Episode Analysis - Season 4, Episode 3 - Castle Mane-ia · 10:53pm Dec 7th, 2013
I forgot to post this last week, so I am posting it now immediately prior to my Episode 4 analysis. This contains spoilers for episode 3 but, it has been a week, man; what are you doing?
This was a fairly solid episode from a newbie writer; in fact, I feel like the writer did his homework and worked on getting the characters' voices right. The episode had some humor to it, it had some fun moments, and it had Rainbow Dash being sly. What more could you ask for?
A lot, actually. The biggest problem with its episode is ironically the same as one of its strengths - the characters feel perfectly in character, but the problem is that they feel almost "too" in character. What do I mean by that? It feels more like they've been cut out of other episodes and stuck in here, rather than actually being organic. Rainbow Dash and Applejack feel like they're straight out of Fall Weather Friends... which is great, except we've already seen Fall Weather Friends. Their sequences felt very similar to parts of Fall Weather Friends, save that they were both trying to be brave rather than pushing their physical limits. Yeah, it was different, but it didn't actually feel like it showed any new aspect of their personalities.
The episode starts with Twilight Sparkle being sent off to the ancient castle in the heart of the Everfree Forest in search of knowledge about the chest in the S4 opener. She doesn't find any information, but DOES find Princess Celestia's diary, which set sets to reading with GUSTO, because clearly, Celestia's diary is totally going to contain information on the box that Celestia knows nothing about.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Applejack are in another competition. Today they are competing to be the most daring pony, with Pinkie Pie as the totally unhelpful judge. After their "standing under bees" competition is cancelled by the beekeeper reclaiming his bees and Pinkie Pie takes off after declaring the pair tied, they decide to go into the spooky castle in the middle of the Everfree Forest. Rainbow Dash is unimpressed at first, until Applejack tells her about the legend of the SHADOW PONY, a remnant of Nightmare Moon's power... cue the ominous shadows.
To complete the group, Rarity and Fluttershy are heading off to the castle as well. Rarity is trying to get some inspiration for her new clothing line by stealing restoring the beautiful tapestries there, while Fluttershy is being drug alone for manual labor because this is totally important (something Fluttershy gets a bit annoyed over, but she gives in - because we need the whole crew there. Plus, she's still a bit of a doormat sometimes). This is the strongest group of characters in the episode, as they are pretty fun together. Fluttershy brought along Angel who, naturally, immediately scampers off, thus giving her a reason to remain in the caste later on. Rarity makes Fluttershy help retrieve one of the tapestries, but in so doing, Fluttershy activates a secret panel which swivels the wall around, naturally freaking out Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who are on the other side.
The rest of the episode consists of the ponies scaring themselves and each other, with Rarity and Fluttershy falling into a pit and fumbling around for an exit through a hole in the wall, at first amusing Rainbow Dash (who assumed that Applejack was getting cuddly scared) before scaring them both with the appearance of a disembodied leg. A creepy organ starts getting played by a pony wearing a black cloak, which starts activating random secret passages throughout the castle, separating the group and further freaking them out with their random disappearances. Eventually they all bump back into each other and freak out, only for Twilight to finally get brought out of her studying to put an end to it all with her magic, immediately freezing them all in place.
The episode ends when the group goes to confront the pony playing the organ, only to discover it was Pinkie Pie, who decided to follow them all to the castle and start playing the organ for no reason. I felt like this was a rather lame reveal, as it would have been the perfect opportunity to bring in Luna and have her play the organ and reminisce about what the palace used to be like. Pinkie Pie was fine, but Luna would have been a bit more interesting, especially seeing as she is something of a pony of shadows.
The episode ends with the group deciding to start a communal journal and an OMNIOUS SHADOW appearing at the end, indicating that perhaps the pony of shadows is not so nonexistent after all.
All in all, the episode doesn't really go anywhere; nothing really changes, save that now they have the diary to narrate lessons to, rather than Princess Celestia (though honestly I rather miss the Dear Princess Celestia bits, as it gave her more involvement with the group's activities and allowed her to remain apace - also, perhaps, live vicariously through Twilight and the rest of them). Twilight apparently totally wanted to read Celestia's diary (which is terrifically amusing), and apparently Luna and Celestia hired an architect who used to work for Gary Gygax in designing their keep - though, let's face it, any authentic magical castle in the middle of the woods needs innumerable secret passages.
The episode definitely has some strong points - Rarity and Fluttershy in particular have some really great interplay, with poor Fluttershy getting ordered around by Rarity, and then later freaking out, while Rarity snarks about Fluttershy freaking out, and also complains about how ungrateful the castle is that it isn't letting her repair things. Rainbow Dash and Applejack work fine, but their interplay in this episode had been seen before. Pinkie Pie doesn't show up much but is actually amusing in her few appearances, and her bell cutaway gag, while "out of place" in the series, is an absolutely brilliant gag. Twilight is fine in her few appearances, and Spike does well in his limited screen time as well, with some nice sarcastic jabs exchanged between them, as well as Twilight's usual obliviousness.
The main weakness of the episode is that, while it is solid, it doesn't really "go anywhere" - nothing was really learned, and in the end, the only change is that they now have a diary to narrate things to at the end of the episodes. It was just the characters interacting, which was nice, but as nothing was learned and no real developments occurred, it just kind of is there.
All in all, a fairly average episode for the show, but well worth watching. 3/5
I agree about the AppleDash stuff. Even if I'm not terribly interested in the ship, it would have been a much better episode if something was expanded on with their interaction, rather than just a re-skin of FWF.
I also agree that RariShy were the Stars of this episode. Rarity in particular felt almost like she was a more interesting pony as a result (speaking as someone who isn't really a big fan of her). Rarity crying under the tapestry was cute.
I also liked Twi's telekinesis burst that stopped all her friends. It felt like an appropriate display of power that fit her overall magical growth in the series, a nice step up from the occasional tail-grab she used to make use of.
I think the point of the episode was intended to be more slice of lifey than really accomplish goals-ey.
Having seen s4e4, it seems the whole diary shtick didn't hold. Maybe it will just be a feature in a later episode where they read each others' diaries? It certainly doesn't seem like they intend it to be a reskin of the friendship reports to the princess.
Overall, yeah. bland episode without much rewatch value. Not really bad, but mediocre at best.
Great season so far, eh?
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Uh, Rainbow Dash addressed the diary at the end of Daring Don't.