Well, time for another review. We’re a quarter of the way there, so let’s hope it’s a good one!

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And it’s number 5 on our list. Who you gonna call? "Boast Busters!"

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TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 1
Episode: 6
Written By: Chris Savino
First Aired: November 19, 2010

SUMMARY:

After Twilight finishes practicing growing magic (to grow a moustache on Spike), her dragon assistant records that she now knows twenty-five different kinds of magic tricks and counting. A short time later, while the two are wandering through town, Spike continues to brag about how awesome Twilight’s special talent for magic is and how she can perform any spell, while most other Unicorns can only use one or two related to their special talents. Just then, two colts named Snips and Snails rush up to let them know that a new Unicorn is in town, and claiming to be the most powerful in Equestria. Curious, the two go to check it out.

Sure enough, a small wagon has been set up in the town square, with a loudspeaker blaring about the arrival of its owner, the Great and Powerful Trixie! A part of the wagon soon unfolds, revealing a large stage, and a few seconds later Trixie herself appears via a puff of smoke, complete with robe and wizard hat. She then spends the next few minutes building herself up as the most awesome Unicorn ever before going into a magic act.

Just about everypony actually seems fairly into it…except for Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Spike. The last tries to get Twilight to show her up, but after hearing the others talk about how obnoxious and awful Trixie is, she grows more self-conscious about showing off her talents. Unfortunately, Trixie isn’t deaf, and is clearly able to hear the ponies in the front row heckling her. She responds to their jeers by telling the story of how she once saved the city of Hoofington from the dreaded Ursa Major, banishing it back to the Everfree Forest. And when that doesn’t win them over, she challenges the four to try and outperform her.

Applejack jumps on stage and performs a series of rope and lasso tricks; Trixie counters by telekinetically tying her up in her lasso before discarding her. Rainbow Dash steps up next, using a windmill to propel herself through a serious of clouds before pulling the trick in reverse; the resulting water droplets splash against her coat, creating a rainbow. Trixie, of course, responds by turning the same rainbow into a tornado, sucking up Dash and spinning her about before finally discarding her so that a lone thundercloud could strike her flank. Finally, Rarity tries to use her fashion techniques to turn one of the curtains into a new outfit, but Trixie simply changes her mane into a green monstrosity that sends her off crying.

With only Twilight left, Spike tries to get her to do something, but she chooses to simply run than risk losing her friends. Victorious, Trixie drinks a hay smoothie brought to her by Snips and Snails before retiring to her wagon for the evening. The two colts are about to leave when they run into Spike again, who tells them that unless an Ursa Major came walking into town for Trixie to defeat, he would never believe a word she says. Alas, Snips and Snails have all the intelligence of a piece of toast and decide that finding a dreaded Ursa Major (which, I should point out, is a giant bear made of stars) is a good idea. And hey, Trixie sent one back to the Everfree Forest…

Later on, Spike tries again to convince Twilight to make a stand, but she refuses. Frustrated, he storms out to cool down, only to run into Snips and Snails…fleeing a giant space bear. The colts go to Trixie for help, but when she sees the bear, she runs away just before its paw crushes her wagon. Spike, meanwhile, grabs Twilight just in time for Trixie to make a feeble attempt at stopping the bear with her own powers. When Snips and Snails tell her to just do what she did before, she finally admits that she made up the story to make herself sound more important.

Now that there’s literally no other hope, Twilight finally gives up and uses her talents. First, she creates a breeze, which in turn creates a gentle stream of music that lulls the Ursa into a pacified state. Next, she empties the water tower, fills it up with milk from the dairy, floats the makeshift bottle into the Ursa’s mouth (moments before it would have killed Trixie), and finally levitates the entire bear back into the Everfree Forest. She immediately tries to apologize for using her powers, but her friends tell her that they were just angry at Trixie for being a loudmouth, and that one of the reasons they love Twilight is because she’s so talented.

Her confidence renewed, Twilight explains to the awestruck crowed that that was a baby, an Ursa minor, and that it was attacking only because two colts woke it up from its nap. As for the Ursa Major…well, it’s best that you don’t know. Now that she’s safe, Trixie immediately regains her usual attitude and gallops off to become the focus of thousands upon thousands of fanfics. Snips and Snails try to slink off, but are cornered, told to throw out all of Trixie’s stuff, and finally struck with “Number 25:” the dreaded moustaches.

After that, Twilight writes out a letter to Celestia, delivering the lesson that you should be proud of your abilities and using them when needed isn’t showing off. Spike, sadly, also learns that the moustache wasn’t Rarity’s thing…but she didn’t say anything about beards!

REVIEW:

This episode has a very special place in the show’s history. First, it was the first episode not to have the whole cast; Fluttershy and Pinkie only make non-speaking cameos. Second, it was the first episode to really start quantifying how Unicorn magic works, as well as how Twilight’s abilities differ from somepony like Rarity. And of course, it brought us the most famous of all (formerly) one-shot characters, a pony that would go on to receive the biggest fandom and most attention of any antagonist in the show.

