Episode Analysis - Season 4, Episode 13 - Simple Ways · 12:57am Feb 10th, 2014
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.
The alleged waifu-stealing episode of season 4, Simple Days started out slow, with one of the weakest pre-credits sequences in the series, but got better as the episode went on, culminating in the cattiest fight the series has seen to date. It included strong dialogue, let both Rarity and Applejack show off their character, and a very large amount of humor - including some very dry humor, as well as some cringe comedy - to engage the audience. This episode was very much a return to form; unlike much of season 4, it was not plagued with the issue of the mane six being crammed into every corner of the episode, and all the characters in the episode were there for good reason, and overall, despite the issues with pacing, it was probably the best episode of season 4, giving Josh Haber a pretty solid record thus far.
The characterization of this episode was quite strong. We get a pretty good idea of what kind of pony Trenderhoof is - he's a hipster. He has a big interest in farming, but he also really has no idea what farming REALLY is - it is obvious he is more interested in the idea of it than what it truly is, and his infatuation with Applejack is very shallow, and his attempts to impress her shallow as well. He isn't a bad pony, though - he's just ignorant, and a bit racist, judging by his remark about how hard-working earth ponies are, perhaps the best piece of casual racism that has ever shown up in the show.
You know, I have such great respect for the work ethic of Asians mud earth ponies. Applejack doesn't know how to respond to the most racist compliment ever.
Rarity is being a drama queen as usual; she is again obsessing over the IDEA of a guy rather than the actual guy, who actually kind of blows her off (or at least, blows off her feelings, rather than just, you know, telling her he isn't interested - though maybe he is just utterly oblivious) and is obviously rather ignorant. She is heartbroken over her crush completely ignoring her and lusting after the far more plain Applejack, who is at her worst when his crush forms. And she dramas out, deciding to try and appeal to whatever he sees in Applejack, without really knowing what it is, and being rather oblivious to Spike.
Applejack puts up with a whole bunch from Trenderhoof and Rarity without losing her cool too much; she tries to sneak off away from Trenderhoof and generally defuse the situation, but neither Trenderhoof nor Rarity seem to get the hint that Applejack really isn't interested in the guy. She is quite wonderful throughout the episode, getting understandably angry and feeling understandably awkward about the whole situation, and her wonderfully catty exchange with Rarity at the end of the episode really gives some nice insight into the pair - both that they understand each other, and how they exaggerate each other's personalities.
Finally, we had Spike. This episode actually did a very decent job of including Spike - he shows up to help and support Rarity several times, he does a reasonable job at what he is doing as a character, and he actually has his character intact here. His aside glance when he is comforting Rarity through her tears is quite amusing, and his general supportive (and self-effacing) attitude there is very nice, as is his inability to say what Trenderhoof sees in Applejack (and his confusion at the fact that Trenderhoof doesn't like Rarity - I mean, who doesn't like Rarity? How is that even possible? He just doesn't get it).
While there is a nice little bit of acknowledgement there, I think a little bit more would have been nice. In particular, at the scene where Rarity is trying to drive the plough (and failing hilariously), Spike obviously isn't totally happy with the situation. He knows Rarity is doing this to impress Trenderhoof (his competition), and while Spike is definitely a good guy, I think it might have been good if he had shown a little bit of jealousy or a bit more unhappiness here right before Rarity calls him Spikey-poo and makes him want to help her as her "friend". It would have been a nice bit of extra acknowledgement of his unhappiness, as while his facial expression was very good there, a little bit of actual verbal acknowledgement would have been good before his change of heart.
AcreuBall's Drinking Alone, Except With Two grows increasingly more canonical.
Perhaps the most obvious strength of the episode lay in its humor. Like Castle Mane-ia, this episode had quite a bit of funny to it, and a lot of it worked off of the characters' personalities and the interplay thereof - exactly the way it should. And indeed, a lot of the humor was played very well; the jokes, rather than just being obvious, stand-alone jokes, were incorporated into the flow of the scene and the dialogue. All of the interactions between Rarity and Spike had some humor to them from the situation between the two characters, pretty much entirely unstated in the episode, but represented via Spike's reactions and Rarity's wonderful obliviousness to his feelings; however, the jokes were played more subtly, rather than very brazenly.
