Episode Re-Review: Feeling Pinkie Keen · 6:40pm Feb 3rd, 2021
Oh boy, it's this episode. All the way back in 2011 this episode touched off a real firestorm of controversy, and a lot of what it involved (science v.s. religion) has only gotten worse since then. Dave Polsky wrote this episode, marking his debut as the last of the writers assembled for the show. So, putting aside the controversy for a moment, is this episode actually good or is it still bad on its own merits? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Twilight practicing some kind of spell on Spike to turn a rock into a top hat for him, but her focus is interrupted by a giggle from Pinkie Pie. Pinkie happens to be darting about with an umbrella hat and seems to be looking at her tail as it starts to shake. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Twilight goes to see what Pinkie is doing and learns that Pinkie's tail is twitching, which means something is gonna fall. Twilight naturally refuses to believe such a claim, but then a frog lands on her face. This is actually because Fluttershy is relocating some frogs to Froggy Bottom Bog since their population in a local pond has gotten too big. Spike assumes Pinkie Pie predicted the falling frog as Pinkie reveals it's part of her "Pinkie Sense". But Twilight isn't convinced.
Twilight goes away only for Pinkie to catch up to Twilight and warn that something else is gonna fall. Twilight brushes this warning aside mere moments before she falls into a ditch. Spike is afraid to help until Pinkie tells him her tail's stopped twitching. He helps her out of the ditch (couldn't she have teleported out? Maybe she was dazed?) just as Applejack shows up and reveals that she (and by extension everyone else in town) believes in the "Pinkie Sense". This is really the extent to which she's involved with the story though. Anyway, Pinkie reveals that her "Pinkie Sense" can predict other things. Her ears start flopping and that means somepony will need a bath soon, so she goes to prepare one. And Twilight ends up coated with mud a short time later because of course she does. Then, while bathing, Twilight learns about other things the "Pinkie Sense" can predict. And then Pinkie reveals that there's an alligator in the tub, which frightens Twilight.
This is our introduction to Gummy, who alongside Angel would become the only pet to get any meaningful screen time. We learn that he's a baby alligator so he doesn't have any teeth, and he's completely stotic (or at least he seems to be that way). However, after the bath Twilight is still skeptical about the "Pinkie Sense". And Pinkie stupidly comments how it should be easy to believe since it works like Twilight's magic, which is not a comparison. Twilight then literally gets up on a soapbox to preach about how her magic is different from the "Pinkie Sense" and the unfortunate implications start rolling in, especially as Pinkie claims "You don't believe because you don't understand". It's lines and scenes like this that made people believe the episode was a not so subtle take on science v.s. religion and was siding in favor of religion. And intentionally or not, that's what ended up overshadowing this whole episode.
Pinkie exposits about combos and Spike ends up slamming Twilight with a door while making truck backing up noises. Then Twilight takes Pinkie down to her basement lab and straps her friend into a machine while placing a helmet over her head. Twilight states that the next time Pinkie has some kind of reaction, she'll get all kinds of scientific data. But then Twilight just sits around and waits for something to happen. This means Twilight isn't following the scientific method, which first requires at least a hypothesis and a way to test it in a controlled environment. She knows there are plenty of things that she could use as a test (including the recently revealed combo about opening doors), but she doesn't do this. Naturally, nothing happens and she gets no read out, so Twilight just gives up and lets Pinkie go. Then as they head out of the basement, Pinkie gets the combo warning of opening door just as Spike shows up (wouldn't Twilight have told him about what she was doing with Pinkie Pie?) and slams Twilight with the door again. A furious Twilight asks if Spike is somehow in on it with Pinkie, which of course Spike denies. I should also mention that this episode tried to give Spike a catchphrase in the form of "Holy Gucamole" but for reasons unknown it was dropped after this episode and never mentioned again.
From there we have a montage of Twilight trying to study Pinkie from afar, only to get targeted by a variety of mostly cartoonish antics such as getting stunk by bees, falling down stairs into Applejack's new apple cellar (wouldn't a cider cellar make sense since cider can be like wine and lots of farmers have wine cellars?) or getting hit on the head by an anvil, a cart and a piano.
This is also to my knowledge the first time Derpy made a cameo appearance of particular notice (I forgot to mention that a pony named "Ditzy Doo" was mentioned in "Winter Wrap Up" and Lauren Faust said she intended for Ditzy Doo to use Derpy's character model), appearing alongside a pegasus named Raindrops (who was the Lunaverse element of loyalty) as I assume they're working for a moving company. Anyway, Applejack returns to the plot as Pinkie Pie reveals that she's been letting Twilight follow her all day. Twilight is naturally furious about this, and at no point is it revealed that Pinkie was responsible for healing her wounds. So that means Pinkie knew her friend was in danger and did nothing the whole time. But then all of a sudden, Pinkie gets something she's never gotten before and realizes something's going to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog where Fluttershy is. Everyone else is worried, but Twilight only wants to go for the sake of proving Pinkie wrong.
On the way, we do get a kind of funny joke when Spike and Pinkie Pie wonder if Fluttershy exploded and then exploded again, and Spike wonders if that's possible. Aside from that, not much happens until they reach the bog and find Fluttershy is okay, nothing's happened. Twilight gloats about how she was right, only to be subjected to the whole "Standing right behind me" cliche as she comes face to face with a hydra.
The group runs away, but Twilight has to go back twice to save Spike (who gets bogged down) and Pinkie Pie (who is twitching so much she can barely move). For unexplained reasons she then decides to try and fight the hydra while everyone else jumps across a series of stone pillars to safety (and we get a callback to "Dragonshy" as Fluttershy remembers Pinkie's advice). Twilight wonders "What would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash do?" and naturally comes to the only conclusion: Run directly at the monster.
