MLP Episode Review: The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well · 3:16pm Apr 4th, 2015
Okay, sorry about the delay. I've had... issues. I dunno. I was also borderline obsessed with getting my G1/G4 crossover done. It is. ;) But now season five is upon us! And I am so behind! So... time to get back to these!
Anyway, a few reminders...
1. I like spoilers and I will NOT be using spoilers bars or sblocks. I don't wanna see them from you folks, either.
2. My opinions and views are my own. I really don't care what the fandom thinks. I am starting to not give a damn/outright hate certain bits of fanon.
3. I don't care if they're the protagonists. If they screw up/act like assholes/whatever, I will call them on it.
Anyway...
It's a bird! It's a pegasi! It's the night?! No, it's...
The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well
We open at the CMC clubhouse where Scootaloo is holding a Rainbow Dash fan club meeting! She declares she's the most awesome pony in Ponyville. We get some portmanteaus and puffing her ego up. Also, the hats/wigs are kinda creepy. We see posters, including that one of Dash as the toaster cat with the rainbow. She's also eavesdropping. Because. :p
After the credits and she's having some fun, including blowing some smoke rings. She gets into a competition with Gandalf and Bilbo later on. ;) But there's cries from help! A small pony, named 'Aura' in the closed-captions, is crying for help! She's down there with Timmy and Bart Simpson. Dash stops her sky swim, flies down and saves the dirty filly! Legit yay for her! She emerges... and there's a crowd there. Wait, what? Where'd they come from? There wasn't anyone around. Dash asks where they come from, and is actually... modest. They cheer her and Aura says it's something. Scoots and the Dumber Twins says she's something special. Aww... :)
And we cut to... a runaway baby carriage? Down a hill. Pony what? Oh, yeah. In this episode, Ponyville is transplanted to effin' Looney Tunes or something. Anyway, Bulk and/or Skull aren't there to save it, so Dash flies to stop it from flying off a cliff. A cliff the path the carriage is on leads directly to. This is lazy writing, folks. Dash stops it and blushes. but then she says there's something wrong with the baby. The crowd below gasps... because the baby's not cheering for Dash.
Wow. Screw you, Dashie. Also, some people think the baby's not cute. I... think it is. Tastes vary, there. The ponyratzi's right there and she poses. Turn to the left! Twilight says she has a few words to describe her. Applejack says modest's not one of them. Okay... the hell did that come from?! Dash creates a bolt-shaped cloud in the sky, and Twilight says she's 'kinda awesome'. Flip-flop! Anyway, at an old folks' home, way back in nineteen-dickity-doo, when I WAS YOUR AGE and get off mah lawn! But anyway, a balcony suddenly begins breaking. Bonbon and Berry Punch look on in horror as Dash does Spider-Man's line and catches the balcony. the crowd cheers and Dash's ego grows three sizes too large. Twilight says, "Call me silly, but I think this here thing is going to Rainbow Dash's head."
Pinkie agrees, and calls her silly. Okay, good one. :D At Sugarcube Corner, Dash is regaling her fan club with tales of her dating do, and we don't mean the author. ;) Spike is in Jimmy Olsen mode and taking notes while Applejack says she's awesomely arrogant ever since. Where the hell is this coming from? She's really not acting much worse then before. Has she reached her ego-meter's redline or something? Dash pulls her in for some pictures while Twilight asks Spike what he's doing. He's ghostwriting her autobiography. Hah! Talk to Mick Foley, kid. He'll tell you how it's done, then hit you over the head with a steel chair. :p
Twilight points out autobiographies are self-written, but Dash says she's far too busy saving lives. She says Spike's her ghostwriter. God, I remember that show on PBS. Pinkie freaks out because... it's Pinkie. Dash speaks for me. "Anyway..." It takes guts to do what she does, and brains, and sometimes a big lunch and nap. Good lord this is the Spanish Inquisition sketch all over again! The others of the Mane Six make dumb faces because... anyone? Beuller?
We cut to Dash doing autographs, but a balloon is falling! Dash is... still signing autographs?! The fuck is the matter with you?! She says she's got ten seconds to spare. This isn't cloud-kicking to impress Twilight, you jackass! She flies up in a lackadaisical fashion... but a new figure emerges and grabs the balloon pilot! I should note that Dash missed the basket and she hit the punctured balloon instead. Ten seconds my aunt fanny!
