Manely Dreadful [episode spoilers!] · 4:07pm Sep 16th, 2017
Much as I complain about extra showings in the middle of the week, not having to sit down and watch an episode last Saturday was actually really nice. Mostly because I had things to do. And I have nothing to do today! >:V Gotta get back to those second-look blogs at some point...
There have been times, more than once, in this show's run, when I have found myself unable to continue watching an episode because what was happening on screen was just so cringey. This is the first time I got that feeling because an episode was boring. I can count on one hand the number of things that caught my attention:
- The Triumphant return, after six seasons, of Mr. Breezy! :D He even gets dialogue! And he's Scottish! (And oh yeah, I guess Davenport and Zecora are there, too, and they actually called him Davenport. :B) Seriously, the most important part of this episode.
- The crying child.
- Teleporting a mane off a crystal pony. (My god, does that suggest a whole host of new things.)
- Granny Smith being amazing.
- And, of course, that whole final stretch with goddamn punk Rarity.
Obviously, the whole episode was written for that final scene. I mean, that's the kind of thing you know the show writers do because they know we'll love it. But otherwise? What a snorefest! It's not that I can't care about Rarity being upset over her mane -- to be fair, Tabitha once again gives us a fantastic dramatic performance -- it's just that, once again, we're thrown into a plot of "pony suddenly cares 3000% about one thing" that then is derailed by not just one, but two coincidences. Because Pinkie just happens to be doing something random at the time Rarity comes to visit, Rarity needs to go to Zecora's for a fix, and that just happens to get mixed up with the other fix for Pinkie's problem. It's just... ugh, this was not overall a good episode.
And why'd they feel the need to shoehorn in every single pony they could? What the fuck is even the point of the flower-buying at the start of the episode? Since when does Rarity spend her time going around town, fixing people's businesses? There's honestly too much in here, and it all ends up being not enough somehow.
inb4 "Rarity is a lemon" is the new fandom meme
The Perfect Pear
A Royal Problem
Parental Glideance
To Change a Changeling
Fame and Misfortune
Honest Apple
All Bottled Up
Daring Done?
Rock Solid Friendship
Forever Filly
A Flurry of Emotion
Triple Threat
Discordant Harmony
Campfire Tales
It Isn't the Mane Thing About You
Celestial Advice
Not Asking for Trouble
Hard to Say Anything
Fluttershy Leans In
You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song
Best Friends Until the End of Time
We're Not Flawless
Battle for Sugar Belle
I thought it was perfectly acceptable low-stakes entertainment, personally.
Wow, harsh.
To be fair, they give a good reason why Rarity cares so much about having her mane look good, to say nothing of her usual vanity.
Um, she wasn’t? She was running errands for the day and noticed shortcomings with the places she visited.
Personally, getting to see what the rest of Ponyville is up to and seeing it function as a living town is always my favorite element of the show, so I was delighted the whole way through. Also, Davenport and Berry Punch got to talk and Diamond Tiara can still eyeroll with the best of them. (Filthy, do not wait until the last minute to buy a wife like Spoiled flowers, my dude.)
Also, I want a toy of Alternative!Rarity yesterday. That's one of the best looks she's ever, ever had, ever.
Like, goddamn.
4670233
Punk Rarity is kind of really, really fantastic.
I thought it was a nice episode. Not the best, but not Parental Glidance bad. Some of the visual stuff with Rarity hiding under her cloak like a turtle was hilarious, and yeah, punk Rarity was awesome. Would have made a bit more sense with Pinkie. Because Punkie Pie.
Yeah, some of the beginning stuff was a little weak, and yeah, the stuff with Pinkie was a pretty silly coincidence, but other than that, I did enjoy this one. You can tell how much fun animators have with pony facial expressions.
Having said all of that, I am a little sick of the "Mane Six convince one of their own, usually Rarity, actually, how awesome they are when they're feeling down" cliche.
Anyone else notice that Pinkie's mane gets hit with the yellow too, and is back to normal by the time they get to Zecora? Cartoon cleaning is a lot less noticeable when the entire plot revolves around its absence for one of the characters.
And speaking of our Zebra, dayum, the outside of her house looks gorgeous. It's like a watercolor portrait that just feels a bit off-putting when all the nominally-breathtaking structures don't get the same treatment.
The bear is a mane stylist.
And Rarity is surrounded by tubs of ice cream and asks to sulk in the dark, in response to which AJ flicks on the lights.
This was adorable Season 1 nonsense through and through. 22 minutes of Rarity being Rarity was a fine time for me.
tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.P9lWFGSL7x7fRV4pqh-HCwEsDd&pid=15.1&P=0&w=225&h=167
How can it be the first time if you said that it's been more than once, PresentPerfect?
4670361
More than once due to cringe.
First time due to boredom.
Actually, I'm curious, PP. Which ones were too cringe for you?
4670593
Hard to say anything comes to mind.
Objectively wrong.
