IDW's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #22: Manehattan Mysteries, Part 2 · 5:24am Apr 30th, 2016
She came to me and said she was in trouble. Told me everyone was out to get her, that they'd branded her a thief. I said I couldn't believe that. An aspiring young starlet like herself, how did she get mixed up in that kinda trouble? She just dropped a bag of bits on my desk and looked at me expectantly. Guess it's my problem now.
On the streets of Manehattan, the news has spread fast.
This is what happens when Sethisto isn't around to do the editing. Wait, where did that picture of the five of them frowning come from? Were they already in a police lineup?
Fluttershy and Apple Bloom walk by, disguised as Groucho Marx and Martha Washington. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. They're headed for the museum to figure out what exactly Rough Diamond plans to steal. As they enter, they're greeted by the curator, Honey Do, who—wait, wrong notes.
The art museum has an exhibit of gemstones, and the two are briefly uncertain until Fluttershy spots a display front and center...
Meanwhile, the rest of the group is investigating jewelry stores, looking to find out if Rough Diamond has sold any of her stolen gems. This is a great idea, except for all the reasons it's a terrible idea.
For starters, it's been stated that Rough Diamond is stealing all the diamonds in Manehattan. Assuming that doesn't mean she literally wants all of them to hoard, for anyone at all to be selling diamonds in this situation would be incredibly suspicious. A successful thief like RD would use a fence, someone who specializes in buying stolen goods, to prevent specifically what our heroes are trying to do. If she wasn't using a fence, and was just selling diamonds directly to jewelry stores, then obviously the police would have checked the jewelry stores themselves by now and found her out.
The team is visiting the seventh store in their search. While they look around, Babs approaches Applejack and asks her about Trixie.
I have mixed feelings about this? I mean, it's great that she believes Trixie is good now. And I don't have a problem with counting the Alicorn Amulet as a "scheme". Very little is actually known about how much Trixie knew about the Amulet, how far she really intended to go with it, and such; even though it was clearly way out of her control, even if it wasn't Trixie's fault she did most of what she did, just buying the thing means that there was some degree of schemery going on. But blaming her for the Ursa Minor that she had nothing to do with, that destroyed pretty much only her property? That's not cool, AJ. Based on that image, it looks like Applejack thinks Trixie went and got it herself and sicced it on the town.
Well, Babs knows exactly what to do. She walks right over to Trixie, and says she understands what she's going through. She talks about her own past, and then she says she believes in Trixie.
Hulk indeed, Babs. Hulk indeed.
After that touching moment, it turns out that Radiant Diamond really is that stupid. Rarity has found three gems which she's able to identify as belonging to a necklace stolen the previous month (based on newspaper reports, I guess). Applejack calls the clerk over and asks him where he got them.
He hesitates, and she begins standard intimidation. Rarity tells AJ to calm down and let her handle it. Then she begins heavy intimidation. Unfortunately, the stallion genuinely doesn't know; he says it was dark and the seller was wearing a cloak. He can't give any details... except, when pressed, he recalls he got a brief glimpse of her ass as she left and saw that her cutie mark was a diamond.
Congratulations, Rarity. You've figured out that the jewel thief has a jewel cutie mark.
Back at Babs's place, they're discussing what they've found out. The best course of action, they decide, is to clear their names and stop Rough Diamond from breaking into the museum by... breaking into the museum.
This can only go well!
Fluttershy gets stuck on a question: Why leave a smoke bomb in the safe?
Yeah, Fluttershy, that's a good question. Why would they do that? It seems a little absurd, now that you mention it. In fact, Applejack said something about it last issue, but nobody answered her. So what insight do you have now?
You're... not going to actually say, are you? Are we just going to... not acknowledge that this question keeps coming up? Okay then.
They again go over who knew about the real diamond, and Babs observes that none of them have a diamond cutie mark.
Applejack decides enough is enough and slams her hoof on the table to trigger a cut to that night. Officer Trotter and another officer are standing guard outside the museum. Fighting the police is obviously a bad idea in this situation, so what can they do?
