My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 7: "Newbie Dash" (SPOILERS) · 4:02pm May 7th, 2016
With this episode, another character's series-long dreams and goals are realized, as Rainbow Dash finally becomes a Wonderbolt. Was it worth the wait? Let's find out.
But first, a quick note on last week's episode I forgot to mention: Trixie's show posters are kind of...really creepy. 
Scootaloo's little celebration when Spitfire makes Rainbow Dash a full Wonderbolt is hilaradorable.
Firestreak retired two days before the big air show to become a teacher, and Rainbow Dash was at the reserve list. She only has two days to learn the routine for the show.
When Rainbow arrives at Wonderbolts HQ, she geeks out like crazy. 
Rainbow, too excited to begin her first practice, fails to notice Soarin and Fleetfoot buzzing the runway, and ends up taking a turf dive into a trash can. Her old flight school nickname, "Rainbow Crash", rears its ugly head again, this time being used by professional Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash has bad memories associated with that hurtful nickname, and it upsets her to have her idols calling her "Crash".
When Rainbow returns home, her friends are there to throw her a party. Rainbow isn't in the mood for a party.
Rainbow tells the girls what happened. Pinkie points out that on the bright side, at least they didn't call her "Rainbow Trash". Applejack shoves her hoof in Pinkie's mouth.
AJ does way too much of that. Seriously.
On the second day, Rainbow tries to make a better impression...by emulating all her friends, one right after the other. First, she acts all hyper like Pinkie. Then, she acts country like AJ. When that doesn't work, she acts nerdy and OCD like Twilight. Then she acts meek like Fluttershy. Lastly, she tries to be Rarity, which severely wigs out Soarin. All she succeeds in doing with all of this personality-changing is annoying the Wonderbolts.
Things get worse when Rainbow Dash gets her official flight jacket, which has "Crash" sewn onto it as her official Wonderbolts nickname.
You know, though...if Rainbow had just asked the Wonderbolts to NOT call her Crash because it was a very hurtful nickname a bunch of bullies saddled her with as a filly, MAYBE they'd have dropped the whole thing.
The day of the performance, Rainbow goes off the deep end and comes up with a plan to upstage the rest of the Wonderbolts by pulling off a dangerous trick--and puts Scootaloo in danger to set it off. Rainbow's trick backfires and she makes a tremendous ass of herself in public.
Afterwards, Rainbow learns that every Wonderbolt has an embarrassing nickname based on some or other stupid accident they had on their first day. We don't get to hear what Spitfire's is, so it must be pretty bad. She decides that given some of the other Bolts' nicknames, "Crash" isn't so bad after all. Rainbow's on probation for her stunt, but she's still a Wonderbolt, and she's never been happier.
Overall, a pretty decent episode.
People are already crying this as the worst episode of the season. One cringe section and they're all hating it.
It's a turn-on for her.
As for the episode... I'm not sure if I'll watch it.
It's like she had multiple personality disorder. I feel sorry for Spike in this one, and that poor cotton candy pony. It's cool how, even though Dash did a major screw up and she has to keep her nickname, she can learn to live with it. But still, one of the other Wonderbolts could have stood up for her. But it still would have been nice for somepony to stand up for Dashie.
I really wish Rainbow would have just come out and said that she doesn't like that nickname. Maybe a lesson about how nicknames are fun, but if someone doesn't like you calling them that, it's not okay. Could've been nice. I'm also going to need fics about Spitfire's first day, and what her horrible nickname is.
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http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Episodes,_films,_and_shorts#Season_six
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Then if anything, her new nickname would have been Rainbow Trash. The Wonderbolts are based on the Blue Angels. All military personnel tend to have embarrassing nicknames. If you complain about your name you get a worse one.
I honestly didn't like this episode at all. The whole bit with Rainbow impersonating the others was painful, the third act was predictable, and the moral was very weak. Rainbow should have just told them why the name bugged her so much at the end and they agreed to let it go; besides, they've got a better name for her. That would have honestly saved the episode for me, show some growth and maturity from both parties. But, nope. It's just "chill, we all have nicknames, you're still cool."
3927332 As someone with a past of bullying, I just don't like that kind of stuff. I'd hate to achieve my dreams just for everyone to call me skunk again. Being forced to have a nickname you don't like is just not nice.
While I don't feel it's RD's best, it's still one of her better ones.
I think the thing that bugged me the most about this episode is that while Dash spent most of it being stupid, it's not entirely out of character for her.
That said, I loved the amount of featherfingers/winghands that appeared in this episode.
Decent? I considered this a top-tier episode.
Mainly because it follows all of the tropes of the coming-of-age story:
Guy has tough first day, Guy gets picked on by his fellows, Guy works hard and faces impossible odds, team apologizes to Guy for the teasing and welcomes them with open arms.
3927357 Yup.
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Then the military is definitely not for you. Granted, the odds of getting a nickname you had in the past is slim, it is guaranteed to be embarrassing. It is a form of bonding.
