My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 10: "Applejack's 'Day' Off" (SPOILERS) · 4:00pm May 28th, 2016
Wacky Jacky is back! -y.
While waiting for Applejack at the spa, Rarity turns into a great-grandmare in the sauna.
The next spa date, Applejack is busy baking piles of pies, most of them for Twilight and Spike. Rarity is getting impatient waiting on Applejack to make their spa appointments, but Applejack's chores are just taking up more and more time. Twilight offers her and Spike up as day workers for the farm to give Applejack a much-needed break.
Applejack needs to learn how to make checklists. It's Helicopter AJ all over again.
Rainbow's cute robe and slippers make another appearance! Also, she's embarrassed by being caught by her friends getting a prissy pampering at the spa--which is working alive with ponies, meaning the "hour" AJ and Rarity want for their spa experience is going to be a lot longer, since the line for the sauna is...long. Rarity suggests simply doing something else at the spa until the steam room is open, but Applejack is stubborn and refuses to leave the line. Applejack, investigating the source of the delays in the line for the steam room, discovers that the spa's warm towel service is overloading the demand on the boiler because all the washers are running at once to keep up. Additionally, there's a leak in the pipes which is causing the slow steam supply to the steam room in the first place--which is causing the increased demand load on the warm towel service.
AJ gets her tools and goes to work on the spa's plumbing while Rarity gives up and gets pampered. By the time AJ's done fixing the spa's problem, she no longer has time to relax in the sauna. Rarity suggests heading back to Sweet Apple Acres to check up on Twilight and give her more instructions so they can head back to the spa for a take two.
Things are not going so well at the farm. At all. "Epic fail" is the word I'd use. Applejack sees how badly Twilight's attempt to feed the pigs is going, and decides to stay and do her chores as usual, blowing off Rarity and the spa yet again.
Applejack is best chicken. 
Applejack also gives a completely ironic speech about getting stuck in a routine doing a ton of unnecessary work without realizing it...while stuck in a routine doing a ton of unnecessary work without realizing it.
After that, Rarity, Twilight, and Spike become efficiency experts and help Applejack realize all the stupidly complicated and unnecessary things she's doing on the farm, streamlining the process so her chores don't take all day anymore. With that done, Rarity and Applejack finally get their spa day...
...with Rainbow Dash.
Hmm...
I dunno what to say, guys.
This was an Applejack episode. *shrug*
What... are unicorn horns made of?
I know we've seen floppy horns before, but that was from poison joke. Magic prankster plants kinda throw the rules out the window.
It was certainly one of the better AJ episodes... most likely because she had Rarity to bounce off of.
Those episodes seem to do pretty well, for the most part.
They really overdid hammering in the moral. Plus, some of Applejack's habitual inefficiencies were just groan-inducing. The bit with the chickens I can understand, but the irrigation was ridiculous.
I'm starting to like Applejack more. While she can still be stubborn, at least she's open minded enough to let her friends fix all the things she's been doing wrong. Old Applejack would have refused help, and continued to do what she was doing wrong.
Don't get me wrong, Applejack isn't going up that high on my favourite mane six list; however, she is getting up there. She might, after a few more Applejack episodes, make it to spot three. But that's as high as she gets, because Rainbow is 2 and Twilight is 1.
So, overall I liked this episode. It was pretty good.
3978980 I think I've finally figured you out. You live in bizarro world. Where everything is opposite. That's why your opinions are always the exact opposite of everybody else's.
3979005
Now now, play nice. People are allowed to like things you don't like.
Mission impossible sparkle.
This is sort of Applejack's key character defect: unwitting hypocrisy. It's like watching the characters from the comic strip For Better Or For Worse complain about things their kids do they don't realize they're guilty of themselves.
3979005 That only seems to be the case for specific episodes.
Episodes that I love that get a lot of hate:
Boast Busters (flawed story-wise, but Trixie is so entertaining to watch that I don't care)
Showstoppers (which I actually think makes a lot of sense when thought about)
Mysterious Mare-Do-Well (a lot of fun, plus everypony's actions at least makes sense)
Rainbow Falls (one of RD's best episodes, and everything in it either makes sense or is funny enough that I can give it a pass)
Filli Vanilli (extremely entertaining, and my pick for best Fluttershy episode so far)
Newbie Dash (same as Rainbow Falls)
Episodes that I'd describe as "overrated":
Return of Harmony (Discord is fun to watch in it, but it gets too unpleasant for my tastes in the second part, and there are pacing issues in the second part as well)
Rarity Takes Manehatten (has a lot of problems that drag it down)
Lost Treasure of Griffonstone (unpleasant to watch, and I feel that Gilda's redemption is the weakest of the entire series)
Made in Manehatten (just kind of dull)
Episodes that are mixed:
Princess Spike (I agree that it's one of season 5's weaker episodes, but I don't think it's season 5's weakest (that would be Appleoosa's Most wanted). And I don't think it's the worst Spike episode either)
Hoffields and McColts (not one of season 5's best episodes, but I find it to be the best map episode other than "The Cutie Map" and "The Cutie Re-Mark")
The Saddle Row Review (one of the funniest episodes of the series, the best Manehatten episode, and one of Rarity's best episodes. Yet it's not quite up to the amazingness that most of the season holds)
This episode (lighthearted and entertaining, yet EXTREMELY low-key, and is simultaneously one of the weaker episodes of the season (again, not because it's bad, but because the majority of the season has been fantastic) AND one of the best AJ episodes).
So, that's 14 episodes where my opinion is notably different from the majority, in at least one way or another.
