Mini Re-Reviews: "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" - Season 2 Episode 8

DISCORD: "Oh, we're doing a superhero parody now? You know, all the chaotic stuff in this episode would have made a lot more sense if I was around. I mean, did you see that curving disaster hill Ponyville has for this episode alone? That's got my signature all over it! Why, Twilight, only 6 episodes later and your crew is showing signs of wanting my brand of chaos back!"
TWILIGHT: [sighs] "It's going to be a long -" [checks number of episodes left until 'Keep Calm and Flutter On'] "- 27 episodes..."

I am going to do my utmost best to discuss this episode purely on its own terms without bringing in anything about how it's generally being discussed by others. At least, not until the very end. "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" deserves that fair chance as much as any episode this side of Seasons 6-9, anyway.

It doesn't take long - right after the opening scene of Scootaloo's meeting of the Rainbow Dash fan club that the prismatic-haired pegasus herself likes to spy on - for it to become apparent that something is off here. The first few minutes post-title song show all manner of "we need a hero!" disasters befalling Ponyville in relatively consecutive fashion: an infant in a well, a baby carriage careening down a hill to a cliff, and a rickety balcony of senior ponies breaking from its support. All of which Rainbow Dash comes to the aid of in rather spectacular fashion. Not unlike her initial victory in the first challenge of the Iron Pony competition back in "Fall Weather Friends", Rainbow Dash is initially modest about all this, but by the second event, when she quips about the baby not cheering for her and then tosses it back to its mom to pose for a photo op, it's clear this is going to her head already. But regardless, Ponyville in this episode alone seems far more in line with Townsville in the Powerpuff Girls (and trust me, this is not the last time I'll be referencing that classic cartoon today). Doubtless this is a comparison you've heard before, and, well, it's often said because it's true; so much of the saving sequences here feel like any montage from the Classic PPG of the girls solving problems not involving villains or monsters (cat in trees, ladies crossing the street, and so on: these were usually just setting-establishing montages rather then the body of an episode, but you get the point). But, this weird genre shift that makes Ponyville oddly off-kilter, while weird, isn't inherently debilitating on its own. Only when coupled with the other problems to follow does it mark "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" unfavourably.

Anyway, so following a scene in Sugarcube Corner where Rainbow Dash's ego grows to far bigger proportions then it ever did last episode as Spike takes notes to ghostwrite her autobiography, and the ReMane 5 just sort of stand there and frown while narrowing their eyes, at the next disaster of a balloon plummeting from the skies, Rainbow Dash is beaten to the rescue by a masked, costumed pony looking like Darkwing Duck in pony form (and a bit of The Spoiler, a DC-supporting character of Batman I'm not familiar with). In another case of something that feels far more out of place in Pony then it would in an ultra-stylised cartoon like, again, Powerpuff Girls, the rest of the town that was listening to Rainbow Dash's every word ignores her almost straight away. Course, it doesn't help when this new pony, dubbed Mare Do Well by the Mayor, seems capable of anything, from super-strength (stopping a runaway cart that bested RD), to quick-thinking (nimbly rescuing workers from falling construction debris) to OP magic prowess (manipulating multiples of rocks to repair a broken dam) to plain what-the moments (flying off after the above moment). With how much RD hates losing, it's little surprise she's pissed off, though the others loudly praising Mare Do Well in her presence doesn't help matters (thankfully, Spike is on hand to deliver sizzlers in this scene one after the other, and others too)

Rainbow's attempts to pull a "Lesson Zero" and construct a problem to solve are even less successful, as they not only fail but don't really produce any iconic memes along the way. In a scene far less problematic then the rest of the episode, Rainbow Dash mopes on a grey and story cloud of her own. It's reminiscent of last episode when she moped after being pinned by her wing, and goes a bit further in letting her let out her insecurities, which is nice. Alas, this episode needed her to go much further then the last one, and unlike there, this scene doesn't really inform the last few minutes of the episode, which seem rather rushed, like the writer (don't worry, we'll get to her) realised she had only 7 pages left and 9 pages of content to pace properly in there. Long story short, Rainbow Dash catches Mare Do Well at a parade for her, prompting a chase through the streets to unmask the long ranger. This proves a mite tricky as she appears and reappears with relative ease. Finally, Rainbow Dash catches her unawares, and unmasks her, discovering it's...

