Make Your Mark Chapter 2 Review – "Hoof Done It" & "Have You Seen This Dragon?" – Episodes 7 & 8 · 6:01pm Nov 4th, 2022
Hitch: "You know, Sunny, I've been thinking. Frankly, it's just not fair."
Sunny: "What? That we have inexplicable magic beyond the other ponies in this town that manifests only when we're in major trouble? I would have gone with convenient myself…"
Hitch: "No, not that. Though that might explain why they hardly ever get along with us. No, I mean that the marketing folks picks frames like this which look really good in stills – tangible fur textures, immaculate hair particles, actually well-balanced lighting and colour saturation – and which fail to impress even a little in motion, between rushed character animation, our shrill pipes, adequate-at-best storyboarding and layout, amateur pipeline mistakes that could only happen from a malnourished schedule, the works."
Izzy: "You know, when you put it that way… I feel more sorry for this show's staff than I do for us. And we bear most of the brunt of the negative reception! Bless them, they're trying to assemble an office building with the budget and tools for a bungalow. It's a miracle we get stills that look like this at all!"
Pipp: "And I really wish trying was enough, honest I do."
Well, that was a funky three-week break from looking at the G5 episodes. Though having a bout of unabashed sunniness in the form of UK PonyCon, and then two blogs reflecting on it, is never a bad idea.
In any case, with these last two episodes, I’m all caught up. And that’ll be it; if there’s one thing trawling through the almost-exactly three hours of Chapter 2 has proven, it’s that writing up interesting things to say off of individual episodes wasn’t sustainable, at least not with my writing skillset. I don’t do prominently negative writing well, I find. I’m not ruling out future G5 content prompting a post of some sort, but as far as posts like this looking at each episode/special individually? Yeah, end of an era here.
The most important part of this whole project is the wrap-up. Unlike prior cases of being a few extra thoughts on the episodes, this is something of a conclusive summary of the whole batch, G5, the works. I’ve deemed it too substantial to tack on here, though (and too important to get right to risk rushing it) so I’ll make a separate post for the conclusion. Well, probably make it; never good to 100% commit to something publicly 
. Maybe just next week, maybe after the Winter Wishday special comes out later this month (in which case side comments will be as far as my coverage of it goes). Regardless, you can anticipate that as the cap-off to this coverage of Make Your Mark.
Episode 7 – Hoof Done It?
Zipp: "So, what's the deal with all this hoof varnish? Cough up the facts, cornrows."
Misty: "Um, I don't know how to tell you this, Zipp, but… that's not hoof varnish. It's –"
Zipp:"OH MY DEAR ALICORN! MISTY! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT OVER OUR LAWN –"
Misty: "Glitter."
Zipp: "Oh. Right. Glitter." [chuckles nervously] "Of course it's glitter."
Misty: "Well, yeah! I mean, what else could it be?"
Zipp: "…Moving on."
By all rights, this episode should be the best of Chapter 2 (well, give or take the unexpected rise out of sludge that was Portrait of a Princess). Despite being yet another egregious offender in the cross-cutting department, it actually has something resembling energy and momentum, largely off the hook of what Opaline could do with the lantern if Misty successfully gets it back to her master. Outside of Hitch/Sparky in throwaway roles, it does the best job yet of involving all of the principal cast. We actually get Zipp doing detective stuff as something that matters, rather than as side business of her muttering about overarching plot and lore that doesn’t mean anything outside of those brooding moments. This episode directly follows up on the previous one. That Zipp and Misty dominate the spotlight means the best-sounding (and voice-acted) characters give our ears a smoother time. Heck, even the song, while a complete throwaway and a time-padder (and stuck with atrocious in-universe music video visuals; I don’t doubt the inevitable PMVs, official or by the fandom will do it much better justice – they probably already have), is catchy enough, in its bland kids’ pop way. Enough so I see why it was used in the back half of this Chapter’s trailer.
