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  • 304 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Molt Down

    This week is a Spike episode? What a re-”molt”-ing development this is!

    Let's look at “Molt Down,” the episode that will surely be perfectly normal and have no long-lasting repercussions on a character's appearance.

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    SHIPPING.

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    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Non-Compete Clause

    We've had a string of good episodes the last few weeks. Whether it be shapeshifting seaponies, an actual Celestia episode, or discovering Starlight's dark phase, we've had lots of fun and plenty of laughs.

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    The good times are over.

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  • 307 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: The Parent Map

    Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone who cares about that! What better way to spend the day than watching a cartoon about horses dealing with their mommy/daddy issues? Well, tough, because that's what we're doing. This is “The Parent Map.”

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  • 308 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Horse Play

    So hey, it's a new episode. Surely nothing to be excited about. Just another standard episode of a cartoon pony show.

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    5 comments · 1,260 views
Jun
22nd
2015

Season Five Episode Reviews: Princess Spike · 12:57am Jun 22nd, 2015

This week, we had a Spike episode. It wasn't very good. Let's look at “Princess Spike.”


TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 5
Episode: 10
Written By: Neil Dusedau
First Aired: June 20, 2015


SUMMARY:

The Grand Equestria Pony Summit is going down in Canterlot, and this time all four princesses are in attendance...and Spike, but as the dragon quickly learns, nobody cares about him. Twilight has been so busy making sure everything is perfect that she's gone three days without sleep, and rather than let the slipping-into-dementia bookworm continue to make important decisions, Cadance sends her to bed and entrusts Spike with making sure she stays asleep. The dragon interprets this to mean that he needs to stop all noise sources, including some ponies playing polo, a landscaper cutting down some dangerously top-heavy trees (which dragons are apparently allergic to), and a construction worker fixing a cracked water main. None of them listen to him until he drops Twilight's name, of course.

Then two ponies come to Twilight to complain about being double-booked. (Ba-Dum-Tish. Twilight's still out of it, so Spike gives an easy solution to combine the two events...and it fails. Still, even more ponies come up to Twilight's room with issues, and Spike quickly solves them all by saying that Princess Twilight is giving the answers. Once that's done, Spike becomes drunk with power and goes out to “help” all the other ponies Twilight was supposed to meet with, each time saying that he's an emissary of the princess. Cadance, however, sees exactly what he is doing and tells him to knock it off, but the dragon is just happy that everypony is listening to him.

And thus the chickens come to roost. The polo players knock their ball into the trees, which fall over and break the water main, which shoots water into the ballroom and floods the whole place. Cadance fixes the main, and the water is drained when Fancy Pants (who ordered the repairs to begin with) opens the door, but some of the tree branches got blasted into the ballroom as well, and Spike's sneeze destroys the friendship statue the entire summit was based around. Enraged at Twilight's stupid decisions, everypony rushes up the tower to give her a piece of their mind. Spike barely beats them up there and locks himself inside...right as Twilight wakes up. Once she learns what's been happening, she's rightfully pissed, but a quick apology is enough to make everything better.

And then someone gives Spike a bouquet made of the tree's flowers, he rears up to sneeze, and we cut away before he destroys the statue and triggers civil war.


REVIEW:

As I stated at the start of this review, I did not like this episode. That's not to say there aren't good parts. Pretty much everything with Twilight is hilarious, especially her book bed. Cadance is in good form here, Fancy Pants is actually used well, the extras are amusing (in particular the Fargo pony), and the concept of Spike becoming the voice of the crown was a good one.

What kills the episode is that, like Spike's other great mark of shame, “Spike at Your Service,” this is an episode that conspires to undermine any sense of competence Spike has, and then blames him for it.

