Episode Re-Review: Uncommon Bond · 4:07pm April 13th
After the absolute disaster that was "Secrets and Pies", Season 7 really needed something to redeem it and give it the chance to go out on a high note, especially now that the big 2017 movie had come and gone, and the show's future was still uncertain. Josh Haber, after having returned to the story editor's chair and ultimately taking back the reigns fully from Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco for reasons unknown, now decided the time had come to pen another episode himself. But this time, he was teaming up with Kevin Lappin, the same Kevin whose only previous writing credit had been the very disappointing "Honest Apple". It was a Starlight focus episode, and while Season 7 had been good at handling Starlight in supporting roles, her time in the spotlight had been mixed. After two unrelated episodes back to back for the Season 7 premiere, Starlight had starred in "A Royal Problem" where at least she showed regret and remorse for using magic to solve a problem, but then jumped ahead to "To Change a Changeling" where she decided to do something stupid and showed no remorse for when it backfired on her. So, was this episode able to put Starlight into a good light? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Starlight waiting for Sunburst, and leaks have now confirmed that Sunburst was a Josh Haber creation. The original plans for "The Cutie Re-Mark" did involve Starlight having a past and having friends, but Sunburst wasn't mentioned (the friends were not yet defined). Whether that means Haber's version is a first draft after he either decided to take on the story or was given the story is still unclear. But that would explain why Haber then wrote "The Crystalling" to introduce Sunburst, he created him. So this Haber at least somewhat working with his own continuity. Anyway, Starlight more or less exposits about how much she and Sunburst have in common, how they've been inseperable since they were kids. But once Sunburst arrives in Ponyville, he mentions that he wants go antiquing, which Starlight is surprised by because he's never mentioned that before in her presence. You can probably guess where the episode's going to go from here.
Of course, as FiM proved multiple times, predictability isn't always a bad thing so long as you can make the journey enjoyable and believable. Sure enough, when Sunburst goes to an antique store, he meets Twilight, and the two bond over their love of history and historical artifacts, much to Starlight's dismay. I'm honestly kind of surprised it's taken this long for Twilight and Sunburst to meaningfully interact given that they're both socially awkward bookworms shedding their anti-social ways, and both are former students of Princess Celestia. I mean heck, Sunburst was basically a male Moondancer in his debut, and Moondancer is very much what Twilight would've been if she never made friends.
Sunburst opts to take some of the things he bought at the antique store with him to Twilight's castle, and he and Twilight suggest they become penpals, though we'll sadly never see them actually follow through on that on-screen. Starlight then mentions a barrel Sunburst bought, and Sunburst says it's a blind buy where shopkeepers store merchandise that even they don't know what it is just so they can get rid of it.
Starlight then has to more or less remind Sunburst that he came to Ponyville to spend time with her, and proposes that they play a boardgame called Dragon Pit. It's actually based on a real but obscure boardgame, even down to having a marble to represent a fireball. However, Twilight ruins it when she gets excited seeing the toy dragons get trapped in a pit. We then cut to next morning as Starlight barges into Sunburst's room before dawn, and Sunburst is startled at Starlight's lack of personal space.
Sunburst initially isn't interested in doing anything without Twilight, but Starlight convinces him to spend time with her. Then Sunburst asks Starlight if she can leave so he can "get changed" even though ponies don't normally wear clothes.
Sometime later, Starlight takes Sunburst to Sweet Apple Acres, mentioning how they apparently used to drink apple juice all the time as kids. She then kicks a tree, and Trixie ends up stumbling out, revealing that she both uses the orchard to practice her tricks and that she fell asleep. This more or less confirms that Trixie is now living in Ponyville full time. Then she opts to show Starlight and Sunburst a new magic trick, an escape trick. Unfortunately, she botches it and gets the chains stuck to her.
Sunburst mentions being fascinated with stage magic as a kid, and tries to help Trixie get unstuck. But Starlight quickly gets fed up with the clumsy attempts and uses her magic to just lift up the chains and remove them. Sunburst and Trixie then spend time bonding via a montage (they previously showed one for Twilight and Sunburst bonding). And Trixie actually rigs the ball in cup game the other way around, by having a ball be under every cup. Sunburst, meanwhile, utterly fails at the "Is this your card?" trick. By the end, Starlight is in a bad mood because Sunburst is once again paying attention to somepony else and not her.
We then abruptly cut to Starlight taking Sunburst to see the mirror pool, even down to mentioning that she moved the rock that was supposed to cover up the entrance. And she also knows what it's used for (and presumably knows the chant when she mentions cloning herself and Sunburst). Then she hears a disturbance, worrying that it might be "An escaped Pinkie Pie clone", further suggesting that Twilight didn't get all of them.
However, the disturbance turns out to be Maud. As it turns out, the mirror pool is conveniently connected to her cave home via a tunnel. And Sunburst just magically happens to be interested in geology, claiming that he "dabbles" in it. So then we have yet another montage, this time of him and Maud bonding, and Starlight just walks away in disappointment.
Twilight happens to find Starlight sulking to herself in the castle, and points out that Sunburst did come to Ponyville to spend time with Starlight. Then she suggests that Starlight needs to try harder to remind Sunburst of what they had in common as kids. This apparently motivates Starlight, because when Sunburst comes back to the castle she opts to show off a spell she just perfected. Said spell recreates the childhood room Starlight and Sunburst were in during their flashback in "The Cutie Re-Mark". And then Starlight uses the spell to turn them back into blank flanked foals, even down to Starlight having the pigtails mane style.