Those are all promising starting points. Which make it even more flabbergasting that this is not only not one of the best episodes, but arguably its worst – only the infuriating characterisation of Growing Pains competes with it, and even then I think this has it beat for the depths it sinks to. It’s already not a good sign of the respect for the viewer that, for this whodunnit (or hoofdunnit, per the title), the mystery is revealed right away in the first few seconds, on Misty tripping and dropping the lantern in the garden. And the next few minutes don’t improve matters; once the cold open is done and we get back after the title song, an irrevocable writing dilemma presents itself.
No reason is present onscreen for why Misty would steal the lantern, bury it outside rather than legging it to Opaline, and then come back in the morning to dig it up. A few throwaway moments make it clear that it’s supposed to be the same night as the sleepover last episode, and thus, I guess (?) she did this so as to rejoin the sleepover to maintain her guise, even though once she gets back to Opaline, it won’t be needed (because she does want to remain friends with them, deep down). Then, after leaving in the morning, retrieve it and bolt. Should be evident onscreen, or even inferrable, but whatever. Yet, even setting aside Zipp overhearing Misty conversing with Opaline last episode having no effect on this one, there’s tons of logic here that make this impossible to be the morning after. Zipp doesn’t comment on Misty’s absence when she notes everypony sleeping; Cloudpuff is weirdly present after being absent last episode, mostly for a few gags with Zipp’s gadgets and for Sunny to have a “voicing her thoughts to a pet” moment. I’ll cut the laundry list short there, but you get the point. Evidence of no synchronisation between episodes and no explainable character interiority from the word go.
Bad enough Izzy refers to Señor Butterscotch offhand when explaining how she still appeared to be in bed in her flashback – the first thing in this show that requires having watched Tell Your Tale to comprehend, drawing the worst kind of attention to itself if you haven't. No, this under-the-bed shot is all we see, so any chance of a full-body (well, parts) shot of her Frankenstein abomination at least making the viewer think 'oh, it's a pony facsimile Izzy made, got it' goes down the drain.
I could wax theories on what communication – or lack thereof – there is between the writers, Atomic Cartoon and the separate studio producing Tell Your Tale, but there's no point, it doesn't change this lump of a result.
On top of that, this wants to be a comedy of errors, not a swell choice for a series where every other episode has the characters getting in each others’ way while trying to achieve basic tasks. Yet even within that, this writing stymies me: Pipp finds the lantern before Zipp and doesn’t tell Zipp, but instead hides it to let Zipp continue to have fun playing detective. Sunny, normally perfectly calm even in matters relating to things like the lantern, goes into a panic here that has knock-on effects on the actions of the others. Zipp cannot investigate to save her life, and only has any intelligence when it won’t resolve the plot early. Misty continued to be a nervous wreck and incapable of achieving anything even when the protagonists are dumb as rocks. Not funny dumb either, just bad writing dumb that doesn’t acknowledge it.
And, of course, the tri-horned bunyip in the room: when Zipp eventually corners Misty, and Pipp confesses that she hit the lantern so Zipp could continue to enjoy herself for a while, this makes not just Pipp, but Zipp too, completely forget that no reason was ever uncovered for how the lantern ended up buried out in the yard in the first place. Makes Pipp not confessing she didn’t gift that compact to Sunny looks shrewd, doesn’t it? And in every single one of these, the writing foregrounds how cheeky and audacious the shortcut is, daring the viewer to object. Or assuming the characters will make us not care.
There hasn’t been a single episode of this series, not even Portrait of a Princess, where obvious writing fixes to at least some issues didn’t pop into my head while watching them. Yet so many did here, and it would take all of a half-hour to adjust the script, even allowing for keeping Opaline not trying for the lantern again at the end, and switching focus to Sparky. Oh, yeah, the writers basically confessed the last two episodes that purported to move the plot along were a complete waste of time. Couldn’t even be bothered to supply a reason, any reason, for it. That would be okay if the writing and characterisation in those episodes was even just acceptable. But, well, you know…
I do not blame the effects artists whose job it was to try and simulate this. Point of fact, I pity them. Surely, surely, the writers had to know the “gag” of Zipp falling into a bath as she accidentally turns on the tap, then getting wet, and all the necessary bubbles, soap and water would be murder in this artstyle, with this budget and this rendering engine. Yet they let it go through anyway. 
