Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

While I gave "Song of the Petalars" high marks for being surprisingly touching, I'm giving "Journey to the Tower of Omens" an ace grade because it was just a really solid adventure. With all the events that transpired it actually had a sort of "season finale" feel to it - which now just makes me even more excited for the actual season finale.

So we already knew that the "tech" on Third Earth had direct ties to Mumm-Ra, but early on in this one we got a flashback that gave us a bit more back-story on Mumm-Ra - or should I say "Lord Mumm-Ra - and his relationship with the Cats. Granted not all of the questions were answered, but it was fun to see that the Cats did, once upon a time, have tons of tech; tanks, flying ships and whatnot. So this explains the ThunderTank and why there are mechanical items out there with Cat emblems on them.

What I still don't know is A: who Mumm-Ra stole the Eye from and B: how long ago all this happened. Was that supposed to be Claudus with Mumm-Ra? And was Captain Tygus Tygra's father? Later on all Mumm-Ra claimed to know about Claudus was that he knew he killed him - which he boasted about to Lion-O. But whatever questions that I still had immediately ceased to matter when I saw Mumm-Ra riding around him his totally pimp Mumm-Ra Tank!

The rest of the episode played out in a typical "quest" fashion, with lots of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade thrown in for good measure (spinning blade hallway, cliff drop that requires "faith," etc). So some of the Tower of Omens traps were a bit typical, but it was still fun to watch because this was the first time the Cats acted like a team. Even Panthro seemed proud to finally find the temple - claiming that all he seemed to need were the right teammates.

I have to say that I thought there would be more of an active love triangle with Lion-O, Cheetara and Tygra, but all we've see so far is her getting touchy-feely with Lion-O. There was a moment at the end of this one where Panthro teased Tygra about being infatuated with her, but at that point I mostly cared that Cheetara was running up the walls of the temple!. Which was pretty righteous. I did think it was funny that the roll of adorable c-blockers went to WilyKit and WilyKat this week, and not Snarf, after they broke up Lion-O and Cheetara. "We were just trying to get my sword to work," Lion-O said, quite transparently.

I was also surprised that we saw Mumm-Ra in his old true form in flashbacks before we saw him transform for real. It didn't hurt the big scene really because there was much more that came with his true form transformation than just the famous "Ancient spirits of Evil" phrase. Namely: Giant hell wings and a wicked mouth blast!

I liked watching Lion-O and Tygra run up to get the book at the end since it kind of echoed back to the old racing/climbing game they used to do at the kingdom. And the sight of freakin' giant Mumm-Ra flying up at them, like a dragon, was really cool. There was a bit of Star Wars there at the end when Mumm-Ra was lightning-torturing Lion-O and Jaga sacrificed himself into a ball of bright light (making Mumm-Ra turn into a bird?), but I'm not going to complain about the noticeable influences here. Sure some will cry "rip-off" but when a show is made for a different generation to appreciate, I don't mind it when great properties get mashed=up.

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