MLP Episode review: The Last Roundup · 9:15pm Apr 14th, 2015
Anyway, are we ready to get rolling, rolling, rolling and get those doggies moving? Miss Kitty's upstairs with a Bonanza for you all. But be careful of the Gunsmoke around the stables, though. As we get ready for...
The Last Roundup
For the record, I'm using the 'Friendship Express' DVD for this episode.
Anyway, we open with Applejack galloping along an obstacle course, some familiar-sounding music playing. she goes bullet-time over one, but we get epic foreshadowing! when one of her hind hooves strikes the top. Applebloom is waving her on and wearing her hat, but it's still a size or two too big. Applebloom says she'll win the Equestria Rodeo Competition hooves down, and we even get a pan across all the blue ribbons she's won, at least won locally. She's blushing, it is adorable.
Back from commercial and... we get it. Dash is hanging up an Applejack-themed banner when lightning outta nowhere. And... "Careful, Derpy." Yes, she gets named here. No, I'm not going into the whole damned controversy and I would REALLY appreciate it if no one else does, either on RPG.net or my fimfic blog. It turns out Derpy damaged City Hall. Sadly, Mayor Mare was unharmed. She just doesn't know what went wrong! She even shocks herself. Derpy goes over to admire the work and causes even more damage. By the end I am feeling legit sympathy for Dash. We cut to a crowd chanting for Applejack. Mayor Mare speaks and talks about Applejack going to the Rodeo, and that the prize money is gonna go to fix Town Hall. Good lord, Mayor. I am SO voting you out of office in the Hasbroverse. make way for Mayor Ditzy! Applejack makes a nice speech about the support she's gotten, and that she'll do her best. At the train station, Granny says to show the 'high-faluting' ponies what a real rodeo pony is like. Granny, it's not like they haven't been training themselves, you know. Mayor Mare is still an idiot. Pinkie motor-mouths on and eats candy. Because. :p
A week passes and they're getting a surprise party ready. Fluttershy is concerned the party might be too startling, and Pinkie... startles her. *Striker hits Pinkie on the nose with a newspaper* Bad Pinkie! No dessert for a month for you! Twilight thinks she sees Applejack coming and Pinkie limbers her lips up. And... it's a mailpony, but it's his birthday! Twilight snatches the letter from him and slams the door in his face. Rude! But Pinkie gives him a slice of cake. Pinkie, you win all the points. And Twilight? Screw you. The letter's from Applejack. It turns out... she's not coming home! She'll send the money soon. Applebloom is devastated, as are the others. Dash says for them to go find her!
Okay, one thing's always bugged me. Why didn't either Applebloom or Big Mac go with them? Granny I can understand, but it's a plot hole with no in-universe explanation. Doesn't make much sense out-of-universe either.
We see the Friendship Express chugging along and them going to the rodeo, with a montage of them looking for Applejack and asking others about her. Finally, one recognizes her. They pull into Dodge Junction, with a Marshal Dillon there keeping the peace and Gil Favor bringing a herd of cattle through. Pinkie heads for the restroom, and it's Applejack who's in it. Okay, clever. They ask her why she's there and what happened, but... Miss Kitty in pony form interrupts. She's Cherry Jubilee, boss of Cherry-O Ranch. She saw Applejack at the rodeo and never saw anyone win so many ribbons, so she hired Applejack. Dash asks what's up, and Applejack says she wanted a change of scenery from apples to cherries. They don't buy it and are gonna get to the bottom of it.
We cut to Applejack getting ready to sort cherries. But it turns out the rest of the Mane Six get hired. Applejack tells them no talking about Ponyville, then begins walking around in a wheel and the cherries come out on a conveyor belt. For the record, this is a great homage to an incredibly funny scene from the classic sitcom 'I Love Lucy'. Right now, Lucy and Ethyl are next door, wrapping chocolates. :D They begin asking her questions, including about Wild Bull Hickok and Calamity Mane. As they talk, Applejack speeds up. Fluttershy and Pinkie are a bit stressed out. She stops and is assaulted by cherries.
