Things are usually really fun around here, but right now it’s all gone a teensy bit deadly.

This episode is mainly about Entrapta, Princess of Dryl, and she’s an interesting character for two main reasons. First, she was an evil scientist in the Horde in the original series (and not a princess, although evidently she always had the prehensile hair). Second, she’s canonically autistic in this show (it’s never explicitly stated in the dialogue, though), created with the input of an autistic crew member. While I have some issues with her characterization, it’s always nice to have confirmed neurodivergent representation in a fairly mainstream show.

Anyhow, she’s experimenting with First Ones tech, trying to fuse “ancient and modern” technology, when her robot servants suddenly turn on her.

But naturally, such a brilliant inventor will be of interest to the Rebellion (or she was just next on the list of princesses to recruit).

Meanwhile, Bow’s trying to have a conversation about the princesses not using their powers to solve all their problems, but he’s not getting much headway.

Bow: That was incredibly dangerous!

She-ra: What’s the big deal? It worked.

Bow: Y-you can’t just bust through everything with magic! She-ra could’ve caused an avalanche!

She-ra: But she didn’t, okay? I’ve spent my whole life without powers, no way am I gonna stop using them now.

At this point, Bow’s misgivings are mostly theoretical, and kind of come off more as jealousy (because he’s the only one without magic in the Best Friend Squad). But this is all just set-up for the moral of “you don’t need magic to make a difference”…which they already sorta did two episodes ago, so it’s a bit repetitive.

Then they encounter the plot of this episode!

Bow: Looks like one of Entrapta’s designs. Why would it attack us?

But Glimmer and Adora just rush on in without thinking (or heeding Bow’s warning that Entrapta has traps set up all over the place), so they fall into a trap. THAT might be a more pertinent thing to nag them about, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. And then Bow gets captured, too.

But of course Glimmer teleports them out of the cage they land in…and straight into Entrapta’s labyrinthine castle!

Entrapta: Princesses! I’m saved!

Glimmer: Princess Entrapta? I mean, so good to see you. I hope you don’t mind, but we sort of let ourselves in.

She-ra: And then we let ourselves out of your cage trap thing.

Entrapta: Welcome to Dryl! Things are usually really fun around here, but right now it’s all gone a teensy bit deadly.

And it turns out that Bow was simply taken in by the kitchen staff (evidently the only non-robots in the castle), who are just as perplexed by the evil robots as he is, and much more frightened, considering that fighting robots wasn’t exactly in the job description.

Glimmer: Hi, um, I think we passed this picture already.

Entrapta: Oh, isn’t it cute? You might be right. I usually have my electronic map to get around, but, well, like my bots, it’s sort of evil right now.

Glimmer: Uh, yeah, about that-

She-ra: Why did you invent killer robots?

Entrapta: You’re abnormally tall. Hello! I like your sword, it’s First Ones tech, right? Can I touch it?

She-ra: Uh, thank you, yes, and no! Not right now.

She explains that of course, the robots weren’t designed to kill or be evil; she just made robot servants to do stuff for her, which was more convenient because the human staff often got lost in the castle. And then she tries to demonstrate their sound-activation feature, which naturally summons a robot. She-ra promptly dispatches it, but…

…it kinda turns her evil, too?

At least until Glimmer gets the sword away from her, at which point she detransforms and collapses.

Entrapta: The tall one seems infected, too. She turned less tall. How does it work?

Glimmer: She’s not an “it”! She’s my friend! And what do you mean she’s infected, too?

Entrapta: It’s really fascinating. I’ve been experimenting with a disk that was recovered from a mine in Dryl. It was a game-changer. It held more complete First Ones code than anything I’d ever seen before! But it seems to have reacted with the First Ones tech that powers my bots. It infected them with some sort of a virus.

Glimmer: But why would that make She-ra sick?

Entrapta: Well, I’d have to take her apart to be sure, but since her sword is First Ones tech, it must have spread through that.

Glimmer: First, you’re not taking her apart! She is a person! Second, if we destroy this disk, will it turn off the bots and stop the virus?

Entrapta: Destroy it? But the experiment isn’t complete!

Glimmer: I think we can safely say this experiment is a failure!

Entrapta: But what if it’s no- no, you’re right. It’s a failure.

This leads into my main issues with Entrapta’s characterization, mainly that she veers a little too close to the “autistic sociopath” trope for my liking at times (think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). Just because autistic people have a hard time interpreting social cues doesn’t mean they lack empathy, just that they sometimes have trouble showing it. As a matter of fact, autistic people are some of the most empathetic people I’ve ever encountered.

The other main issue I have with Entrapta’s characterization as an autistic person is, admittedly, a bit of a nitpick, but she tends to present behaviors more in line masculine autistic people than autistic girls and women. It’s hard to blame the creators for this, though, as the majority of medical research regarding autism has focused on how it presents in boys up until the last decade or so. Hence, autism in girls often remains undetected in childhood, because the way they’re socialized often leads to “high-masking” behaviors they develop in order to fit in, so that, combined with the aforementioned lack of research, leads to autistic women remaining undiagnosed well into adulthood. Again, I can’t really blame the creators, but it’s so rare for girls to be characterized as autistic in the first place, it’s annoying when they’re not like ACTUAL autistic girls.

That said, in context, it actually makes sense for Entrapta to exhibit more masculine traits in general since it’s heavily implied that she was mostly raised by literal robots, who presumably didn’t socialize her very well at all, let alone give her proper “feminine socialization.”

Also Adora’s acting very loopy as a result of the virus. But Entrapta finally gets them to the lab…and the robots have locked the door. Glimmer naturally tries to teleport in, but gets nowhere near the offending disk.

But Bow’s busy rallying the troops after they successfully defended the kitchen.

Bow: Sure, we don’t have powers like the princesses, but that never stopped me, and it doesn’t have to stop you.

Baker: But you’re a master archer! We’re just ordinary people.

Bow: I’m a master archer who’s out of arrows! But that never stopped me, either. You each have a skill that only you can do, even if it doesn’t come from some magical jewel. You say you’re just ordinary people? I say you’re warriors of the Rebellion!

And since Bow’s device picked up Glimmer teleporting, he now knows where the lab is, too, because the one thing besides archery he possesses is a brain

Glimmer: Entrapta was experimenting with First Ones tech, and it infected all her machines with some kind of virus, and She-ra’s sword got infected too, and made Adora all…weird! I teleported into the lab, but it’s full of bots, and maybe with She-ra we’d have a chance, but without her, it’s hopeless!

Bow: We don’t need She-ra! We can do this together.

Then Bow manages to shoot a sonic arrow he’d invented at the disk, resulting in the robots destroying the disk for them! He really is the hero of the episode. Entrapta thanks them for saving her by agreeing to join the Rebellion and provide weapons for them.

Adora: I didn’t know She-ra could get sick like that. What if it happens again?

Bow: It won’t. We destroyed that evil She-ra hating disk.

Adora: Good. I never want to feel that way again.

Entrapta: Log, day 105- 104? Eh. The last experiment hit a few bumps, but it was not a total failure. I made some important discoveries. The disk is way more powerful than I ever imagined. With a few adjustments, I’m sure the next experiment will be a success.

Thus we have the setup for one of the best episodes of Season 2! But in the meantime, we’ve got to get back to the main plot…

…next time.