...I know I…always encourage civility when discussing these reviews and the episodes, but this time…I really have to ask you to keep things under control. I’m pretty sure things have calmed down since then, but…I have to make sure. This is…a minefield.

Ladies and gentlemen… #38… “The Last Roundup.”

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TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 2
Episode: 14
Written By: Amy Keating Rogers
First Aired: January 21, 2012

SUMMARY:

It’s rodeo time, and Applejack is busying herself up for the Equestria Rodeo Competition. She’s already won first place in every local rodeo, and is a shoe-in to win in the national competition. This event is even more important; Ponyville’s town hall was recently destroyed, and her prize money will go a long way to fixing the place up. After making a promise to return with blue ribbons and prize money, Applejack departs by train to Canterlot.

A few days later, the rest of Ponyville sets up a welcome party to celebrate Applejack’s success. Unfortunately, all they get is a telegram telling them that AJ isn’t coming back and will send money soon. The news is a surprise to everypony, and downright shocks the rest of the Apples. With no leads to go on, our heroes depart for Canterlot to figure out what happened. After striking out on lead after lead, somepony finally points them to Dodge Junction, where they find Applejack completely by accident.

Before she can tell them what happened, however, they’re interrupted by Cherry Jubilee, who runs the local cherry orchard. After confirming that Applejack kicked flank in the rodeo, she tells them that AJ said she wanted a “change of scenery” and decided to work cherries for a time. Her friends don’t buy that this is the whole story, but Applejack refuses to speak any more about it and walks off.

Soon after, AJ is performing one of her jobs: walking in a giant wheel to move a conveyer belt. Her friends, however, have taken jobs as cherry sorters to get closer to her, and are pushing the cherries from the belt into different bins. Soon after starting, though, Twilight starts trying to dance around the issue, asking how the rodeo went and trying to get AJ to open up. Unfortunately, she soon refuses to answer any questions about what happened, and in her frustration starts running faster and faster, until Fluttershy finally yells at her to stop…halting the belt and sending cherries splattering everywhere. An evasive AJ leaves, while the others plot their next move…

Later on, AJ is harvest cherries from the trees when Pinkie arrives to help. However, Pinkie’s real plan is to annoy Applejack to the breaking point by rambling about chimicherrychangas and kumquats until she finally breaks. She tells the rest that she’ll give the whole story at breakfast, and even makes a pinkie promise. The next day, the five go to her room to check…and she’s gone.

It is right then that we learn the one rule governing all Equestrias: NEVER BREAK A PINKIE PROMISE.

An enraged Pinkie and the others track AJ down to the train station, where she’s desperately trying to flee. After having the fear of Celestia pounded into her by Pinkie’s demonic voice, AJ commanders a horse-drawn wagon and starts riding out of town. Dash and Fluttershy hook themselves up to another and give chase, and after a near-fail due to a bunny, finally manage to catch up. Pinkie jumps over and demands an apology, but AJ counters by saying that she broke no promise: she said she’d tell the truth at breakfast, but didn’t go to breakfast, and thus didn’t lie.

For whatever reason, Pinkie accepts this and jumps back, slamming into Rarity and sending both tumbling out of the wagon. Dash refuses to slow down, which turns out to be a prudent choice: a train is coming, and if Applejack can make enough distance, she’ll escape for good. To the horror of the ponies pulling, she forces them through, barely making it over the tracks before the train passes. The pullers quickly say “Screw this,” and leave, with AJ now safe…

Until she remembers that Dash and Fluttershy can fly.

The pursuing wagon lands safely on the other side, and when AJ tries to gallop off again, Dash simply unhooks herself and tackles her, sending the contents of her saddlebags flying out and exposing the horrible truth. Applejack did win a ton of ribbons…but didn’t place first in a single event, and thus won no prize money. She was so ashamed at failing to live up a promise she made that she chose to run off and make money somewhere else rather than come home a failure. Her friends, however, reassure her that no matter what place she came in, she’s still cool in their eyes.

Finally, Applejack returns home, all while narrating her letter: You shouldn’t run away from your problems, but instead should run to your friends and family. Just like Rarity and Pinkie Pie, who were still abandoned in the desert and have to ride a hoofcart back to Ponyville. Along the way, Pinkie resumes her discussion of the merits of chimicherrychongas, and Rarity plots her revenge on Rainbow Dash…

REVIEW:

“The Last Roundup” is a bit of an oddball when it comes to quality. On the one hand, it has some good humor, builds on Applejack’s character, and is one of the few Season Two episodes to feature all six ponies. On the other hand, there’s a lot that just doesn’t work as well as it should have, which leaves us with what amount to an “okay” episode altogether. Oh, and there’s that one thing I’ll rant about at the bottom.

The opening scene with Applejack practicing for the rodeo actually accomplishes quite a bit in a short prologue. First, it establishes (for the first time since “Fall Weather Friends”) that AJ is a top-notch athlete, able to perform great in a wide variety of competitive events. Second, it shows that she has every reason to believe she’ll win; she’s cleaned up the local circuit, so what’s to stop her from doing the same to the nationals? And last, we see a bit of her leg tap one of the hurdles as she jumps; tiny mistakes like this will cost anyone in a race like this. It’s also cute to see Apple Bloom cheering her sister on again.

The scene at town hall is mostly there for more exposition (plus some slapstick). Rainbow Dash getting slammed through the floor, followed by getting dragged by her “help” is fairly humorous, but otherwise unnecessary in every way. All we need to know is that the town hall is in ruins and that Applejack is promising her prize money to fix it as thanks for all the times Ponyville’s supported her own rodeo days. The same can be said for the train station; the mayor pointing out that she needs the money is rather distracting and just there for jokes, but the Apples wishing her luck before leaving is heartwarming. When combined with her promise to the town, this builds up the obvious pressure that will break her by episode’s end. (Personally, I would have won the rodeo first and then offered the money; that way, there’s no obligation. However, without that, we would have no episode.)