Sigh…
Also, Zipp, your phone? The one we saw fall into the bath with you? Yeah, that's busted. Butterhooves.
It really is a shame that, very nearly everytime an episode seems like it has something promising on its hooves, it keeps tripping over itself on the most basic writing level. Could the ocean of other mistakes and shortcomings be lived with if that didn’t happen? Possibly, as Portrait of a Princess proves, but outside of isolated moments and interactions, we cannot know. And even after the brainfart of a setup, and watching every character be juvenile as they run around and prove incapable of thinking any more coherently then the five-year-olds the writers and writing for (and that’s being unfair on those five-year-olds), the episode’s conclusion baffles me. If you haven’t seen it, Pipp’s confession occurs with a whole 7 minutes of the 22-minute runtime to go. Even after the resolution there and making amends with Misty, still five minutes. Multiple things then happen, after the plot’s resolution, that should have been a part of it. The above-mentioned song, which very clearly should have been used as a montage during the investigation, is instead shown as a music video Pipp made with her Pippsqueaks. Then they have to stop Sunny and Hitch’s town-wide search for the lantern, aborting a subplot that had been setup before it could actually do anything. And then the usual actual-resolution scenes with the Mane 5 & Sparky as well as Misty reporting her failure to Opaline.
Bugger me if I know how all that happened; having that many aspects of your plot resolve after the rising action has concluded is the opposite of Writing 101. The kind of Writing 101 you do in a creative writing workshop in middle school. Any tv writer’s basic instincts would avoid this without trying. This mistake is, sadly, an encapsulation of the episode’s writing.
Izzy: ♪ I’m a little Izzy-pony, tall and forlorn. Here is my mane, here is my horn. When I get excited, hear me shout: express yourself to the extreme! ♪
Zipp [into phone]: ”Okay, observation No. 42 on the bizarre incarnation of a unicorn locally known as Izzy: She has a tendency for mangling nursery rhymes. If she starts, leg it. 'Approximate rhyme' is too much to hope for.”
Episode 8 – Have You Seen This Dragon?
Misty: "Well, I already provided a sinister teaser in shadow for Ep. 6 that was a cheap fake-out. Might as well provide an action-y one that is far worse and cheaper in context then you could possibly imagine for this episode!"
It’s amazing what relative comparisons will do. This is by no means an ideal or engaging episode even for this series, and being the episode featuring Sparky the most, as the focal point of the plot (as opposed to just side gags, a subplot for one of the ponies, or facilitating the inciting incident) means a massive overdose of him being a chaotic child, vanishing, setting up elaborate traps or transforming things at random the instead a pony turns away. Even the show’s defenders have by and large vocally declared finding Sparky and his shenanigans a failure. And, of course, the ending of Chapter 1, with only marginal progress for the plot or characters and minimal enjoyment along the way, foregrounds what a washout this has been. Yet off a handful of grace notes along the way, and the characters being far closer to sensible then last episode (while still being quite far from competent and having their dumb moments), this was tolerable. Mostly. All this despite having the least-compelling plot hook.
"There there, Hitch. It's not your fault your character has been stripped of all agency and investable personality by being turned into a rules-stickler-cum-worrywart-dad. We all suffered from characterisation downgrades. Or in Izzy's case, assassination."
Izzy: "Oh, so that's why I'm outside of this comforting moment. Whew! And here I thought I was being excluded purposefully!"
Pipp [whispering to Zipp]: "…What was our bet again on how many screws Izzy would pop loose today?"
