What About Discord? Review · 7:31pm Nov 7th, 2015
Well, it's time for another Discord episode, and the synopsis had me dreading what they were going to do. Since Season 4, I feel like Discord has become something that the writers don't know how to handle. They realize he's reformed, but they keep trying to play up that he's a trickster, and the results are usually less than satisfactory. And it would seem that Neal Duseadu, the same guy who penned "Princess Spike" with help from Jim and Jayson is in the writer's seat all on his own.
We begin with Twilight deciding to reshelf her entire library for three whole days. Considering that earlier synposis' hinted at an important journey, or even just a trip, this is a huge let down that will really hurt the episode. I get that Twilight likes books, but there's more to her character than that. This is as bad as her performance in "Look Before You Sleep" and we've only just begun. This is going to be a long episode, isn't it?
Three days later, Twilight and Spike emerge from the castle, and they run into Rainbow Dash and Discord having a race. After a bit of joking around, Rainbow Dash reveals that she and the other mane six members spent time with Discord over the weekend, and already we can see that Twilight is envious, and Discord is clearly fanning the flames.
Sometime later, Twilight stops by Carousel Boutique to see Rarity, and Discord cracks a joke about oranges after Fluttershy says "Orange you glad you didn't." and despite there clearly being no punchline, it's enough to get Rarity laughing. But what comes next is really important, and something that I think Neal forgot about when writing. Fluttershy says she would've invited Twilight, but Twilight was busy reshelfing, and thus was unavailable.
Twilight meets Applejack and Pinkie Pie at Sugarcube Corner, where they are laughing about Discord having peanut butter on his feet. At one point, Discord makes a joke about a "Sticky Situation".
Spike points out that Twilight is jealous, but she refuses to admit it, and this brings up exactly what I feared would happen in this episode. Twilight continues to believe she is right, and keeps trying to find out why her friends are friends with Discord, disregarding the moral Discord learned from "Make New Friends, But Keep Discord" and making her into the self centered character she was in "Feeling Pinkie Keen". Neal, are you sure you know what you're doing? Because it looks like you just love mean spirited situations.
Twilight goes to great lengths to get the weekend recreated properly, and time travel is suggested by Pinkie Pie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gVv10J4nio&feature=iv&src_vid=8ACTIVntAKg&annotation_id=annotation_549759
But Discord ultimately tells Twilight that the scenes cannot be recreated for someone who wasn't there, and her friends all insist that the jokes would only make sense if you were there to see them. This leads Twilight to not only ignore this, but also go to Zecora because she thinks Discord put a spell on her friends. And the Zecora scene is completely pointless, they could've stated that Twilight got the potion from Zecora, and nothing of substance would've been lost.
So Twilight outright declares her intentions to her friends, and we get to the highlight of the episode, they all chew her out for believing that Discord would brainwash them, and that they wouldn't know what he was up to. How I wish that was where this episode's moral ended, but it isn't. It actually tries to justify jealousy, as long as you admit to it. Admitting to jealousy is bad! When you try to justfiy something like that, you justify all sorts of immoral behavior!
Then the episode spits in the face of its own continuity and moral by revealing that Discord intentionally excluded Twilight for the sake of making her jealous, and then he tries to pass it off as a lesson and that he never intended to make Twilight jealous. You know, despite him outright admitting that's what he did. Neal, how do you manage to ignore your own writing so badly? Tell me, is there something I don't know about you?
And the episode ends by having Twilight exclude Discord from something because he wasn't there, and the episode doesn't bother to call her out on her hypocrisy because it thinks it's funny!
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, until the last couple of minutes, it was decent. Had it simply stopped with Twilight learning her lesson about jealousy, and not tried to justify it, this episode would've been okay. But the last few minutes are quite possibly one of the worst endings this show has ever done (it's right up there with "It's About Time" and "Trade Ya"). I get that Discord is a trickster, but what he did is outright villanious and antagonistic. Neal, I'm sorry to say this, but I just don't think you're cut out for this show, you focus too much on comedy and referneces, and ignore everything else that makes this show good. Maybe if you return for Season 6, someone like Meghan, Larson, or Polskey can give you some pointers, but at this point, I just don't think you were a good pick for the show. This episode gets a borderline D+/C-, making it the weakest Season 5 episode, even beating out "Appleloosa's Most Wanted".
Well, hopefully things will pick back up next week with "The Hooffelds and McColts", a map episode featuring Twiight and Fluttershy, their first outing together since "A Bird in The Hoof" back in Season 1. Let's hope that episode can restore their characters, because at this point, Rarity has definitely surpassed Twilight as my second favorite mane six member, and Fluttershy is coming pretty close to surpassing Twilight for third place (she just needs to remain strong willed like she was in every episode this season except "Scare Master"). Writers, you need to start doing something with Twilight now that she's a princess and has a castle, or you're only going to prove the neighsayers right about how Alicorn Twilight was a mistake.
