Amending Fences Review · 4:33pm Jul 4th, 2015
Today is the fourth of July, a.k.a Independence Day. The day that The United States of America was founded!
What better way to celebrate than with a new episode of MLP? (Yeah, not gonna lie, that's gonna hurt the ratings.) This episode is penned by M. A. Larson, who's still a good fan favortie writer, but not a good replacement for Meghan McCarthy as a story editior considering what he's let slide. So, did Larson do good, or did he screw up?
Well, let's start the review and we'll see where we end up.
We begin with Spike doing the dishes for Twilight, and he naturally complains about it. Still, it's leagues above what he was subjected last episode. Anyway, Spike lets slip that Twilight wasn't that good of a friend back in Canterlot, and this gets Twilight to think that she needs to try and make it up to her old friends. So it's off to Canterlot.
Twilight and Spike arrive in the dead of night, and pay a visit to their old living quarters, which have been gathering dust. Spike reveals that Twilight's Canterlot friends were Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Lyra (who lives in Ponyville, and yes the episode confirms it as such), and Minuette who was dubbed Colgate by fans due to the colors of her mane looking like toothpaste. She even had a couple of songs devoted to that joke.
Twilight meets up with Minuette and it turns out that her old friends harbor no hard feelings for what she did. They easily forgive Twilight and reminisce on their time spent in school together. During this time, we get to see filly Twilight, and Tara Strong voices her in the same voice as a certain famous Powerpuff Girl.
It is then that the conversation drifts towards Moondancer, who was also apparently part of the cricle of friends, but it was more like Twilight. She was holding a party on the very day that Twilight left for Ponyville. And now, she's become a shut in that wants nothing do with friendship.
Twilight tries to talk to Moondancer, but Moondancer wants nothing to do with Twilight and is simply interested in studying. We do get a fun little mythology joke when she calls Twilight "Twilight Twinkle" (which is the G3 pony that Twilight was based on, alongside G1 Twilight who many fans believe is Twilight's mom a.k.a Twilight Velvet).
Eventually, Twilight convinces Moondancer to have dinner with the other friends, but Moondancer still refuses to make friends. She claims that she tried friendship once, and it didn't work for her. Then she storms off, and the episode seems to paint Twilight in the wrong for not attending Moondancer's party, you know, despite the fact that by not going to the party Twilight learned of The Elements of Harmony and that ultimately led to the defeat of Nightmare Moon.
So, Twilight and Spike return to Ponyville and come back with Pinkie Pie. It turns out that Pinkie Pie and Minuette know each other since Minuette was one of the bridesmaids for Cadence (alongside Lyra and Twinkleshine). I do wonder if Minuette was upset about Pinkie Pie taking her place as a bridesmaid, even if it was ultimately the work of Queen Chrysalis.
With Pinkie's help, Twilight throws a new party for Moondancer. But Moondancer lashes out at Twilight for not attending the old party, and for Twilight not saying goodbye before leaving for Ponyville. The only thing is, Moondancer had to have known Twilight was the student of Princess Celestia. And when you're friends with the student or family member of a world leader, you kind of have to expect that things may come up and they may have to leave at a minute's notice.
Moondancer's behavior seems to be more and more like that of someone who was either in an abusive relationship, or fell in love with someone only to find out that said someone did not return their feelings. But Twilight manages to show Moondancer she's sorry, and gets her to lighten up and make friends again. Then, Spike gives Moondancer the gift he was going to give her back in the pilot, but got destroyed by Twilight. And the episode ends with Moondancer hanging out with her old friends again.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, despite a few moments of completely ignoring the pilot, and the events of the show, this is a pretty good episode. I do think Twilight's friends instantly forgiving her made the initial plot feel pointless, and the time could've gone to building up to Moondancer's appearance, not to mention the episode could've given a better excuse for Twilight to visit Canterlot and see her old friends (like say, a class reunion). But all in all, this is a good episode. I give it an A, putting it between "Tanks for The Memories" and "Party Pooped". Also, there's no song in this episode, which means we've gone a total of seven episode without a new song. The previous record was six in Season 2. You know what that means?
Next week we'll be halfway through Season 5 with "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?", and the episode will have Princess Luna recruiting the mane six to help her capture a creature that can turn dreams into nightmares. It sounds interesting, and hopefully it will turn out good.
