[Season 7 Spoilers] About that Perfect Pear Episode... · 2:30am Jun 22nd, 2017
This isn't a review. Spoilers are ahead. I'm really just gushing a bit here.
I must confess. I don't really care too much about season seven on the whole. However, I will firmly say that episode 13, Perfect Pear, stands out among the most important episodes of the series.
Aside from the fact that it has the Apple family, which is always a winning recipe for the show, this particular episode does what earlier episodes have never been able to do: make me care. I mean, the Apple family is basically the foundation of Ponyville, right? Granny Smith was there when it was founded. Her family has helped to feed and grow the town into the demesne it is now. And maybe it's not a demesne and I'm secretly wishing for a particular comedy to update, but the fact still stands: the Apples have been around for everything, and that makes them one of the most important families in town. Filthy Rich can eat his heart out - even he has to bend to Smith's prices.
That makes this episode important, too. And that's before the actual story in the episode. We have all had our theories and headcanons about the Apple family tree, with plenty of fics written that would expand on it. It's a very rich subject to study, and now the show has given us the story. Now, with the facts laid bare... Goodness, it's so amazing. It's dramatic, it's lovely, it's sweet, it's grounded, it's tragic, it's bitter, and it has the perfect catharsis to what all of us have known since those falling stars in season three. I can't claim to relate to the loss of a parent, but I sympathize with those viewers who do.
What we have here, plain and simple, is an episode of pony that is too important to ignore. If I were Arkada, I'd be slapping a Certified Frosty seal all over this preserve jar. This gives us a story that doesn't have a happy ending, but a way to make peace with the failures of the past. Just look at the expressions of the townies when they realize what the siblings have come to them for. Goldie concedes their right to know, Burnt Oak instantly drops his sales mask to get serious, and the eyes of Mrs. Cake change to show her terror.
There is genuine loss behind all of this, but they tell the stories anyway. Because the loss isn't what defined the parents of Applejack, Apple Bloom, or Big Mac. It's how they lived, how they did what they felt was right, and god damn it their romance was adorable. They were part of the most important family in town, and everyone in that town felt the loss. So hearing the story, hearing the legacy, hearing more about them other than they're not around, is important.
I think the way the show gradually faded the humor was a perfect way to show this off. They open with trying to hide something, then go through near-slapstick, and then...nothing. It's all honest stories. It's exactly what the kids have needed to know. It's exactly what all of us have wanted to know for years.
Maybe in a few weeks when we get the US release, I'll be able to look more objectively at this one. Even if I do, I know my opinion won't change. Perfect Pear is one of the most important episodes of the series. In fact, it should be counted as one of the greats that many modern shows do. The level of maturity that treats the audience like adults is something to be respected, and my faith in the series has been restored, if not my faith in the season.
And yes, I'll go ahead and say it: this episode about parents is MUCH BETTER than Rainbow Dash's episode about parents. Because that episode wasn't about the parents.
That's all. See you next blob.
~Leo
Honestly, I think this is the best season yet.
And again we disagree, because I've found the Apple family to have the weakest overall track record.
I have to agree, though I did love that episode.
As a whole, this is the second best episode of the series, and came THIS close to beating Crusaders of the Lost Mark for number one.
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Crusaders of the Lost Mark is possibly the most important one. The entire ending sequence is just filled with victory. It's amazing.
I guess I'm biased in favor of the Apples. Still, this episode. THIS EPISODE. So many brownie points.
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I'd say everything from Diamond scolding her mother on was full of victory.
Plus, it did something that I thought was impossible: Make Diamond Tiara actually likeable.
As for the bias, it's not so much that I'm biased against them (though AB is my least favorite CMC and AJ is my least favorite member of the mane 6), it's more that their episodes are mostly meh, with some great ones in the present.
Though it is telling that the two best Apple episodes took place mostly in the past:
This one, and Where the Apple Lies