Episode Re-Review: It Isn't The Mane Thing About You · 5:20pm Jun 18th, 2021
With the pillars having been established, Season 7 now had a lot of slots to fill in until the finale. "To Change A Changeling" aired as the seventeenth episode even though it was the nineteenth in production order. Interestingly, "To Change A Changeling" was the last episode to credit Lewis and Songco as the story editors solo. Beginning with "Daring Done?" Josh Haber would also be credited, and I don't think it's coincidence that Season 7 started doing better around the same time he returned to the editor's chair. I mean, part of it is probably not Lewis and Songco's fault, but they just didn't seem capable of getting Season 7 to stop spinning its wheels. Haber was also writing this episode all by himself, his first time writing a Rarity focus episode even though Rarity was supposedly his favorite pony. But as Lauren Faust can attest, having a favorite pony doesn't mean you automatically know how to write them in a good light. And all anyone seems to remember this episode for is punk mane Rarity. Is there a reason for that? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Filthy Rich apparently doing some last minute shopping for "Mares Day", which I guess is the pony equivalent to Mother's Day or something? He opts to buy Spoiled Rich flowers, but there's a problem since the flower trio are overwhelmed with orders. Fortunately, Rarity is on hoof to help propose a solution. In fact, she goes around just in general being helpful to a variety of store owners. Then she stops by Sugarcube Corner to pick up cupcakes for Photo Finish, who is apparently going to a photo shoot of Rarity for a mane magazine. However, Rarity finds Pinkie Pie alone with the Cake Twins, celebrating the one year anniversary of their first sneeze. This is kind of a continuity error though since babies can sneeze from a pretty early age. Most likely, it's their first major sneeze since they are still without diapers (the only indication that they're getting older, it's weird the show never aged them up even after Flurry Heart introduced a new foal model). And to celebrate, Pinkie utilizes some extra special string that gets everywhere. Hey, at least it's not sand.
Because of this, some of the string is stuck in Rarity's mane. She's naturally a fair bit upset with Pinkie for this, but Pinkie does seem to be at least aware of her mistake and even proposes going to see Zecora for potions to help clean up the mess. Along the way, Rarity scolds those spooky eyes you always see in the dark in cartoons, though they kind of ruin the joke afterward when she follows up on the "Take a picture" line by claiming that's what she's trying to avoid.
So the two reach Zecora who is able to quickly brew up a special shampoo for Rarity and a remover potion for Pinkie Pie. But Zecora doesn't label the bottles even when they look exactly the same, but the episode will suggest that Pinkie asking Zecora for mane horror stories is what causes the mix-up. Naturally, Pinkie gets the shampoo while Rarity gets the remover potion and erases some of her mane, letting out a shriek. She goes to see Zecora afterward, revealing what's happened. And Zecora says that she should be able to brew up a fix eventually, but in the mean time she wants Rarity to "Take your mind off these mane losing blues", which is kind of a jerk thing to say when this accident is primarily Zecora's fault for not labeling her bottles properly. I know she's not intended to sound mean here, but it kind of gives off the impression that she's oblivious to the problem. And this isn't acknowledged like it is when the rest of the mane six realize in "Lesson Zero" that telling Twilight to calm down wasn't the best approach.
So Rarity goes around town, hiding her face because she doesn't want to be seen in her maneless state. As a result, the same shop ponies she helped earlier now don't reciprocate and sell off the things she was going to buy. Interestingly, during the sofa scene Berry Punch actually speaks (voiced by Ashliegh Ball) and she sounds perfectly normal. I guess she finally went sober. But the thing is, Rarity's not really trying to speak up for herself regardless of her mane state. They try to project this as a loss of confidence in herself, which does sort of work but at the same time makes her look really self centered when losing her mane is enough to send her into a depression. We then see her sulking in Twilight's castle, and when Starlight acts surprised that Rarity can't command attention, Rarity responds by showing off her mane while asking "Does this look messed up to you?!".
Twilight and Starlight then try to give Rarity a mane via magic, but all the attempts involve using something else as a base since they claim magic can't produce hair out of nowhere. This seems to runs contradictory to Twilight using a mustache spell on Spike back in "Boast Busters", but then again facial hair tends to grow faster than bodily hair (especially as you age). Speaking of Spike, he makes a cameo appearance here to cut the hairs that sprout up like weeds, but he gets no speaking lines at all this episode. It wouldn't be so jarring if not for what will happen later. Anyway, from here Zecora comes in to tell Rarity that there is no cure, the mane will just have to grow back in time. Again, Zecora unintentionally comes across as oblivious to the fact that her "advice" isn't helping and that this situation is primarily her fault. She does suggest time travel, and we do get a good callback when Twilight and Starlight both rule it out given their past experiences.