Dash decides to 'call in the big guns', and we have a scare chord and epic zooming! on Pinkie. The next day, Applejack is cherrybucking. That so does not have the same ring to it. Pinkie asks if she needs help, then we get the cherry-changa/chimmycherrychonga thing. And kumquats! And dear god Applejack is feeling my pain. Dash says the only way for it to stop is to spill the beans. Applejack loses it, then asks if she can say it at breakfast tomorrow. She Pinkie Promises, even. The next morning they go to her room, but Applejack's gone!
And... Pinkie goes nuts and even speaks with the fuckin' Voice of the Legion! "No pony breaks a Pinkie promise!" That means I can break one, you know. :p We cut to Applejack at the train station, and Pinkie... god. Applejack leaps onto a stagecoach, but the others follow in a wagon of their own. Suddenly, there's a bunny in the road and Fluttershy puts on the brakes, forgetting about her wings. They try bribing the ponies pulling Applejack's wagon, and it's pretty clever. They catch up and Pinkie leaps onto the stagecoach. And Applejack says she didn't break the Pinkie Promise, since she didn't go to breakfast! She couldn't! and Pinkie... jumps off and knocks Rarity off the wagon. Pony what.
Twilight says to go back, but Dash says no. "They knew what they were getting into!" *Smacks Dash upside the head* Asshole. The train comes along. The stagecoach makes it, and the ponies leave her behind. Applejack thinks she's won... and the pegasi fly over. Nice. She runs off, but Dash tackles her, knocking the contents of her saddlebags open and spilling her ribbons out. Twilight's impressed, but Applejack's ashamed. She won every color and place... but blue and first. So she took the job at Cherry Jubilee's ranch to make the money. She couldn't come home a failure, but they didn't care what place she made.
We cut to Applejack coming home and mentally writing a letter to Celestia, that it's all right if you don't do as well as you hoped to. And that you can't run away from your problems. We see her being greeted, and it's nice. Then... back to Pinkie and Rarity on a rail cart, making their way home. Rarity swears vengeance on Dash and I can't blame her ONE BIT!
Thoughts:
It's not a bad episode. Not great, but I've seen worse. There are two worse coming up. It'[s a good lesson, about facing difficulties instead of running away from them. A few things, though...
1. Why didn't APplebloom and/or Big Mac go with them to find Applejack?
2. Aren't there other prizes for placing in competitions? I don't recall too many where only first-place gets money.
3. Why didn't they go back for Rarity and Pinkie?! 'Rule of funny' doesn't cover it since I didn't find it funny.
Headcanon:
It concerns our resident ditz of a Ditzy. What's she like in the Hasbroverse? It's mostly like the fanon. She's a mail carrier, married to Doctor Whooves, formerly the Doctor. They're the parents of Dinky and Amethyst Sparkler. Ditzy's a lot older than she looks. The Doctor runs a fix-it shop in Ponyille, and up until about a month after 'The Elements of Harmony and the Savior of Worlds', the TARDIS was actually too damaged to fly. It's his last life, me having made up the canon before Day of the Doctor, but the War Doctor still exists. It's just the Meta-Crisis version wasn't a regeneration here. He also lost pretty much all his plot armor.
Now, tune in tomorrow for... The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. Oh, joy, economics [/deadpan]. I'll have to dig out my Swindle toys, too.
Yeah, this was the episode that made my hopes of competent Ditzy Doo noncanon in pretty much every way. Le sigh.
Respectively, school and needing to do all the chores that couldn't be done by a child or a geriatric.
The thing that's always bugged me is why the National Rodeo Championship is held in Canterlot of all places. Not exactly the first town you'd think of for country competitions.
'Cause Applebloom has to go to school, and Mac has to keep the farm running while AJ is away?
Oh, and I did find Pinkie and Rarity working their way home on that cart funny.
As the others said, Mac has to run the farm and AB is a schoolfilly.
The one that bugged me with the episode is the writers and artists can't keep Equestria's geography straight. Big reason why I don't use the canon map
This is one of several episodes that fuel my opinion that Applejack is not a good fit for the Element of Honesty. She should not be toeing the line and resorting to loophole abuse just to squeak out the bare-bones letter of the concept. That's like playing a paladin and turning your back so you can say you didn't see any of those times your other party members murdered innocents. What I'm saying is you don't try to weasel out of it.