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3205805 So, it looks like Starlight Glimmer found her way out of the caves. It's a good thing both Troubleshoes and Moondancer were brought to the light before it was too late, otherwise they might have become followers of Starlight.
3205805 Megan did say that the map could be used for other things so she will prob make her way to ponyville eventually
I'm guessing that Moondancer either never made the chronological connection, or if she did it made her feel worse: "Silly Moondancer, Twilight has a serious life now, with no room in it for you." It's to Twilight's credit that Twilight didn't try to make an issue of it.
The real problem is that for the past two and a half (five by my chronology) years, Twilight has been treating them all as if they never existed. Nothing could better communicate "I'm important now, so I don't have to pay any attention to you losers any more," than that. The other four weren't happy about this, but they all had other friends (and in Lyra's case, eventually a lover), so they just went on with their lives. Moondancer was devastated, because Twilight had been her best friend, and now it seemed that she'd never meant anything to Twilight. And Moondancer was right -- had Spike not reminded Twilight of her old circle of friends, another 2-5 years might have passed before Twilight had thought of them.
I understand Moondancer's reasoning perfectly. And there was something very real at stake here -- Moondancer was becoming a half-crazed shut-in. She might have basically let her whole life pass her by, without living it -- if Twilight hadn't intervened.
Yes. Because as far as we're concerned, John Adams could very well have been talking about it in that one movie. And a clip of him apparently doing it is below, according to the strange thinking of Discovery Family:
(© 1972 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.)
So perhaps this man was, y'know...suffering until suffrage. Just like the women in this video, which was part of the Schoolhouse Rock rotation America Rock, which in turn was originally aired during the 1976 bicentennial.
(© 1976 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.) (© Renewed 2004 Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
And a guy named Mitch Miller would have loved trying to submit those songs to any artists (particularly Bronies) on Columbia Records, if only because those songs were unrelentingly jolly novelties. Unfortunately, just before the show started the run, Miller died at 99 years old.
So the older Twilight Sparkle gets, the deeper her voice gets.I don't have anything to say about the rest of the storyline in this episode.I would like to see that in the form of a story here.To cheer you up, I present to youa series of comments on Keam's blog "Who Knows Me Best?" that start by clicking here.In this series of comments, Keam informs me that Donald Trump may have a Swedish companion in Jim Åkesson, since they (one a billionaire, the other the leader of the Swedish Democrats) appear to be on the same sides of the current political aisle. This causes me to bring forth Babs Seed, who makes a comeback interview with Keam. In the interview, she recalls her seeing the two spouting crap about other ponies upon her visit to Farrier Hill and back to the American Manehattan (where I pictured the [in my view] entertainment personality as applying for US Citizenship at age 38 in May of 1988). She recalls seeingGremlins 2(as implied) and picturesGremlins 3's storyline about them overtaking Sweden and which features a Jim Åkesson cut-up. Babs then (er, speaks) a song by Bob Dylan that she and I felt summed up the agenda of Åkesson/Trump, then mellows up by playing a cut of an album she did for RCA when she was 16 in 1966 in which she sings another Bob Dylan song,Mr. Tambourine Manfor Keam, and Wacuire, who is the former's legitimate waifu. You should read those comments. They're worth reading. And, when you think about you, doesn't my portrait of Babs have such a marvelous voice?Does that Mean that The Mane Six will meet a Creature who'll sound similar to Freddy Krueger?!
Excuse me while i scream...
(click to 0:17.)
Did not realize Tara voiced her younger self with the Bubbles voice. She's very talented.
All in all, it was a good episode, but it wasn't exactly special due to the errors pointed out. But yes, I did notice that glimpse of Starlight covering her appearance. I have a feeling that we may see her at the end of the Season, but that's just my guess.
Funny you should mention that, because that was exactly the first thought I had in my head when I was watching this.
To be fair twilight was in the wrong. she just i dont know this episode rubbed me the wrong way. it feels like twilight didnt deserve these ponies as friends she just up and leaves them without a goodbye thats pretty rude.
8.8/10 for me.
I really enjoyed a lot in this episode. I will say that Moondancer is a pretty cool character, despite looking like Twilight but it's good to see there was a connection between her and Twilight.
By the way, PINKIE PIE TURNED INTO FREAKING TAILS THE FOX!
I lost my sanity when that happened.
Also, if you looked real close at the dinner scene with Twilight, Moondancer and others, there's somepony real suspicious in the corner.
Good review. As for minor plot holes. I seriously could care less.