Retrospective Review: Bridle Gossip and Swarm of the Century · 6:36am Jan 29th, 2021
S1E9 Bridle Gossip
It's the first appearance of Zecora, who I expect was intended to be a recurring character. She provides a skill set the main characters don't have, and an outsider's perspective, so she serves an important role in the series. But a zebra with stereotypical attire (Mohawk and gold rings around the neck) seems like a rather, well, problematic design in 2010. (But not as much as an episode later this season.)
I've been reading fanfiction for nearly ten years, and the Pinkie Pie party for a new arrival to Ponyville is so common (for ponies and humans in Equestria) as to be a trope, so it's so odd to see her leading the charge against the "evil enchantress" instead of, you know, welcoming her. It's another example of the writers not knowing how they wanted to write Pinkie Pie. She's still the zany character rather than the character who wants to make everypony smile.
Kudos to the writers for having bookworm Twilight Sparkle know about zebras, but later she's shown as not having read a book in her library. Sacrilege! It's explained well, so I'll give it a pass.
I love the description of the Everfree Forest as just being like the real world.
Poison Joke is one of the memorable plot devices in the story. If I'm remembering correctly, it only appears in this episode, but it's a favorite in fanfiction. The effects on the Mane Six are just perfect.
The episode has a good moral about needing to learn about those different from you. Twilight Sparkle starts out as open-minded, but starts to believe the evil enchantress story due to peer pressure. I like Apple Bloom being the voice of reason here, and her work with Zecora is part of her character development.
S1E10 Swarm of the Century
Tribbles!
Again, it's something Twilight Sparkle doesn't know. I'm used to the character knowing everything, but it's reasonable she wouldn't know this random magical creature.
I love the outfit Rarity has Rainbow Dash modeling.
It's another episode showing Applejack herding. I think it never came up again after this season.
There are a lot of classic lines in this episode, and Twilight Sparkle finding out that magic isn't a solution to every problem is a lesson that she'll continue to need to learn. Her freak out at the end is a classic. But overall, I don't like the episode, and it all comes down to Pinkie Pie again.
Pinkie Pie, ponies can't read your mind, or even understand the way you think. She had multiple occasions to explain why what she was doing wasn't random, but she never did.
Repeat after me: "Parasprites are magical creatures that, if left unchecked, will multiply and consume every scrap of food in town. The only way to get rid of them is a musical performance. Now, would you please help me collect musical instruments, so that we can stop this threat?"
E09:
Well Poison Joke was used in Filli Vanilli on Fluttershy. I also believe that Zecora was going to be a second mentor to Twilight back when Faust was going to make the show more action based before Hasbro told her to just do Slice of Life. However, with the action now out Zecora’s reason for her introduction was taken out as well.
E10:
All I have to say about this one is that AJ and AB herd sheep in S2E5 Sisterhooves Social
For the Pinkie logic in "Swarm," I'm going to just quote my card blog on the subject:
I typically describe her as an African equine witchdoctor who speaks entirely in rap, for pretty much the same reason you're talking about here. Often, it's contrasted with the deceptive cadence that hinted Cadance wasn't who or what she appeared to be.
tbh, if Faust stayed on, the show would have been a bit better overall, but mostly we just missed her ideas about AJ and Pinkie development, which was a loss. AJ was done dirty her final s9 ep.