Season Six Episode Review: Applejack's "Day" Off · 4:32pm May 28th, 2016
Hello, boys and girls! It's time for another Applejack episode! Can our hard-working farm pony survive...relaxing?!
…
Actually, I don't care. This episode doesn't deserve to be cared about.
TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 6
Episode: 10
Written By: I don't care
First Aired: May 28, 2016
REVIEW:
The episode's synopsis was something a good-sized segment of fans have been wanting: an episode that forces the eternally hard-working Applejack away from the farm and family in order to relax. The teaser also generated some interest, featuring Applejack apparently going insane and making faces at/pretending to be farm animals. So how can an episode like this go wrong?
It's just so DUMB and BORING.
As immature as that sounds, that's the only way I can say it. The episode is just dull as dishwater.
So basically, Applejack has been missing spa days with Rarity because of her chores. After one missed day too many, Rarity forces her to go with her for an hour while Twilight and Spike take over. When they get to the spa, they discover that the steam room isn't working because some of the pipes are faulty and constant hot towel deliveries are sapping the hot water. So she fixes everything and makes the spa the model of efficiency, while also ruining her spa day. Then she goes back to the farm and, irony of ironies, the reason her chores are taking so long is because Applejack is adding time-wasting, unnecessary steps to the process of something as simple as “dump foods in front of pigs and back away.”
The lesson is, admittedly, a good one and applies to the adult world as much as the child one. Anyone that's worked pretty much anywhere can tell you there are often steps you have to take that make no sense, but you do them anyway because that's how it's always been done and we'll fire you if you try to change us. Sometimes they made perfect sense back in the day, but things have changed and they are no longer necessary. And sometimes you need an outside eye to point this out.
The issue is that...Applejack isn't this stubborn and stupid. She wouldn't have multiple gate openings and closings once she fixed the gate. She wouldn't go around acting like a chicken just to fool the pigs. She's never done ANY of this before, and she's had plenty of time to go to the spa or do other activities in previous episodes, and yet this is treated like it's been a long-standing and recurring problem. The episode just feels so forced in getting AJ to that step that it undercuts the moral and makes the whole thing into a farce.
This might have worked if there had been more time built around Twilight and Spike following her list. (And to the episode's credit, Twilight is not the kind of pony to deviate from a list.) Instead, the entire second act is occupied by Applejack and Rarity at the spa. The whole sequence is dragged out, including long segments of them just following the towel pony and repeating the problem over and over. The two plotlines don't intertwine, leaving the episode feeling like it was two ideas shoved together.
It's not even a particularly amusing one, either. Most of the jokes fall flat, and that's when they're actually trying to be funny. Spike eats a lot of pie. That's a joke, I guess? (Now, Starlight eating all those pies would be...maybe a tiny bit actually funny.) Applejack's “insanity” lost nearly all of its comedic value when given context, as it just makes her look like an idiot. About the only moment that made me laugh was Rarity's prune face, which was also quite horrifying. Not even Rainbow Dash's multiple attempts to hide her love of pampering got a rise out of me.
CONCLUSION:
The Applejack Curse strikes again – her episode is just plain boring. There's nothing interesting to talk about here outside of perhaps the moral. I won't call the episode garbage or the worst ever, but it's just so painfully dull that I can't say I enjoyed watching it. So...yeah, bad episode.
Next time, hopefully a better episode than this.
We get some long-overdue world-building when we finally meet Fluttershy's family. That's gotta be better than a reminder that the writing staff have no clue WHAT to do with Applejack. What would have made more sense is to have her avoid enforced idleness by any means necessary WITHOUT handing her the idiot ball. Perhaps they could have had her react to something willed on her by someone wispy and sentimental.
Well.... It's still better than Newbie Dash.
This was an S1-style episode. I liked it at least
Honestly, I enjoyed this episode. If it weren't for the Applejack idiot ball thing, and RD ordering a hooficure (seriously, I thought she didn't like ponies touching her hooves), I wouldn't have any complaints.
Wherein Unicorn Master Race teach an Earth Pony how to Farm
Too bad Starlight only exists in her own spotlight episodes and is otherwise entirely ignored. Actually, now that you mention it, that's only even more of a shame here. The attempted moral that sometime you need an outside eye to recognize all the little inefficiencies that crop up over time is practically begging to have the new girl on the block being the one to provide those observations.
Anyway, other than that hindsight realization, I can't say I was as disappointed with that this episode as you seemed to have been, but that's mostly because the problems you describe are something I've been feeling to some extent or another all season long -- wasted opportunities, uninspiringly dull, and tediously drawn-out. Which isn't to say I thought this episode was "good" by even those lackluster standards, just that my expectations have been worn away to the point where I'm used to it.
...
So I don't know, does that count as us agreeing or disagreeing this time around?
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The extent or reasons for the disappointment do not matter. In the end, we both walked away not enjoying the episode. Therefore, we agree.
...So this is how a tradition is broken.
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With thunderous applause?
(I'm part of the generation that saw the Prequels in cinema as my first Star Wars, don't judge me)
Anyway...sounds like a shame for the episode, and a missed opportunity. The Rarity-Applejack relationship has been gone to a lot. At this point, either do something really different with the pair, or have AJ spend time with other characters.
Starlight would be my choice...but what about Fluttershy? AJ's hard will and stubbornness, contrasted with Flutters meekness? That's a pairing we haven't seen much of; last I recall was season 4, with the fruit bats, and Fluttershy wasn't herself for most of that.
This whole season feels like a let down so far...