Season Six Episode Review: Newbie Dash · 9:37pm May 7th, 2016
Another week, another episode. Time to review “Newbie Dash.”
TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 6
Episode: 7
Written By: Dave Rapp (writing), Dave Polsky & Dave Rapp (story)
First Aired: May 7, 2016
REVIEW:
First, Dave and Dave wrote this. I have no idea why this is relevant, but it amuses me.
I actually missed the episode's premiere this time around, partly because I had other things to do and partly because the synopsis did not grab me. It sounded far too much like another round of the Wonderbolts being jerks to Rainbow Dash, ending with her chewing out and teaching them not to be so rude. As a result, I got to hear all the wonderful chatter immediately afterwards, and...well, when an episode is widely compared to “Spike at Your Service,” the go-to example of the show at its worst, it doesn't inspire one with confidence.
Perhaps it's because the initial chatter was so overwhelmingly negative, but...I didn't hate this episode. I don't think it's great or anything, but it's far from the character assassination piece SaYS was.
Much like last season's “Canterlot Boutique,” this episode essentially wraps up one of the Mane 6's life-long dreams. (I know it's supposed to be Mane 7 now, but Starlight Glimmer is not in this episode and I will be damned if I'm going to count her as a main character yet.) Rainbow Dash has wanted to be a Wonderbolt almost her entire life, and has dedicated her every waking hour that isn't spent saving the world to making that dream come true. Unlike Rarity's boutique, however, we actually get to see Rainbow Dash slowly crawling up the ranks. She finally meets her heroes at the end of Season One. She attended the Wonderbolt Academy in Season Three, join the reserves in Season Four, take part in a show during Season Five, and finally she's promoted to a full member of the team. The result is that this at least gives an air of triumph and hard work paying off, whereas Rarity more or less just saved a lot of money and bought a building. (Not that she didn't work hard, too. Please don't kill me, Rarity fans.) It's just a shame that the episode really doesn't live up to that promise, instead playing out a very standard storyline for this show.
The episode's comedy is heavily built on cringe, which is likely one of the reasons for its initial reception. FiM and cringe comedy have a tumultuous relationship, and while it sometimes works (as in “Equestria Games”), here it leads to a lot of moments where I was very, very tempted to fast forward. The biggest offender is the looong scene in the middle, where Rainbow Dash misinterprets Twilight's advice and starts acting like each of the Mane 6. The point of the scene is to show her freaking out the other Wonderbolts and digging herself deeper, and probably to show off Ashleigh Ball's range. And yes, the impressions are funny. But what worked as a quick gag in “Lost Treasure of Griffonstone” is drawn out for far too long, making the episode stop dead before finally getting to the finale. It just makes Dash look like an idiot.
Here's the key difference between “Newbie Dash” and “Spike at Your Service,” however. The latter was also built around a character acting like an idiot, but the problem was that his idiocy was in opposition to his usual behavior. It leaves you asking questions like, “If Spike's the one that does Twilight's housework, why can't he use a mop without destroying the kitchen?” Rainbow Dash behaves stupidly this episode, but there's an actual reason:
She's an egotistical moron.
Rainbow has no problems until the “Rainbow Crash” nickname comes into play. She's flying in formation just fine until someone says it, and then she messes up because it throws her off. She goes to insane lengths to try and be known for something different, and she just makes the Wonderbolts think she's nuts. And when she tries to be a spotlight-stealing showoff just to get rid of that name, she ruins a performance, endangers lives, and destroys a confectionery wonder. And this is all behavior we've seen before. We know that Rainbow Dash has a traumatic history with that nickname. We know that she gets stupidly defensive when something threatens her ego. And we know that she has a tendency to overestimate her own abilities, especially when glory is on the line. Almost everything that goes wrong this episode can be rationalized and justified based on her previous behavior.
As for the Wonderbolts being bullies? They really weren't. They're very much a prestigious organization – they can only have so many members, and even someone as skilled as Dash had to wait until a slot opened – and things like forcing the newbie or weakest member to do clean-up are just a part of things. This is doubly true when we consider that the Wonderbolts are based on the Blue Angels, and are treated like a military force by previous episodes. As shown by the ending, the point of the nickname isn't to denigrate the recipient, but instead to joke about how they messed up in the past, remind themselves of that mistake, and hopefully show how far they've come since. It's actually a pretty well-done moral, and helps to reinforce to Dash that she's a part of a team, and doesn't have to be the flashiest and greatest pony ever.
