MLP Episode review: Hearts and Hooves Day · 10:38pm Sep 8th, 2015
One more for tonight? One more for tonight. As it's... twu wuv! Well, not really, as potions are brewed and brains washed as we settle into...
Hearts and Hooves Day
We open with the CMC at their club house, making a card for Cheerilee for Hearts and Hooves Day. It's legit sweet, heartwarming and nice. It's also so glittery G3 would gag. :p It's also huge. "I think we're gonna need a bigger envelope." And boat, too, Scoots. Fun fact, I have never seen Jaws. At the school, valentines are exchanged and painful memories for me are brought up. :p Truffle Shuffle gets one from Twist. Hi, Twist! It still sucks how Apple Bloom abandoned you! Cheerilee is impressed by the card. I'm impressed they got it there in one piece! No, I really am. But it collapses over them. :D <-- me in real life. And Sweetie Belle does the 'nudge, nudge, wink wink SAY NO MORE!" routine with Cheerilee concerning her own special somepony. But she has none. She's single! The CMC are agog, and making her uncomfortable. Truffle gives her a card, too. It's sad, and also nice how they wanna help her out. Sweetie Belle wants to set her up with a special somepony! I sense NOTHING but good things from this!
Outside, they try to figure out who to ask through song. We get more bobbing heads and extend-o necks from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. We see Button Mash playing... something? We don't see what he's looking at, so for all we know it could be a crane game or something fully mechanical. Sweetie Belle also disrupts what appears to be a funeral. We also get the really weird Jelly pony dude. I got nothing for him. :p Finally, they spot the perfect stallion... Big Mac! And only at the end does Apple Bloom realize it's her brother. Nice. :p It's a cool little song, nothing bad about it.
At Sweet Apple Acres, we see his strengths and weaknesses. He's really shy. And Sweetie Belle decides to play matchmaker, by getting them together so Cheerilee can ask him. We cut to them setting up a nice little picnic, and again, I can't fault them for this. Well, not yet. They told Cheerilee they needed help IDing a tree near the gazebo. "That's an apple tree." My god that was the deadest of deadpan. They got Big Mac there to help them repair the gazebo, but they got it repaired all on their own! Nudge, nudge, wink wink. SAY NO MORE! There's only room for two at the picnic, though. And god this is just so funny. Sweetie Belle turns on the music and leave them alone. The adults are... awkward as all hell, too. The CMS's faces are insane. Big Mac is limited to 'yup' and 'nope', and I still hate it. CHjeerilee gets closer and closer and the mood lighting is perfect and...
"You have something stuck in your teeth."
"OH, COME ON!"
D-dammit... :D :D "Well, this has been... strange." "Yup." And they walk off, leaving the CMC devastated and despondent. They bump into Twilight Sparkle, who was engorssed in a book about the history of Hearts and Hooves Day. Getting ready for Trixie, no doubt. :D Turns out the holiday got started because of a love potion! And they perk up... slide under her and borrow the book. Twilight lets them, they grab it and run off.
Excuse me for a second...
Okay, probably worst thing you can blame on a CMC member by this point is the Cutie Pox by Apple Bloom. And not Discord. His breaking free caused them to fight. So... I really can't blame Twilight for letting them have the book. Scootaloo gets part of a cloud, sucks uyp a rainbow's glow with a friggin' hoover, and Sweetie Belle pulls one of Scootaloo's feathers to stir their brew. "Serve to two ponies who aren't in the know." Oh, that's more than a little skeevy!
At the newly-redone picnic, Apple Bloom has reservations. Listen to those, Apple Bloom! Ugh, this road is paved very thickly with good intentions. Cheerilee is a bity wary, but they blurt out they need taste testers for their new punch they're gonna sell! Cheerilee sees through it, and they decide to humor them. So... they drink. They each hiccup half of a heart, it combines and... HOW DO I GET YOU ALONE?! Ten points if you get the reference! :p And the love potion works. the CMC's faces are... you gotta see them, basically. They get into some inane baby talk, although it's oddly gratifying to hear Big Mac saying something other than 'yup' or 'nope'. The CMC sense trouble! Good lord this is nuts. Scootaloo's about to regurgitate her last fifty meals.
Back at the club house, they realize they were given not a love potion, but a love poison. Oh, you magnificent half-wits! We get a shot of a page from the book and an early Cadance cameo. :p Apparently some prince whipped up the potion and gave it to a princess he loved. Things went pear-shaped, with mentions of a dragon, a kingdom falling, chaos... oh, it's Discord! No, turns out the prince and princess ignored their duties for nookie. Apple Bloom, quite frankly, overreacts, saying with Big Mac and Cheerilee so in love, the ponies will be uneducated and starving.
