After a long anticipated wait (and the release of an exciting new trailer at New York Comic Con 2019), Season 4 of Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power finally arrived on Nov. 5, leaving many of its fans very excited for the long-awaited season.

It’s the longest season since its debut, featuring a set of 13 episodes, with a cast of notable characters and a story filled with action, drama and a good amount of angst that’ll leave you on the edge of your seat.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is an animated cartoon series developed by Noelle Stevenson that follows the story of Adora, a young teen who takes on the role of She-Ra, the heroine of a land called Etheria. With her newfound powers, Adora brings together an alliance with a group of magical princesses to defeat the Horde, an oppressive empire set on conquering the land of Etheria under the rule of Hordak.

The show features a diverse cast of lovable characters, a fascinating story full of meaningful challenges supported by a deep and mysterious lore, and LGBT representation, which is gaining more recognition and support in modern cartoons and is one of the reasons why this cartoon is so notable and entertaining today.

Season 4 continues the remnants of what fans were left with in Season 3, with even more angst and drama. New rulers are placed into power, friendship and bonds are tested, and Adora starts to question the fundamentals of her role as She-Ra. When parts of the previous She-Ra’s past start to surface, it leaves Adora wondering about her importance in the fate of Etheria.

New and old characters alike also appear in the new season, including a nonbinary shapeshifting character named Double Trouble, voiced by Jacob Tobia. Tobia, like their character, is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. 

In a Los Angeles Times article about Tobia’s character, Tobia said that a non-binary character in She-Ra is “not out of nowhere.” 

“They’re coming into a world that has been flexing with gender norms and creating a more expansive understanding of gender from the get-go,” Tobia said in the Times article. “From the pilot of this series, gender does not work in the same restrictive ways we’re used to it working,”

Double Trouble is a great step forward in LGBT and non-binary representation in modern cartoons and a fun character overall that plays both a comedic and a dramatic role in the season.

She-Ra likes to pile on the angst as much as the canon representation, which is no surprise for viewers, as things start to get heavy just within the first episode of the season. Glimmer is forced to take on the role as Queen of Etheria while Catra rises to power against Hordak after the events of Season 3. Their characters — and their character designs — go through a dramatic change, and the two get pushed into conflicting scenarios that drive them into darker places throughout the season.

Tensions rise in Adora’s friend group when she and Glimmer clash about strategies to defeat the Horde and whether or not to trust certain people. Because of this, Bow ends up trying to hold their friendship together, even at the risk that it could crumble entirely. Alongside this, Scorpia continues to receive unfair treatment from Catra, who starts to realize her “friend’s” toxic behavior. 

These two arcs parallel each other in regards to the conflicts in their friendship, which resonate with fans and adds an air of relatability into the series. It allows viewers to understand the patterns of toxic behavior among friends and reveal dynamics that show viewers that friendships take work to be maintained, especially in the midst of war and strife.

Fans of She-Ra will definitely enjoy the newest season, and should also keep on hand many, many boxes of tissues. The amount of intense emotional changes that the characters experience this season is staggering, and it features a hefty amount of angst-filled arcs that’ll make you step back and pause a bit before choosing if you’re emotionally prepared for the next episode. 

Having these characters that you’ve grown attached to get forced into perilous situations will make you jump out of your seat and root for their victory. 

Although some background characters don’t get enough of the recognition they deserved it’s still nice to see them have at least some amount of screentime. And when you’ve grown so deeply attached to these characters since Season 1, it’s hard not to worry for them.

Stevenson and her crew do not disappoint living up to the hype of Season 4. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power alters from a story about fighting against oppression to a story about facing responsibilities and overcoming the challenges of growing up — whether it’d be on the battlefield or among your own friends. It allows the audience to reconsider friendships and see them through a new point of view.

As usual, She-Ra’s cliffhanger ending is an unexpected twist and will leave fans excited for the next season, as well as be nervous for the next emotional thrill-ride to come. Just be prepared to bring more boxes of tissues.