My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 15: "28 Pranks Later" (SPOILERS) · 4:04pm Aug 13th, 2016
In this week's episode, Rainbow Dash gets carried away with jerkass behavior, so her friends decide to teach her a lesson by showing her up.
...wait, didn't we already have this episode?
Okay, so first thing's first: I'm taking two points off this episode's score for being a rehash of "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well". Whether it earns those points back remains to be seen. (This is not because of any resentment towards that episode; I happen to like that particular episode, even though I acknowledge its divisive nature. I'm docking this one for being a rehash of an older episode period.)
The sheer level of OOC behavior and reversion of character development in this episode isn't helping it earn those points back, nor is the amateurish writing.
The episode opens with Fluttershy and her animal friends walking through the forest at night. Rainbow Dash pulls a really jerkass prank that scares Fluttershy silly. (Isn't Fluttershy supposed to be off-limits for pranking? Pinkie's not gonna be happy about this.)
Right off the bat, Fluttershy wins Albinocorn's Best Face with her tree-clinging terror, but those of us who already saw the preview clip know Celestia has her beat later in the episode.
Fluttershy arranges an intervention at Twilight's castle, where the Mane Six read Rainbow the riot act for pranking Fluttershy. During the intervention, Twilight falls victim to a whoopie cushion gag.
The intervention backfires: Rainbow decides to launch a full-scale prank war on her friends and the rest of Ponyville, beginning with replacing Rarity's sewing machine with a sewing machine cake.
Applejack wakes up with her entire bed in the pig waller. Cranky Doodle Donkey's wig is replaced with a skunk. Spike has dozens of scrolls dropped on his head one at a time while trying to send a letter to Celestia, resulting in Celestia being buried in mail.
And so forth and so on, Rainbow pranks half of Ponyville in various bizarre ways. Eventually, the others go to Pinkie Pie to ask her to get Dash to quit pranking. But when Pinkie goes to Dash's place to talk to her, she finds out Rainbow is planning to prank all of Ponyville with joke cookies. She intends to replace the cookies for the Filly Guide cookie sale with cookies that cause a pony's mouth to turn rainbow colors. Pinkie tries to convince her not to do it, but Rainbow is determined to be a jerk.
I mean, REALLY DETERMINED to be a jerk. It's season 2 Rainbow at her worst.
So Pinkie Pie decides to give Rainbow a taste of her own medicine by involving the entire town in an epic prank: Pinkie sets up the idea that the joke cookies cause a mysterious illness, and the entire town puts on a "zombie outbreak" performance to freak Rainbow out.
Okay, so...gonna be honest:
As F.M. De Marco's MLP debut, this episode has not made a good impression, and I will be viewing any further episodes written by this writer with apprehension.
The pranks by themselves are funny (some of them, anyway), but Rainbow's incredibly OOC jerkass behavior in this episode is a dealbreaker. Then you have the fact that it's a rehash of a season two episode that a lot of people didn't like.
That having been said, the episode does have a couple of standout moments:
- It's the first time the CMCs have actually been called "CMCs" on-screen. Which...actually is very telling about how lazy this particular writer is. Missed this in the previous episode and, I'm told, at least one other time. Derp.
- Twilight's whoopie cushion scene. I'm sorry, that was hilarious.
- The VAs clearly had a lot of fun with the zombie acting, so there's that.
The few funny bits in the episode ultimately don't redeem everything that's wrong with it, so...
Moth's score: 2/10. It'd be 0/10 except for Tribblestia and Twilight's whoopie cushion incident.
Actually, Twilight said "CMCs" in the Season 6 premiere.
I'm usually pretty forgiving of an episode's flaws, but that prank on Fluttershy really threw me for a loop. That's top level adrenaline junkie shit. And directly contradicting Griffon the Brush Off too.
Looks like I've got a new entry in my bottom 5.
As I said elsewhere, Rainbow Douche (thanks for coining that, Moth) has put in another appearance.
"Hey, anyone else remember the Gilda episode from Season 1? Wasn't that awesome?"
"Yes, we think it had a very good moral about toxic friends and not letting them drag you d--"
"Who cares about that? The pranks! I mean the pranks!"
"Uh, well, that wasn't really the point of--"
"How come we never finished THAT story? We should'a made a whole episode about pranks!"
"Maybe? But that was five seasons ago and Rainbow Dash has grown up a lot since--"
"I'ma write it!"
"Please don't."
"I'ma write it!"
I think this episode picked up once we got to the point where Pinkie knew about Rainbow Dash's pranks, and especially once we got to the zombie prank. It just took too long to get there, wasting it's time showing how Rainbow Dash is being a jerk. But to be fair, some of her pranks were harmless (such as the whoopie cushion and the blackboard gag). I also think Starlight could've at least been included as a cameo in the zombie mob scene. Plus, unlike in MMDW, the mane six actually directly talked to Rainbow Dash the instant they noticed a problem, instead of going behind her back and trying to one up her.
This is another episode we'll have to disagree completely on.
I found the episode immensely entertaining, and I found RD's behavior to be completely in character, since her prankster ways had never gone away, and it's been shown repeatedly that she CAN get carried away when she gets too into something.
