Kingdom of the Diamond Skull, more like: a saddened fan disagrees with the choice of episode title · 10:24am Oct 14th, 2015
Blog Number 19: Indiana Jones Edition
Parenthetically, it's pretty funny how a show with an Indiana Jones copy in it doesn't add her to an episode with an Indiana Jones reference in its title, but that's how the show's rolled ever since it began. Sleepless in Ponyville did not feature Scootaloo getting over her lost love by remotely bonding with a radio-call-in colt and uniting with him in top of Manehattan's Empire State Building. So touché.
That said, referencing is like name-dropping; someone might follow you up on it. The fact is that the references are still distractingly tangential to the episode's point. Still, it's harmless fun. It's a minor gripe, and it's not like the target audience is going to get such references (that the staff probably put in for fun anyway). I thought Ponyville Confidential was a great title that fit the episode well, and Magical Mystery Cure - for all the episode's many faults - is such a trippy and out-of-nowhere reference that you have to give it brownie points for sheer audacity.
And then there's this. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a campy yet creepy thrill ride and one of the most entertaining action movies yet made. Referencing it does this latest FiM episode no favours whatsoever. As I will now quite emphatically not sing.
Lots of people seem happy with the most recent episode regarding the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I honestly wonder why, because it's so far among the most disappointing things I've seen the show deliver. On a purely emotional level, I never once cracked a smile while watching the thing, which is not a good sign for me as I'll crack a smile at even the pointless filler the show offers up. All I know is that I won't look forward to it if I ever have to watch this one again.
To start with, the cramming and the pacing destroyed any chance of the events having a proper impact, and the whole thing feels more like the musical summary of a full-length movie than like an episode in its own right. It commits exactly the same crime as Magical Mystery Cure does, which is a damning comparison right there as Magical Mystery Cure was an episode that needed to be split into two and portioned out between two slots, not ripping itself apart fighting over a mere twenty minutes. This is not even the most disappointing thing about the episode, but it certainly doesn't help the mess that ensues.
The election at the start didn't feel like anything was at stake. Not only has it never come up in the show before, but we've barely digested that it exists before we're thrown into the "Vote for me/No, vote for me" song, the voting, and the conclusion. It all happens so quickly that it doesn't feel like a real event with a real impact. The fact that it merely serves as a springboard for the rest of the episode gives it an extra air of irrelevance.
There is way too much singing, and in some way the songs sound like variations on the same melody, even though they're not supposed to. Whereas songs can keep particular scenes afloat (and be entertaining besides), I found a whole episode built around them is more annoying than delightful. They feel like a lazy way to make the story progress. I wish I was better at pinning down musical terms and articulating what I disliked about them, because all I can say is that the overall effect was so unabashedly mediocre and forgettable that I marvel they came from the same show that brought us Winter Wrap-Up, Becoming Popular, Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, and Bad Seed.
Ultimately, the episode falls over in its attempts to massage two long-standing staples into new shapes, the first of which is Diamond Tiara. Her mommy issues alone would make for one of the biggest disappointments in the series, so let me explain why. We know Diamond Tiara, up to this point, as a jerk and a bully with blank flank prejudices and a seemingly inexhaustible hatred of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Apart from glimpses of potential in episodes like Ponyville Confidential and Twilight Time, she's mostly a one-dimensional antagonist, trotted out to give the CMC an obstacle or to raise an issue. While I found the lack of character development a pity given the show's flashes of intelligence, in a run of seasons where former bullies like Trixie and Gilda are given turnarounds, it was at least a modicum of reality to see a long-time jerk stay a jerk, a reminder that, however sweet and honest the show's pro-friendship message was, it isn't totally la-la in saccharine-land.
Not only does that go out the window in this episode, but it's replaced by what I can only describe as a dull, cliched, and above all clumsily introduced social explanation: Diamond Tiara was pressured into being an out-for-herself snob by her mother. There's no depth to this relationship: we see her mother berate her for all of one minute, and that's apparently all we need to know. Even if you want to argue that the buck of innate jerk gets passed on to her mother, this is a character we've literally never seen before, and we certainly never got to see her do the bully work upfront, which is what the type is supposed to be good for in the first place.
