Snow Way Out

As we prepare to enter the mid-season hiatus, the show decides to send the first part off with an episode featuring the return of the yaks from season five. Not Asking for Trouble is an episode that I honestly had a hard time to watch much like Fluttershy Leans in. Once again, the premise is fine and we do get to see the return of the yaks and their homeland.
 
I’m not really a fan of the yaks, but I was willing to give them another shot. After all, Gauntlet of Fire showed more about dragons being great and their home land, and that episode is easily one of my favorites. Yet this episode decides to miss out on such an opportunity to be inspired by that episode and go down a road we are all familiar with. There really isn’t a lot I can say about this episode to be honest. Mostly because this episode may sound familiar to many of you already just by the synopsis alone.  
 
Pinkie Pie is invited to a festival in Yakyakistan and decides to take her role further by being a friendship ambassador. While there, she learns a lot about Yak culture and has fun. But when an avalanche comes down and buries the town in snow, Pinkie and Prince Rutherford are at odds about whether to get help for the town or not.
 
Does this episode sound familiar to you? Well it should be since, yet again, this is another retread to another episode. The main message about asking for help was done way back in the first season with Applebuck Season. Now I’m not against revisiting episodes as they can improve greatly on what the first one missed. We have seen some great revisits like No Second Prances being What About Discord? miles better and so on. This episode takes it a bit further with its revisit though.
 
You know how most of these revisited episodes would take a few plot points from the episode they were redoing? Well, Not Asking for Trouble is borrowing every major plot point from Applebuck Season. You have a character who is stubbornly not willing to accept help despite being overwhelmed (In this case it’s Prince Rutherford). Another character urging said stubborn character to get help (It’s Pinkie). A major disaster occurs that causes a lot of trouble for everyone involved (the avalanche). Combine those plot points, change a few characters here and there, and kaboom! You got yourself Not Asking for Trouble in a nutshell. The one major thing this episode lacks froms Applebuck Season is the comedy. Which is a real shame too since it could have benefited from that.
 
If there is one thing I’ll give credit to the episode, it’s that we do get to see more of Yakyakistan. Despite how I feel about the yaks, I always appreciate world building in Equestria and its neighboring countries. At the festival, we see what the Yaks do such as listening to music, eat food, or tell stories. It’s a lot of basic stuff, but I always welcome the idea of seeing more of the FiM world.
 
However, I think Yakyakistan is a micro country since all we see of them is this one fort that serves as their main town. Maybe you can argue that this is supposed to be like a border town, but that raises more questions. Like why is Prince Rutherford, the leader of the yaks, living here? Shouldn’t the leader be in a more secured part of their country instead of being at a bordertown?
 
The Yaks themselves are slightly better than how we have first seen them. They aren’t as overly easily triggered about stuff not being perfect like last time, but they’re still not that great here. Despite being somewhat more friendly, they are very stubborn; maybe even more than Applejack. Still, at least they aren’t constantly yelling how something isn’t perfect and destroying property without a second thought.
 
At the same time though, their stubborness is where they lose me. When it comes to the avalanche, Rutherford refuses to get help and the yaks agree with him. Yet later on, we see the yaks are miserable with how they have no shelter, no proper food, and are freezing to death. So if the yaks are this miserable and the snow not melting anytime soon, then why don’t they just band together with Pinkie and make their leader ask for help?
 
I get they may be a proud warrior race and asking for help from outsiders is considered taboo, but as you watch the episode, the yaks are clearly getting more and more unhappy. The children are miserable and are worried. The adults seem to be just as restless too, but they’re all worried they’ll just anger Rutherford. I think it would have helped the yaks show concern and question the prince’s leadership about how he’s handling things.
 
This episode could have done some character development for Rutherford as he realizes his pride and stubborness is hurting his people in the long run, and see the error of his ways. Yeah, it wouldn’t really be any different than what Applejack learned in Applebuck Season, but it would have been something at least. Instead, what happens in the end really makes no sense. I’ll get to that in a moment though.
 
Pinkie, on the other hand, is written well in this episode. She gets a lot of good jokes in throughout the episode and has some solid characterization throughout it. While it’s nothing deep, she does provide some good laughs with Gummy and the yaks. She also wants what’s best for the yaks and tries everything in her power to make them better. She’s really the one carrying this episode with how good she’s written.
 
I already mentioned how this episode is really just Applebuck Season all over again, but this episode does have its own share of positives too outside of the rehashed story. The pacing is overall fine as it gives us time to see what the yaks do in the festival such as break logs and listen to music. They do a decent job building up the conflict between Rutherford and Pinkie. The ending itself doesn’t even fell that rushed. Though I do have to question how Pinkie and her friends were able to clear the snow so easily when the yaks had so much trouble.
 