14/127= 0.1102
In other words, 11% of the episodes that have aired so far.
I could not believe Applejack's inefficiency and absurdity in her farm chores; seriously, she's supposed to be the farmer!! The feed chickens individually thing was kinda stupid. And so was the irrigation. My goodness!
But it was hilarious, and it hammered the moral hard. And we got to see Rainbow Dash indulging in her guilty pleasure!
Looks like I was right in predicting this would be a meh episode. I don't know why the writers refuse to give Applejack some development and take her off the farm for a while. This episode could've easily done so with its justifcation of Applejack being needed to monitor and fix problems at the spa.
I feel so sorry for Applejack, the only times she's ever a good character is when she's not the focus and has someone else to play off of. That's why "The Mane Attraction" worked, because it utilized Applejack as a support character and voice of reason instead of putting her in the spotlight on her own.
I loved that Aloe the spa pony was more vocal than she or Lotus Blossom have ever been in the whole series. Plus I'm glad they introduced two more spa pony workers who also share the same accent.
3979086 Eeyup. That seems to be a trend with AJ.
I did like this episode, and it did teach a moral: sometimes you need to break out of the normal routine for doing something and accept a faster, easier way to do it instead of making it complicated. Also, hilarity with old mare Rarity. Applejack has taken Scoots' role as best chicken. Applejack should get a side job as a plumber. I thought RD didn't like ponies touching her hooves; maybe she changed her mind.
She is a softie.
My father would love and hate that episode.
He always getting back on people on how inefficiently some are doing their work or how they follow a routine while never considering what they can do to improve it or worse, refuse to consider it.
I can easily relate to Applejack here. I do try to use good sense, but I am guilty of some unneeded habits, though not as blatant as AJ.
Like they say: "Old habits die hard."
Taylorism, the episode. If only the actual historical Taylor had been this humble...
3978997 Thing is, some of what we were seeing there might be sensible... depends on the mechanics of the irrigation system being used. What the hay were they irrigating? Nothing Sweet Apple Acres has canonical been shown growing should have been irrigated, unless Applejack is doing chores for the Danvers neighbors with their carrots and associated truck crops. Confirmation for the Apple family pigs being nonsapient?
3979086 Yeah, I can see that. Full of "things that superstitious local farmers do which isn't justifiable by the best science" arrogance from the academic toads who don't quite understand the local conditions. Yes, some cat-sitting-on-cold-stove situations occur, but more often than not the farmer knows her farm better than the know-it-all extension officer.
3979086 I see it as this:
AJ's just not designed to have the spotlight solely on her.
She NEEDS to have another pony to bounce off of.
That's not a knock against AJ as a character. But it DOEs mean that her episodes tend to be pretty dull for the most part (this being one of the few exceptions for me)
Characters like Rarity and RD are pretty much inherently going to work best in the spotlight. RD especially, seeing as she has the best track record for episodes.
3979036 I would say AJ's key character defect is her stubbornness as opposed to her unwitting hypocrisy.
Though I guess the former can lead to the latter.
3979214 Pigs have regularly been shown to be nonsapient. Also, Sweet Apple Acres has been shown to grow things other than apples. You will rarely find a farm or orchard that just grows one specialized crop. It doesn't make sense to plant just one specialized crop.
3979381 Up to this point they'very shown the Acres to grow field crops other than apples. In the real world, irrigation gets used for maize, cotton, rice, potatoes... maybe fanon has the Apples growing maize for their tenants/animals for silage. Nobody irrigates silage corn, let alone like that. And pigs have been a big question mark before now. I mean, unless you want to get into biblical justifications and clovenhooves without rumination and so forth... goats, which have been shown to hold jobs but not speak... pigs have just been around, not absolutely dumb like dogs, not talking like cows....
This episode had a bunch of stuff for farming nerds... that irrigation system was seriously old school. No plowing that field, that's hoof planting right there. Not sure how the chicken could get into the pig slop, let alone have any interest in it, they're clearly in different enclosures.
Applejack got some of the characterization usually given Apple Bloom in fanon in terms of obsessive engineering...
3979580
You don't pay enough attention. The Apples have been shown growing and harvesting corn, grapes, and carrots on their own land.
Right direct from the wiki, just so you know I'm not pulling this out of my ass:
Like I said, there is no farm anywhere that only grows one thing. Except the Pie Family Rock Farm. But that's a rock farm, which is ridiculous to begin with.
No they haven't.
You should probably do research and pay closer attention to things in the show. Otherwise, you make fruitless, ill-informed arguments that can be easily countered just by looking up Sweet Apple Acres on the MLP Wiki. Or, you know, having watched the show and paid attention.
3979329 So can the writing staff's constantly handing her the Idiot Ball because she has a Vancouverite's idea of what a Southern accent is.
3979699 1. How does not knowing what a Southern accent really is lead to the writers hoofing her the Idiot Ball?
2. The only times I can ever think of where she held the Idiot Ball were:
Applebuck Season, where she was sleep deprived.
Somepony to Watch Over Me, which theoretically could take place back in season 1, seeing as there was nothing that really connected it to the rest of the season.
3979726
Stereotype of Southerners being stubborn and stupid.
3979777 Okay, but that's a stereotype of Southerners in general.
It doesn't have anything to do with the accent specifically.
3979809 Give a character a stereotypical hick accent, they'll be written like a stereotypical hick.
3978962 Simple:
Ponies are made of plastic!
Kind of logical, since they're supposed to be toys.
3980047 I guess that makes sense...