Episode Analysis - Season 4, Episode 9 - Pinkie Apple Pie

WARNING: The following blog post contains spoilers. If you have not yet watched this episode, you might want to do so before you read this post. Though seriously, it has been a week; what have you been doing?

Pinkie Apple Pie is an episode which was not about what it seemed to be. From the introduction, I believed it was going to examine Pinkie Pie's relationship with the Apples as a pony while they were trying to figure out whether she was actually related as a matter of family. In actuality, however, the episode was about the Apple Family bickering on a road trip. While the episode was okay, Pinkie Pie's presence didn't really add a whole lot to the episode, and ultimately, the episode wasn't really about Pinkie Pie at all - a somewhat amusing hijacking, given that Applejack had similar issues with some episodes of her own back in the day.

Thus, the episode is something of a bait and switch - while there is certainly some character interaction in the episode, what looks like the premise of the episode is actually pretty much unrelated to the plot. The actual plot is about the Apple family trying to look good for Pinkie Pie and failing at it utterly, arguing and bickering as things go wrong, and showing that they're not the perfect family unit that they're trying to pretend to be on Pinkie Pie's behalf. They get angry at each other and question each others' judgment and shut each other up just like everyone else, but that doesn't mean they don't love each other.

And it is alright. The episode does what it does decently well. The trouble is, the episode seems to be about Pinkie Pie's relationship with the Apples, and yet, while she is there for the entire episode, she barely actually interacts with them as a person at all - she just is goofy. And while Pinkie Pie being goofy is hardly surprising, and certainly not out of character, the trouble is that earlier on in the show, we saw her really interacting with her friends. In Baby Cakes, Party of One, It's About Time, Feeling Pinkie Keen, and similar episodes, Pinkie Pie was being very silly, but she still interacted with her friends as a person. In this episode, though, her actual interpersonal interactions as a person are largely limited to the beginning and end of the episode, with the rest of it just being goofy. We never really explore Pinkie's relationship as a person to the Apple family, which is what is really important, and while we see the interpersonal relationships of the Apple Family throughout the episode, Big Mac is prevented from having any real dialogue.

The result of this is that while the episode is funny and enjoyable, it isn't really something that sticks with you. There are some funny gags in the episode - Pinkie Pie has some reasonable jokes and gags (the little exchange over the scrapbook is a wonderful bit of Pinkie dialogue, and one of the best jokes all season), the eagle is funny the first time and funnier the second time, the wagon falling apart was a reasonable joke, the introduction was pretty reasonable... really, overall the episode did okay. But it felt a little bit lacking as what seemed to be promised character development never really developed, and while the Apple family got more development (particularly Big Mac, who previously had little personality), the fact that they prevented him from getting actual dialogue was a bit annoying as it was the perfect time for it and while his eyup/nope thing is amusing, it does get a bit driven into the ground, especially after an entire episode of him being around and not getting any real lines.