Roll With It is the fourth episode of Season Two and seventeenth episode overall of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
It was released on Netflix with the rest of the second season on April 26, 2019.
Synopsis[]
The Rebels gather to plan an assault on a Horde occupied tower.
Plot[]
The episode begins with the Best Friends Squad planning an attack on a Horde occupied tower that overlooks a strategic pass. The tower used to be under Rebel control, but the Horde took it over while the Princesses were defending Bright Moon.
During the planning session, Bow uses tiny figures that he made to represent himself, Adora, and Glimmer on the map. Each of them takes a turn to come up with a plan of attack, and their accounting of events is told as part of a fun stylized mini-story.
Adora becomes increasingly frustrated by interruptions from other members of the Princess Alliance, and reluctance by the group to take this planning session as seriously as she wants them to. Adora believes that only a perfect and foolproof plan will result in a successful mission, lamenting that, "[their] plans always fall apart!"
Glimmer countered this by reminding Adora that "[they have] gotten really good at improvising!"
Glimmer's film-noir imagining of the siege on the tower.
While the Alliance was planning their attack, Scorpia was placed in charge of the tower while Catra was away on another mission. Lonnie and Rogelio are in utter disbelief that Catra put Scorpia in charge.
Lonnie activates a spy-bot to eavesdrop on the princesses while they are making their attack plans. The spy-bot catches the princesses arguing over which attack plan they should follow, and during the argument Mermista accidentally pours soda-pop on the spybot, causing it to malfunction.
The Princesses continue to argue over whose plan was best, but Adora is convinced that none of her friends are taking this matter seriously. She becomes upset and recounts her own prediction of what might happen if they couldn’t come up with a ‘perfect plan’ - which in her mind only results in the total defeat of the Princess Alliance at Catra’s hand.
Fortunately, Glimmer reminds the group that they have been in worse situations. "Bad things will happen, that's life... figure out the things you can, and trust that your friends have your back for the rest."
Even though Lonnie and Rogelio aptly prepared the tower and reassured Scorpia that things were under control, the Horde is not able to hold off the attack by the Rebellion which decisively overtook the tower by working together and improvising.
The rebels celebrate as the Horde retreats; Scorpia, Lonnie, and Rogelio vote unanimously to blame Kyle for their defeat.
Characters[]
- Adora/She-Ra
- Bow
- Catra (as imagined by the princesses)
- Frosta
- Glimmer
- Kyle
- Lonnie
- Mermista
- Perfuma
- Rogelio
- Scorpia
Artifacts and Tech[]
Locations[]
- A tower located near a river.
Transcript[]
Gallery[]
See: Roll With It/Gallery
Trivia[]
- There are multiple call-backs to the original show from the 1980s, She-Ra: Princess of Power
- In Bow's rendition of the attack plan, the characters were wearing the outfits of their counterparts from the original 80s series, She-Ra: Princess of Power.
- Bow's version of Catra could turn into a panther, which is what 80s Catra could actually do.
- The "Horde" dragon that Bow introduces (because he 'ran out of bot' figures) may be a reference to Sorrowful the dragon from the 1980's original She-Ra series.
- Whenever Bow is narrating his plan a remix of the original She-Ra main theme music plays.
- The ending rolls the original 1985 TV theme from the "The Secret of the Sword" TV movie from Classical She-Ra.
- The way Mermista introduces herself to the Horde soldiers in her own rendition is a reference to the original opening of both She-Ra and He-Man.
- In Bow's rendition of the attack plan, the characters were wearing the outfits of their counterparts from the original 80s series, She-Ra: Princess of Power.
- Their planning session takes format in the style of a traditional tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game. ND Stevenson is an avid D&D player, and when asked about incorporating tabletop games into this episode, said:
I guess I do draw a lot of inspiration from my DND experiences, but this one was really fun because each character sort of embodies a different type of DND player. Glimmer’s like, “I’m really cool! I’m really bad*ss. I have all these cool spells” and then, you know, not enough spell slots, so she runs out of power at key points. Someone like Adora is like, “No, we have to get this absolutely perfect and I have to know exactly what will happen before we go into it. I have a plan. I can plan this out.” Bow is very kind of a classic, heroic sword-and-sorcery [type] who has a strong concept of everyone in these classic archetypes in this heroic sense.
I think Mermista is kind of like the cool, older sister who doesn’t really know what’s going on in the game and just keeps doubling down on these weird concepts that don’t really fit with the game and everyone just, like, doesn’t know how to stop her. Perfuma is the one who is always trying to use spells in new and creative ways, ways that kind of push the boundaries of reality. Frosta’s just the one who’s drawn a really cool original character and just really wants to talk to everyone about her OC and how cool she is.
I think we’ve all played with at least some of those archetypes in DND, so it was really cool to get to explore the characters through that lens.[1]