Episode Re-Review: A Matter of Principals · 5:54pm Jun 29th, 2021
Just when Season 8 looked like it was finally finding its footing, along came duds such as "Marks For Effort" that saw Twilight sink to a new low when a climax was hastily shoehorned in and the absolute waste of an episode that was "The Mean Six". In both cases, it was a warning sign in the villain department as we had both a painfully obvious twist villain and an established villain hitting villain decay so badly she was no longer a threat to anyone. But when Season 8 came back for its second half, it decided to debut two episodes back to back and this was the first of them. The writer was none other than Nicole Dubac, who had made her solo debut with the aforementioned "Marks For Effort" and had sought to "defend" Twilight's behavior in that episode. So this was definitely not a good sign, and it doesn't help that many regard this as one of the worst episodes of all time. But in light of what Discord would go on to do, is what he does here really this bad? And does that make the episode as bad as people say it is? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Twilight introducing these special artifacts from various kingdoms that are on loan from the Canterlot Archives. She intends to use them as part of a magical scavenger hunt she calls a "Spellvenger Hunt", an insanely stupid and unnecessary ponyfication. We do get some interesting moments out of the student/young six when Twilight pairs Gallus with Silverstream, Smolder with Ocellus and Sandbar with Yona. The last of which would become a canon ship a season later.
However, things start to take a bad turn when Twilight's cutie mark starts glowing and she finds that she and all her friends are being called by the map. Apparently, they have no protocol in place for this since Applejack worries about having to cancel classes while the professors go to solve the friendship problem. If you'll recall, this was one of the things that the intended antagonist Neighsay specifically inquired about in his first meeting with Twilight. So if he's supposed to be in the wrong, why is he continuing to be proven right about stuff like this? You're not supposed to make your strawman right, not even accidentally. All it does is indicate that your strawman is not actually a strawman despite you dressing it up as such.
Fortunately, Twilight does seem to have a "plan" in place for this, putting Starlight in charge while also having her just continue to operate as a guidance counselor. And why is Starlight being put in charge? Because Spike apparently wants no part of leadership after what happened in "Princess Spike". Much like "Trade Ya!" referenced "Spike At Your Service" it must be asked, why are you referencing bad works and bad mistakes?
And Twilight apparently isn't going to bother hiring substitute teachers or anything while she and her friends are gone. In fact, for some reason it seems like she's been keeping her friends in the role of teachers and hasn't bothered to hire more staff. It's like they're intentionally trying to make the school look as bad as possible, and assuming that this is self sabotage it must be asked: Why are you dragging the show into your feud with Hasbro? Even if they disturbed the goose that lays the golden egg, attacking them over it will solve nothing. But I think I'm looking way too deeply into this, much like the clip shows I don't wanna believe that they did stuff like this on purpose (although, given comments on social media from the show staff in regards to later seasons it would seem they became apathetic about their mistakes). Putting all that aside, the mane six leave and Discord immediately shows up out of the blue. Why does he care so much about this school? Because the plot says so, that's why.
Discord goes on to point out that he was never invited to the school at any point while it was under construction or after it opened. But you know what, not all of the mane six's friends from every possible circle were invited to the school's opening. I'm pretty sure Discord would've known about the school and could've shown up at any point if he so wanted to. He claims that he's interested in the school because of Starlight's suggestion to Twilight to make up her own rules, and decides out of the blue that he should be in charge because of that. Starlight naturally objects, saying that Twilight asked her to serve as temporary headmare, but Discord insists that he be allowed to do what he wants. To that end, he "hires" substitutes that include the stupid plot device that was dragon sneeze trees, Cranky Doodle Donkey (who is having the students wait on him even though he never did anything antagonistic before) and Iron Will (who, again, was not originally a bad guy and even in "Once Upon A Zeppelin" what he was doing was not automatically illegal). Iron Will in particular is so bad that he encourages Yona to go all Hulk.
Naturally, Starlight complains to Discord about this while also commenting to Spike about how she and Discord are apparently friends due to having teamed up back in "To Where and Back Again", kind of a flimsy justification when they had never interacted before then. Anyway, the next day dawns as Starlight brings in some proper substitutes to get things back on track, including Maud Pie, Trixie and Spitfire. But now Discord opts to be a student, and disrupts class with his bad behavior. He even goes so far as to summon an Ursa Minor during Trixie's class when she's just trying to teach. And considering an Ursa Minor messed up Trixie's way of life, that's not only not funny but downright malicious and sadistic. That's what a psychopath would do.
Not even an admittedly funny joke about a banana phone can save Discord's behavior here.
But the real kicker comes when we get to a scene out on a field. The students are all tired from having been given a workout by Spitfire. However, Discord doesn't care and decides to "motivate" them by summoning a bugbear. The problem is, Yona can't run very fast and almost gets impaled on the bugbear's stinger before Starlight shows up to save the day. She rightfully calls Discord out and asks him what his problem is, mentioning how endangering students crosses a line. And that's something that even "Non-Compete Clause" couldn't be bothered to consider even when we had to watch two of the mane six be so negligent that they almost let a student drown!
Then Discord tries to turn it all around and frame it as a problem with Starlight, claiming that she's not qualified to be much of anything and Twilight never should've put her in charge. This is probably meant to reflect all those who've ever complained about Starlight's character, how she was so easily forgiven when she committed grave errors that raised legitimate concerns about whether she knew or understood right from wrong. And again, dressing up your criticisms with a strawman is not how you address them! Especially not when you're gonna turn around and make Starlight blast Discord away in front of the students, making it look like she killed him!