Likewise, much of the humor that arose from Trenderhoof was dry. Perhaps his single greatest moment was when he was "inspired" by Applejack, and then immediately began reciting terrible doggerel. While the badness of his love poem, and the subverted rhyme at the end to switch from Rarity to Applejack were the obvious bits of humor, the fact that he was inspired to come up with such a terrible poem further reinforced his hipster nature. His enthusiasm over Sweet Apple Acres at the beginning of the episode really helps as well - feeling the "authenticity" of standing on dirt is really exactly the sort of nonsense that tips you off to the fact that someone is a terrible hipster, and it really shows that he is exactly the kind of person you'd expect him to be from his appearance and tone of voice. Indeed, his personality lends him a good bit of inherent humor - he is just trouble walking around.
Applejack's responses throughout the episode are more obvious as a form of humor, and we both empathize with her as well as chuckle (and cringe) at the situation. Applejack did nothing to deserve this nonsense, and is stuck in a love triangle she has absolutely no interest in (and no understanding of - she does absolutely nothing to entice Trenderhoof, indeed doing her best to blow him off, but he just doesn't get the hint).
And of course Rarity herself was wonderfully terrible once she had been rejected. At each step, things got worse - she tried to impress him. Then cried over him. Then tried even harder to impress him with an awful rhinestone cowgirl outfit that is very Rarity, and at the same time very NOT Rarity. Her attempts at farming are just awful, and when things go from bad to worse and she tries to go "full countray", accent and all, we see just how large of a ham Rarity can be - and the fact that she keeps slipping "out of character" just reinforces the fact that she knows exactly what she is doing, and is deliberately being awful. The whole section - accent, outfit, and all - is just full of cringe comedy, and once Applejack (or should that be Applejewel) joins in on it, we end up with the single most humorous exchange of season 4, with an absolutely incredible level of cattiness between them.
You can tell that they really love each other afterwards, because if they didn't, that particular exchange would mean that they would never, ever speak to each other again.
Seriously, Trenderhoof, how could you possibly think of dressing like that after looking at Applejack? At least Rarity was exaggerating things on purpose.
What really got me this episode, though, was the facial expressions which show up throughout the episode. Early on, we have Rarity's hiding from Trenderhoof under Twilight's tail, which leads to a very cute narrowing of Twilight's eyes as her horn lights up and she literally drags Rarity out to meet him.
We have Rarity's lovey-dovey expression, and Trenderhoof's own expression of confusion as she tries to meet his gaze. The literal hearts in Rarity's eyes are a blink-and-you'll-miss-it visual gag.
Sorry, Rarity, but he's a hipster. You KNOW they only are interested in Apple. Er, Applejack.
We have Rarity's sadness over being rejected, which is one of the most adorable pictures of a sad pony in the entire show; note the ears.
This is totally adorable. Poor Rarity.
We have Rarity's very expressive crying (complete with dark streaks from her mascara).
"Oh Spike, how could you ever know what it's like to be totally obsessed with a pony only to find that they're obsessed with somepony else?"
How indeed.
We get Applejack's skepticism to Rarity's change of heart about farming.
Spike's unhappiness over Rarity wanting to impress Trenderhoof.
Rarity's sadness after being rejected again, despite her (terribly failed) attempt at reinventing herself as a rhinestone cowgirl.
She is way too cute with her ears back like that.
Rainbow Dash's reaction to the new theme, along with her friends' confusion.
This is all great stuff, and really helps add to the character of the scenes. Plus, let's face it, the ponies were being adorable.
So, with all that is good here, what is it that bars this episode from being a top tier episode?