The crowd wonders about mysterious masked mare. "I've never seen such bravery in all my life!" Okay, how many blows to the head have you received?! Suddenly Mayor Mare outta nowhere, saying Ponyville's got a new hero. What, in addition to the seven it already had? She dubs her the Mysterious Mare Do Well. And that's her mayoral work for the week. Dash is livid, because Ponyville's only got room for one hero! She then trips on part of the balloon and faceplants. Cue sad trombone!
Back from commercial, a carriage/bus is careening down a hill! The harness was broken, it seems. Dash flies in, tries to do a pre-rescue speech in but one of the passengers says to cut the crap and save them! She tries a Spider-Man II, but gets knocked out of the way. Suddenly, Mare-Do-Well is there and blocks it with two mighty legs! She's got legs, folks, and she knows how to use them! Also, this is another path that leads right to a cliff. Bad writers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dash is angry because... Mare-Do-Well saved lives and is cutting into her heroing. We are now at a construction site, with wooden beams as the superstructure. Holmes on Homes would have a field day, then a heart attack. The crame shorts out and swings around and around... and Dash, flying by, sees it! She stops to do her spiel, but has to cut it short or else 2x4 to the gut. It hits the frame and it goes down like a house of cards. We even see steel support beams. Dash is still trying to get her spiel in, but Mare-Do-Well is there and rescues several workers. Dash suddenly spots one about to be crushed, gets her head out of her plot and goes to rescue him. Dash then... acts like an ass to Mare-Do-Well. "Or should I call you Mare-Do-Slow?" MDW meanwhile rescued four workers. The pony Dash rescued... didn't even say 'thanks'. Jerk.
Dash notes MDW's advantages, then says she has to step up her game. At a... hydroelectric dam, it begins breaking. Optimus Prime and Megatron are fighting on the top, just out of sight. We don't have a dutch boy to stick a finger in the hole, so Dash flies over and places a hoof over it. The crack, meanwhile widens. She suddeny takes her hoof off the hole and pats herself on the back with it. Head, meet desk. We haven't seen each other for a while. The dam explodes! mare-Do_Well is there... and begins TKing the water and debris back, repairing the dam better than new! Dash is completely ungrateful for the rescue, too. She wonders how she can compete, but notes her wings. She flies around...
And then MDW flies by. So it's an early appearance by Cadance? :p
And now... it's the scene. You know the one, at Sugarcube Corner, where the others brag about MDW and rub salt into Dash's wounded ego. Here's where the pendulum swings the other way, folks. Twilight boasts about the dam-fixing, Rarity about the costumes too. Yeah, this is pretty damned skeevy. Spike even gets into it, a bit.
In Ponyville, the disasters have stopped. Because of plot. "Where's an out-of-control vehcle when you need one?!" Oi... She suddenly spots Granny Smith, begins to go overboard and helps her cross the street. Granny Smith is ungrateful, probably because Dash is shoving her with her head. USE! YOUR! WINGS! Granny then says she didn't wanna cross the street in the first place. We cut to Amethyst... unable to open a jar of peanut butter with her TK. That is so... wow. Dash admittedly goes over the top, then Amethyst taps the jar on the side of a fountain and Dash opens it. And this is getting uncomfortable to watch as Dash does... super-lawnmowing. And the ponies are pretty jerkish.
Dash is sitting on a thundercloud, grousing about MDW and wondering why no one's talking about her. Has she changed? Well... to be honest, not really. You were a braggart before, braggart still. She hates being alone, but Scootaloo calls out! She's there to invite her to a banquet in MDW's honor! ooh, harsh. Dash at first says no... but then decides to fly to it. For shenanigans, no doubt.
At the banquet/parade, we see some posters based on Batman:TAS. Nice touch. MDW bursts out of a banner, and I'm calling bullshit on the 'humble' part, for the record. Dash flies up, a'la Boast Busters, then MDW bolts and we get a bit of a chase scene with Scooby-Doo doors. Dash is about to lose it, but suddenly there's two MDWs! She finally catches MDW and... it's old man jenkins from the amusement park!
