MLP Reviews #8: The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

MLP Review #8
The Super Speedy Squeezy Cider 6000

This is the episode that introduces Flim and Flam along with their invention, one which can make cider so fast that it could put the Apple Family out of business. 

The old, lovable, and familiar vs. the new, sleazy, and unconventional. Who’s gonna win? Well, of course whatever side our friend Applejack is on!

Intro
Enter Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy is peacefully sleeping and is woken up by Rainbow Dash. Rainbow pulls off the covers on Fluttershy’s bed and she blushes – is she “naked”? Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy fly out of the house as Rainbow explains that they need to get in line for apple cider. Rainbow talks about how Pinkie Pie always gets in front of the line and takes too much cider. Year after year, Rainbow gets screwed over. She wants to get there early enough and screw over Pinkie Pie. Rainbow talks about drinking the cider drop by drop and Pinkie Pie not getting any. Wow, this is angry and determined Rainbow Dash. Rainbow and Fluttershy make it to the line but they see that Pinkie is already in front and in a tent. Pinkie talks about how excited she is about getting cider. She decided to sleep in a tent and then other ponies decided to tent out too, making a big slumber party. Also, Pinkie sleeps with balloons? That’s hilarious! Rainbow is pissed off and the two pegasi head to the back of the line.
The one thing I can tell from this intro is that this will be a funny episode.

Act I
The Apple Family announce that the cider is ready! Pinkie Pie is at the front of the line. She has a big bag of bits and buys about twenty mugs of cider. She walks off with her cider. I dunno.. why didn’t Pinkie share her cider with Rainbow? Seems kinda harsh, doesn’t it?
From the way these ponies look after drinking cider, it makes me wonder is it alcoholic?
The line goes on and on and the cider looks like it’s beginning to run out. Will Rainbow Dash get her cider? Let’s find out. Fluttershy is in front of Rainbow and gets cider. However, it runs out. Applejack announces that the cider is gone and that they need to come back tomorrow for more.
Rainbow isn’t happy. She incites an angry crowd by pointing out that there is never enough cider for all of the ponies.
Pinkie Pie is gloating to Rainbow over the delicious cider she had which makes Rainbow even more pissed off. I found this funny but c’mon I expected Pinkie to be a little kinder here. Pinkie is fully aware of how much Rainbow Dash loves cider and tortures her to no end anyway.

We see some sort of crazy contraption move into Sweet Apple Acres. Enter Flim and Flam – two unicorns who have a powerful invention: the Super Speedy Squeezy Cider 6000. They sing a really catchy song, “Opportunity”, which gets most of the town cheerful except for the Apple family. If you watch the background, you can see Rainbow Dash flying around, unable to contain her excitement that she is going to get cider. Since I notice these things, Bon-Bon was also very much pleased with Flim and Flam – she was also behind RD in line along with Twilight, Rarity, and Spike (a.k.a.. suckers). Also, one of them flirted with Rarity – the one with the moustache, which I think is Flim. Correct me if I’m wrong though. I also like the background ponies who pop up. We get to see a lot of Lyra, Bon-Bon, and Derpy. The version I saw had Derpy with the cross-eyes but Hasbro might have changed that animation recently.
Honestly, Flim and Flam seem really cool here. However, the Apple Family is even cooler.

Granny Smith argues that in order for cider to be good, it needs to contain “care”. Flim and Flam show the ponies that their contraption has a quality control process – rejecting bad apples and they even give Granny a mug of cider. Granny doesn’t say it but she does realize that the cider is competition.

The Apple family huddle up together to determine what they can do regarding this Super Speedy Squeezy Cider 6000. Flim and Flam join in on their huddle and suggest a 75/25 split in money if the Apples would let Flim and Flam use their apples. They even offer to use their magic to make the Apples’ lives easier.

Applejack thinks taking that deal would ruin their business since they generate much of their revenue from cider sales. Applejack refuses to take the deal. Flim and Flam tell the Apples that if they don’t partner up, Flim and Flam would drive them out of business with their invention. I dunno what to think. This Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 seems really cool and without flaw, however, it could potentially hurt Applejack and her family forever. What will happen?

I get the impression despite that fantastic song, we’re supposed to see Flim and Flam as cocky tools and should wish for their defeat. Let’s find out what happens.

Act II
Another day for cider. Another long line. Pinkie Pie is in front again.
Applejack is worried about what Flim and Flam said about driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business.
The cider runs out again! Rainbow is all the way in the back. She flies up and screams, “Come on!!”
Poor Rainbow Dash, she ain’t getting any cider today. Twilight and Spike got cider this time. Not Rainbow Dash. She’s an absolute ciderholic which makes this even funnier… see “Bats!”. Perhaps Rainbow Dash and I have that in common, lol j/k.

Enter Flim and Flam.
They take some of the apples from the trees in order to produce a jar of cider. It looks like Rainbow is about to finally get some cider. She even has a mug. However, Applejack lassoes the jar which bumps into Rainbow’s mug which falls to the ground. Rainbow starts eating dirt from the ground, hoping to taste some of the cider. She asks, “Is this some kind of cruel joke?” Oh yes, Rainbow Dash. It is a very cruel joke.

Flim and Flam boast about their cider and how they will drive the Apples out of business. They say they can get enough cider for everypony in an hour. Apple Bloom boasts that her family can do it in forty-five minutes!! :0 Flim and Flam bet they could do it even faster. Apple Bloom wants a competition, but she’s just a little kid and no pony cares what little kids think. However, Flam calls Granny Smith a chicken. This sets Granny off and she’s ready to compete. They can make cider better and faster than the Flim Flam brothers. Wow, Granny's weakness..being called a chicken.

