Sweet Home Castle-bana

So as something of a personal writing exercise, I'm gonna continue writing about Season 5 in these blogs! Again I'm nearly a week late to the metaphorical party and my title's a pile of horseapples, but whatever!

I've got a habit of not thinking ahead about what future episodes could be, or how a new episode will end, because that would kind of ruin the show for me. If I think about that stuff, I'll inevitably come to some actual conclusions. So while in the back of my head I knew they'd have to address the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle (Luna's knee-high socks, I can't believe that's actually the name), I didn't mentally address it. But after I watched this episode with my roommate/friend/current proofreader, he said that he'd been looking forward to them tackling the subject. Which is why I'd have to say that a viewer's disappointment in this episode depends on how great their expectations were.

Let's start off with Pinkie Pie: she was actually super annoying. Which is weird to say because she's my favorite of the Mane 6, but clearly the writers got lazy here. While her comment about the mixing spoon in the pancakes was hilarious, every other thing that she said was something unnecessary and tactless. Remember how she made Fluttershy cry in "Filli Vanilli"? Yeah. The vast majority of everything Pinkie Pie said was in line with that. The only reason that it was funny that time is because it came so far out of left field, we didn't expect it. And her other jokes? All the party cannons to generate physical humor were just unfunny.

Secondly, the song. It's mediocre. "Make This Castle A Home" is basically "The Ballad of the Crystal Empire". All six ponies are just listing off stuff they need to make a place better. And it's only slightly faster, too. It's certainly not boring, but this won't be a memorable song to me, that's for sure. But on the other hoof, how else would this song have been arranged and written? What else would have they sung about?

Concerning the plot, it felt a lot like something that would have happened in the first season. That's not exactly a bad thing. I was hoping that this fifth season wouldn't be all crazy-go-nuts every episode. The world isn't at stake here, and that's okay. Like I said last time, I didn't get into the show because it was geared for adults, I just thought the characters were likeable and I had a lot of fun. And the point of this episode is easily digestible, too. It can really appeal to anybody that's lost a home and had to move, for every reason from moving out of your hometown to... your treehouse getting incinerated by a demon-centaur, I don't know. Still, if you were expecting an exciting or very emotional episode, though, it's just not here. Even when they claim the clock is really ticking, it feels like they still have plenty of time to bring the conflict to a conclusion and even come back with a reprise of the song. And yet, simultaneously... what could they have done to make the whole scenario thrilling? Not much.

But Iet's put all of this stuff together. Alongside Pinkie's shoddy writing, the shoehorned uninspired song, the distinct lack of action, let's add a couple more things. There's that mini clip-show towards the end where we see bits from previous episodes, and we don't actually get to see the entire castle's final redecoration. So all in all, I'm inclined to believe this was a filler episode. Which makes perfect sense if you think about it. So much budget had to have been spent on the opening double-parter, and they clearly put a ton of time in to make it a fascinating pair of episodes. This was the perfect episode for them to slack on. There absolutely had to be an episode where Twilight accepts the castle as her new home, but there was absolutely no way they could make that story exciting. The art department was too tired to draw out every room's new decor, the writers were too beat and had to write something simple, and the song was basically recycled. And on our end, well, have you seen all the fanart of Twilight's styled mane? Yup. That's what we took away from it, because there was nothing else to take.

Does that make it a bad episode? No. An interesting one, or a favorite one? Also no. Am I disappointed? That's a strong word. The episode is what it is, nothing more, and nothing less. One mediocre apple won't spoil the whole basket. I'm still excited to see what's coming up next.