But yeah, that plot. At the very least, there is an established, sensible reason for the Mane 5 not finding Sparky once they realise he goes missing; during the initial search of the Brighthouse, Izzy opens a closet door just enough to confirm there’s junk overflowing inside, when it was the result of Misty piling it there so she’s remain unseen further in. Beggars belief why she went there rather than legging it, but sensible diversion on her end. And if Sparky himself remains unbearable (on top of the traps he sets being far too cartoony random to fly for the lethargic tone and vibe this series has) at least we get actually interesting material from Misty, showing her heart being softened that was inferred in Ep. 6 but not actually shown when it should have been. Revealing her character in predictable but acceptable ways. And having her alone without other ponies around eliminates all the ‘bad infiltrator’ moments commonplace the last two episodes.
Hay, it even pays off at the end, with Opaline being properly vicious off only getting a sample of dragonfire, followed by Misty breaking down on her own – while neutered in visual intensity beyond what is needed for the age rating (oh! If only it were a feature film!), it still made for the only moment all Chapter outside of Ep. 3 that produced an emotional reaction (and with some of the better character animation too).
You know what? This moment makes me angry, but not for the reasons you think. It does provoke the desired emotional reaction of pining and sympathy, seeing Misty sob as she mumbles on how cold her guardian is. I am invested in Misty's plight, and do want to see her break out of her abused position. The Quasimodo-Frollo/Rapunzel-Gothel dynamic, even just reheated leftovers, is an effective one. So we know the writers and staff can provide entertainment that moves us. They just don't, or aren't allowed/given the resources to 98% of the time.
The actual main material of the Mane 5 rushing about, their efforts to search getting in each other’s way, and what feels like a dozen moments of him worrying he’ll never find Sparky and the others offering comfort… eh, it’s a typical pile of nothing. I’ll concede Hitch being made into a worrywart dad works better here than it has in most prior places (if obviously still not enough to be a positive portrayal of being a single father of a baby), though that tires fast, and him going all Batman for a spell, while providing a few gags, mostly just underscores how thin and padded this premise is (even Baby Cakes, a relative masterpiece of ‘looking after a chaotic baby/ies story’, didn’t quite sustain it’s runtime as well as most FiM episodes). And the theme of the group working well together, on top of requiring incompetence contradicting lessons learned in prior episodes, falls flat given the final solution for finding Sparky is almost all Pipp’s doing. But, there are at least some competent moments from the group, mostly early on.
What's that? We haven't yet had a chance to ruin the characterisation of Haven's personal guards? Let's have them answer Hitch's demand for silly, over-the-top shenanigans! Total 180 from Zoom's stoic butch guard personality, and doesn't mesh with Thunder's more restrained goofiness either. Nailed it, first try!
And… I’ve already run out of topics to talk about. This one is as lightweight as a Tell Your Tale short, ironic given a few released after this episode had Misty spying on or trying to steal Sparky, and while also flat nothings, they had energy. So, still absolutely a poor episode, in both concept and execution. Yet, this is rather like The Cutie Mark Mix-Up, being an episode with a very clichéd premise and rudimentary execution across a padded, lopsided runtime that nonetheless has somewhat more successful grace notes than most episodes. Counts for something. And I also like the lullaby – given Celestia’s Ballad, I’ve Got To Find A Way, and Pinkie’s Lament were my favourite songs from their musical episodes, I suppose I’ve got a penchant for bittersweet songs. Fits for a ghost, I suppose.
Make no mistake, the whammy of how little has happened at the end of this run does loom in one’s impression of this episode. But, I’ve decided to be nice and not factor that into my appraisal here, not more than for any other episode. MLP does preach that it’s better to be nice, after all.
Hitch [sighs happily]: "Well, all's well that ends well. We found Sparky, he'd just wandered off, and there's absolutely no loose ends left from any of our nine prior adventures that need resolving."
Zipp: "You know, for a moment, I thought there was still something about a hologram message… Or unexplained things from the lantern. What caused that cave-in. And that's just what I witnessed… But nah, must have been imagining it. My detective work is done!"
Izzy: "Yup! Certainly not anything that will take fifteen more episodes and three more specials of 90% faffing about and 10% making glacial progress to resolve!"
Sunny: "That's… oddly specific."
Izzy: "Eh, just Izzy being Izzy. Not like there's another pony we could say that about! Certainly not one of Twilight's friends from eons past and… dear alicorn, Izzy's rubbing off on me again."
