Season Six Episode Review: 28 Pranks Later · 4:34pm Aug 13th, 2016
...Testing, testing...
I don't know if anyone out there will ever see this. I don't know if there's anyone still out there, period. They came without warning, destroying everything in their wake to sate their hunger. I barely managed to fight them off and barricade myself in this utility shed. They know I'm in here, and it's only a matter of time before they try to break in.
In the meantime, I've still got some rounds left for my shotgun, and enough food to last a few days. After that...
On the plus side, I was able to locate evidence of who was responsible for this outbreak. It was cleverly hidden in an episode of a child's cartoon. I've rigged up the generator to power the television, and with luck, we will soon know the monster that did this and bring her to justice. I might as well review the episode, as well. Nothing better to do, and it gets my mind off the rotting zombie pony corpses.
This is “28 Pranks Later.”
TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 6
Episode: 15
Written By: Meghan McCarthy (story), F.M. De Marco (writing)
First Aired: August 13, 2016
REVIEW:
I might as well reveal it: the culprit was Rainbow Dash. I always knew she would be the one to bring about the end of the world, assuming Pinkie didn't blow it up with a party bomb or Rarity remembered the fashion of the 1980s and committed global genocide as penance. It's actually been a pretty good while since we really saw “Master Prankster” Dash, and her early reign of terror has a distinct Season One feel to it. (Including a variation on one of the pranks from “Griffon the Brush-Off.” Celestia's extra hour in the scroll pit was money well spent.) That being said, the initial conflict (Rainbow pulling a rather mean-spirited prank on Fluttershy) can feel out-of-character...except that Dash is still a jerk this many seasons later.
But wait, wasn't she unwilling to prank Fluttershy back in the aforementioned griffon episode? Yes...but only after Pinkie Pie told her it was going too far. Before that, she was more than willing to terrify her yellow Pegasus fillyhood friend...who, let's be honest, wasn't her friend at all until retcons set in. In any case, Dash's jerkass nature is exaggerated this episode, but in a way, so is Fluttershy's timidness (which she has been shown as mostly over in episodes previous) and Pinkie Pie's exuberance for Dash's pranking spree.
I'm still willing to forgive the episode, though, because the pranks were little bits of genius. The sewing machine cake, Rainbow somehow getting Applejack's bed in the pig pen, the chalkboard gag – all of them are actually funny, even if the message is clear that the other ponies aren't laughing. The brick sandwich is crossing the line, though.
When the episode's synopsis was announced, there was a small uproar that it was going to be “Mysterious Mare-Do-Well” all over again. And in some ways, the episode follows that particularly reviled piece of writing's formula. The crucial difference, though, is that the Mane 6 don't jump from thinking their friend is getting a big ego to some crazy scheme. They try multiple times to talk to her, but Dash is too much of a jerk to really care. The pranks are fun for her, so they must be fun for everypony, right?
And all of this leads us to Rainbow Dash dooming the world. And she does so in the most horrible way: she ruins the Filly Guide Cookies. And since these are analogous to the Girl Scouts and their delicious, decadent treats, I must oppose this on every level. DO NOT MESS WITH GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!
Anyway, Rainbow Dash replaces the cookies with prank ones that give ponies rainbow lips. Pinkie tries some when she initially attempted to talk her down...and then tries some more. And then becomes sick, only feeling better when she's eating the cookies. Rainbow Dash, even when given a sign that her prank will backfire, goes ahead with her prank, and everypony in town soon has the infected cookies. By the time night falls, Ponyville has gone completely quiet...because now everypony is infected with what I will call the C-Virus, an infectious disease that destroys brain tissue and reduces its victims to drooling beasts that crave only cookies. There have been attempts to cure it, but the closest was wasted on a hairy blue blob, and even that only reduced his craving for cookies to a “sometimes food.”
From this point on, the episode goes full-blown zombie apocalypse, albeit with an obvious G-rating. We get all the classic tropes, from friends and loved ones becoming the undead, to the zombies hiding in otherwise abandoned houses, to multiple takes of Dash approaching somepony from behind only for them to turn out to be zombified already. While a fairly standard take on things, it's still quite a bit of fun...at least until you start living it, like I have. And now that they've cornered Rainbow Dash, the dead shall finally know vengeance...
…
Wait, this was a prank?
Yes, the entire “zombie apocalypse” was a massive prank designed to finally, finally break through Dash's thick skull that not everypony likes to be terrified. It's a rather meh lesson, truth be told, but it's about as well-constructed here as it probably could hope to be. At least there are no hard feelings.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This was an enjoyable, if not outstanding, episode. The zombie ponies were funny, Dash's pranks were amusing, and while the lesson was weak and the characters a bit flanderized, nothing really stood out enough to disrupt the episode. Overall, it's probably the best of Season Six's second half so far.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm probably wanted for multiple acts of pony murder. I'll be laying low for a while. Hopefully this will all blow over in time for the Changelings to make their return.
Thank you! I'm so glad someone else see's this.
