TheBrianJ Reviews - Hearthbreakers · 12:59am Oct 31st, 2015
Happy Holidays, everyone! Or something. I don’t get the timing in Equestria.
We really don’t know much about any family aside from the Apples, and even then they constantly skirt around the whole “Her parents are dead” thing. Meaning that this, the Christmas episode for MLP (in October because again scheduling in Equestria makes no sense), was the best look at a character’s family in the entire series. And I quite enjoyed it! Head on down below for the usual review.
Me every Saturday morning.
I kinda love the idea that Pinkie comes from an Amish family. It’s another of those standard comedy tropes (family is completely different from character) but it’s tried and true and it works here. But I was expecting an entire family of Amish/Maud types, so it was pretty nice to see Pinkie’s other sisters get pretty diverse characters.
I know a lot of the fandom has really fallen in love with Marble Pie, but I’m gonna be honest, I don’t see much in the character. She’s essentially just Season 1 Fluttershy Pie. Sure, characters with that meekness tend to be favorites, but compare Marble to another meek character, Coco Pommel. Coco had depth and character beyond just meekness, while Marble was just sorta, well, shy. And yes, Coco had a much bigger impact on her episode than Marble did, but even with her minor role in the episode, Marble still didn’t really stick with me.
Limestone, meanwhile, I’m in love with. It’s kinda refreshing to see an outright antagonistic/rough character like that. Her juxtaposition with Pinkie (and the rest of the cast, really, given that the episode was mostly pleasant characters) was even more jarring than Maud, and that’s what made her so fun. Of all the characters introduced from the Pie family, I kinda hope Anime Antagonist Pony is the one to show up again in a future episode. She’d be a perfect foil for a “how to learn to be less angry” kind of episode.
Kaaaaa Meeeeee Haaaaa Meeeeee (yes I know that’s Goku’s move but whatever)
Maud was Maud. I really like that she has become a recurring character in the series rather than a one-off appearance, she always adds a bit of levity through the sheer lack of levity the character has. The parents were pretty much exactly what I expected based on their character models, comedically Amish and used as even more of a contrast to Pinkie’s Pinkie-ness. Overall it created a really fun mix of personalities that added a lot to the episode.
As far as the story itself, despite all the backstory and family information about Pinkie, this was really an Applejack episode at heart. She was the one with the character arc, she was the one who learned, she was the one who would have sent a letter to Celestia assuming they still did that.
But as far as the episode itself goes… well, how do I put this. The episode certainly won’t go on my “favorite episodes ever” list—and to be honest, at the end of the season it probably won’t even crack the top half—but it also highlighted one of the great strengths of the show: characterization.
I MEAN JUST LOOK AT ALL THE HORSES AND ALSO A PUMPKIN IS HERE TOO
One of the great strengths of the show is how each character (at least the non-background ones) have a distinct personality, and this episode was a great showcase of it. The plot itself was pretty well done and featured a really nice lesson about accepting others, but really the episode was held up by the personalities.
As far as the plot itself, it was pretty much as I expected: the Pies had a fairly boring Hearths Warming Eve, the Apples try to teach them and things go wrong, they all learn a valuable lesson. It was a sweet episode, but it got me thinking; had it not been for the characters, it wouldn’t have really been a whole lot to talk about.
Instead, thanks to the strength of the show, it was a really enjoyable episode. A standard lesson for sure, but made special by characters. I guess it was a microcosm of MLP, wasn’t it? It’s all about the writing and the characters that takes standard tropes in cartoons and turned them into something really special. As I said I doubt this episode will be in the top half of my best Season 5 episodes list, but it was still a really enjoyable one that was a nice reminder of what makes MLP so much fun.
See you next time!
-Brian J
No point to this gif, just thought it was hilarious.
PS: Apologies if this review felt a little lacking. I am less than a week away from officially making the jump into freelancing, so most of my time has gone to that. Plus, I’ve been working on Of The Night, and Zoombinis just came out and oh my god you should all buy Zoombinis it’s so much fun.
More toppings
I agree with your assessment of Marble and Limestone. Although, I would also add that I felt like the bit of personality Big Mac usually has was dropped just to make him as identical to Marble as possible.
I've read elsewhere, and I agree with the assessment, that Limestone Pie is basically a pony version of Gilda. I wonder what how that re-contextualizes Griffon the Brush Off, if the reason Pinkie was so immediately hostile to Gilda was because of some sublimated feelings she has towards her sister.