Your thoughts happen to be the same as mine.
From a paragraph in the hyperlink:
I actually thought of this as Griffon the Brush Off 2.0. From Gilda's POV... just exchange Twilight with Gilda.
I think the ending did sort of kill it for me.
I didn't think there would be a worst episode since Appaloosa's Most Wanted, but THIS episode takes the cake. This is now officially the weakest episode of Season 5 (this one also goes right in to my top 10 worst episodes) and I have to agree, Neal should just leave the show.
I rather enjoyed the whole episode, and I actually enjoyed the scene with Zecora, and I actually think the ending makes sense.
Discord's behavior felt in line with his character in previous episodes, and I don't mind that Twilight got back at Discord the way she did. It felt both appropriate and satisfying.
So, while this might not be one of the best episodes of the season, it's not one of the worst either.
I definitely enjoyed it more than some other episodes (I can't put the full list, so I'll describe it like this: Made in Manehatten is my fourth least favorite episode of the season so far, and I found this episode much more enjoyable than that one)
I believe the ending makes sense when you stop to think about it. Now I realize that not everyone is going to agree with me on this, but Discord's reasoning for his plot makes a lot of sense:
It's apparent that he's been slow to learn about friendship as we have seen over the past two seasons. Time after time, he makes mistakes and has to learn his lesson from someone else. I believe that these experiences have taken a serious blow to Discord's pride, making him jealous of his friends for being more knowledgeable about friendship than he. To satisfy this, he tries to set up a scenario that will allow him to teach one of them a friendship lesson. He chooses Twilight because she's the Princess of Friendship, which would make his "victory" much sweeter than any other pony. He chooses this particular scenario because he wants the Princess of Friendship to feel the same emotion that he feels.
His statement at the end (that he never intended to make her jealous) is a lie; he can be seen maliciously grinning in several scenes with Twilight involved. Although I can understand why you would conclude that the statement is sloppy writing, I believe there's a purpose that justifies it. His ultimate goal from all this is to one-up Twilight and come out looking like a great friend. By the time he says the line, the former has already been spelt out, leaving no reason to deny it. To compensate, he at least tries to fulfill the latter by lying about his intentions, obviously to no avail.
This episode is another stepping stone in Discord's progress. He learns not to exclude his friend just because they weren't there for an experience, but it goes beyond that. He realizes that the others weren't trying to hurt him in their efforts to teach him friendship; their intentions go beyond just trying to look better than him.
3528328 Oh, I write stories far more often than you would believe. But it's obvious you don't bother enough to look at that.
To me this episode was weird and the moral does ruin the episode. Cut out last several minutes it is a decent episode. I think it is a step up from his Princess Spike episode.
This was just a mean, rushed and overshot episode. After Princess Spike, I don't think this writer is cut out for this show. I'd watch "Make New Friends, but Keep Discord" again over this one.
6/10 - 5.5/10.
3529818 I could, but I get the feeling it's better not to try and refute your point and make us both look bad. You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to mine. Let's leave it at that.
I actually didn't get that impression. In fact, if I'm understanding the dialogue correctly, Discord didn't include Twilight because he didn't want her being disturbed.
3532460 He admitted to excluding Twilight, then tried to pass it off as a lesson. Never once did he say anything about her wanting to be left alone, especially since Twilight said just seconds earlier how upset she was that she missed on the weekened because of her decision to stack books. The dialogue and expressions made it pretty obvious he was being selfish, as the mane six admitted they weren't in on that decision, and would've invited Twilight if they'd known. That's hardly a sign of change, that's actually a sign that Discord is relapsing.
3532488 I've only seen the episode two or three times, but I'm pretty sure Discord made it clear that he asked the others not to invite Twilight. Applejack even asked him if he deliberately excluded Twilight just to make her feel left out and he denied it. However, I can understand where you're coming from given some of the expressions he pulls off in this episode. Pinkie Pie noted that he didn't look like he felt horrible and he gave Twilight a really sinister look just before he disappeared after the scene with Rainbow Dash.
Sounds to me like, just as how people have declared Scott Sonneborn the new Merriwether Williams, you're declaring Neal Duseadu the new Dave Polsky. The way you said Duseadu's writing style involves him focusing on comedy and references, but ignoring everything else is similar to how Mr. Enter described Polsky's writing style in his Top 5 Writers of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic video.