Finally, there’s the moral, and this is where the episode truly lost me. I was going along fine with the episode, but the moral here is extremely confusing and if anyone can explain to me what it means, I’ll gladly accept any explanation. After Pinkie and the others finish cleaning up the town, Rutherford sees them leaving, and goes to confront them. Instead of being angry at them for helping, he’s happy and proud of Pinkie. According to Rutherford, since Pinkie didn’t ask the yaks for their help, he claims they understand the yaks and makes Pinkie an honorary yak.
 
Let me get this straight. Rutherford’s plan was never to ask for help, but to wait and have Pinkie go get her friends to help them without asking? What would have happened if Pinkie was not invited to the festival at the start and the same things happen? What would Rutherford do then? Do nothing, hope somebody comes across them, and decides to go get help? If that didn’t happen, the yaks would have frozen to death since they aren’t really near any other major civilization.
 
For that matter, what is this episode trying to teach us? Never ask for help, but always expect it anyway? Why would you expect others, especially people you don’t know, to just help you randomly? I’m not saying you shouldn’t help others at all, but isn’t the idea to ask before you get involved? If you do get involved without asking, you may just get in the way or make things worse. It feels like they realized this episode was too similar to Applebuck Season and chaged the moral at the last second to be different. Instead it just leaves us feeling confused and unsure of what the lesson is.
 
Not Asking for Trouble is also not asking to be that good of an episode it seems. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an awful episode like Fluttershy Leans in or Honest Apple, but it does have its issues that make it a chore to watch. It's not the worst episode I've seen, but it's really on
 
The yaks are easily the biggest flaw in this episode. Not only is their logic insane about waiting for the snow to melt, but the fact that they allowed Rutherford to just basically allow his pride to turn away help is just more proof this guy really isn’t that good of a leader. Mix that in with him not learning anything about how his pride nearly got himself and his people killed is pure dumb luck. It’s a wonder how the other yaks haven’t overthrown him yet.
 
If anything though, their actions have shown me why Yakyakistan is just one town though. I guess their stubbornness and pride got most of them killed from refusing to ask for help from other nations. It would explain a lot then why their country is just one small fort. The fact that if their leadership and pride is like this makes you wonder how this species survived for so long.
 
As a revisit to Applebuck Season, it was alright as far is it goes, but relied too much on basically every major plot point from it. It really didn’t do much except just change some characters and the location. Nothing really stood out as a result, and that’s the episode’s biggest problem here. It relied too much on what it was inspired from and didn’t really add anything different.
 
My gripes aside, I did appreciate the episode for at least exploring more on Yakyakistan. We got to see some more world building which is always a positive in my book; even in some of the really bad episodes I’ve seen.
 
Pinkie is solid enough to keep the episode going with some good jokes from her. Her character is handled well as its balanced between being comedic and then being serious about her mission. It’s nothing too deep in the end, but she does want what’s for the best at the end. Even managing to be a bit resourceful in helping the yaks in the end.
 
What really sinks this episode though is its moral. The idea of expecting others to help, even without asking isn’t technically bad, but it’s not exactly done well here. Most of the problems here were because of the yaks being stubborn and not accepting help. Not to mention that it leaves a lot of questions about helping others then. There’s just a lot done wrong with the overall execution here.
 
So as we enter the mid-season finale and the hiatus, we are sent off with an episode that ends up being ranked pretty much slightly above average. It’s not a terrible episode, but nothing really exciting at the end of the day. It only escapes being as low as Fluttershy Leans in mostly because it has a conflict to this episode. Overall, it’s an overall poorly rehashed episode of one of my personal favorite episodes of the show, Applebuck Season. It didn’t do much to stand out at all and just feels like it was going through the motions. It’s painfully average at the end of the day and nothing else.
 
It’s a lackluster way to send off the mid-season finale as far as things goes. If we do see the yaks again next season, maybe they’ll revamp them to be better. As far as I’m concerned though, this episode didn’t do me any favors in making me like them. It just makes me wonder how these guys haven’t killed themselves off yet for their stubbornness.
 
You know, I was willing to give this episode a higher rating despite it being a rehash of Applebuck Season, but this moral and ending was so far out of left field that it blindsided me. Ironically, like in Fluttershy Leans in, Pinkie shines well in this episode, but this episode can’t shine as bright as her.
 
FINAL SCORE: 5.5 out of 10 (C)
 
 
Season seven episode ranking list from best to worst:
 
Parental Glideance/ A Royal Problem (TIED)
Rock Solid Friendship
Flurry of Emotions
Celestial Advice
Forever Filly
All Bottled Up
Hard to Say Anything
Not Asking for Trouble (NEW)
Fluttershy Leans In
Honest Apple