Okay... they're important, but they're not that important. And methinks even the Ponyville citizenry will see what's up before too long. She also has rubber forelegs. Ohhai, Looney Tunes! But Sweetie Belle spies an antidote! "Well, why didn't you say so?! Didn't you see me getting all panicked back there?" Oh, Apple Bloom! Cue sad trombone. All they have to do is keep the two from looking into each other's eyes for an hour. Wait... so wouldn't them going to sleep cure it? Scootaloo is nonchalant and nonlinear. "Only an hour? We can pull that off in a second!" And somewhere Doctor Whooves ears are twitching.
At Sugarcube Corner, Missus Cake is freaked out by them. Missus Cake mentions catering their wedding and Sweetie Belle decides to use that against them! Sweetie Belle... she's been the catalyst behind most all everything this episode, hasn't she. Apple Bloom retches while Big Mac goes to get a wedding ring. Cheerilee, meanwhile, goes for the dress. Well, it's a nice day for a white wedding. Sweetie Belle ges to keep Cheerilee occupied while Apple Bloom and Scootaloo head Big Mac off at the pass!
At Carousel Boutique, Sweetie Belle shoves about a half-dozen dresses and Cheerilee into a dressing room and barricades the door. Good lord, what is Rarity gonna think about the mess?! At some jewelry shop we've never seen before and I don't think we'll ever see again, Big Mac is a bobble head doll concerning the rings. They manage to get through thirty-five minutes, which is actually pretty good just rubbernecking with diamonds. But while the girls are distracted, Big Mac gets some bling and heads out the back. Apple Bloom goes to slow him down while Scootaloo goes to warn Sweetie Belle. Apple Bloom grabs his tail. It's totally ineffective. She uses her body. It's totally ineffective. A convenient cart of anvils being pulled by oxen twice his size do nothing.
At Carousel Boutique, Scootaloo arrives, out of breath. Apple Bloom ties Big Mac to a fucking house... and Big Mac is apparently Kryptonian. No wonder I always give his parent's names as Jonathan and Martha. :p He pulls the house, along with Berry Punch inside. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo dig a hole, and he falls in. There's also a mattress down there... somehow? One more minute until the spell's broken! But Big Mac pulls a Stella and Cheerilee kicks away the barricade as a silly love song tunes up. Paul McCartney, no! The CMC try to block as the bell tolls for thee. Cheerilee bowls them over and DIVES! into the hole.
"Am I wearing a wedding veil?" The spell's broken! And the CMC confess to their... possible felony? More later. Their hearts were in the right place, their brain... And they realize they shouldn't have meddled and spell out the Aesop. They apologize, while Cheerilee decides to have them do all of Big Mac's chores. It's a fair cop. At the end of the day, the two walk up to the CMC and say they're gonna have a picnic at the gazebo. They even throw in some schmoopie-doos to fuck with the CMC's heads. nice. :D And we get a wink and nod from them as the episode ends.
Thoughts
Eh... overall I think I liked it. The CMC... hearts in right place. The method to carry out their madness, however, does not sit well with me at all. It's... a skeevy as all hell the potion/poison used. I've always hated love potions in fiction in general, though. Here is no exception. It's just ugh-inducing to me under the best circumstances. And these aren't the best circumstances. At the very least they got punishment and realized the error of their ways at the end.
Now, if the previous episode sank the TwiDash 'ship for me, this one effin annihilated Cheerimac for me. Destroyed it. Just... no. I don't see them together. I CAN'T see them together, not after this. No. Just NO. I'm sorry, but I just can't. Friends, yeah. But nothing more. Just... no.
Headcanon
Eh, not much, if anything.
So, next time it's... it's...
A friend In Deed.
*Clears throat*
WARNING!
I hate A Friend In Deed. I will review it, but it's not gonna be pretty. I consider this episode to be the nadir of the franchise. I'm a completist. I can't 'not' review it. It's not who I am. But yeah. This one hurts me on a personal level. It's not gonna be a fun one, folks. You have been warned.
Has anyone else noticed that the ingredients for the poison are all things a pegasus - and likely only a pegasus - can obtain? Makes me wonder if the prince and/or the princess were pegasi before some politically correct pony edited the book.
I'm pretty sure we briefly see that jewelry store again in "Ponyville Confidential."
And yeah, the love poison is all kinds of skeezy. When the recipe explicitly says to drug the unsuspecting, the potion is not on the up and up.
3378991
... I've never thought of that. 
I think you're on to something there.
Maybe the poison makes them so in love, they forget to sleep. Haven't you ever ended up talking all night with someone you were in love with?
.... No?
Well, neither have I.
Really. This made Cheerimac for me. They're one of my OTPs now.
I don't know if you're into Gravity Falls, but they have an episode where a love potion actually works out. It's generally quite a messed up show. For kids!
I'm in agreement about "love potions" ... they never, ever lead to anything good. On a different note, though, this episode made Alchemist!Bloom part of my headcanon.