Now, is the episode good? Well…

The opening prologue really doesn’t have too much to do with the episode itself, just bits and pieces around the plot. The key piece of the scene is the fact that Twilight knows twenty-five different kinds of magic tricks so far, which is already implied to be very impressive. We also see her blush and shy away a little as Spike celebrates, which sets up the key difference between her and Trixie that we’ll see later. And of course, it gave us that emoticon you’re all posting right now. Yes, I can see you. And you should be very ashamed of yourself right now.

The first act continues on the “twenty-five tricks” thing from the prologue. (And now that I’ve said it like that, it sounds so wrong.) Here is where we start learning about how Unicorn magic works as a whole; all Unicorns know a little bit of magic, mostly relating to their special talent, but somepony like Twilight, whose special talent is magic, has the potential to learn almost any number of spells. It’s not really explored in-depth just yet, but the system is put into place for future episodes.

And then we meet Snips and Snails. Oh goody.

Snips and Snails are part of your basic “little boy” characters, who act like complete twats, have almost unlistenable voices, and are there to be idiots to drive the plot forward. I know they have fans, but…yeah, they really bug me in this episode. Their entire purpose in this scene (and the next few) is to be Trixie’s fanboys in order to irritate Spike. Not that I actually like Spike in this episode either, but I’ll get to that in a moment. One other good moment here, though, is the little face Twilight makes when she hears that another pony might be better at magic than her. She may not like to flaunt her power needlessly, but she still obviously takes pride in her abilities, and looks to be a little downbeat when it seems like somepony else might actually be better than her.

And then we have it. The single most iconic moment in the entire episode. The scene that will go down in the annals of brony history as the day many a fan began polishing their leather saddles. At long last, we meet the Grrrrrreeaat and Powerful TRIXIE!

…What? Nobody had just that one bit. YouTube, why do you fail me now?

So…Trixie. Yeah, this is a…bit of a minefield. For whatever reason, any discussion about Trixie tends to escalate into a heated flame war fairly quickly, with some fans passionately defending her and others condemning her. For that reason, I’m going to try as hard as I can to keep the discussion focused on the episode, and not the fan content. So no dark backstories, no shipping her with a shy Pegasus, no bizarro universes, nothing like that. This is just Trixie as Trixie.

Needless to say, she does not quite make a good first impression on the Mane…4 this episode. She’s extremely arrogant, loudmouthed, and quick to extol herself as the best thing in Equestria since sliced bread. She’s basically hubris incarnate. At the same time, though, she’s a stage performer; hyping yourself up as the greatest thing ever kind of goes with the profession. After all, nopony’s going to pay good bits to see the “Average and Mediocre Trixie.” Then again, the idea of paying is never brought up; as far as we know, she might have just thrown up the show for free.

And this brings up to the episode’s conflict. Twilight overhears her friends talking about how Trixie shouldn’t think she’s better than anypony else just because she has lots of magic. Unfortunately, their argument is phrased in such a way that it implies that Twilight shouldn’t show off her power too, or she’ll be just as bad as Trixie. Thus, she has to keep her talents hidden, or she thinks she’ll lose the only friends she’s ever had. Mind you, when Rainbow Dash is one of the ones making the argument, it loses a lot of its credibility, but they at least point it out and turn it into a funny joke.

The next scene is Trixie’s story of how she defeated the Ursa Major, told using fireworks and magic in the sky. Of course, this is mostly there to set up her obvious fail later on, especially when she mentions that the Ursa Major was sent back to the Everfree Forest, but besides that, it’s actually a very impressive bit. The lighting effects work surprisingly well given how…okay some of the animation can get in the early first season, and I loved the design of the fake Ursa.

And then we get to the challenges, i.e. the part every Trixie defender tries to forget. All of the bits here are pretty entertaining, especially the ending with Rarity, but the problem is that Trixie claimed she could do anything they could…and doesn’t. In fact, the only challenge she does do fairly is the one with Applejack; she roped the apple down just like AJ, with the only difference being her tying the rope around her opponent. The Rainbow Dash bit was pretty much impossible to replicate since Trixie doesn’t have wings, but the rainbow tornado bit was entertaining, and I loved that little scream she makes when the lightning strikes. As for Rarity…well, the dress was lovely, even if it she did rip the curtain off of Trixie’s stage, and I loved Carrot Top (with green hair) getting offended over her horror at the color. Me? I’d be worried about the rats that are apparently in there, but I’m weird like that.

The issue with the challenges, though, is that Trixie sets them up with no intention of actually following through. To her, it’s just another chance to show up some ponies and make herself look better. That being said, I can’t honestly say I liked how our heroes reacted to her presence. She had two lines (arrogant ones, mind you), and three of them already decided they hated her forever and started heckling the show. And keep in mind, these three have not been entirely innocent on the whole “bragging” front; AJ constantly calls her apples the best in Equestria, Rarity is obsessed with showing off her fashions and appearance, and Rainbow Dash is Rainbow Dash. Granted, none of them are as bad about it as Trixie, but still, it is just one of those niggling little things that gets under my craw.