The biggest problem with this episode is an engagement/pacing problem, and it is very noticeable right off the bat, as it is almost entirely an issue with the first act. The pre-credits sequence was soley devoted to setting up the plot of the rest of the episode, and while it was good that it saved time on later exposition, the trouble was that it wasn't very punchy. There was little real comedy here, with Pinkie Pie getting a little bit of silly dialogue, then inflating her head in an extremely cartoonish manner and floating off. Rarity was selected as the pony running the Ponyville Days festival, celebrating the founding of Ponyville - something which sounds logical, but isn't actually really at all tied to the theme that Rarity chose. The sequence ends with Spike rolling out a model of the town, decorated in style... and the sequence ends.
As far as such sequences go, this was especially weak. There was no punchline at the end of it, and what little comedy was there felt out of place - while Pinkie Pie's dialogue was spot on, and the gag was a little funny, it felt terribly out of place in the context of the show. The other contestants were used as a reasonable visual gag, but while they were very silly looking, the gag was very understated, and the sequence ended on a whimper rather than a bang. And unfortunately, the Pinkie thing occurred immediately after the other visual gag, lessening its impact.
The second scene of the episode is little better - Pinkie gets a little gag and again feels nicely in character, in contrast to her frequent use as an erratic, random gag character this season, and the rest of the characters are supportive... but really, the section needed more comedy. They all ooh and ahh over Rarity's plans, but they're really not very much Rainbow Dash's style, and given Rainbow Dash's personality, her saying something there would have been a potential source of comedy to break up the rather boring (and honestly fairly lengthy and pointless) exposition. While the point is to establish what the episode is going to be, it really isn't a very strong sequence, and while seeing Spike helping out in a suit is alright, there's just not much meat to this scene.
It is only when we get to Rarity talking about Trenderhoof that we get any humor, and even then, the only real humor is a purely visual gag, Rarity's stalker shrine, which we linger on for a considerable amount of time. While Rarity is being a dork here, her friends (and Spike) could have been a bit snarkier here, and honestly Spike snarking about Trenderhoof would have been a nice addition to this scene - again, it could have used more outright comedy.
Even as we go to the train station the episode still hasn't really picked up a whole lot - Rarity panicking is alright, but it isn't anything special, and it is only really when she starts hiding behind Twilight around the 5:30 mark (and Twilight drags her out with her magic) that we really get anything good. But the conversation on the walk which follows is just a bit of awkwardness which isn't nearly as funny as it could have been.
It is only at around 6:45 that we really start getting to real meat - we get Trenderhoof being a total hipster, talking about the "authenticity" of Sweet Apple Acres, and it is at this point that we really start establishing the character of Trenderhoof. He is exactly what he looks like - a total hipster. We get Rarity trying to meet his gaze, literal hearts in her eyes... and Trenderhoof is just confused, and then spots Applejack, dirty and sweaty, bucking apples. We see him give Applejack the same look Rarity gave him, and we see Applejack in love-o-vision... particularly unflattering love-o-vision, in fact, as she is being pretty unappealing (though apparently not to Trenderhoof). The stage has been set for the conflict of the episode... 8 minutes in, at the end of the very slow first act.
Now, this is not to say that the stuff before this could be cut - it needs to be there, at least in some capacity - but the trouble is that there really just isn't enough "good stuff" here. It is alright that the plot only starts after the commercial break, but what comes before should be, at the very least, engaging. In Flight to the Finish, the main plot didn't start until 11 minutes into the episode, but we were entertained for that time - we had Rainbow Dash being "professional", we had Miss Harshwhinny's amusing exposition, we had a song... we had a lot. Here? We just got a lot of exposition and some character establishment for Trenderhoof. It needed to have more humor mixed into it, or other things which engaged the audience, but instead it was just lacking.
From here, however, the rest of episode is both better paced and very engaging, all the way up to the conclusion. We have stuff happening constantly, and the humor and drama is continuous. We have Rarity crying her eyes out and Spike trying to comfort her awkwardly. We see Trenderhoof harassing Applejack in amusing ways. We have Rarity's ignored rhinestone cowpony outfit. We have Trenderhoof and Rarity fail to help Applejack with her oh so wonderful chores.
