23 Skiddoo! [episode spoilers] · 5:12pm Nov 14th, 2015
Man, I just can't think of anything to say about last week's episode. The opening was great, the rest was just eh. I wish it had been a bit more "Discord thinks Twilight's life is too organized (i.e., the opposite of chaotic) and wants to punish her for it". Instead, it's really tedious, and I don't know if that's better or worse than an episode that makes me cringe or gets me upset. I guess it's got a message about how memes wear thin after a while? Except Bob Ross! :V
Instead, let's enjoy the clever joke I've used for the title of this journal. Because, y'know, The Hooffields and McColts is episode 23 of this season. And because it references something older than most people's grandparents, that no one in the target demographic will understand. Yeah, well, Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco also did Castle Sweet Castle, which was decent, and Rarity Investigates, which was awesome, so I went into this with hope that the content would exceed the very bizarre choice of title. It did, somewhat, but it also gave me a lot of what I was expecting, or should I say dreading.
Rating: Okay
>tfw Twilight is skiddly-bopty-boo
So I grew up watching 40's cartoons (not exclusively, I'm not that old), and the Hatfield-McCoy feud was a subject that came up again and again, usually in the company of cringeworthy hillbilly stereotype characters. That's why A) I was not exactly looking forward to this one, and B) I just can't understand why we're getting an episode about a feud that ended more than 100 years ago. (I was reading the Wikipedia article during commercial breaks. "Devil Anse" is about the coolest thing you could call someone.)
So yeah, what we ended up with was a pretty standard "how to end a feud" plot. Fluttershy was adorable; Twilight was also adorable, but mostly full of herself. Remember when McCarthy said being a princess wasn't going to change her? Well, after this episode (and the last one!), it's obvious she's really buying into her powers as "The Princess of Friendship". I've never seen her so self-absorbed before, and that's saying something, considering she was once held up as a poster child for Asperger's.
BUT OH MY GOD THAT FIRST SCENE WAS THE BEST THING @_@ After season 4 did its best to make her boring, season 5 has really restored my faith in Fluttershy as best pony. :) Who knew she could beat out Twilight for book-related opening scenes?
But yeah, lots of hillbilly stereotype characters. Not as bad as I was expecting, but still there. Gotta say, I like the McColts', personality-wise, but I think the Hooffields had more interesting designs. Also kind of appreciated the complementary abilities thing they had going on.
Overall, there were a few good jokes, but Fluttershy felt very tacked-on (as in, they had to come up with "save the animals" both to make the families stop fighting and give her a reason to come along). I'm slightly more interested in what's to come, though, given their amusing conversation at the end, and the fact that we had a couple episodes building up "Twilight is psyched to go on a Cutie Map adventure".
Oh, one more thing before I forget. It's interesting comparing the meta-narrative gimmick of this season to that of last season. With the Rainbow Keys, things just sort of happened. Neither we nor the characters knew what was coming in a given episode, and even after it occurred, the answer wasn't always obvious. (Remember when Rarity got hers in Rarity Takes Manehattan and we were all, "What the fuck just happened"?) But with the Cutie Map, everything's obvious. We knew from the first episode of this season more or less how it would work, and now we're at a place where not only do the characters understand how it works, they expect it to happen. That's a very odd turn of events. I still wish the map had played a role in more episodes, though, so we could get more shipping character pair interaction.
But hey, finally a canonical voice-amplification spell! :D
Amending Fences
Crusaders of the Lost Mark
Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?
The Cutie Map
Rarity Investigates!
Brotherhooves Social
Make New Friends but Keep Discord
Hearthbreakers
The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows
Castle Sweet Castle
Canterlot Boutique
Appleloosa's Most Wanted
The Hooffields and McColts
Scare Master
Tanks for the Memories
Slice of Life
What About Discord?
The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone
Made in Manehattan
Bloom & Gloom
Princess Spike
Party Pooped
Our Town
The Pony I Want to Be
We'll Make Our Mark
I'll Fly
The Vote
Make This Castle a Home
The Rules of Rarity
Sisterhood
Hush Little Sister
Light of Your Cutie Mark
Dream Flower Song
Man, all I could think about initially was the episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender titled The Great Divide, where they did essentially the same story.
Aang had to be an impartial judge when it came to deciding who was in the wrong between the two warring families, and it ended up being over much ado about nothing a hundred years previously.
That was one of the worst-received A:TLA episodes too, so I was worried even before going in that this would also suffer a similar rating from our fandom. I did find it decent, but I wasn't blown away. Certainly better than last week's ep though, no question. At least it actually amounted to something!