Starlight tries to get Sunburst interested in playing Dragon Pit again, but Sunburst snaps and tells Starlight he doesn't want to play at all. Surprisingly, Starlight immediately undoes the spell and runs away in tears, even though you'd expect her not to undo the spell or be so upset that she can't actually change herself and Sunburst back. This would actually mark the last time she'd ever try to use magic to solve a problem, a subtle sign of character development. Yet Sunburst is apparently shocked by this news, and Twilight has to more or less point out to him about how he's been unintentionally ignoring Starlight all this time.
Sunburst then spends some time talking with Trixie and Maud about what he and Starlight still have in common, hoping that somehow he can make it all up to her. Trixie takes the time to vent about how she's still apparently being judged for her past mistakes despite her best attempts to make up for them, but given that we've seen Trixie outright ignore the consequences of her actions and refuse to dwell on them at all, this falls flat. And it's not like Trixie gets any better from here on out, given that especially in "A Horseshoe In" she has to be outright told what she did wrong.
As for Maud, she mentions the understanding she and Starlight have, then apparently cracks a "joke" about how it's not that serious. Interestingly, at the end of this sequence, we see a second Boulder right next to the first one. Maybe this was just an animation error, but it would suggest that Maud somehow managed to use the mirror pool to clone Boulder, even though she stated back in "Rock Solid Friendship" how special he was. But hey, at least it won't horribly backfire like when Pinkie made copies of herself.
We then cut to Twilight talking to Starlight, and reacting with surprise when Starlight mentions the age spell she used, even though Twilight was a witness to the aftermath. Starlight then expresses her dismay that Sunburst doesn't want to be friends with her anymore, but Twilight reveals a little surprise of her own. Sunburst, with Trixie and Maud's help (and presumably Twilight's too) has created a life-sized version of Dragon Pit, complete with costumes, a bigger dice carved from rock, and some special effects. Starlight reacts with surprise, to which Sunburst says that he "didn't wanna pretend to be a foal."
So he decided to make a life-sized version of the game "for full grown ponies." However, Starlight says "it's missing something", and ends up using her magic to create an impact crater for Sunburst to fall into. And he's apparently unharmed, as he and everypony else in the room laugh about it.
The next day (or some unspecified time later), Starlight, Twilight, Trixie, and Maud are all on the platform to say goodbye to Sunburst. Interestingly, Trixie pulls Maud into the group hug with her magic. Sunburst then promises to tell Starlight if he finds anything interesting in the blind buy barrel. Sure enough, the episode ends with a shot of what will turn out to be Starswirl the Bearded's lost journal, thus setting up the finale in "Shadow Play".
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it just adds more fuel to the fire in terms of shipping Starlight and Sunburst. The two were practically made for each other. Yes, I know it's cliche to have childhood friends who later become romantically involved, but I think there's a very good reason why that trope stands the test of time: People tend to fall in love with those they have something in common with, rather than complete strangers. Someone you knew and were close to in childhood is someone you're going to feel more comfortable with. Shipping potential aside, this episode may have been billed as a Starlight episode, and it still very much is her episode. But it's also Sunburst's big day in the limelight. This episode, more so than any other before or after it helped to flesh out Sunburst's character, making him feel more three dimensional and less like a Twilight expy or a male Moondancer. In fact, between this and his involvement in "Shadow Play", it felt almost like he was becoming an extra ranger of the main cast.
This episode also served as a showcase of Starlight's character growth: Showing off the friendships she'd made (particularly Trixie and Maud) and how far she'd come from relying on her magic, especially given that she used magic briefly, regretted it, and instantly undid it. This really cements Season 7's biggest accomplishment, fixing the big problem with Starlight in Season 6 by letting her integrate into the group more naturally and toning down her overpowered ways.
Some might say that the stuff with Trixie, Maud, and even Twilight is character shilling for Starlight. If so, it's nowhere near as bad as the kind of shilling she got in Season 6, or even in "Mirror Magic" which shilled Starlight so horribly. There is also the criticism that Sunburst is unintentionally unsympathetic, given that he knows he came to Ponyville for Starlight, but keeps neglecting and ignoring her to hang out with others. But while he does need to be reminded of this, he still takes the initative to fix it all on his own. Honestly, the only real drag on this episode (and it's not much of a drag so much as I think it didn't need to be in the episode) is Maud. Her and Sunburst bonding feels like a bit too much of a stretch compared to Sunburst bonding with Twilight and Trixie. When Starlight bonded with Maud, they spent the whole episode letting the bond develop, which is something we didn't get here. Those flaws, though relatively minor, do kind of hurt the episode enough to make it a solid A. I'm not sure how much involvement Kevin had in this story, or whether Kevin specifically asked Josh to help him with this episode (or if Kevin wrote this episode before writing "Honest Apple"). But Kevin, either because he had help, or because he learned from his mistakes, definitely improved here. Josh Haber proved he hadn't lost his touch, though given that he was working with his own continuity, that's not entirely a surprise. Still, this set Season 7 up nicely for its big finale.
So now we move into the Season 8 re-reviews I skipped over in 2021. Or rather, that's what we will do in two weeks time. First, we're jumping back to Equestria Girls, and the first of the three Nick Confalone specials in the form of "Forgotten Friendship", which would also mark Sunset Shimmer's return to the spotlight after a prolonged absence.
This episode is definitely a lot of fun, and only reinforced Starburst for me
This episode could've easily made Twilight, Trixie, and Maud seem like the bad guys for stealing Sunburst's attention away from Starlight, similar to how Honest Apple vilified Applejack in an attempt to make Rarity look better by comparison. Luckily, they took the high road by making it clear that none of them went out of their way to make Starlight feel like a third wheel and Sunburst was just being "innocently insensitive" towards her.
Still. Think that part with the bedroom recreation was an illusion not an age spell
5776983 Given Twilight's reaction, I don't see how it could've been anything other than an age spell.