And I don't mind the fact that it's similar to MMDW, because of the first point of me finding the episode entertaining.
Is it the best of the season? No.
Is it the worst? Also no.
I'd personally give it a 9.2/10, which is about average for this season.
4147574 And that very season 1 episode, in fact, is where Rainbow Dash was informed that pranking Fluttershy is a no-go because of how she reacts. Which makes the first prank of this episode a display of jerkass behavior on RD's part. And poor background checking on that of the writer.
I noticed a callback, or several, to "Griffon the Brush-off" as well as "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well". It was actually funny to see Celestia buried in a sea of scrolls, as well as the sewing machine cake and whoopie cushion prank scenes.
I'd have liked it if they would've put in a scene, like the end of "Left 4 Dead", where a character sacrifices themselves, because that'd make for a good zombie themed episode. I thought the episode was okay, but could've had a few things done better.
4147580 Eeyup.
I consider this to be even worse than One Where Pinkie Knows.
Huh. Never thought I'd say those words in my entire life.
But yeah, the episode was shite. Let's hope the next one's good. I mean, it's god Changeling in the title, so how could you go wrong?
4147574 It's worth pointing out that the concept of this episode was thought up by Meghan McCarthy herself. How much of it was her fault vs. the writer's though, is a good question.
I really hope I'm not offending either of you by saying this, but I find it amusing that your comment in the site blog episode post has several downvotes for saying the episode sucked, yet 4147583 has several downvotes here in your blog for enjoying the episode.
I don't exactly know why that amuses me so much, but it does.
The whoopee cushion is a classic and funny (how could they didn't find funny). Spamming Celestia with mail, also funny, but already been done before. I thought the sewing machine cake was clever and the displace of AJ's bed to the pig pen give me a smile. But I think it would have been better if Rainbow did nothing and let AJ caught in her own security trap due to her paranoia.
Apart from the above, yes all the other prank were mean spirited. Love the zombie scourge.
My thought about the about the episode... um meh.
Mm an, in a lot of episodes they make Rainbow such a jerk. I'm pissed. Like, really pissed.
Like, one second she's developing, and the next she's an unbelievably crude cave pony.
4147687 Probably because most of my comments on here tend to be disagreeing with MythrilMoth on the episodes.
I found this episode to be pretty entertaining. Seeing "zombies" was a cool treat, and it was obvious to see the animators had fun with the zombie designs.
Yeah, I laughed for five minutes straight because of the whoopee cushion gag. That is probably my favorite moment in the episode.
I think this episode is better than The Crystalling, but not as good as episodes like Stranger Than Fanfiction and Gauntlet of Fire.
regarding the rather...idiotic decision for dash to go backwards in development a few steps..it not that far fetched. sometimes, you just want to be a dick for no reason, even if its hurting folks. as for the town getting dash back, lets face it. she deserved it.
anyway, 5/10 episode for me. just kinda meh. had quite a few funny moments though, but it was mostly meh.
tHEY'RE GOING TO EAT YOUR braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains mYHTRILmOTH...
I get zombies are something to fear in general, but if I were in the situation, I would need to see these cookie hungry zombies actually tear someone apart or eat someone to consider them a threat. I was like "Okay so they just want to eat rainbow cookies. Will they kill/eat someone if they're given anything but rainbow cookies? If so, then yeah consider them a 'threat' "
Awww, I got mentioned in this blog.
The follow-up for this episode is going to be fun.
4148045 I can't wait to see Sunset go ballistic.
I thought it was okay. The prank she pulled on Fluttershy, and some of the pranks later in the episode, like the skunk wig and brick in the sandwich, were not okay. But the sewing machine cake, and the prank she pulled on Spike and Celestia were really good. And her rainbow cookie prank seemed like an okay idea. And the zombie prank was pretty funny too. Rainbow was kind of an OOC jerk but honestly, this episode pretty much felt like a better Mare-Do-Well. If this took place in season 2 in place of Mare-Do-Well, it would've been a pretty good episode. Now it was just okay.
Yeah, this episode had a few funny moments and good faces, but NOT a very good episode. Pity.
Yeah, this episode wasn't a good introduction for this writer. The zombie prank was funny, if not predictable, but Rainbow Dash took like 20 steps back in her development.
And for focus...
...THANK YOU.... Now if you'll excuse me.....I have to go swat Rainbow Dash with a rolled up newspaper.
Are you sure it's THAT out of character for RD to be a jerk? Because all the obvious episodes aside, she also sold Flutters to slavery, almost destroyed Clowdsdale in her attempt to sabotage the weather machine, and was hogging the scene in Rainbow Rocks.
Frankly, her being a jerk has become a part of the package in my eyes, just as Rarity being materialistic and manipulative.
4154139 The Fluttershy thing was her not realizing what she was really doing until it was too late, the Cloudsdale thing was Rainbow having the same kind of epic breakdown of sanity Twilight had in Lesson Zero, and the Rainbow Dash in Rainbow Rocks isn't the same Rainbow Dash and doesn't have five seasons' worth of character development.
So yes, it's out of character for season six Rainbow Dash to be THIS much of a jerk.