No, it's Pinkie! No, it's Twilight! It's... all of them. Applejack stopped the carriage with her hind legs, who she named. Which is weird. Pinkie used her Pinkie Sense at the construction site. She suddenly saves Dash from a flower pot. Twilight fixed the dam. Fluttershy did a fly-by and Rarity designed the costume. And this entire thing was to teach Dash some humility. A real hero doesn't 'brag'. She's been BRAGGING all series long! Ugh... she 'learns' her lesson in about five seconds. So Spike says he wrote a letter already! Dash suddenly says there's a real ghost! Hah, hah?
Thoughts
Oi...
Okay, this is hard for me to put into words. Admittedly it's been a while since I did this. ;) But...
The usual argument comes down to who is right. MDW or Dash? Who's wrong? I say... both.
Okay, here's the thing. Dash has always been a bit of a braggart. And in this episode, she's not really much worse than before or even after. That's her 'thing'. But... her competence drops quite a bit, and with the balloon incident she crosses into, "dudette, you screwed up big-time'. NO excuse for that at all.
But here's the thing, did the Mane Six talk to her at all? I don't think so. They went right to MDW. If there was something-anything!-that indicated they tried to talk to Dash, then all right. But they didn't, so that's on them. And the scene in Sugarcube Corner was where they crossed the line. Hell, there's going too far and this goes beyond too far!
The citizenry turning on Dash like they did was not cool. At all. It was rather ridiculous, IMHO. Goldfish memory? Bad writing? You be the judge!
As for the disasters, plot fiat.
There's not a lot for me to like in this episode, to be honest. Sorry. :(
Anyway, tune in tomorrow for 'Sweet and Elite', where my view that, 'the Canterlot populace really doesn't deserve their reputation' is solidified.
And for those of you on fimfic, I'm watching the season premiere. Awesome so far! :D
Much like Boast Busters, this is an episode where our beloved ponies are forced out of character by the writing in order to push a moral. Rather than make any real effort to establish that RD's bragging is getting out of hand and a bigger problem than before (though blowing off a save in order to sign autographs would count, if this had been established right off), her friends start complaining as though they've suddenly decided that they're not okay with it even though they didn't mind before. I.e. they've changed their standing, rather than RD taking it too far.
Even for the originally intended demographic, it's a bad move.
Of course, Optimus could've saved everypony without hurt feelings, but he decided he must've cheated in that last fight and killed himself. Again. That guy needs a therapist, or maybe a defrag.
I respect your opinion and I agree with you! Both sides of what you said are actually very true, in the sense that Dash did let her ego get to her which prevented her from seeing the truth, while the rest of the mane 6 were wrong for not trying to talk to Rainbow Dash in the first place. You know, I'd actually like to see an episode where they explain where Dash got her ego in the first place. What, aside from getting her cutie mark, caused her ego to rise so much in the past? Was it an old friend, or was it something else?
It feels like there is a chunk missing here.
This is one of the few episodes I truly, unquestionably despise. The sheer amount of bad writing on all ends makes it irredeemable.
This is one of the episodes that I completely despise, the scene on Sugar Cube corner was unnecesary, they ended up being as braggarts as RD.
BTW, nice Big O figure
I must admit that this review was highly amusing.
However, I'm still of the opinion that though this it is not written very well, "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" is not as bad as everyone seems to think it is.
The reason for this is Darkwing Duck. I used to watch Darkwing Duck when I was a youngling. If you're not familiar, it's about a superhero who engages in superheroics merely for the glory of it. Darkwing Duck is kind of what Rainbow Dash turns into over the course of this episode. To see Rainbow put in her place by a pony basically dressed as Darkwing Duck....
The irony is palpable.
So be it that I find this irony amusing. I still like this episode.
Ah gotta point out: Rainbow Dash isn't any worse here than before or after this point in the series, but that's because before and after this point in the series, Rainbow Dash is a jerk. The way she treats her supposed friends is appalling an' an episode where they give her what-for about it really does appeal to me. They coulda handled it better, sure. But then we wouldn'ta gotten ta see Granny Smith whack her in the face with her purse. An' is that really a world you wanna live in?