Trixie can be awesome, that's what they can do. As her smoke bomb lures the cops away, she tells Babs that the key is to make the audience look somewhere else. They easily slip inside, but they find... one of those laser alarm hallways... but with string instead of lasers. Low tech, but maybe that's a good thing. I mean, hey, a unicorn with an invisibility spell could walk right through a laser hallway, assuming invisibility spells are a thing. Instead, the unicorns... must dance.
As they reach the gem exhibit, the thief cuts her way through the glass dome on the roof, because places that have valuable things in them always have glass domes on their roofs that a thief can easily cut through strategically positioned right above the most likely target. That's, like, architecture 101.
Rough Diamond descends on a rope, but suddenly finds herself spotlighted. Applejack declares that she's been caught, but she tosses a smoke bomb. They all stumble around helplessly, and when the smoke clears, Rough Diamond has escaped, and Fluttershy is dangling hog-tied from the rope the thief used to make her entrance. Applejack thinks they can still catch her, but...
The police swarm in. Stablemaker gloats a little about catching Trixie.
Suddenly, Babs declares that Trixie is the thief. She says that Trixie has been lying to them and using them this whole time, and pleads for Stablemaker to let them go in exchange for her testimony.
The rest are shocked, Applejack and Apple Bloom crying out in protest at the bald-faced lie, but Stablemaker agrees, and tells Fluffles to take Trixie away. And that's when it happens.
As Fluffles is approaching to shackle Trixie, Babs leaps on her back. Catching on, Trixie uses her magic to untie Fluttershy and snare Fluffles, who Babs declares is the real Rough Diamond.
She says she has proof, but first, to prove that it's possible—that Fluffles should be considered a suspect at all—she speculates. With her police connections, Fluffles could have snuck into Trixie's show to steal the fake diamond and plant it on AJ.
Stablemaker asks how she cracked the safe, and, after a moment's thought, Babs responds that she didn't have to. Since Fluffles was sent into the office along with Trotter to check the safe, and the director told them the combination at that time, she brought the smoke bomb with her, and used it to cover her taking the diamond and using it to frame Trixie.
AKA, the question that everyone has been asking but nobody has actually been thinking about. Thanks, Babs. Thabs.
Stablemaker asks her how she could have figured all of this out.
I ask how the police didn't figure all this out. If anyone had actually bothered to follow a train of thought introduced ages ago, they would have realized that the only reason for the smoke bomb to be in the safe would be if the thief was actually using it to cover taking the diamond, which obviously implicates the ponies who actually opened the safe—Fluffles and Trotter. It's a minor complaint, and I shouldn't complain at all about characters missing small things, since easily-overlooked details are half the action of a mystery story, except that it's a question the characters have asked and forgotten about twice before this development.
Babs replies that the cutie mark gave it away.
And thus, a lifetime of ogling rumps bestowed upon her the skills to catch a master criminal.
With the reveal of her false identity pretty solid evidence against her, Fluffles is hauled away, swearing that Rough Diamond will return. Stablemaker apologizes to Trixie... but she tells him that it's not necessary, since he was only doing what he thought was right. And she thanks Babs for reminding her that everypony deserves a second chance. The ponies are adorable for a few more panels and we close the issue on a high note.
I'm pleased overall with this issue and arc, even though the characters were a little dumb sometimes. It used Trixie and Babs well, and was a fun mystery, though maybe a little obvious due to heavyhoofed foreshadowing.
I'm a little ambivalent about Rough Diamond, though. She was good for what she was, a mysterious presence, but... well, she was just a mysterious presence. She had no real character, since the only thing we saw of her was what she was pretending to be. Which is what they wanted, of course, the whole point was to keep her hidden and not develop her, but... eh, more on this later. For now I'll just say that we didn't see enough of her as Officer Fluffles.
The new episode should be airing in just a few more hours. If it's good, then maybe IDW will take it as a cue—and Trixie can have yet another glorious return in the comics. Until then, this concludes Trixie Week. Next time... well... it's going to be something, I can promise you that.
I have to admit, I kind of love that the undercover thief thought a good alias no one would think twice about was 'Officer Fluffles' and she was right.
I do wish that more was done on Rough Diamond as well.
The author also wished he had more room to give her a backstory and/or her motive.
https://tedlyanderson.tumblr.com/post/94635881434/annotations-for-my-little-pony-issues-21-22