And finally, once Rarity goes full-bore country, things don't go back down until the conclusion, with things getting increasingly more ridiculous as Rarity (and then Applejack) engage in massively catty ham-to-ham combat, a great high point and climax for the episode.
It is only after the plot wraps up that things slide back down. We see the Ponyville Days festival as put on by Rarity... which honestly doesn't fit Ponyville very well, but is definitely the sort of thing Rarity would design when left to her own devices. The festival is weak - the only real gag was Trenderhoof inviting Granny Smith to dance, and otherwise it was actually pretty uninteresting - but it was quite short, so it is forgivable.
Would fixing the pacing and engagement of the first act of the episode have made it a 5/5? I'm not entirely sure. The second and third acts are quite solid, but it didn't thrill me in quite the same way that the 5/5 episodes did, even at its peak. While it is definitely very funny in many places, and Rarity pretending to be a country pony is wonderful, I'm not sure if the top tier was really within reach of this episode. Even still, though, it was definitely a solid and enjoyable effort.
One final quibble: I felt like Trenderhoof was actually pretty dorky looking. He's supposed to be someone who impresses the great and super picky Rarity, and given Prince Blueblood's general level of perfection, I was really expecting this guy to be super handsome. Instead, he looks like a total hipster who wears a very tacky sweater - not at all what I would expect of a proper Rarity crush. He also is rather gangly looking - he is tall, but very thin, and not really proportioned like the other "handsome" stallions. While the character's design definitely reinforces his hipster personality, I felt like it didn't quite fit in with what I would have thought of as the sort of guy Rarity would crush on.
Seriously, those glasses and that sweater are tasteless. Admittedly, though, my very first thought on this guy was that if I didn't know he was going to have a crush on Applejack, I would have thought he'd have a crush on Big Mac.
I noticed I got ten new followers courtesy of Rainbow Bob promoting my blog, so those of you who are new (and those of you who are old), feel free to let me know what you think.
And it got me another checkmark; the board is starting to get quite full.
Well we watched this in the same stream so you already know my opinions don't differ from yours much <3~. Solid episode but with a slow start, staring my two favorite ponies. Will just touch on the ways that we differ.
I didn't really find it unreasonable for Rarity to like a pony like Trenderhoof; in many ways her romantic fantasies are about -herself- and if a certain style of guy is 'trendy' at the moment it doesn't seem at all out of character for her to latch onto a new fantasy in the same way she might try a new fashion style.
One purpose her romantic interests would serve if she was ever successful is to be accessories themselves that she can show off, and a very famous 'deep' writer counts for such.
One thing you missed though is a major change in the continuity in the show:Rarity says she had a crush on him since the beginning of time and space!
Has the entire world of FIM only existed since last Tuesday? How's that even work?
I will say that I -did- like Pinkies Pride more then this one despite my favorite pony being the star here. While Simple ways gets the Silver medal for S4 thus far Pinkies pride more consistent entertainment value wins out against Simple-Ways extremely lop-sided one; particularly when there was no real reason it SHOULD have been.
They weren't pressed for time in anyway so there was no excuse for the lazy first half, just spicing up the dialog alone would have fixed things a ton, and it wouldn't have taken much effort to do so.
Lastly.... god I have no idea why any sane person was worried about this episode. Rarity is no stranger to chasing Stallions, putting on an act, or acting in an exaggerated/over-dramatic fashion. Bit of a slow learner in this respect I guess but hey she's stubborn about her fantasies <3~
Oh come now, we all know Equestria came to be on a Saturday, not a Tuesday. The last Tuesdayists are terrible heretics. We don't even speak of the ones who think it was founded on a Thursday.
Not that any bronies know anything about that.
I just need to say, that first picture is the best thing I've ever seen on the internet.
Ironically, I found Castle Mania to be one of the weakest episodes in season 4.
That bingo board is pretty boss.
There should be an obligatory "Fluttershy Gets Some Chutzpah" square.