For that matter, I wonder if they paid for the damage to Cherry Jubilee's farm. Sometimes, sideline characters get a raw deal.
Despite it being an Applejack themed episode, the TRUE STAR of the SHOW was Derpy. No matter how hard you could ignore it.
Ah Applejack, going to a faraway farm to try and scrounge up enough cash to pay for the town hall repairs she should not be obligated to pay for, while at the same time leaving her brother to pick up her slack.
I imagine Greg from The Mentally Advanced Series is going to have a field day on this one with Twilight lambasting Applejack over Opportunity Cost.
2984424
Y'know, three months ago, when you posted this, ah didn't have a response. Now ah do. Ah'd put it into an episode review of mah own, but ah don't wanna review another Applejack episode yet—ah haven't even done one for Worst Pony, ah oughtta at least do that first. So you get an extra-special preview.
Applejack shouldn't've needed an excuse. She made a promise, yeah, but she did so under duress. She was bein' tormented, so she said the only thing that would make it stop. It's not her responsibility ta keep that promise. Do you honor leonine contracts?
3233668 When it's a promise I make with a friend, YES.
I don't make promises I intend to break unless I sincerely fear for my own safety or that of my friends and family. Why should a person claiming to be an upholder of Honesty have less integrity?
3233688
Ah don't believe you. Ah think you're jus' sayin' that because the honest answer would detract from yer libelous statements. A friend shouldn't extort such a promise in the first place. Ah wouldn't keep a promise that was obtained from me in that manner, nor would ah consider mahself the least bit dishonest for breakin' it. If you would, fine, but ah wouldn't consider you any more honest for it, either.
Fact is, this "standard" you're suggestin' AJ should be held to is actually completely arbitrary.
3234539 You're very good at using loaded statements. "Extorting". "Libelous". By weighing the relevant concept (promises) with negative terms, you're forcing emotions into the mix - making the very act of making/getting a promise seem morally corrupt. By this stance, you're establishing the concept of a promise by itself as morally corrupt (because a person must do something to obtain it, and that is "extorting"), thus justifying breaking a promise - any promise - without any guilt as perfectly acceptable moral behavior.
I'm not surprised that you refuse to believe that I have a hardlined moral code. People often justify their moral choices with the assumption that everyone else shares it and doesn't go above, and you've made yours clear. But in reality, moral is a line we draw in the sand - "This is right, that is wrong" - whether we obtain it from societal laws, religious teachings, or personal choice. "Killing is wrong". "Eating meat is wrong, but eating plants is right, even though they're both living things." "People with different skin color are worth less or more." Yes, technically they're arbitrary. That does not change the fact that you can stand by them just fine.
I've drawn my line on this matter - "Don't make a promise you don't intend to keep." Sure, you're free to assume that I lie about that, although I won't have any respect for your cynical attitude. But it's a simple, straightforward stance that has served me well.
Frankly, I cannot see how it's in any way honest to enter an agreement of any kind with the intention of finding excuses to get out of it once you've gotten what you came for.
3234736
Look.
I had posted, here in this space, a long rebuttal. But after stewing on it, I really don't want to continue this conversation because I feel we've both been saying some irrational things out of anger. I thought we were friends, or at least acquaintances who had some measure of mutual respect for each other. I would rather we continue to be that rather than losing our cool over an opinion.
Excellent.
But previously you said that a friend shouldn't have to make you give a promise at all if they're a friend. Thus inferring that if a friend makes you give a promise, they're "extorting" you and the promise can thus be ignored.
Perhaps we can approach this in a different manner. Under what circumstances (ideal as well as non-ideal) would you give a promise to someone with the full intent of trying your best to keep it (at a cost to yourself)? That is, under what circumstances would you consider it worth the effort?