Maybe I'd like this episode more if The Wonderbolts weren't all a-holes to Rainbow Dash, even Spitfire and Soarin. There's no excuse for them to do that if they've been on the recieving end of such hurtful nicknames. Why does this show feel the need to make The Wonderbolts look bad? Before they were just put into situtations they honestly weren't prepared for, but now they're outright villanious and mean just for the sake of the plot.
3927325 This season still has a lot of episodes left.
I have to admit, it's one of the few times where I can't make up my mind about if it's a good episode or not.
It's not a bad episode (it has a good moral and good writing for the most part) but I can't call it good either (mainly because of the cringe factor and that the Wonderbolts' behavior was may more over-the-top than they should be (especially the tone of their voices when THAT happened)).
All in all, it's a meh episode. I'm not going to hate it, but it's not one that I'm going to re-watch anytime soon. Unless it's going to have an impact on a future episode like Appleoosa's Most Wanted eventually did.
3927288 There could be worse.
3927313 It still has a couple more seasons in the making.
3927385 Alright, thank you, but can you confirm this? Is there somewhere online that says it?
3927399 I linked you, dood
3927300 I actually have a story on tap (soon) about AJ's hoof-in-mouth habit and her friends staging an intervention. The fact that it surfaced again a day after I set up a page for that is pretty hilarious to me personally.
3927313 I have no idea where you're getting your info from, but this is a full 26-episode season, just like season 5.
3927375 The Wonderbolts are pretty much always jerks when they show up. Except Soarin. He's like, the one non-jerk.
3927415 Except in this episode, because he was in on the teasing and had the worst excuse of all The Wonderbolts. He had a nickname he didn't deserve and he ACTUALLY got hurt, he of all ponies should've stood up for Rainbow Dash.
3927421 But they ALL have those nicknames, and he had no way of knowing the name "Crash" hurt her feelings because of her past. She didn't bother to tell any of them WHY she hated that name.
3927399 We all know S3 was a short one.
3927375 The least they could've done was have Soarin say something like, "Back off, guys. Come on."
3927413 I know you did, but I only saw 12 episodes on the wikia. Did I miss something? Knowing myself I probably did...
3927448 Yes; you missed the part where there's no evidence this will be a shorter season.
3927455 Okay, thank you.
3927448 You probably missed the part where it's a 26-episode season but we only know the titles of 12 of the episodes so far.
I thought this episode was above average, but not great. Nice for Rainbow to achieve her goal but she did bring most of the embarrassment she suffered on herself; like imitating her friends, you either find that scene hilarious embarrassing. I don't think just saying she didn't like the name would make it stop though because the nickname thing is a real-world thing, especially in the military. I can say that even if some of the bolts seemed like jerks, as usual, at least it is shown they don't single Rainbow out on the nickname thing, and yeah Soarin didn't become a major jackass so that's also a positive. I say overall a solid B- episode.
In and of itself, the episode was about average for the show. Its main problem is that it took something that grownups, especially those in certain vocations, are used to and are emotionally mature enough to handle (embarrassing nicknames as a bonding experience, to insinuate intimacy among members of a team) and transplanted it to a kids' show where the audience is still trying to wrap their heads around the concept that "bullying and name-calling are Bad and you shouldn't do it."
The writers most likely intended a lesson of "They're not being mean to you, giving you a silly nickname means that you're part of a team that's so tight-knit they can express their appreciation this way." But that's a complicated lesson for the target audience; under certain contexts, the lesson of this show could be (and will very probably be) misread as "It's OK for me to call you names even if you don't like it, and you just gotta take it."
Anyone who has ever seen how flight, naval, or military crews operate probably thought the WBs were acting as expected for their particular context. Hell, even NASA gives humiliating callsigns to people. But anyone who hasn't, though, saw them as bullies who would rather justify their bullying than stop it. That's what makes an otherwise average episode come off as tone-deaf.
First weakest episode of Season 6 for me, this is going straight into my top ten worst episodes list when this Season is done.
Bad communication dominated this episode.
Rainbow didn't tell them why she disliked the nickname. Maybe they would've backed off if they knew.
However, the Wonderbolts could've told her every member gets saddled with an embarrassing nickname. Whether or not real military does it is kind of irrelevant in this situation because the people there are aware it's going to happen. Rainbow felt singled out, and the way the episode was shot supported her feelings at least somewhat. It certainly doesn't help that they've been portrayed in a rather non-flattering light enough times to make an impression.
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The Wikipedia for season 6 currently has 12 episodes listed and nothing sounding like a finale so far...
3927300 I really hope Applejack brushes her teeth and washers her hoofs a lot, considering how often she stuffs her hooves in other ponies mouths and bites down on other ponies tales.
Considering the psuedo militaristic nature of the Bolts and that the whole Crash thing has been compared to hazing in the military, I have my doubts about that. Besides, she could easily have been saddled with Rainbow Trash.