The thing about Dash and Shy being friends is... I actually buy both the fact that they were friends, and that Dash doesn't know her well enough to know Fluttershy hates being startled. Dash is a special kind of friend. She's the kind that will stick up for you in a fight, and also slap you in the ass with a wet towel. She's both the best and worst kind of friend. But... she has been getting better as she learns from her other friends.
Instead of The Walking Dead, it's The Walking Ponies.
Of all the 'zomponies' I found the Cake twins the creepiest. But then, baby zombies are always extra creepy.
4147651 But that's the problem. From what I've seen, she hasn't been getting better over time. Dash was a jerk in season 1, and she's a jerk in season 6; granted, I'm less forgiving towards her behavior than most fans, but I think it's tough to argue that Dash has shown a considerable amount of improvement. At best she's really bad at listening to ponies, the very ponies she's supposed to be loyal to, and oftentimes she just comes off as an idiot.
I'll give the episode credit in that they didn't quite repeat the mistakes they made with Mare-Do-Well, but then the big problem lies in Dash herself this time around. I liked Newbie Dash because she felt like a very flawed but relatable character and not just a blockhead who can't take a hint if it bites her in the booty. Much like last week's episode, this one feels like it shouldn't have even happened.
4148539 If she looks like she isn't improving, it's only because she had so much wrong with her to begin with, sadly. Somepony like Dash will never truly stop being a jerk. The best you can hope for is well-meaning, tolerable jerk who tries to only piss off your enemies and only you once in a while for a laugh.
4148578 That's something I always wondered about, actually. I find Dash to be the most frustrating of the mane 6 because she has a deeply relatable side to her that is occasionally touched upon, but the fact that she is a jerk is something she hasn't really had to confront with brutal honesty; it's always been something that other characters had to spoon-feed to her like she's a child. I know I'm a jerk, and there's kind of an existential problem with being aware of that thing about yourself, and I suppose it's not something the show would do anything about except maybe dabble in with regards to Dash. That's a fundamental flaw/restriction.
I'm going to say something that's probably going to be unpopular: In some respects, I like MMDW better than this one.
This one had the upside of not messing up its stucture. It stayed on message. That made it more predictable, but you could see what the team was trying to convey. And they did so effectively, no doubt about it.
On the other hand, something inside of me has a problem with doing horrible things on others to 'teach them a lesson'. That's very close to two wrongs make a right. Say what you will, but in MMDW, Rainbow's friends weren't out to ruin her reputation. She did that on her own. But the way the episode was structured and the other mares' behaviour when they weren't Mare-Do-Well (and a very sympathetic portrayal of Rainbow) messed it up for many.
I was hoping that either it wasn't a town-wide prank, or that Rainbow's friends also apologised at the end. "Yeah, we had fun scaring you, but that doesn't make it right."
Rainbow Dash should have had a Zombie plan. Because we all know that they are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have a plan prepared when the zombies take over the earth and those who don't. We call those people dinner.
That's the thing about Rainbow Dash - Her character weakness is a near-sociopathic inability to understand other ponies point of view. If she thinks it is funny, surely everypony thinks that, don't they? If she believes that she should be the centre of attention and constantly lauded by others, surely everypony agrees, don't they? She literally has to be forced to experience the negative aspects of her own actions to an extreme - to have it rubbed in her muzzle until she's desperate for relief - before she understands why no-one seems to get the joke or thinks she should always be the centre of attention.
Hence this episode and The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well.
4149007 It does seem to fit. I mean, her turtle needs to hibernate. So the solution is to stop winter from ever coming ever again.
4149033 Oh god, Tanks For the Memories suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked because of that. I mean, the metaphor for death would work... except it doesn't. So it's basically just Dash overreacting to her pet going away for a few months. Overreacting to the point where she commits terrorism and tries to stop a season from happening.
4148756 You know, there were a few good episode concepts buries in this bad one that I noticed. The episode could've been about Pinkie and how her ethics regarding pranking clashes with Dash's, or how Dash tempts Pinkie to pull a massive prank on the town and we see her wonder about the difference between a good prank and a bad prank. Or you could've had an actual cookie zombie outbreak, that would've been fun too.
I agree with you in that it feels like the moral in this episode was pretty contrived, and the eye-for-an-eye mentality being endorsed rubs me a really wrong way.
4149574
You know what's funny? When I watched the episode, I suspected that was the theme they were going to go for when Pinkie lay in her bed, all "sick". Later on, when Rainbow flew back to town to check why nopony reacted to her prank, I was literally staring at the screen saying "jump scare now"—instead, they had Golden Harvest slowly shambling into view.
That was kinda scary for a cartoon for kids. And much more artful than a real jump scare. I was impressed; this episode's first zombie scare was more subtle than a lot of genuine zombie films I know. Whatever else, that definitely deserves props in my book.
It was OK, but the thing that irritated me was that they managed to get the Pumpkin and Pound in on the joke. They got one year old foals to act like perfect zombies. HOW? But yeah, I agree with you for the most part.