MLP episode review: May the Best Pet Win · 11:27pm Aug 14th, 2014
Okay, sorry, folks. :( Work's been insane, and I've been sick. But I'm feeling better and it's time... IT'S! VADER! TIME!
No, wait. It's time for a review!
May the best man speak, may the best choice be made, and...
May The Best Pet Win
We open with Dash on the Highway to the Danger Zone, flying around with the greatest of ease, that daring young pony without a trapeze. Suddenly, Owly shows up. It's a race, and Dash is enjoying herself. Suddenly, Owly is the victim of a transporter accident as his head is replaced with Winona's. Hello there, nightmare fuel! "Winona's head?" No, Herman's Head! Ten points if you get that reference. :D Then the head turns into Angels, then Gummy's body. it's moved down to freaky town, but I prefer Funky Town, specifically the Pseudo Echo version! Then HOLY SHIT OPAL PULLS A XENOMORPH! Ripley, where are you?! Dash begins falling to the ground, into a black hole of nothingness, then we get full confirmation it was a bad dream. Man, Dash. What did you EAT before your nap?!
She sees Opal in a tree, then we sweep down and see the other four at the base of the tree.
After the credits the rest of the Mane Six show up, and it's a pony/pet play date in the park! Aww. :) Fluttershy thought she knew, but she didn't. I like her kicking up a small dust cloud there, too. Twilight begins to explain, then Pinkie interrupts and explains in a rather rude, insensitive way. Bad Pinkie! *Swats with bus* She even gives Fluttershy whiplash. Dash brushes it off, saying she doesn't have a pet. They have fun, Dash tries to take a nap, but the sounds of merriment get to her. And she suddenly decides she wants a pet! That is classic Dash thinking there, folks. And Fluttershy... goes a little insane at this. She scoops Dash up by the armpits and flies her over to her house/veterinary clinic/animal shelter. Ah, Fluttershy? Get some altitude there while taking Dash, there. Her hooves are dragging in the dirt! Dash helps her out while Fluttershy... squees and almost fangasms.
We get the song about what Dash wants in a pet and Fluttershy... missing the mark on her wants. And Dash, I gotta say, she misses the mark on what a pet should be. She wants awesome and cool. Well, what about allergies? What does the pet eat? Can it fly with her? What does it need to be cared for? It's in-character for her, but for the target audience... that's important. Also, Fluttershy? Your choices for Dash make no damned sense for her! It's funny, it's a good song, if reminiscent of old musicals, but come on, Flutters! You've known Dash all your life! We also see shots of tank, and mentions of bullets, reinforcing my idea that the Equestrian Royal Air Corps uses rifles mounted to pegasi's backs. We see an eagle, backlit, and a bat. NO, no bat! Oh, wait, it's not a vampire fruit bat. Carry on and keep Twilight away from it! Dash realizes she's got so many choices, so many wonders! She asks for a yellow-striped bat, so she wants a Fuzor, then?
Dash decides to hold a contest for the animals of speed, agility and guts. Wait, what? What about living conditions, care factors, lifespan? Oh, and get off of Tank! Even Fluttershy gets the priorities wrong near the end. :( Dash, okay, but not Fluttershy! May the games begin. Okay. *Cues up Olympics theme* And before commercials, we get a title drop.
And we're back, and Dash is now Gunny. And she gives a ridiculously-overblown speech about how hard it'll be to be her pet. A ladybug even quits beforehand. They have to take it to the extreme. Thanks, Rob Liefeld! "Any questions?" Yeah, do you have any fucking clue what really goes into the care and maintenance for a pet? And Applejack proves she's best pony by asking that very question to Twilight. Oh, thank god, Applejack! Twilight lists some stuff they need, then gets licked by Winona. "And breath mints!" okay, that was good. :D Back at the competition for the insane, Fluttershy pushes the future Tank into the line, and we get the first tortoise/turtle joke. I am... kinda with Dash on how he doesn't fit, but she puts it a lot blunter and crueler than I. She even kicks him onto his back. Hey, Dash, guess what you are?! You're an asshole!
Fluttershy badgers her into letting him into the contest. Dash says the pet must have speed, followed by her going 88 miles and back to the future, agility with her fighting for the Users, guts and her doing a cloud sculpture of herself and good LORD she's got an ego. Style, coolness, awesomeness and radicalness, complete with sunglasses and baseball cap on backwards. Dash, you ARE Rob Liefeld. Twilight asks if those are the same thing. Points for Twilight! Dash says she'd think that, and that's why she'd never be her pet, while patting her head in that horribly condescending manner. Well, of course she wouldn't. You'd forget to feed her and she'd die from neglect!