The ultimate problem is that the episode tries to frame Spike as someone becoming mad with power, going for the same greed angle “Secret of My Excess” played for. And yes, he gets greedy and uses Twilight's authority to get what he wants. But outside of the double-booked panel, nothing he made a decision on during said time had a negative consequence. He did tell the polo team, landscaper, and construction worker to knock it off, but that was before the power trip started. About the only real fault he has is not having the water main fixed after a while, but how else could he stop the noise from traveling through that window and waking Twilight.

That open window.

That can be closed.

...Why didn't Spike just close the window, again? And why couldn't he just redirect the angry ponies to one of the other princesses on duty? Oh, right, because then we couldn't treat him like crap.

There's really nothing else I can say here. This is the “Secret of My Excess” of Season Five. What few good points it has are drowned out by a generally spiteful narrative centered on making Spike look like a colossal jerk despite the narrative not backing that conclusion up in the slightest. Spike destroys the big statue. Why? Because for whatever reason, someone planted a tree with flowers that dragons are incredibly allergic to (just watch how quickly his eyes puff up). And then they hand him a bouquet of those flowers just so he can destroy the statue again.

And all of this is because every character treats the ten-year-old dragon like dirt simply because he doesn't have wings and a horn. Now I'm getting “Putting Your Hoof Down” vibes.

I've criticized the whiny part of Spike's fanbase before, and I still stand by many of my statements. Complaining that he was treated like crap in “Equestria Games” when his issue was genuinely believable and handled in a mature way (and he was treated like a god for most of the first half) is petty. Accusing the IDW writers of just hating Spike because they hate men is idiotic. Spike is a secondary character and plays best in a supporting role. But when he gets the spotlight, this needs to stop. We can't keep making episodes about how crap Spike is whenever the light shines on him. Yes, conflict and character flaws are important, but you also need to show strengths and positive attributes. You rarely see that with Spike's starring roles, going as far back as the Faust/Renzetti days. If you want to do a Spike episode, do something different.


CONCLUSION:

I wanted to love this episode. When I read the synopsis, I thought it would be great. In the end, it was just another bad Spike episode. No more, no less.

As it stands, this is the worst episode of Season Five. Coming off of the previous episode, this is like crashing after downing a dozen Pixie Sticks. I've never been so disheartened towards the show, not even when Spike became Applejack's idiotic servant. And no, it's not as bad as “Spike at Your Service,” but it's real damn close.

The only good thing to come of this is that next week will be better. It can't get worse than this.

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Comments ( 18 )

Shit. I haven't seen the episode yet, and now I really don't want to. At least you didn't compare it to Just for Sidekicks. That episode gets a lot of shit, but I rather enjoyed it. SAYS was pretty much crap though.

This is what happens when a writer who has only worked on Johnny Test and Fish Hooks is given the job to write Spike as his first episode....

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There seems to be a 7 Deadly Sins trend going on here with Spike.

First we have Spike being greedy in 'Secret of my Excess'.

Being prideful of the importance of his role as 'Princess Spike' in this latest episode.

Envious of the the Mane 6 in that Power Ponies episode because he still ended up being a sidekick.

His gluttony causing trouble because he wanted more gems for his cake but couldn't help eating them (Just for Sidekicks).

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Why didn't Spike just close the window, again?

I shoulda titled my episode blog "JUST CLOSE THE DAMN WINDOW"

I'm more optimistic about the stuff that's good in it, but I don't understand why there seems to be this trend of shitting on Spike in almost every episode of his. I can't think this was intentional, these writers are so much smarter than that. I don't want to blame the new writer either but... I WANNA BLAME SOMEBODY!

I love Spike. He's a delightful character and a great support. Why can't they work him in a lead role properly? I've seen them do it. I like Secret of My Excess, Equestria Games, Just For Sidekicks. I even liked Dragon Quest for the most part. I think his best outing is in Inspiration Manifestation, but it's just as much Rarity's episode so... debatable.

I can't think the writers crap on him this much. Maybe Larson but he craps on everybody. Common knowledge.