Oh, I do admit that human fallacy is a thing, and just because I promise something doesn't mean it'll succeed. External factors exist. For example, if Applejack was somehow forced away from her waiting place in Dodge Junction by factors beyond her control, I would not have held it against her. However, deliberately weaseling out by your own choice is not an external factor. It's a deliberate choice.
More to the point, your claim of "I don't believe that you're adhering to the moral code you say you do" is your opinion, not fact. I can't exactly convince you of my integrity because you can easily reject it by accusing me of lying. This does not change that it's still your opinion. And saying that there's a semantic difference between "I refuse to believe" and "I don't believe" doesn't change the fact that you're accusing me of lying without any evidence to back up your claim.
No, I'm saying that you've established that your moral code justifies breaking promises, and you refuse to believe that I follow a moral code that finds this objectionable because my moral fiber supposedly isn't as strong as I claim it is.
If you want to bring up the matter of attacking, I should mention that you're the one accusing me of lying for little reason, and you accused me of making "libelous statements". (That is not how libel works.) So if anything, you're the one who attacked me. I chose to ignore that because it wasn't relevant. Please don't bring ad hominem into this.
And I wouldn't argue that "Pinkie Pie is being super annoying" as "having no choice in the matter" - at no point was her life or safety threatened, and Pinkie (who is her friend), even at her most annoying, would not have gone to the point of outright hurting Applejack. If she did that, she wouldn't be a friend anymore and the show would fall apart. Applejack knows this.
For the same reason that if a friend of mine started punching me in the face until I promised to do something I didn't want to do, they wouldn't be my friend, and I'd thus deal with the situation of a hostile person assaulting me. None of my friends extort promises from me that way because I don't have friends who treat their friends like that.
But you can hold that same cosmic force to a different moral that justifies going back on your word, and still claim to be "honest"? All morals are arbitrary. Including yours. It's just another line in the sand. You can compare a vegan to an ovo-lacto-vegetarian; they both have strict ideas of what is allowed and what is not, but the line is drawn differently.
Honesty is a concept that affects interaction between individuals (as does kindness, loyalty, generosity, laughter and friendship), so it needs to be defined by how individuals interact, and thus is set by individuals. If Applejack existed in a complete vacuum, her level of honesty would be completely irrelevant because she wouldn't interact with anypony else. But she doesn't.
Moral stances are arbitrary. All of them.
Yes. Cynicism is drab and boring and doesn't impress me. And you accused me of lying to you for no reason. Did you think that was very nice? Would you develop a deep and profound respect for me if I said you were ugly?
Unfortunately, if Rainbow Dash behaves in a way that seems disloyal (that is, doesn't fit a rubric of loyalty that I understand), I will assume that she's wavering in her loyalty (which I've said before is not a bad thing, as the protagonists are better as aspiring towards their elements than perfect paragons, and conflict is a story-driving element), not that she's displaying a form of loyalty I'm simply not equipped to understand.
Same with Applejack: It's okay to waver and doubt, as long as you try to find your footing. (Leap Of Faith made that clear.) But that doesn't mean you're just supposed to come up with justifications for why improper behavior is actually proper.
3235011
I just finished editing my post right before you posted. Unfortunate.
It's also becoming clear to me that there has been a lot of miscommunication in this discussion, as you've assumed certain things that are far removed from what I was actually trying to say. I don't want to participate in it anymore, it's going nowhere.
3235016 Jackie, I want you to know that I'm not at all angry. I disagree with your opinions on several things, but I've been arguing/debating this because I genuinely like debating with someone who can actually make proper arguments. And no, not the "I enjoy getting you worked up and angry", just enjoy the back-and-forth. It's like fencing.
I still respect you as a writer, even if calling me a liar was uncalled for. And I would like to still be friends; it's in the title of the show we both enjoy, after all. I apologize if I made you feel bad.
So yes, I'll be your friend if you're still willing. Okay?
3235050
Thank you. I'm just not quite as good at coping with that kind of pressure as you are. I do like to put forth an exercise in reasoning, but when it starts getting wilder I generally start to panic.
I maintain that I wasn't trying to insult you with those statements, but I guess I expressed them in a grandiose way that ended up kind of insulting as a result. I'm sorry about that.