So now what's left? One more singular episode, and then...
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Oh yeah! I knew I'd seen an episode of a show with this exact plot not long ago. I dunno, I thought that one was okay, but I was never in the ATLA fandom, so. :B
Actually I hear they're gonna put "Hey Arnold!" back on TV, which means the target demo might know what "Twenty-Three Skidoo" is again soon.
Twilight was never not full of herself. She's never actively, knowingly bragged about her unique abilities, true, but she's been an offhoofedly condescending, sarcastic know-it-all since the very first episode of the show, and all through season one and two, she only kinda took a break in season 4 but that's mostly because she nearly disappeared while the writers figured out what to do with her.
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What he said. Twilight didn't strike me as "full of herself." More supremely confident... but in that way awkward people are. She's not confident because, "Oh, I've solved this problem so many times, my GOD I am awesome." It was more, "Okay, I've done proper research, indexed my note cards by number of alpha-numeric characters on each, listed the history of everything posibly related to this area down to every blade of grass! This is gonna be a cakewalk!" It was the same egghead, uber-nerd way of thinking she is known for. She still has the "spergy" flaws, but now tempered with experience, she's a bit more sure of herself. Note how quickly she gave up? Once things didn't go "by the book... which I wrote... by myself", she had no idea what to do. Classic sign of the shut-in bookworm.
She's still adorkable, and you know it. :V
Given that this show isn't supposed to be for a hugely discerning, mature audience, the stereotyping here didn't bother me at all. I enjoyed the episode, not as something amazing, but as something fun. Fluttershy's characterization was great, and Twilight behaved in a way that was understandable, too. I didn't have any problems with it.
And since they always air the few newest eps leading up to the new one, I will share this tidbit:
In "Scare Master," Granny Smith says something to Fluttershy after she flees the hay wagon. I was sure I must have heard Granny incorrectly, but I couldn't fathom what she could have actually said. On my second and third viewings, I paid close attention again to figure out what she said, but I still couldn't hear anything different than what I thought from the first time. I ended up having to look up the transcript on the MLP wikia to see what the actual dialogue was.
Granny: "I wonder what got stuck in her craw."
What I heard: "I wonder what got stuffed in her bra."
I'm from West Virginia. Ive known people from other states to ask, in all seriousness, if the feud is still going.
I'm not sure if this plot still being reused is to blame for that, or if the plot still gets reused because people still think that.
I just wanna point out, that book Fluttershy is talking about in the very first scene? I'm 99% sure that "Weathering Hooves" is a ponification of "Wuthering Heights". Which is, for anyone who hasn't read it, about a family feud that goes horrifically, horrifically wrong. (Sort of. It's been a while.)
I like this writer. They're good at the little details.
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But look at her in What About Discord: "I'm the Princess of Friendship, I can't get jealous"? She's really bought into the Princess facade without doing the work to make "Princess of Friendship" have meaning on its own. I mean, one can hardly blame her, since she was thrust into the position without any say-so, but I feel like she's gotten over-expectant about her ability to solve friendship problems. She expects herself to be able to do it now. And if nothing else, she was supremely condescending to both sides of the feud, not to mention occasionally dismissive of Fluttershy. Or, well, I guess she just let Fluttershy be
adorablydismissive of herself, while taking on the "solve friendship problem" role all on her own. Not exactly the reason the map summons ponies in pairs!3542273
In the fanart, the answer is "boobs". :V
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I haven't read Wuthering Heights, but I otherwise appreciated the reference, not to mention a book club for animals. It's quite possibly the cutest thing that has ever happened on this show. :D
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That's really no different than when she expected a prompt response from Celestia about her conspiracy theory, and then was fuming about how the Princess herself was wasting her precious time. Or when she was fully confident that Celestia would bend the rules for her in Bird in the Hoof. Or when she got angry at Mayor Mare not letting her have her way in Applebuck Season. Or when she literally got on a soap box to tell Pinkie she was wrong because she's a scientist and a mage and she knows better. Etc, etc.
Like I said, this is nothing new or out of character. She's not a braggart, but the Twilight that is perfectly innocent and modesty incarnate is just a product of fanfics, just like her fuzzing over a book condition is 100% fanon, she couldn't care less for the physical state of books in the show from seasons 1 to 5, in fact she actively vandalizes them in the pursuit of knowledge.
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Since Wuthering Heights is largely agreed to be about a dysfunctional and destructive relationship, I'm wondering what it says about Fluttershy that this is what she chose for her book club.
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She likes the tragedy. :V