Well, it's Pinkie Pie, but two others come out and reveal themselves to be Twilight and Applejack, all with their own explanations as to which disaster they averted with their strengths, and Fluttershy doing the fly-by afterwards and Rarity the costumes (the initial balloon escapade goes unexplained). Their spiel about Dash not bragging or rubbing her accomplishments in others' faces, alas, can't help but ring a bit hollow, given that in the elaborate game they set up to take her down from her peg, they did just that amount of boasting and then some earlier in RD's presence.

So, on top of a weird Ponyville where disasters happen super-regularly and Rainbow Dash's ego being at narcissism-levels this episode, we have a moment of odd judgement from the ReMane 5. Them wanting to show Rainbow Dash the right lesson is all well and good, but it comes off as super passive-aggressive due to them making no attempt to talk to her about her snowballing attitude. It's super-easy to imagine a scene where they try and calm her down but to no avail (so easy that I was convinced the episode had one until I rewatched it). But nope, Twilight and Applejack mutter to one another, and the group looks contemplative during the scene transitions, and that's it. It's one of the first cases of something that popped up what feels like every other episode in S8/9; actions between friends that are supposed to promote friendship but which in reality are actually quite destructive thing to personal relationships between people. Even if Rainbow Dash is hoisted on her own petard this episode, the ReMane 5 being the voice of reasons this time isn't properly thought out. And all that's on top of how Rainbow Dash gets quite self-centred in large chunks of this episode - many citing her being somewhat unlikeable during this stretch of S2 is not altogether without reason.

Taking my points up until now would indicate an episode I despise or at least dislike, which isn't true; while RD's friends did act without exhausting their other options, it is somewhat forgivable as they still meant perfectly well, even if those actions were not carried out in the most decent way. And whatever the weird Ponyville in this episode is off-kilter, it does allow fertile ground for all manner of superhero allusions. There's some fun bits and allusions throughout, and clever use of existing things within the series lore to allude to other properties (The Pinkie Sense to Spider-Man's ESP spider sense, for instance). The episode does lack the most needed Spider-Man moment, where Dash keeps on doing the right thing despite everyone turning against her, but the episode is often fun in the moment. It's just also often frustrating or cringey due to either RD or the actions of the others.

So, whatever I find this episode a mediocre one due to some severe issues, it's not bad. Just one I'm more likely to forget about rather then get actively annoyed about. That's nothing compared to its reception at the time: people were livid about this episode when it first debuted, with a mixture of a lot of the same criticisms I voiced and pure rage directed at it, the latter eventually overwhelming the former. Until the S6 era, this episode was a common consensus pick for the series worst episode. That said, there is no excuse for ripping this episode to pieces these days, in an era where most of S8/9 has been greeted mildly enthusiastically by viewers. I'd rather rewatch this Mare Do Well episode that all but a handful or two from S8/9; at least this still has the fun, comedy and inspiration common to Season 2. I'll be fair and give it a 5.5/10, making it the first episode in the series one can skip without guilt, but it's so close to "The Ticket Master" and "Owls Well That Ends Well", that it should be clear this isn't a bad episode. Just a notable dip compared to the quality of its season.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- On the episode's writer: Merriweather Williams debuted with this episode and penned 7 scripts for the show in total. She's always gotten a bit of slack from fans for many of her episodes having the Mane 6 be more mean-spirited then usual (her first three: this, "Hearth's Warming Eve" and "Putting Your Hoof Down" are a fair argument to that), and while some of her stories can make for odd meshes with the rest of the show, she's by no means a bad writer. Not only did she go on to pen the fantastic "Wonderbolts Academy" and the delightfully loops "Bats!" (as well as the underrated "Dragon Quest", but that's for another time), she still brings personality in spades to her episodes, and while some of them are often quirky outliers, she's still a writer I appreciate, if perhaps not as much as series mainstays like M.A. Larson, Amy Keating Rogers, Meghan McCarthy or Cindy Morrow. Besides which, if given a choice between an animation executive who migrated down to being an episode writer, I'll take Merriweather Williams over Mike Vogel any day of the week.
- The episode's placement within the series does it no favours, coming right after a Rainbow Dash episode that also had her ego getting out of hand, though to a much more minor degree. Had the show staff done what they did 4 seasons later with "The Fault in our Cutie Marks" and shifted it to later in the season, the balance would have been better, ideally halfway between "May the Best Pet Win!" and "Read it and Weep". This is not the last time in Season 2 we will see episodes bunch together oddly like this either.