We then get mostly filler antics of Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy trying to give Rarity a new mane through various methods (after Fluttershy says they could "try" to pretend Rarity's condition isn't bad, Element of Kindness everyone): Applejack offers up a bonnet that Granny Smith apparently uses to milk the cows (even though they're sentient), Rainbow Dash makes a mane out of clouds only for it to evaporate as soon as Rarity takes a step and Fluttershy just uses a bunch of leaves to make a wig. None of these solutions work though, and Rarity says that she'll have to "call Photo Finish" to cancel the shoot. I assume she means writing a letter or something, because as far as we know ponies don't have telephones yet. Probably a good thing since that means prank calls aren't a thing yet either.
Sometime later, the rest of the mane six (minus Pinkie Pie) and Starlight show up to find Rarity sulking to herself in Carousel Boutique. And they give her a pep talk, Starlight included, about how Rarity is beautiful from the inside as well. Remember what I said about Spike earlier? Well this is where his absence is particularly noticeable. You'd think he would be all for encouraging Rarity to look beyond outward appearances. I guess there was a stipulation that if Starlight was in an episode in a supporting role Spike couldn't be in the episode too? Anyway, this pep talk causes Rarity to realize that she's been moping around and feeling sorry for herself for no good reason. To that end she dyes what's left of her mane and tail and puts on punk clothes, opting to "shine from the inside out". I mean hey, she already shredded on a guitar almost a half season ago, why not complete the look?
So Rarity goes out and helps the same shop ponies again, though she also helps Filthy Rich who has to return the flowers he bought because Spoiled doesn't like them and he says he should've asked her what she liked first. Really begs the question of what he still sees in her after this. Is he afraid she'll take all his money in a divorce? It can't be any worse than when Beth and Jerry finally agreed to divorce.
And it's only now that she's done all of this that Rarity realizes what should've been obvious: Since she got the remover potion Pinkie got the shampoo. And Sugarcube Corner is completely covered in bubbles, but none of the silly string was removed. This mostly seems to be to throw in a stupid joke about Pinkie Pie not noticing the obvious when she asks Rarity "is there something different about you?", much like the "Take a picture" joke it doesn't work if you follow up on it by either stating the obvious or having the character avoid the obvious. It's basically just "And then the opposite happened", which is what has plagued many of Butch Hartman's later works. We then get a time skip to a month later with Rarity's mane having grown back. But she finds out that she got onto the cover of that mane magazine anyway. How, you may ask? Well, her friends managed to reach out to Photo Finish and got her to take some pictures while Rarity was just being helpful (including helping to clean the Cake Twins).
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Honestly, I think this episode is much like "Twilight's Kingdom" in that it built backwards. It had the concept of "Give Rarity a punk mane and tail" and just worked backwards from there. There's definitely not as much at stake here, and there's nothing wrong with a lower stakes episode every now and again. Yet it can feel like not a lot really happens, like we're just watching a bunch of little snippets from other episodes or even rejected shorts spliced together. Heck, the entire opening sequence feels like it could've been a stand alone short like we'd go on to get with "The Best Gift Ever"'s "encore shorts". I mean, punk mane Rarity is just as fanficy as some of the stuff they would do in those shorts. Plus, Rarity kind of seems self centered when losing her mane is enough for her to basically shut herself off from the world and it feels like by this point she would have developed enough to go straight to "make lemonade out of the lemons" approach instead of moping around. However, the biggest problem might just be Zecora. She doesn't label the bottles for her potions even though they look exactly the same, tells Rarity to just get over losing her mane and then shows up to tell her that there's no cure and the mane will just have to grow back. Intentionally or not, Zecora looks like a real jerk here, saying stuff that would be easy for her to say since she's not the one who lost her mane. Those details do hold this episode back, ultimately giving it a B. It's nice, but even if they were just given punk mane Rarity as a concept I think they could've found a better way to build a story off of that.
So now it's on to Twilight's other focus episode this season and one continuing the other theme of Season 7 in focusing on family with "Once Upon A Zeppelin".
Never like this episode. "oh no magic can't fix manes" I call Bull! or that fact that bottle are just 'conveniently unlabeled. or that she somehow can't track down a good wig..or literally ANYTHING to solve the issue is poorly lampshaded.
This is honestly one of my favorite Rarity episodes.
Not to mention this episode doesn't even have the excuse of Cathy Weseluck being unavailable at the time since she is credited as playing Lily Valley.
5537425 It's one of her better ones, but not her best.