Now, for the contests. The first is speed. The falcon blows the owl's feathers off and wins. I will admit, i liked Dash's "not speed, sorta speedy" comments. :D Ad tank finishes taking a step. "That's just sad." I must now throw my Masterpiece Megatron at you. Next is agility and an obstacle course. Tank tries while Dash, well, you know. The hummingbird wins, natch. And his/her eyes even begin watering up. They high hoof/wing, and it drops a bit. Dash says she's gonna shave a point off the score for that and it flies off, head hanging. Funny,, but cruel and grr-inducing. Next is trying to... get Opal's favorite toy rat. What in even the hell?! They all cower, but the monarch butterfly flaps over and hypnotizes Opal. Flat what. She flies off with the toy. Opal comes out of it just before Tank tips her cage onto her. She goes berserk and claws futilely at him in his armored shell. He's a hero, but in a full shell.
Style, because we need to reference G3 Dash. She even curls! Any pet with her has to look good to make her look good. Her ego now swallows star systems whole. Next is coolness. Wait, what? The eagle wins. Sam would be proud. Next is awesomeness, I guess. The bat does echolocation, which only ranks 'sorta awesome'. Dash, why do you make my points for me?! The toucan blows a raspberry. The flamingo imitates its plastic brethren. The owl does an Exorcist. And Tank pulls his head in. Dash says that's all he can do, and he looks sad. And it's time for a talent show! The duck does a tap-dance, while I wish Benjamin J Frog showed up. The eagle knits a sweater, with Dash's picture on it. That's actually pretty talented, but not for Dash. The falcon does card tricks, wrong. The wasp does some friggin' awesome shadow pictures, and Dash is asleep for it. Man, wasps never get respect in Hasbro properties. The bat plays the theme on glasses, then shatters them with its voice. Okay, that kicked ass. It's awesome... but this is the 'radicalness' competition. So points off. Oh good lord I'm gonna get a concussion from all the headdesking I'm doing with Dash. And it's time for Tank's turn, with a much more insane obstacle course. From the end to finish, we have a net to catch them, flaming hoop, loop-de-loop, guillotine, pool with friggin sharks-possibly with laser beams-and a spring launcher. Evel Kneievel, where are you when we need you? He hops off, but lands shell-side down. I am feeling so sorry for him right now. Dash calls him a turtle and Fluttershy peeks from behind the curtain! What was she doing back there, precisely? she tells him he didn't make the cut, then points up at the sky at the owl, eagle, falcon and bat flying by. Okay, she does try to let him down gently. Points for that, at least.
She turns to the others, builds up tension, even turning and saying, "Pause for dramatic effect..." and that makes me legit laugh. :D It's a race through Beggar's Canyon. No, Ghastly Gorge! She even does a 'dun dun dun!', which gets a bigger laugh, while Trixie gets steamed. :p We hear an eagle cry and... Dash flies over with a handkerchief. "Gesundheit." HAH! Ride of the Valkyries cues up as they get ready. Even Tank. Dash says the Gorge isn't scary and says whichever makes it across the finish line with her will have 'earned the honor and glory of getting to be my pet.' Those who are about to fly, we salute you! Be careful, too. Her ego actually makes up most of the planet you're standing on. They fly/waddle off while the music soars. I am amused by the caption from my DVD saying, 'wind whistling', by the way. Ah, Wind Whistler. :) The bat gets blown back, but continues on. Dash pauses to straighten out her mane and brush herself off, and now I'm getting odd vibes of hair/hare there. Dash stops short of a briar patch, then turns and taunts her pats. A large part of me wants them all to simply quit, fly off and leave her hanging. The eagle and falcon get tangled up, the owl can't find a way through, but the bat makes up lost ground. Echolocation for the win!
Dash stops and in a tone that is quite punchable, tells them to watch out for the quarry eels. Oh good fucking lord, graboids?! Get Burt Gummer, STAT! Val and Earl, too. The first one's one of my favorite movies, you see. Just make sure they don't turn into shriekers or ass-blasters. Guys, it's not worth it! Leave this asshole to be. The bat gets eaten, but gets out through the nostril. Ew! The eagle nearly gets decapitated, reminding me of Weird Al's parody of Avril Lavigne's song 'Complicated'. The owl pushes the jaws of another apart, and the falcon loses some tail feathers.
Dash looks back, being a you-know-what, but hits a cliff face. It cracks and avalanche! And Dash gets hit from above and a wing gets trapped under a boulder. She calls for the others, but they show the same amount of loyalty and care for her, as she showed for them. Justice is served. "I'm the one who's supposed to win." She gets a bit over-dramatic at being stuck there, even though her friends know she's in the gorge.
