Thoughts on S6 E10 · 3:52am Jun 8th, 2016
Applejack gets a day off, except not really.
Check out below for the break for some thoughts.
You thought it was an episode analysis, but it was me, Patchouli!
So, yeah. bookplayer has a much more detailed dissection of the episode than I'm willing to give, and you should check it out to compare notes. But I don't share the sentiment, being one of the sorts of people that - and I now admit this shamefully - don't care much about the quality of writing.
As in, yes, this episode relied on contrivances lining up as perfectly as the augmentation of carbon atoms in a graphite molecule resulting in the stabilized exchange of the pi(?)-electron. Applejack had to be dumb, beyond dumb, for there to be even a conflict. And there had to be a conflict, because...?
Well, not a conflict, but more of a lesson. Applejack learnt that inefficiencies can be ingrained into corporate culture, and we, the viewers and the children (who are also viewers) learned that sometimes you need a second opinion on how you do things.
Unfortunately, I felt that the direction of the double lesson was too fluid, resulting in a weird funk of a takeaway. Because both lessons were equally prominent - they shared essentially the same setup and elaboration only to have the end interpretation go two ways - it ends up being a weak parable.
Now when I say parable, I mean parable, because in my admittedly narrow experience working with kids, parables are a great way to enforce or discourage behaviors.
"Don't you want to be like Twilight, doing X instead of Y?"
"Remember when Discord did that bad thing? You don't want to be like that, do you?"
"You don't want to hit people because [villain] did that and look at what happened to him."
However, the parable here is mixed up. One is useful for particularly stubborn kids. The other is not. Unfortunately, the one that's useful for kids was set up in a way for adults, or at least ones with a longer attention span, and if you told a kid that was the real lesson instead of "Applejack is silly hue" they'd think you're reaching, and thus discount your opinion.
Coming back to the quality of writing - I liked the structure, despite the contrivance. In twenty minutes, they paced two parallel stories to come together as one, and I like that sort of simultaneous plotline thing, rather than a plain linear progression. More importantly, I like that the simultaneous plotlines are parallel and converge, rather than being Side A/Side B. Maybe it's because I have trouble writing those that I appreciate them unduly. I'm not saying it's a redeeming feature, even, but that I liked that it was so.
I didn't mind that the conflict was tepid. I don't need obvious conflict to provide it, seeing as I am a fanfic writer and my brain fills in all the little details. For example, for me, this was all about Rarity trying to spend free time with Applejack, and now that her time-wasting habits are over the conflict should be resolved. Conflicts, to me, are more emotional, and I don't really see AJ being the one conflicted because she doesn't seem all that unhappy having no free time. In short: no sad, no bad.
All she wants is a bit of your time, Applejack! You're tearing this family apart, Applejack!
And I don't mind characters being as silly as they are. I mean, from the pruny face to Spike carrying an unexplained stack of pie trays, I knew this was going to be a low-key episode, and I was fully settled to watch the show and chill. I wouldn't say I found it funny, but I found it humuorous, and was pleasantly surprised that AJ actually had reasons to do what she did.
In conclusion, yeah, hey, that was an episode. Not in a bad condemning way, but yeah.
No, that wasn't the real point of the blog. This blog is to say that, after two solid episodes, I am inspired to do another reactive fic! Woo.
In fact, Pav's quip about how the spa is important to Rarity sparked the idea for a second one. We'll see how that goes.
Until I watch Flutter Brudder, this is Casca, signing out.
