’s sorry and that she doesn’t want to be evil and have the bad actions define the rest of her life. This has felt like a long time coming. There have been multiple episodes dedicated to making it clear that her goal to conquer Etheria is superficial and not what she truly wants or needs. Catra has tried to gain power so that she can’t be hurt by people again. Physically by people like shadow weaver and emotionally, however unintentionally, by people like Adora. So when she finally acknowledged that she has been lying to herself the whole time and that she really does care about Adora I was relieved. She could finally start taking the steps to get the love and happiness that she has so desperately wanted this entire time and she does get it through Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. She finally starts expressing her emotions in a healthy manner. Through her arc we see that redemption isn’t just one big decision, but many decisions that have to be made every day. It is made clear that bettering herself is hard, that she has to work on it and she has the resolve to do just that. I really liked that they had her struggle to continuously work towards self betterment like when she initially pushes Adora away after “Save the Cat” and her attempt to leave after Adora accepts the failsafe, but in the end she does make the hard choice to own up to her shortcomings and face the things she fears. If she hadn’t had any obstacles after doing “that one good thing with [her] life” I would have had problems with her arc, but it was handled very well and realistically. I really liked Catra’s redemption arc and thought that it all came full circle in the end.

I really like the interactions between Glimmer and Catra early in the season. Their bonding over their shared connection to Adora was sweet. I liked how they integrated Glimmer as the good influence in Catra’s redemption arc. The good influence is a staple of the villain to hero arc typically. This one was interesting because this was after Catra’s wake up call from double trouble and because Glimmer herself is in need of a redemption of sorts after last season. They both are a “good” influence on each other. Catra has deep seeded doubts about her path in life, but she’s also scared to leave her path. It’s because she saw herself in glimmer last season that she starts to let Glimmer influence her. Glimmer made a huge mistake and pushed her friends away for the same/similar reasons as to why Catra does and it led to her making a rash decision that almost destroyed Etheria. Catra’s decision to open the portal and Glimmer’s decision to activate the heart of Etheria are directly paralleled with the key difference being how they dealt with realizing they made a terrible mistake. Glimmer acknowledged she made a mistake and struggled, despite the futility, to fix it whereas Catra drove herself deeper into denial. Catra got to see Glimmer strive to fix her mistake and regret over how she treated Adora and Bow and can no longer deny her own faults and care for Adora. Glimmer, through Catra’s sacrifice, realizes that she was wrong about pure goods and pure evils. That there is a shot at redemption even for people like Catra. That doesn’t necessarily mean forgiveness but working/trying to be a better person or doing the “one good thing in [their] life”. Both changed the other and I loved the new dynamic.

(On a semi side note I loved the interactions of the new best friends squad)

Catra and Adora’s relationship has been the heart of the show since season 1. Be it romantic or platonic or enemies they have always been driving each other’s character arcs. I don’t really ship but I am a fan of how their relationship intertwined with their character arcs. The way it played into Catra’s descent and redemption as well as Adora’s struggles was fantastic. Catra realizing that she really does care about Adora and regrets her actions played perfectly into how she was able to bring Adora’s arc to completion and get Adora to think of a future and what she wants instead of resigning herself to dying for others. And it was Adora never giving up on Catra that made it so that Catra can start moving forward from her abuse and fear of abandonment. The final decision where Catra tells Adora she won’t leave no matter what happens and Adora accepts her decision is what completed both characters' arcs.

The perfect summation of their relationship is their arc words and how they evolve. Their main arc word is “promise”. This has been echoed season after season with none of the previous ones being entirely kept. This season is different. The promises that Adora and Catra make are kept until the end. Their other arc words evolve from “come with me” to “stay with me” in this season. On the surface level they seem to have similar meanings but in the context of Adora and Catra’s relationship they have completely different meanings. “Come with me” is reminiscent of someone leaving, like Adora does in the beginning, because they aren’t happy with where they are and they have to move forward and they want someone to follow. This is what triggers the fractures in their relationship. Adora leaves and chooses something else over staying with Catra which is Catra’s biggest fear and causes her resentment towards Adora for breaking the promise to always be together. Catra isn’t at the point where she can follow Adora. She is too hurt emotionally and right then unable to move past her abuse. With the words changing to “stay with me” this season it’s about keeping someone from leaving rather than having someone leave with you. Catra has finally gotten to a point where she has finally come with Adora. She has opened up to others and started to move forward in spite of the abuse inflicted on her. She is “with” Adora. They are in the same place and Adora wants to sacrifice it and leave because she feels she has to, not because she wants to. So when Catra says “stay with me” she means don’t give up, don’t give in to the destiny thrown at you, keep fighting to the end with me. So the arc words come full circle as well. Catra’s greatest fear is being left so until that point she left people first and now she is holding on and fighting for the connections. It’s a great bookend to her arc. And Adora accepting Catra’s decision to stay marks the completion of her arc as well. Adora finally lets someone help her through to the end. Both these characters have come so far and I’m just happy that they got happy endings.