Starlight hastily claims to the worried students that she just banished Discord's body away from the school but he'll be okay, which feels like a very abrupt handwave. Yet only now that she went and did such a thing does Starlight have regrets and starts to become depressed. It's then time for the scavenger hunt (I'm not calling it by its stupid ponyfication), but the items start to come to life and various other mysterious things start to afflict the students when they go to look for the items. We also learn that Sandbar apparently is interested in poetry, but this never gets brought up again and serves only to prove that how out of place he was as a random pony we knew nothing about. Anyway, all these hauntings turn out to be the work of none other than Discord who can still affect the school in spirit. Starlight goes to talk to him, and apologizes to him for not listening to his "advice", offering to give him what he wants more or less. Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen. If someone is getting on your case for doing your job, you should reward them for acting up instead of punishing them. It doesn't matter how horrible they treated you, you're in the wrong for ever being mad with them. Seriously, did Nicole Dubac take inspiration from Trixie from "All Bottled Up" when writing this?
And just when you think the episode can't get any worse, it does. The mane six come back and reveal that the map mission was a fake. Discord manipulated their cutie marks to make them think the map was calling them, sending them off to the middle of nowhere. It's never explained how Discord could do this, or how if he could do this why he never showed up for any other map missions at any point. All this really does is indicate that Discord engineered this whole situation just so he could take over, and didn't even care that he was putting his friends: Fluttershy included, in danger.
*Sigh* and that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? I'll be honest, this episode might just be one of the most painful and uncomfortable ones to sit through, especially since you can't really skip it if you intend to see the Season 8 finale (which is even more of a bad thing) as otherwise you won't know what the items seen here are or why they're important. But almost from the get go this episode seems to set out to do everything wrong. It yet again serves to make the school look as bad as possible, showing that the mane six are apparently so bad at this that they have no plans in place for map missions and haven't bothered to hire substitutes. Then, after referencing "Princess Spike" for the first (but not the last) time to explain why Starlight is being put in charge, the episode takes a page from "All Bottled Up" and just puts poor Starlight through the wringer for no good reason. I don't get what the show thinks is funny about watching toxic friendships like this play out, it's not healthy or funny and it's so insulting and dangerous! Seriously, why aren't things like this being brought up the way the badly worded moral of "Feeling Pinkie Keen" was? This is the kind of thing that could cause irreversable damage to an individual if this leads them to believe that stuff like this is normal and acceptable. Let me make one thing perfectly clear here, this is NOT what a good friendship or relationship looks like! If you or someone you know is in this kind of situation, get out as soon as you can!
Discord is at his absolute worst here, behaving no better than a petty child throwing a tantrum because they don't get what they want. And yet he gets rewarded for it by the end because the episode says so, nevermind the fact that he dragged others in a feud when they wanted no part of it and never did anything to him. Heck, one of the ones he got involved in this feud was another of his so called "friends". This really makes you wonder why the mane six haven't bothered to turn him back to stone when it's clear that now even Fluttershy can no longer keep him in line, seeing as he doesn't care even the slightest about sending her into harm's way so he can take over. And keep in mind that Discord is supposed to be "reformed", he's not supposed to be doing stuff like this. The saddest thing is, I could buy him being this mean to Twilight given how much he's been willing to mess with her in the past. And if he were confining it to just her it would probably be somewhat in character, much as I would hate it for bringing back memories of "Three's A Crowd" and "What About Discord?" where he seems to enjoy being a jerk to Twilight because he can. At the very least I do appreciate that this episode had the courage to say what "Non-Compete Clause" didn't, endangering others for any kind of competition or feud is unacceptable and shouldn't be tolerated.
Aside from that, the kind of funny joke about a banana phone, and seeing some other characters teach at the School of Friendship (mostly in the form of Spitfire and even kind of Trixie) as well as maybe a bit of the student/young six's interactions there is nothing good going for this episode. "Non-Compete Clause" is still worse since that episode mentions specifically that Applejack and Rainbow Dash should be above such toxic competitiveness, and they don't react at all or learn anything from what their reckless ways cause. This episode at least acknowledges that none of that is okay, and Starlight is likeable aside from that scene where she snaps and blasts Discord (I'm pretty sure she couldn't kill him, if she could it would raise a lot of questions about why she can do it but the Elements of Harmony could only turn him to stone), which really didn't need to be there. Unfortunately, none of that can save this episode from getting an F-. As bad as the Grogar twist was for Discord, at least there he actually got caught and to an extent he did try to atone for what he did, even if everything else about the twist was really bad and really undermined his character.
Well, things will pick up from there with "The Hearth's Warming Club", the first episode to focus almost exclusively on the student/young six. And it was a Christmas themed episode too, airing in the summer of 2018 as a sort of Christmas in July kind of thing.
Honestly, this is one episode that I actually enjoy a lot, despite the issues.
5543338 Really?
I don't think this is turn to stone worthy but it was one of his worst moments.
Oh boy, this episode. If you recall what I said back in your re-review of Pinkie Apple Pie, I brought up that it managed to dethrone Rainbow Falls as Voice of Reason's least favorite episode of the entire series. How badly does he hate it? Unlike Rainbow Falls, as well as his original #1 worst Bridle Gossip, this episode almost made him quit the series! Why? Because he feels it gives what he considers to be the show's most destructive message, which he translates as so:
5543460
Yeah
Now according to a Twitter post by Nicole Dubuc, this episode was originally meant to take inspiration from Pride & Prejudice, with Starlight being too proud to ask for help as she wanted to prove herself to Twilight and Discord's reason for antagonizing her would've been that he couldn't accept the fact another reformed villain, especially one who hasn't been around as long as him, would be a better choice for substitute headmare. However, the story was changed through the notes process. I can only assume it was for the same reason Rarity was switched out with Applejack in Spike at Your Service in that the show staff felt the original story made Starlight too unlikable.