We come back and Tank happens upon her. She says she'll be stuck there forever with the most annoying turtle in the world. Dash, fuck you. Tank, being awesome, manages to lift the boulder off her wing. We cut to the finish line and the other seeing the avalanche there. Good friends! Fluttershy sees Tank, calls him a turtle-tortoise-whatever, carrying Dash on his back. Twilight TKs the finish line there. Twilight says she hopes she's not hurt. "Just my pride." Okay... good on you, Dash. She even hoof-bumps Tank.
Fluttershy introduces the winner, the falcon. And Dash... doesn't look so sure, even with Spike and Fluttershy saying she got what she wanted. Well, you can't always get what you want, but you just might find, you get what you need. Fluttershy even asks if they should sing again, putting songs as real events in the 'universe'. Dash even begins to turn around and not be so assholy. She does a bit of rules-lawyering and exact words, saying whoever crossed the finish line with her would be the winner. Pinkie Pie loudly announces she said that. Pinkie, DON'T! And the only one was Tank. The falcon gets a guilty look, but to be fair the others were way past her when the avalanche happened. Twilight asks about the falcon, but it shakes appendages with Tank and resigns with true honor and dignity. Dash sends a letter to Celestia, saying that she was wrong about her views on what qualities about pets should be, while Tank grabs Opal's rat and pulls it inside, away from her. And it will come out no more! Dash even names him Tank.
Fluttershy reminds Dash she wanted a pet who could fly, but there's a solution. For the next play date, he's got a copter, complete with Ride reprise!
Thoughts
*Drums fingers on desk* This is difficult for me. The scenes, taken individually, are funny, good action, nice jokes. The turtle/tortoise bit wasn't overplayed and was funny. I liked the song a lot. But there's two big things that irk me.
1. I feel this episode was a missed opportunity. It had a perfect setup for a, "Pets are hard work and a big responsibility!" moral. Heck, Applejack and Twilight even started talking about it before it was dropped. For the target audience, it would've been spot-on. And before anyone mentions Baby Cakes, this is a lesson that should be repeated. And the episodes are different enough to avoid major repetition. Normally I can't fault it for what it could've been, but with that scene with Applejack and Twilight, I can't dismiss it. And let's face it. Dash needs a lesson about responsibility just as much as Pinkie Pie.
2. Dash, oh dear sweet Primus Dash. What an asshole, here. Condescending, jerkish, missing the point, wanting a pet for all the wrong reasons, complete disregard for their safety and a bunch of other crap. She earned my hate here. I'll give her points for the end, the hurt pride line, the letter and choosing Tank, but for almost the entirety of the episode she could go hang for all I cared.
So, that's 'May the Best Pet Win'. Good taken in small doses, but overall... yeah. And that finishes disc two of my season boxes set! Tune in Monday for... The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well.
...
Oh, this is gonna be fun.
Okay, for the record, this is the only shelled Transformer I have within easy reach. It's G1 Snaptrap, and according to the wiki page he actually does transform into a tortoise. hmm, neat.
Well, from what I e read, bullets don't just need be applied to guns. I know some other weapon like a slingshot uses ammo called bullets. Anyway, no I wanna see Rainbow ride a literal tank.
The funniest part about the whole thing is that Dash didn't even say she wanted a pet right then and there, but that she might want one in the future. So basically this whole mess is actually Fluttershy's fault since she's the one who went spastic on Dash and Dash kinda got wrapped up in it.
Okay, here's my eternal question about this episode. What the hell does tank wants with Rainbow? She is condescending and other less polite adjectives, especially towards him so, why?
2370817
That's a really good question, and answering it could make for a damn good fic.
2370817 Maybe, like Scootaloo, he really admires her? Maybe he dreams of being fast too?
Maybe being an official pet just carries a lot of prestige among animals. Maybe Fluttershy's cottage feels like an orphanage to them; that whole "Will anypony adopt me?" feeling.
2371041
Don't know why, but somehow I have the fell that said fic would be incredibly sad.
2371095
Sure, why not.
Come to think, how didn't Scootaloo tried to be Rainbow's pet?
fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/323/5/2/52fd6d89e81dd1f1c2345dc345377910-d4gobr9.jpg
I actually saw your comment in the moment, but it took me this long to find the image.
That's the sitcom starring Hank Azaria about all the people living inside his head. I get all the points!
I am a winner, and I always win!
Did you mean Michigan J. Frog?
He is also not part of the world's most fighting team. He's still green though.
Ah thought the lesson of Baby Cakes was "that white powder Pinkie is constantly ingestin' ain't sugar".