Stray Observations
- What I said about having Misty’s colour lighting under control? I take it back – Ep. 7 has quite a number of shots where her lips are red like she’s wearing lipstick.
- It’s possible the mystery has so many lapses in Ep. 7 due to time cuts (some FiM episodes lost bits of logic from time cuts, though never anything this big), but who would cut out necessary logic over the draggy denouement or other non-necessary gags throughout is beyond me. Oh, wait, it’s not – it’d be the same folks whose lack of care, and inability to conceive of this as anything but a simulator for kids, permeates this whole series.
- I really don’t know what the point of ending on Izzy getting a rusty tram from nowhere to spruce up to move around town quicker is. It doesn't feel like a toy plug, nor a big plot relevant thing going forward, and doesn’t even have credibility for the matter at hand (moving around town quicker).
- Yeah, your guess for how the lullaby Pipp played from town square was heard by Sparky all the way in the Brighthouse closet is as good as mine.
The dragon-napping episode felt okay-ish to me because
Mistyit felt like something really happened, instead of the endless faffing about for the others. Misty's dynamic of being a badguy but not a 'bad guy' is the one interesting hook for me that we never even really saw in FIM, with the closest parallel being oddly Coco Pommel (briefly). It at least makes her scenes fun to watch as we paradoxically cheer her on despite her villainy. She's also one of the more fun to look at, what with the cornrow hair and freckles and such she honestly got more design love than the rest of them.I want to keep watching just to see her payoff. It isn't a good sign when that's it, and I feel just nothing when looking at the main characters.
I think I've really narrowed in on the core reason why I enjoyed G4 so much. I have a particular fetish for a combination of intelligence, general competency, and talent. Each of the Mane 6 (+ Spike) had those qualities (at least 2 out of 3) to a fairly high degree. Though admittedly being a children's show, there was frequent use of a mute button on the intelligence part when the writers got lazy. Essentially G4 was a superhero show where all the focus characters had different superpowers. With that setup all types of episodes could be written with ease. Drama, action, adventure, farce, character studies, horror (light)—potentially limitless.
As for G5...
G5 mostly adds up to a limited sitcom, and there's only one character that sparks my particular kink, and that's only when the writers don't flanderize her. So, given my particular personal preference,* G4 scores around a 2.7 out of 3 or 90% and G5 is a 1.2 or 40%. This explains why I am so willing to forgive the former's flaws while not being as generous with G5.
This is also a probable explanation for why many other people are enjoying G5: They're watching for other reasons, and it scratches whatever itch they've got.
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* And, admittedly being reductionistic to a ridiculous degree. A simple checklist analysis leaves out things like quality of execution and subtleties that are hardly quantifiable, but this is a blog about cartoon ponies, for crying out loud! Who do you think I am? Bad Horse? Jeeze, that dude must have metric shittons of time on his hands/hooves!
You know, if I were writing a show for particularly dense pre-schoolers (as I think you are correct in guessing the writers of G5 are trying to do), I would try to make sure it was gradually paced and didn't have too many different premises and moving parts to keep track of. So it really kind of amazes me that they have managed to turn these extremely thin plots into something so zigzaggy and frenetic. I am now more convinced than ever that multiple teams of people, possibly in multiple different countries, assemble these things without any direct communication between each other; then a single unpaid intern was allowed to watch the finished product exactly once before it was sent off to Netflix to be put on their server.
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Ah, we're in agreement again, it would seem. As you saw above. Something actually coming of the end results (despite the Mane 5 material in Ep. 8 being the usual lethargic bore) is not least why it feels better than most episodes (which could have competed on enjoyable character takeaways, if not moving the plot along, but other than Ep. 3, alas…). Something that marginally applied to Ep. 5, though not nearly as much as with this one.