The competition begins the next day. Rainbow Dash still hasn’t gotten any cider!!!
The Mayor announces that whoever can make more cider within an hour will win the exclusive rights to produce cider in Ponyville. Hey, there’s Doctor Whooves and he is in charge of the timer.

We see the Apple family at work. Their cider-making method is actually pretty clever.
Applejack bucks the trees, so the apples will fall. Apple Bloom picks up the apples before they hit the ground Granny does quality control on the apples. Big Macintosh is the “engine” for the machine which squeezes the apples into cider.

Flim and Flam are relaxing as they use their contraption to take apples from the trees.

The Apple family are happy with their progress. However, they see that Flim and Flam have quite a bit more at this point of time.

Hmmmm, looks like they might need some help. Uh oh.

Act III
Looks like trouble. The Apples are also exhausted and feeling discouraged. Applejack encourages them to push onwards. However, they are outnumbered 3 to 1.
Twilight has an idea to help. She asks the Mayor if “honorary family members” can join (the rest of the Mane Six). The Mayor asks Flim and Flam if that is alright. They are so confident that they don’t care if the “whole kingdom of Canterlot” joins. Applejack’s friends join in.

Twilight delegates tasks to them.
Fluttershy is in charge of rustling through the trees so the apples will fall faster.
Pinkie Pie is to help Apple Bloom catch apples. (“Yes, sir. Man sir.”)… oh Pinkie Pie, 
Rarity helps out with the quality control.
Finally, Rainbow Dash helps Big Mac by running on the treadmill to generate the power for the cider maker.

I am glad that Rainbow Dash didn’t side with Flim and Flam because she resented the fact that she wasn’t getting cider. Saving her friend Applejack from losing Sweet Apple Acres was much more important to her than getting cider. This episode would have literally been one of the worst ones if they went for that all-too common but stupid “twist”.

They work as hard as they can. Rarity is really into the quality control. Fluttershy is ridiculously talented at getting the apples off the trees, wouldn’t have expected that from her to be honest. Rainbow Dash and Big Mac are both running hard. Big Mac has his running goggles on.

The Apples are ahead now: 5 to 3. The Flim Flam brothers realize that things are going bad. They decide to speed it up and start sucking up trees to make their cider go faster… oh my gosh… this cider is looking terrible now. The Apple team responds to this by going even faster. Flim and Flam are worried. They decide to turn off the quality control to include bad apples in the cider. The competition goes on. We see Twilight and Applejack panting on the ground, looking exhausted and satisfied. However, despite all of their hard work. Flim and Flam have more barrels. The Apples are forced to move out.

Oh no, Lyra looks like she is going to cry. And oh no, Applejack is crying. The Apple family is ready to move out of Sweet Apple Acres which will now become Flim Flam Fields.

Flim and Flam provide cider to the ponies. However, they serve cider with shitty apples and tree parts in them. Why did they go for the barrels on the top? Or did they seriously think that the ponies in Ponyville would actually tolerate their shit cider? This seemed kind of silly. I know there were only two minutes left in the episode or something like that.. but for a greater and more reasonable effect… I dunno… the only thing I could think of was cut the Flim and Flam song a minute or two but that was an awesome song. But yea, my point still stands.

Bon-Bon, oh my gosh, that has to be her most hilarious yet most terrifying voice when she says, “Mine’s got rocks in it.” Wow, that cider must be really bad if it makes Bon-Bon sound like that.

Ponyville tells Flim and Flam that it doesn’t want their cider. Flim and Flam react to this by packing up their things and running out of town. Applejack is safe. Also, thankfully to the “silly competition”, they have enough cider for everypony.. well, sort of. See the next scene.

Applejack writes a letter to Princess Celestia which says, “I didn’t learn anything. I was right all along.” This spawns the Appletroll. I liked the moral that came out of it though. Honest work pays off. Honesty is Applejack’s strongest trait and it makes sense that she didn’t really learn anything from the cider competition. I think it’s a great portrayal of her character actually.

We see that Rainbow Dash almost doesn’t get cider again despite having “a lot of cider”. However, Pinkie Pie offers Rainbow a mug of cider. This makes Rainbow happy and the Mane Six toast to a job well done.

Rating: 8/10 [This is a very high 8 out of 10. I had trouble deciding whether to give it an 8 or an 9. I guess the reasons why I am going to deduct points are that the episode honestly seemed too mean-spirited towards Rainbow Dash regarding cider. Is cider so good that no pony could share it? However, this is a big improvement over “The Mysterious Mare-do-Well”. Another question though through all of this. Why didn’t the Flim Flam brothers just serve the cider from the bottom barrels? You know, the ones which didn’t have rocks in them. They shouldn’t have been found out so easily. This seemed like a “oh shit, we’re pressed for time” sort of ending. However, with those few things said, this was a very fun episode. The humor was top-notch. The story was mostly top-notch. Flim and Flam were awesome. Applejack and her family were awesome. The fact that this episode will likely only be slightly above average when I rank all of the episodes just shows that MLP:FiM is a very strong series.]

Ranking
The Return of Harmony: 10/10
Princess Twilight Sparkle: 9/10
Secret of My Excess: 9/10
Winter Wrap Up: 9/10
The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000: 8/10
Baby Cakes: 8/10
Putting Your Hoof Down: 7/10
One Bad Apple: 5/10

Next Up: Pinkie Apple Pie