Of course, I would have also had her busted back down to the reserves, if not kicked out entirely. She endangered ponies to make herself look good, and her punishment is to be on cleaning duty for a month. Then again, Starlight Glimmer committed multiple temporal genocides because her best friend left her, and she got to live in a crystal castle and be trained by the Princess of Friendship herself. The criminal justice system in Equestria is all kinds of messed up.
So why did they keep calling Rainbow Dash a name she hated? Because she never said so. Yet again, this is an episode where the plot could have been resolved in fifteen seconds if Rainbow Dash had just mentioned that “Rainbow Crash” was her trigger. Considering how the Wonderbolts behaved at the end, they would have come up with something else to work with, or possibly just explained the whole nickname tradition then and there. Conflict resolved, episode over.
CONCLUSION:
I would hesitate to call this a good episode. The comedy is very cringe-inducing, and the overall story is rather average for something that we've been building to since Season One. On the other hand, I would definitely not call it a bad one, either. The characters are largely true to themselves, there are some funny moments, and the moral is a good one. So it falls squarely in the middle, which is unfortunate for something this momentous.
Maybe next week...
Next time, it's a Hearth's Warming Eve episode! Kind of weird to have it in the middle of May, but...
Wait, it's a Starlight Glimmer episode. That's it, we're all getting coal for Christmas.
An odd occurrence for an episode that has a pretty good opening and ending, but the middle being the problem. Not sure if we've had an episode like that, or at least as obvious as this one was.
Anyway, I personally cheered Rainbow Dash in this one for finally seeing her lifelong dream come true. And I'm not even a big Rainbow Dash fan. She often rubs me the wrong way with her attitude and not in the fun way Trixie does.
So, will this mean she'll be off doing Wonderbolts things from now on or will she just do what Rarity does and stick around Ponyville like nothing has happened? We shall see...
In some ways that might make this more comparable to a different Spike episode, Equestria Games. Where I think this is a much stronger episode, however, is that it's at least still about Rainbow Dash joining the Wonderbolts, whereas Spike had never even been so much as a tertiary character in any of the episodes directly building up to the Equestria Games, resulting in him feeling like something of a last minute spotlight stealer.
Also, IIRC, whereas that episode spoke to your own personal insecurities, this episode spoke to mine. I've been in Rainbow Dash's shoes before, desperately trying to do anything I can to shake off a bad first impression or other misstep, only to instead make myself out to be an even bigger fool.
Yeah, the episode was still very cringe inducing. I was constantly burying my head in empathetic shame as Rainbow further and further humiliated herself, screaming at the top of my lungs for her to just "STOP!", and loving every painful minute of it. I haven't been this emotionally invested in episode all season, and after the string of what I've otherwise found to be mostly mediocre episodes so far, this was exactly what I needed to reinvigorate my love of the show.
To be fair, Spitfire also makes it rather transparent how much she wants to keep Rainbow Dash on the team for numerous other reasons, in both this and previous episodes. Not to mention that Spitfire has never really been a paragon of moral responsibility either, this time it just happened to play in Dash's favor.
I would say that Equestria Games is the exception proving the rule, the only time cringe humor has worked in the show.
Fun Fact: Unless rules have changed, Blue Angels are not permitted to do nose/nose passes, we see the 'Bolts do one during their air show.
3928261 Didn't work for me.
This whole season so far feels mediocre so far..
This episode actually hit home on an emotional note. I've always been a choir kid, and in high school I made the top choir in the state (at least on a high school level). Problem was, despite being part of the best, I was always getting corrected and felt like a failure. Almost quit quite a few times because my self worth was so far in the trash. While it wasn't the best episode, it struck a chord with me.
Spitfire does at least note that she has drummed ponies - Lightning Dust comes to mind - out for less than Dash's antics. The feeling is that Rainbow is good enough for leniency and has a record of saving the day. (I could not stop an exclamation of "FINALLY" when Fleetfoot noted Rainbow's heroic history.)
Still, she doesn't get off scott free. Cleaning the barracks for a month is not going to be fun.
Umm Well it could be worse I guess?
This might be my second favorite episode of the season so far, actually. I ended up liking it more than I thought I would, While I can't say I'm a Dash fan, I think her character was handled pretty well here; there's some cringe comedy, but ultimately Dash acts more impulsively than mean here, which I think is better for her.
The message of this episode is a bit of an odd one, and I can already see PC folk complaining about it, but coming from someone who's been an athlete, the representation of the comradery between the Wonderbolts is fairly accurate.
It's all weirdly low-key for the episode where Dash finally becomes a Wonderbolt, but I enjoyed it a lot.