4671058
When am I not? :B
I object: there's really only one coincidence that's listed here. I see the first less as coincidence than the frequent occurrence of Pinkie being an inconsiderate asshole because she can't be bothered to think about how something will affect someone else. Rarity didn't walk in as Pinkie was shooting off the string and randomly get hit; Pinkie was about to begin, stopped to talk with Rarity, and then got the crap all over, after knowing she was there and what it was and, in fact, moving from being far from Rarity by the twins to right in Rarity's face. Welcome back to S4, and also "Friend in Deed" and the rest! (On which note, I don't think Pinkie was the right choice to push the Vanity Fair at the end; Applejack--think "let go"--or maybe Twilight would have been better.) The second real coincidence, for me, is that for no explicable reason manes are uniquely difficult to fix with magic. Also I should say that the objection to using time magic can't realistically rest on the affects of using it in this specific case; it's been less than a day, and the relevant issue we've seen of Starswirl's spell from S5 is butterfly effect. Gotta go with slippery slope argument, I think: if we start using it for this, we'll use it for everything, pushing boundaries, and then...
I'm with Patchwork in thinking that was a good thing. The middle section was a bit draggy, but seeing new places and a variety of rarely used ponies made it more interesting than it would otherwise be.
Eh, not the best ever, but I thought it was pretty good, easily top half of the season so far, close to top 5. But it's probably inflated for me because Rarity episode. :V
4670356
All of this exactly.
4670622
Three's a crowd was the first time I actually missed MLP screen time because I just couldn't take anymore cringe. Hard to Say Anything was rough too, and Princess Spike and Equestria games (which had probably the cringiest single minute) were other bad recent offenders... Not sure why Three's lost me harder than the rest.
4671087
Because it features Discord and Cadence, two of the worst characters in the show?
4671109
Wait, whoops - I was talking about the recent ep with Thorax and Ember, which I appear to have mentally blotted out the name of.
She added green highlights even though they are not her color! Is that character growth or what?
I liked the episode, even though it did feel slow at times. But we agree that Punk Rarity is the best thing ever!
Also... is it just me or does Zecora have a much bigger rump now?
Visiden made the point that spike was needed in this episode. Defintley better than fluttershy or rainbow dash. Did someone forget it wasn't season 1? I still liked it though. I didn't find any of it boring though. Fluttershy leans in or the beggining of lesson zero was boring
4671114
Triple Threat, not the most memorable of names. :B I liked that one, though, it's not half as cringey as most Spike episodes.
4671125
I know! I'm so proud. :D
4671082
Less Pinkie being inconsiderate, more the vast majority of the current writing staff having no idea how to use her beyond lolrandom cloudcoocoolander.
4671066
The only time you aren't objectively wrong is when you criticize my poor failings in literature.
For the record, I just saw the episode this morning and I got a good chuckle out of it. The set up and conflict were easy to see coming a mile away, but as soon as it's out of the way the show goes elbow deep in cheesy dramedey. Tabitha earned her paycheck with this one.
> PP literally can't make it through the episode due to boredom
> rates it 15th out of 19
I take it you're not enjoying season 7 on the whole. D:
4671114
oh you are criticizin my OTP episode them is fightin words
4672029
In the grand scheme of things, no, but given that the closest season I have to compare it to is 6, it really is still a great deal more enjoyable.
And I did make it through, I'm just not looking forward to a rewatch. :/
4672030
ThorEmber was fine, the problem lay in literally everything else.
4672182
Hmm. You're still criticizing the episode, but given that I also would have preferred 22 minutes of Embrax to the episode as written, I can't actually disagree.
You're off the hook for now.
The only good worldbuilding is pointlessly silly canon, which this epjsode delivers on.
Mane magic is literally harder than time travel. Its harder than teleportation. It is harder to fix someone's mane than to turn their entire body into a different species. Sure, Ms. Big Shot Wizard you can turn a mouse into a fullsize horse, but godforbid something happen to that horse's mane because you will be fucked. Giving a pony wings? That's hard. Giving them hair on their head? Impossible. Any fanfic that implies something like ressurection magic or whatever was the most dangerous magic a pony could dabble in now needs to be updated, because it turns out that raising the dead is #2 on the list of magic impossibilities, second to curing baldness.
The metaphysical properties of manes need to be explored further. Why is it that manes have to come from somewhere? Is there a mane dimension which only permits some of itself to manifest at a time? Is there a God of Hair? These are all important questions now. A line must be drawn, there was a time before mane magic was harder than shooting lightning bolts out of your forehead or opening portals to other dimensions, and that time is over. We live in a new era, an era where hair care is the most complicated thing in existence.
THANKS JOSH HABER!
Other than that, I loved this episode but I can see where people with no taste would find it boring. I could watch 22 minutes of Rarity being slightly disappointed by the long lines at the DMV and be happy.
4672371
Y'know, normally I would say the same, but I kind of felt like this was just a retread of all the great character moments she's had throughout the season. It wasn't until the very end that we really see anything new from her.