This means Diamond Tiara has been robbed of the one thing her character was narratively well-suited for: agency against the heroes. It feels less like a genuine explanation and more like a character bait-and-switch. As far as development goes, it might as well be a step backwards: it replaces a one-dimensional bully with a one-dimensional stereotype of a sympathetic bully, with an unwelcome and dull "it's all the mother's fault" excuse that I was hoping was dead by now.
And I cannot overlook the fact that this has now applied the "friendship makes redemption" get-out clause to every major antagonist from season one. Oh, DT might still have traces of jerk in future appearances, but it sure isn't on display here: the instant Diamond Tiara makes her turn, all subtlety and complexity goes out the window. There's promoting the virtues of friendship, sure, but then there's making everything less interesting by assimilating more and more antagonists to the camp. It's not as if Discord's and Trixie's turnarounds impressed me the first time around.
Lastly, the other colossal disappointment: the Cutie Mark Crusaders get their cutie marks in a profoundly ungainly move. Nothing about this feels right: even the magical show that accompanies it is so different from every other cutie mark appearance thus seen that I have to wonder if the staff even kept their notes straight. Another boring old chestnut is trotted out as the moment of revelation: you stop actually looking for the thing you want and suddenly you get it, which comes across as an incredibly bizarre backhand to such things as effort, enthusiasm, experimentation, exploration, and virtually any characteristic that, in the real world, would be an asset.
Their getting their cutie marks simultaneously, which is presumably a sign of true friendship, feels so spectacularly unnecessary. The chemistry among the Mane Six works precisely because of their disparate backgrounds and natures, a lesson we learned at the premier of this very season. It also robs us of any juicy angles were they to arrive at different times.
Worst of all, the cutie marks don't look like they fit in with those of other ponies around them; instead of simply an apple, a musical note, and a lightning bolt - or is it a wing? - they have these garish, frankly overdesigned colour shemes and shield shapes that don't feel natural at all to the setting, much less to the flanks of three fillies we've gotten to know better than that. Moreover, their cutie marks being about helping others find the meaning of their cutie marks sticks them in more or less the same place, both narratively and in terms of development. They can more or less do the exact same schtick together, with the caveat being that instead of cutie-mark hunting, it'll be about exploring cutie marks as a whole.
Little makes me feel cheated of a satisfactory episode like this underwhelming resolution to a multi-season story arc. What about real individual progression, real maturation, characters growing up and coming to terms with things every kid in general will come to terms with? Where's the sweet brilliance from Apple Bloom's earliest episode, where, after a lot of social anxiety and childish impatience, and instead of getting her cutie mark by not wanting it so badly, she realized she had a young child's potential for self-discovery along with two fellow passengers to life? It felt natural to let her dream of multiple futures as children do; that was part of the life cycle.
Why not continue that growth and have Apple Bloom gradually find her calling in mechanics or apple farming, or why not have Sweetie Belle getting inspiration from Rarity's love of beauty or her own singing talents? Why didn't Scootaloo get to delve deeper into the arts of riding vehicles and doing stunts? These may be predictable fan observation, but they're predictable because they realistically fit with what we've seen out of these kids all along: there's the identity they're supposed to discover. You know what real-world discoveries of future careers should be like. Make them wonderfully disparate, and still be friends. Make them actually grow up. It would be another sign of the show's mature intelligence, which was surely a major purpose of its inception back when Lauren Faust was in charge.
This certainly isn't the worst episode ever or anything, but when I was looking forward to how the CMC's arc would progress and change the three of them, to have it resolved as an afterthought in what is basically a "Magical Mystery Cure" repeat right out of nowhere is simply disappointing. Go watch Raiders of the Lost Ark instead.
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