Mm, never thought about that comparison. They also share the novelty of a squeaky youthful female voice that doesn't grate. Pity Izzy doesn't get that luxury now…
It is frankly offensive how, of all the new pony designs not ported over from the film, hers is the only one to come off as well as the film's characters, with all the iterating and interesting looks and making sure it looks right in the art style. Opaline, the three prominent Pippsqueaks, Jazz and Rocky, Sparky, Posey… all horrible on the eyes here. Were it not for Misty's mane style being too high-fidelity for this rendering engine and her hair thus "glitching" constantly between frames, it's be a pure win.
100% agree that Misty's arc is the only thing of legitimate viewer interest here, and something I will be devoting ample words to come the wrap-up.
I wrote off the show before the end of Episode 1 when the writing clearly hadn't improved from the special (and in some cases had gotten worse). It's a shame to see Atomic unable or unwilling to even attempt to properly use the setup the movie gave them.
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Familiar territory, my friend, even just to discuss here, but you're dead right in the G4 cast's competence, skills and baseline intelligence being a big reason why they remain so compelling and likeable even when they make mistakes, or were poorly written or utilised. Especially refreshing for kids' media in particular. And no disagreement either on the combination of those traits letting the show do any number of genres or story types, whereas G5 is running on fumes on that front not even ten episodes in. It's also rather telling when an animated show is basically very sitcom-like, it usually shows lack of imagination from a transported live-action writer(s). Ironically, the very low number of sets and models and environments does make this feel quite like a sitcom in another way too, no?
Now me personally, it's not as crucial a factor as yourself. Though I won't deny that every single instance of a G5 character lacking traits they should have which you highlights is bringing them down – for all I persist in only showing any interest when Misty in onscreen, as I've alluded to many times the mast two blogs, it would be much more if she was competent, or had any skills, or any of that. And Zipp being aloof and a detective falls totally flat when she's bad at it whenever it actually matters to the plot. Kids' media does often have characters not earn their victory, and basically stumble into it, but it's been a while since I've seen it this egregious, and I must concur it is a major reason why it's a frustrating experience to watch.
You are right in Izzy having those values (if basically by, in this series, being almost indistinguishable from Pinkie, except for lacking nuance), and yet she's executed so atrociously that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. And Pipp, well… I did like that moment briefly in Ep. 1 when she was composing a song, so yeah, she's not untalented.
As I've often noted, when we genuinely like characters, and enjoy being with them, we're far more forgiving of writing/execution flaws in or around them. Sometimes more than we should, for sure, but when characters endear that kind of defence in viewers, it's telling.
These are all points I will be discussing directly or at least alluding to come my conclusion post, naturally. But you deserved a sneak preview, buddy.
I don't know that I would say many other people are enjoying it. I'll concede I'm mostly on spaces like here where it's drummed up far less enthusiasm, but even elsewhere it's more down to the fact that most folks that aren't enjoying it are just not bothering to wax words on why. And even there, I'm spotting many telltale trends in how it's discussed and mentioned that shows that it doesn't have staying power, and will vanish quicker then most think once this gen is over.
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Oh, I wrote this off around the same time, which is one reason why the follow-up conclusion post will be my last dedicated words on G5. And given your penchant for more complex writing that isn't shackled by the realities of a TV-Y show (yes, I still vividly remember your old profile tagline here), not remotely surprising you packed it in that quick.
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My bringing that point up beforehand was actually arguing against that being the intention (and thus using it as a defence), mostly on the grounds of the dialogue still being too complex in words structure and cadence for that demographic. Though the reasons you cite, of it being so all over the place and frantic and haphazard (because a preschool show, where the value is primarily educational, would absolutely be proofed more than this has been), is another key reason why.
Quite the direct contrast to G4, where there was frequent direct communication between DHX and those on the Los Angeles end, to the point that when Lauren left, she was 100% confident in DHX and Jayson Theissen to run the ship.
Probably not as far off the mark as that joke is meant to be; one TYT episode was initially uploaded with a few storyboard sketches/lines still present, not edited out of the video file, while others had the upload order missed up. There are a few other "minimal QA checking by the skeleton crew" flubs I'm forgetting the specifics of right now, but they happen.