Episode review: Rarity takes Manehattan

We begin at the Ponyville train station where Rarity is thanking her friends for accompanying her to Manehattan for Fashion week. In fact Rarity is so grateful she’s arranged a treat for her friends, they will be attending a popular musical Hinny of the Hills. Arriving at Manehattan, a busy metropolis and it’s easy to see that it’s based on several locations (mostly New York) Rarity explains that she got the tickets through a friend is the costume designer for the show, Rainbow Dash states that while she is looking forward to Hinny of the Hills she’s not normally a fan of musicals “Ponies just bursting into song in random places at the drop of a hat? Who does that?!” Well I can think of one…

But in this case it’s Rarity who sings about Manehattan and generosity; over the course of the song she helps several ponies including a baggage pony, multiple tourists, a pony in a fedora, and a caddie pony. In all the excitement however Rarity becomes late for her fashion show; however the caddie pony and the caddie driver help her out. At the show Rarity is scolded by the host Prim Hemline for being nearly late. As the rest of the designers head out one of them begins to talk with Rarity, her name is Suri Polomare who apparently used to live in Ponyville before heading for the big city, she offers to help Rarity set up for tomorrows show. Suri compliments Rarity on the fabric she’s made her dresses out of and exclaims that the fabric would look help out her dresses accents; Rarity happily parts with a swatch of her fabric…

The next day Rarity arrives ready for the show only to realize that Suri has stolen her designs and since Suri has already showed the dresses to Prim Rarity looks like the copycat. When Rarity confronts Suri the latter states that she’s learned it’s every pony for herself, when asked how she did the dresses so quickly Suri corrects that it took her assistant Coco Pommel “forever” to complete the dresses…

Rarity returns to the hotel in tears and tell her friends how her generosity backfired on her. Naturally the gang is more than willing to help Rarity who gets inspired by the fabric in the hotel (curtains, blankets, etc.). The gang helps Rarity sewing a new line missing their plans (salon and restaurant reservations) when they remind Rarity of their plans to see Hinny of the Hills Rarity guilt’s them into staying…

At morning dawn the gang finishes the last of the dresses and Rarity takes off without a thank you. At the fashion show Suri is winning the crowd over with her copycat collection and is praised by Prim for her unique fabric. However Rarity’s line quickly catches the crowd’s attention which by the way had some familiar faces…

Rarity believes that she has a chance to win but notices several empty seats belonging to her friends. Rarity is instantly stricken with guilt over how she treated her friends and just as Prim begins to praise Rarity’s collection Rarity’s eyes flicker with a rainbow aurora and she races off to find her friends…

Rarity returns to the hotel but the bellhop informs her that the gang had already left. Believing her friends had returned to Ponyville Rarity takes off in despair and regret walking through a rainy Manehattan singing about her sorrows…

Rarity returns to the plaza where the fashion show was held to thank Prim for her time but Suri tells her that Prim is furious with her. At that moment the rest of the gang shows up and apologizes for missing Rarity’s show because they overslept, they also state that they were informed by Suri that Rarity had lost. Rarity doesn’t care about losing and only wants to apologize to her friends for her actions and makes it up to them with an exclusive performance of Hinny of the Hills. After the show Rarity explains that she arranged the exclusive show through an agreement to make the dresses for the costume designer’s next show in Manehattan. The gang realizes that this means that Rarity will be away from Ponyville for some time, they are sad but otherwise happy for her. At that moment Coco Pommel enters and presents Rarity with the fashion week trophy, Coco explains that Rarity won the contest but Suri devised a plan to make Rarity think she’d lost so that she could accept the trophy after Rarity’s forfeit. Coco herself had gone along with the ruse until seeing the generosity displayed by Rarity and her friends, and thus quit her job as Suri’s assistant, Coco presents Rarity with a small gift. In return Rarity gives Coco her job working for the costume designer. Back at the Carousal Boutique Rarity writes an entry in the friendship journal…

Manehattan was simply grand. It was in this magnificent metropolis that I learned that while there are ponies who will take advantage of your generosity, you should never ever let that cause you to abandon your generous spirit. Nothing feels worse than taking advantage of the giving nature of your friends.

After writing her entry Rarity opens the gift from Coco which turns out to be a spool of rainbow-colored thread which when placed along Rarity’s other spools of thread glimmers with the same rainbow aurora that came to Rarity’s eyes…

My thoughts on…

The episode its self: The episode show cases Rarity’s generosity something that hasn’t been done since the first season and does so greatly, the music was great, the characters were spot on, and Rarity gets a kind of rival in Suri and a friend in Coco. However the episode gives little background information on Suri and the reasons for her actions (though I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of fanfics and art with fan theories). Over all… -A!

Suri: I got a couple of words for this pony, but there may be children present. Unlike Lightning Dust or Trixie who use some bit of talent to get ahead (LD’s flying and Trixie’s magic) and while LD and Trixie only resort to tricks under certain circumstances Suri is nothing but tricks and lies, using Rarity’s designs, forcing Coco to make them and scolding her later for taking long, lying to the gang, and taking advantage of Rarity’s generosity. I’ll tell you this much it’s going to take a pretty good redemption fic to change my views of this pony!

Coco: I think I can safely predict that there’s going to be some form of shipping between Coco and Rarity for some fans and other might at least have Coco work for Rarity after completing her work with the costume designer. I think of Coco as some do of Silver Spoon that she’s being bullied into being mean however unlike Silver Coco redeems herself in the show where as Silver has only done so in various fics and art.

The rainbow light and the spool: in this episode Rarity is presented with the downside to generosity, ponies (people) who take advantage of that generosity (something I can relate to). However when Rarity has a moment of realization and learns that while there are ponies who take advantage of ones giving nature it shouldn’t discourage her from being generous her eyes flicker with a rainbow light and she is later given a spool of thread which does the same, coincidence? I think not! My theory is that this has something to do with the magic box from the tree of harmony, that throughout the season the mane six will be tested in a way on their elements or presented with the down side to their elements, in this case it was Rarity’s generosity and ponies who take advantage of it, now then when each pony concurs her test her eyes will flicker as Rarity’s did and they will be presented with a gift which may or not be the keys to the box. I happen to know in another upcoming episode Rainbow Dash will have to choose between staying with the Ponyville team for the Equestria games or joining the more competitive Cloudsdale team, now this is interesting, what happens when someone as loyal as Dash is presented with another team which is more driven, and let’s also remember that she works in Cloudsdale as a weather pony and while she may live in (or over) Ponyville now she used to live in Cloudsdale so is it un-loyal not to stay with another team when her formers home is so driven. Now as I said this is all just a theory but I can pretty much guarantee that we haven’t seen the last of that rainbow-thread.