Twilight, of course, runs away rather than risk losing her friends, leaving Snips and Snails to wait on Trixie and act as her loyal minions. She, in turn, seems to regard them with no small bit of annoyance, especially after Snips sticks his butt at her to hand her the smoothie. And then we get to why I have issues with Spike this episode. Now, it’s a part of his character to want to prop up Twilight a little, especially when in the face of somepony as annoyingly arrogant as Trixie, but this is where he starts faltering a bit. In his rush to put Trixie down and build Twilight up, he’s the one who gives Snips and Snails the idea to bring the Ursa into town. He might not have been doing it intentionally, but if Trixie can get blamed for inspiring the two, then why does Spike get a free pass? Although to be fair, this scene made me hate Snips and Snails even more. I did like the “Pinkie and the Brain” reference, as well as the little engine noises Snails’ horn makes as he lights it up when they find the Ursa.

Oh, and look at the tail. If you know your constellations, that’s a clue to what they really got. Nice touch.

The scene with Twilight and Spike in the library is mostly just Spike trying to convince Twilight to stand up for herself, but as he’s talking it starts to feel like he’s losing sight of the goal. It feels like he wants Twilight to show up Trixie not so she’ll feel better about herself, but out of revenge for humiliating her friends. Twilight, meanwhile, is actually the most mature one here; she doesn’t like Trixie’s bragging, but she also doesn’t want to be seen as one herself, and knows that if she pulls the same trick she’ll be no better than her. So in the end, they’re both half-right. I do love Twilight has a spell to make doors appear, although I kind of don’t see how that would be useful outside of home construction. Then again, given how many times the library’s been wrecked, and how volatile her magic can be, it probably sees a lot of use.

And now we get to the epic battle between Trixie and the Ursa “Major.” Obviously, Trixie runs away when the bear appears, escaping just before it smashes her wagon. But then we get to the wrinkle Trixie fans like to bring up. Trixie does have a chance to escape, and could easily run and leave Ponyville to her fate, but she still stands her ground and tries to use her magic. Whether this is so her reputation won’t be completely smeared or if she has some decency in her after all is up for debate, but the point is she makes the attempt to save the day. And of course, she fails miserably, finally fessing up that she made the whole story up.

So that leaves Twilight to save the day, which she does in style. Of course, the scene is excellently executed, especially with the Ursa almost falling on Trixie before being levitated away. However, it also serves as the next big clue that the bear is an Ursa Minor, a baby. As for the Ursa Major…well, let’s just say I’m saving your sleep tonight. As for the real meat of the scene, Twilight’s friends finally step up and tell her that the reason they didn’t like Trixie was because she was a loudmouth, not because she was talented. Sadly, Trixie takes this chance to run away thanks to a smoke bomb…which doesn’t even cover the entire length of her escape.

And thus we get to what I feel is the biggest reason Trixie gets so much love and attention (besides being a large ham with some possibly valid actions): the ending is utterly cruel and vindictive. Trixie is loudmouthed, obnoxious, conceited, and doesn’t even get what humility is, but by the end of the episode, her wagon/home is destroyed, her reputation is scorched, and now she’s ran off homeless and alone. Dash tries to rush out of her in a rage, but Twilight stops her by saying that Trixie needs to learn her lesson on her own. There isn’t even an attempt to offer her any help, perhaps let her stay somewhere until the wagon’s fixed, anything like that. Nope, it’s just throw out her junk and send her packing because she’s a braggart.

The moral is actually really good, and should be taught a lot more. There’s a difference between being proud of your abilities and using them to help others, and being a self-centered show-off. People often mistake the two, and are so afraid of being seen as the latter that they try to avoid the former. The ending also closes the moustache gag with the look failing to win Rarity over; then again, after seeing that sea serpent’s fabulous facial hair, I doubt something that wouldn’t look out of place on a 19th-century prize fighter would win her heart.

CONCLUSION:

This one is a pretty average episode, with only Trixie really standing out. It helped to lay some of the groundwork for later stories, especially in regards to how Unicorn magic worked, but for the most part it was a fairly typical story told in a fairly typical way, albeit with some good jokes and rather hypocritical story elements. I REALLY didn’t like how the thing with Trixie ended, but she will be back in the third season, probably in some role that will disappoint us all.

One other thing I’d like to bring up is the writer. Chris Savino worked on only two episodes of the show’s first season before departing, and very rarely do either of his episodes (the other being “Stare Master”) get rated very highly. Unlike Polsky – whose two episodes went from bad-but-good to awful – and Williams – whose episodes are all over the map – Savino’s were very middle-of-the-road and rather dull, with only a few key moments to really make them stand out at all. And that’s sadly true here. Some of the jokes are funny, and the moral is good, but most of the episode is played painfully straight.

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Well, that’s another one down. Let’s see what horror awaits us next…

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Ooh, we’re in for a treat next time…

(On another note, would you like me to start telling which episodes are next? Or do you want it to be a complete surprise?)