To Twilight's credit it works (sort of). But one of the hydra heads destroys the ledge Twilight needs to jump from and she's stranded. No explanation is given as to why she can't just teleport across. And then we get to maybe the most infamous part of the episode. Pinkie Pie tells Twilight to jump and encourages her to "Take a leap of faith" which again felt like it was forcing a religious message into the narrative. So Twilight jumps and is conviently saved by bubbles. Once safely on the other side she is convinced the doozy was the hydra, but Pinkie is still shaking after the hydra has left and says that can't be it. Twilight then gets so mad she literally starts burning up with anger. And yes, people started making super sayian and Rapidash jokes because of this scene.
Having reached her limit Twilight gives up and accepts that the "Pinkie Sense" makes sense. Pinkie then reveals that that was the doozy. Then, sometime later, Spike comes in to write the friendship lesson as Twilight reveals she's wearing an umbrella hat too. And if you thought the unfortunate implications were bad before, well this entire letter is full of poor wording. Twilight claims that there are things in life that you can't understand and you just have to choose to believe. But your beliefs are something that you alone have, you alone decide what you want to believe in. And just because you don't understand something at first doesn't mean you believe it or don't believe it. The moral's wording makes it sound like if you don't understand something right away, you should give up and accept it without ever bothering to understand why or how it is.
The intended moral is supposed to be about accepting another's point of view even if you may disagree with it, but that gets completely lost in the wording. Anyway, Spike writes it and goes to send it while Twilight and Pinkie leave the library together. And just before Spike can send the letter, Princess Celestia shows up to pick up the letter herself.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well let's get the good out of the way first because there's a lot of bad to unpack. The humor here is top notch, harpening all the way back to the golden age of slapstick humor with the classic Looney Tunes (and since Dave Polsky had worked on South Park in its early seasons he is well versed in comedy). For once, Spike is in a role where despite having a central presence within an episode he isn't ignored or just has bad things happen to him because it's supposed to be funny. If anything, Twilight seems to be getting all the abuse Spike would normally suffer. The visual gags are hilarious. That's about where the praise stops. Putting aside the controversy that comes from poor wording and someone clearly not thinking through their implications, this story is just another case of punishing a non-believer simply because they dare to have a different opinion for any reason. Nevermind the fact that Twilight is the only one who wants to actually understand why. Yeah, she's being kind of nosy about it but that's her character. However, Twilight loses sympathy when she just straps her friend into a machine without consent and leaves her there to wait for a reaction, and more sympathy when she isn't concerned that another friend might be in danger (even if she doesn't think that's the case what harm is there in checking to make sure?). But Pinkie Pie doesn't automatically gain sympathy either, because when we learn she's been aware of Twilight following her and has been just letting bad stuff happen without even checking to make sure Twilight's okay, Pinkie looks like a real jerk. The biggest problem may be that we don't see the conflict from a neutral perspective, there is no third party that can stand in for the audience. All of that combines into an episode that gets an E- rating, it's that bad.
Well, thankfully the show will bounce back from this misstep pretty quickly with another instant classic in the form of "Sonic Rainboom". Many still consider it one of Rainbow Dash's best focus episodes (if not the best) although given the uneven nature of her focus episodes that's not exactly saying much.
For me, the humor of the episode is more than enough to put this into the middle of the season for me
In terms of comedy, this episode is an absolute blast.
As for the overall story and message though...
I am facepalming with THE INFINITY GAUNTLET! That's how frustrating it is!
To avoid repeating myself, just take what I said about Spike in Winter Wrap Up and apply it to Twilight in this episode.
Also, I don't know if you've heard of Kyle Norty, but he reviewed this episode 8 years ago as part of one of his series, Kids Are Smarter Than This, where he looks at bad episodes of good shows aimed at kids. Here's a link to his review:
I don't really think her just strapping Pinkie to a machine is a big deal...but otherwise, I suppose I agree somewhat. Though I kinda think it's not an E, that's something truly terrible. Twilight was too adorkable, and the introduction of Pinkie sense was too great.
5447072 There are better examples of Twilight being adorkable. This isn't really her being a dork, this is her being obsessed with something to the point where being right is all that matters to her.
5447260
It becomes a bit much, but she was cool for a good amount of the episode.
I was barely aware My Little Pony was even a thing back when the episode was first released, so I only extremely dimly remember the controversy that followed it. For a good long while I figuredFeeling Pinkie Keen can’t have been that bad, that its messaging was pretty indirect, and the Internet was just being the Internet and overreacting to things. But then I re-watched the thing relatively recently myself, and… yeah, I really was not impressed. I still give the creators of the thing a lot of credit for admitting they screwed up instead of just demonizing their critics, but the fact is they did screw up and produce an extremely didactic and awkward script.
For the most part, though, Feeling Pinkie Keen is just severely impacted by issues that are pervasive throughout the earliest parts of the show: overexaggerated sight gags, large sections of runtime dedicated to random screwing around unrelated to the actual plot, and Pinkie Pie being more annoying than funny. The Season 1 episodes I liked, for instance Sonic Rainboom, have elements of greater substance in them that counter these trends; FPK has... really heavy-handed and sometimes confusing moralizing.
I think there is a place for the ideas it discusses, but the way it handles them does not serve them well. The episode is extremely one-sided, with even reality itself seeming to go out of its way to "punish" Twilight for... arguing(??), and the aforementioned swingandamiss humor undercuts the more thoughtful tone that these issues would be better presented in.