I really liked how they sort of inverted the typical heroic character arc with Adora this season. In a traditional hero arc the hero starts out selfish and then becomes selfless. Adora however has been selfless since the beginning. To the point of it being her fatal flaw. Adora has always sacrificed her happiness and well being for others and in this season she learns the limits to this self harming sort of selflessness. She’s always believed that to have worth she had to help others and solve all their problems even at cost to herself. This season she learns that it isn’t selfish to want a future, to not want to die saving everyone and how that can be a strength. That if you have something you want to live for it will help you power through in times where Hope seems lost.  “You’re worth more than what you can give to other people” It was a touching message that I was happy was given so much emphasis.

Adora’s arc is so well done. I really love how deep of a dive they decided to take into her character and trauma. Up until this season everyone seemed able to brush aside how deeply Adora’s abuse effected her and how her experiences in the show have just reinforced the toxic thought process that she is the most disposable person in every room and that she needs to be needed or no one will want her around. And how easily these traits can be misconstrued as heroic or overbearing by those around her rather than the mental scars that they are. I loved how it was all displayed and confronted. It was a very emotional journey and I wasn’t really expecting it when I went into the season, but I was really happy to be surprised by it. Mental abuse is frequently thought of as lesser and not as damaging, but this show took the time to show how horrible and pervasive the effects of mental abuse can be. Adora is a good person that has been hurt and screwed over by shadow weaver and led to believe that her life is meaningless unless given in service to a greater cause. This is a damaging mindset and one that is romanticized frequently in media, so I was really glad that it got addressed this season and that they came to such a satisfying conclusion. It’s okay to want to live, it’s okay to want a future, it’s okay to want to be happy, and that it’s these desires that give Adora the strength to power through and save everyone in the end.

Now onto the things I didn’t really like. There aren’t many. For one I felt like there was a bit more mood whiplash in this season than the last two. It didn’t bother me that often, but I thought it was strange how soon after the emotionally charged episodes of “save the cat” and “taking control” there was a mostly comedic one with “perils or peekablue” which pulled me out of the events of that episode until the end where Scorpio sacrificed herself. And how right after “Corridors”, another highly emotional episode, there was “stranded” which while not at all a bad episode didn’t have even close to the emotional weight of the previous one and was significantly more lighthearted. I just wish the tone was balanced a bit better in the comedic episodes.

Horde prime, while intimidating, wasn’t as compelling a villain to me as Catra, Shadow weaver, or Hordak. I will be rewatching the season so my opinion may change. During my first watch through I was mainly focusing on Adora, Catra, and Glimmer, so this time I’ll try and take in everything else.

 I want to make it clear that I don’t think shadow weaver was redeemed in her final act. Even then she put emphasis on the importance of destroying the heart to free the magic rather than on Catra and Adora’s survival. I’m not entirely sure what they were going for with her sacrifice, but I was at the very least glad that both Catra and Adora stood up to shadow weaver in this season in ways they had failed to do previously. Catra made it clear that she didn’t care about shadow weaver and her opinion and that it was Adora she cared about and Adora made it clear that Catra wasn’t a distraction or any of the things shadow weaver says about her. I’m not really a fan of her saying she was proud of Catra in the end because it felt really hollow. Shadow weaver wasn’t a good person at all and both Catra and Adora deserved much better than her.

I was overall a big fan of this season. I found it to be a much better ending than many of the cartoons I’ve seen recently and I will definitely rewatch it in the future. I really like the character writing present in she-ra. Catra, Adora, and Glimmer are some of the best written characters in recent memory. 

Addendum: I loved She-ra’s redesign! The animation and music in this season were superb. I just want to thank Noelle and everyone who worked on this show for all the hard work and love they put into this work.