Season Six Episode Reviews: On Your Marks · 6:53pm Apr 9th, 2016
Hey, it's a new episode! And it's about the CMC! And it's written by Dave Polsky! Why am I excited about this?!
This is “On Your Marks.”
TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 6
Episode: 4
Written By: Dave Polsky (story), Dave Polsky & Josh Haber (writing)
First Aired: April 9, 2016
SYNOPSIS:
The Cutie Mark Crusaders are faced with an existential dilemma: now that they have their cutie marks, what are they supposed to do with their lives? They can't pursue cutie marks anymore, nopony in town really needs their help with a serious issue, and the three don't share a lot of the same hobbies. Finally, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle decide they should try having fun on their own.
Apple Bloom takes it well...
REVIEW:
Remember when I totally spoiled “Crusaders of the Lost Mark” for everyone and pissed you all off? Yeah, that excitement faded really fast. It was amazing to actually see the CMC finally reach a conclusion to their arc...but then I started actually thinking about the episode. Or rather, the three episodes they crammed into one and held together with musical numbers, leaving an episode that looked like one of those glue-covered pine cones with the googly eyes six-year-olds make. That was the payoff? After so many hints about where their talents lie, their talent ends up just being telling people they're living their lives wrong? And that's not even getting into the “Diamond Tiara is instantly forgivable because her mommy is horrible.” I wrote a freaking novel-length fanfiction about another snot-nosed unicorn getting redeemed in order to avoid pulling that crap.
I'll get to “Crusaders” one of these days, but suffice to say, the CMC were in a bit of a limbo state after that. Would they remain the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Would they have to disband, like how they kicked Babs out the minute she got her mark? What would be their new role in the show? That's where this episode comes in and tries to provide some answers.
The first act feels...off. It feels like it's reaching too far into the CMC's past, back when they really were one-dimensional ponies obsessed only with getting cutie marks. Subsequent seasons still kept their pursuit of the marks, but also spent more time building up the fillies as individuals, had them just hanging out and having fun, and showed that their lives didn't completely revolve around a puberty metaphor. But here, all of the flashbacks are to Season One episodes. Everything they do is specifically related to getting marks, and now that they have them, finding out what they're supposed to do with them. Bulk Biceps' appearance hints at the episode possibly going the way it did with Trouble Shoes last season – exploring how a pony's cutie mark can mean different things depending on how you look at it – but Bold BigFlank's Bulk's so simple a character that his problem is solved instantly.
So we're left with a first act that's not all that impressive. The rest of the episode, however, is much better, as the focus shifts back to the CMC as individual ponies and how they work together – that is, not at all. It's no secret that the three have different interests and ideas of what's fun, but in the past they were able to ignore all that because they were all interested in getting magic butt tattoos. Now that the common ground they had is lost, the three are confronted with how different they are as ponies. This leads into one of the episode's actual morals: you don't have to like the same things as your friends to be friends.
This leads into the second moral, which is exemplified by Apple Bloom's descent into pure angst. (Appropriate, considering the puberty metaphor and all.) Remember that one of Apple Bloom's biggest fears from “Bloom and Gloom” was of the Crusaders falling apart, leaving her friendless once again. Well, she did have Twist back in Season One, who also left Apple Bloom feeling alienated once she got those peppermint sticks on her butt. Considering how close the Apples are, there are a lot of hints to indicate that Apple Bloom has a fear of rejection or abandonment, which is why Scootaloo's perfectly valid and logical suggestion is treated like a kick to the rear. She also may have a fear of change, as she wants to keep things the way they were when they were blank flanks and just trying things to see if they could stumble across their special talent. A shame that it's resolved so quickly:
Apple Bloom: I'm emo and hang out in the dark because you said we can't be friends anymore.
Scootaloo: I never said that.
Apple Bloom: I'm happy again!
Well, she is still a kid, after all.
Apple Bloom's failure montage is amusing, but mostly highlights just how much finding her purpose in life consumed her. Being a part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders formed a huge part of her identity, and she has trouble breaking out of that comfort zone. The montage, her dismissal of an obvious opportunity to use her special talent, and the CMC reconvening leads into the second moral: you don't have to be good at something to have fun doing it. Scootaloo tries sky diving, and is good at it. Sweetie Belle tries crocheting, and admits that she's terrible at it, but she still had fun and wants to try again. Apple Bloom herself eventually realizes this, now that she's had time to reflect and isn't (insert joke about Linkin Park, black clothing, or writing crappy poetry on tumblr here). Again, this is a good lesson.
The third moral is centered around yet another new character, Tender Taps. It's very obvious and a little forced considering how the episode was going, but he's the first foal the CMC help get marked. His only problem is that he's got stage fright, which is easily fixed. This leads into the third moral: it's good to try new things and expand your horizons. Yet another good lesson. They are on a roll this week.
Oh, and Apple Bloom has a song. It's okay.
CONCLUSION:
I started out not really caring for the episode, but I found myself enjoying it a lot more as it went along. There's a lot of good stuff here, and it helps lay the groundwork for keeping the CMC around now that their previous goal has been resolved. It's a bit predictable and simple, but I had fun this time around with those precocious fillies.
This was an obvious episode to make and predictable, BUT, I still think it was done well. I can't fault an episode for giving us so many good lessons, ones in which practically everyone goes through some point in their life.
A little too much exposition when it came to explaining the morals, but again, that's something that's been done since season one (Friendship Reports) so I can't be too critical.
It was a nice episode, kind of transitional for the CMC. I actually really enjoyed Crusaders of the Lost Mark a lot more than this one, and I liked those songs more too. I can forgive a lot for some good tunes.
Yeah, I guess can more or less agree with most of that. The second and third acts did pick thing up a bit, but for me at least it just wasn't really enough to make up for how weak the first act was. The whole montage of only season-1 footage and corresponding false fixation on the notion that the girls only every spent time together searching for their cutie marks, when they've done plenty of other things, just left a sour taste in my mouth. Sure maybe it all built up to some really good morals, but it just felt so regressively forced along the way.
Then again the three of them are kids, and it's far from the first time one of them went into crisis mode over something that should otherwise have been a non-issue, especially Apple Bloom, who I think you're right in that she was always the one most wrapped up in defining herself through her friendship with Scoots and Sweetie. To a lesser extent it might go all the way back to before the CMC were even a group and that AB is just more prone to anxiety and existential crisis about her place which made her so vulnerable to Diamond Tiara "blank flank" teasing in the first place.
Still, I cant help but also feel like for the second week in a row I'm having to force myself to find something of merit in an episode that otherwise just felt... MEH. Just like last week I feel like I've come out of the episode feeling like it was all just a jumbled collection of scenes that are only mildly entertaining on there own, but which bare manage to added up to anything all that note worthy as a whole. Which is a shame, because as you pointed out there really were some good morals here, and yet I just found the overall delivery so mediocre, which is in so many ways worse than if the episodes were tangibly bad, because it just leaves me struggling to figure all the more so to figure out where the failing is.
I don't know, maybe it's just me --and in a way I hope its just me-- but these last two episodes just felt so perfunctory, as if there were just going through superficial motions of conveying a moral without really having much in the way a completing story by which to deliver it that I just couldn't really get invested the way I used to. Whether it's me or the show though I really hope it's just a temporary phase, an early season lull that will improve again in short order.