3169314

That...actually explains a lot of things:facehoof:

I made the right call by not watching the episode, then. Seriously, Spike eps have always been horrible to me whenever I watched them for some reason and it shows. With the exception of Owl's Well That Ends Well and Inspiration Manifestation, of course. The former explores his position as Twilight's assistant and the realities of being just a kid. The latter shows how far he's willing to go for Rarity. Those kinds of episodes work. Where he actively tries to work in the spotlight are not good.

Damn, I guess I'm the only one that didn't have a negative reaction to this episode. My advice, for what it's worth, lower your expectations for Spike episodes. I had no idea what was going to happen in this episode, and sure, it had some predictable parts, especially the window thing, but I still found it overall a positive experience.

For one thing, I thought it was awesome the variety of accents and body types we saw with all the delegates. That tall poofy-haired orange mare is now my favorite pony. :rainbowlaugh:

To be even more honest, and this is an incredibly unpopular opinion, but I have never had a problem with any of the Spike episodes. They all had their parts that I enjoyed, and for me it's easier to focus on the positive aspects of something I enjoy rather than the negatives. Not to say I've never disliked an episode, of course, just never to the extent I've seen from you or other fans. Maybe I'm just too optimistic. :applejackunsure:

oh you did actually do a full review for this one too , i thought that other post was your review for it lol , so i'll repost this here then....



here's a comment someone made i thought you'd like

Background Pony #4784

also, just to mention it, they did rather fuck spike over good in that episode.

they literally forced him into a situation where he could not possibly not mess up (because he could either cause a pipe break OR make it so twilight can’t sleep. either way, he would have failed) and in the end, they talk him into believing that everything was his fault and that he should apologize to everyone else. when everyone else thought it was a good idea to overwork themselves until the very last minutes, not fix their fucking town until the very last minute, not using magic to fix their fucking town in time and then force a baby to somehow deal with a million people feeling entitled to have a fucking princess solve their idiot problems (he took my chair!).

unf spike, take these dicks, i wonder how we can fuck you next time.

yeah , this episode has a lot of core structural problems to say the least , something i thought of canonly this episode should have never happened in the first place , twilight would never miss scheduled 2 events to happen at the same time.....


3169314 holy fuck why the hell would they do thaaaaaaaat??.....

3175732
Cause hiring such a noob is cheap, and saves money... at the cost of actual character development, but since MLP is going to follow this rule, they don't care...

3175751 really? i thought the show has been pretty good at breaking status quo with every new season , even if treating spike's character like shit has remained persistent....

3175777
And not giving the cutie mark crusaders their cutie marks, Rainbow still wanting to be a Wonderbolt, Rarity never getting the fandom she desires for her fashion, etc.... most of the changes have been all to only one mare; Twilight Sparkle... since she's the shows protagonist and the others are just supporting characters...

3175783 cmc i can agree with , i think we're had enough 'adorable' episodes about them to actually implement some character progression for them now , even if they minor side characters....

....why does rd still wanting to be a wonderbolt mater? she already passed the exams at the academy for them so she can basically become one whenever she wants right? but that would be like a full time employment thing and her not wanting her to abandon her friends and being a necessary defender of equstria kinda get in the way of that right? in the earlier days that wouldn't have stopped rd from realizing her dream , but she had character development to the point where those other things became more important to her than her dream right? doesn't seem like a status quo problem to me....

rarity never getting the fandom she desired? when did she say she wanted this? the most prominent fashion ppl from all over equstria keep flocking to her for her work , what exactly is wrong here i don't see it?......

really? aside from the addition of wings and liking friends after she got some in the first episode , what character development has twi gone through?....

3175820
Personality wise: not so much, physically wise: wings, castle, title, and a soon-ready-to-mount-her stallion (Cause 'Destiny')

3175834 a title isn't something physical....

and a soon-ready-to-mount-her stallion (Cause 'Destiny')

?.....

3175838
Flash Sentry... just added in to be tool for Twilight (both figurative and literal)

3175843 i don't acknowledge eqg in my ponies so that doesn't matter to me....

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