The party scene, unfortunately, is where we get one of the bits that don’t work this episode. Remember when I said that “Hearth’s Warming Eve” was sappy? Well, it has nothing on this episode. While there are some funny bits with Pinkie (I loved when she screwed up saying “SURPRISE” even after practicing for so long), and her leaving cake after Twilight slams the door into the telegram pony’s face (and on his birthday, too) was a reminder of her better days, the rest of the scene from that point on is…ugh. The dialogue from the Apples has left me committed to skipping past this section every time I rewatch, and the bit with Big Mac crying at the end felt very forced.

The rodeo is just there to kill more time. While it shows just how long they’ve been looking, it doesn’t need to be even half as long as it is. There are a few funny sight gags, but otherwise, the story doesn’t kick up again until we reach Dodge Junction, where the search for Applejack takes about as long as the search for Spock did. It’s somewhat funny to have Pinkie find her by going to the outhouse, but otherwise, it’s a pretty quick search, which leads us to the second part: Applejack’s evasion.

Cherry Jubilee is one of those characters I actually enjoy a little, and wish they had used a bit more of. As it stands, she only appears in two scenes to provide more exposition and deepen the mystery behind Applejack’s disappearance. I do like how the writers structured her comments here; she says that Applejack won the most ribbons, but neglects to mention which ribbons they were. Dash is also very confrontational in this scene, which I like. It does tie into her Element of Loyalty a bit; she’s loyal to her friends (which includes AJ) and Ponyville (which is distraught over AJ suddenly leaving) and is determined not to fail in helping either, even if it means yelling in her face.

The conveyer belt is a blatant reference to the famous chocolate factory scene from I Love Lucy, a show most kids in the target demographic will probably only remember via pop culture osmosis. This one, though, kind of tows the line between “referencing” and “plagiarism.” They even go so far as to replicate the costumes and many of the gags. The attempts to get Applejack to open up add a lot more to the central mystery, and I liked how everypony tried to see if it was something they did that offended her. (Rarity’s, “Is it because you were insulted when I insulted your hair?” is my favorite.) But overall, this one was a good bit of exposition mixed in with a scene stolen from a sixty-year-old television series.

Pinkie annoying Applejack is very divisive. Some love it for the comedy, and there is a fair bit of it. I loved Pinkie’s “chimicherrychongas” bit, her saying kumquat over and over, and Applejack’s horrified reaction. On the other hand, the bit runs into the same problem episodes like “The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well” did: the joke comes at the expense of the characterization. The idea that her friends find Pinkie so annoying that they’ll use her as a torture device is either the funniest thing ever, or just downright horrible. Really, this is just here to finally break Applejack and make her give a Pinkie Promise.

The next scene, Applejack has run off, and Pinkie angrily snaps at her breaking her promise. This part I actually don’t mind that much. We already know that she values trust between friends from “Green Isn’t Your Color,” and is downright militaristic when it comes to keeping your word. While that episode had to deal with secret keeping, Twilight actually made a regular and Pinkie Promise to the various ponies involved, and Pinkie was quite obsessive at making sure she kept it. So when Applejack not only breaks her promise, but does so in a straight-up underhanded fashion, not even Discord could stand up to her furious wrath.

And thus we get to the final chase scene, and quite possibly the biggest misstep of the entire episode. Some of the antics are amusing, like Fluttershy almost flipping the cart to stop for a bunny, and both sides offering bigger payouts to the ponies pulling Applejack’s cart. I also liked Pinkie’s rage during this segment…which all amounted to wanting AJ to apologize to her about it. And then it happens: Pinkie jumps back into the cart, slams into Rarity, and the two fall off. Rainbow Dash refuses to go back, since her attention is locked on getting Applejack.

For the most part, I don’t mind this part of the gag much. Rainbow Dash and the others promised to find AJ, and if they lose her here they may never find her again. What bugs me, though, is at the very end, the two have to go back to Ponyville using a hoofcart. Why didn’t they just go back after they caught Applejack? Leaving your friends behind temporarily to help somepony else is alright given the circumstances; abandoning them in the desert is just NOT COOL.

There is another little bit here that I’ve noticed a lot of people miss. Applejack breaks her promise and doesn’t tell them the truth at breakfast, which means she’s lying. Only she isn’t; she said she’d tell them at breakfast, but she didn’t go to breakfast. In fact, AJ really doesn’t lie at all; she just avoids the issue, and either clams up or redirects the conversation whenever anypony presses her to say why she left Ponyville. As we saw in “Party of One,” she a terrible liar, so if she tried to keep up this manipulation that way she’d be busted within moments. So she just hides, runs away, and tries to avoid facing the problem, which is actually the whole moral of the episode.

I loved the end of the chase. Applejack barreling her cart past the train was actually fairly exciting, and I loved how the others quickly left after realizing she’s psychotic. And then she stops to taunt her friends for being incapable of reaching her…which earns her a “Really?” head tilt from Twilight followed by Dash and Fluttershy just flying over the train. Whoops.

So Applejack is captured, and we finally learn why she left: because she failed. Cherry Jubilee was right when she said that Applejack won a ton of ribbons…but she didn’t win any events, which meant no prize money to fix town hall. Again, this ties into the whole “Element of Honesty” thing; a part of being honest is trying to fulfill the obligations and promises you make to others, and since Applejack didn’t win, she believes she failed her family (for not bringing home any blue ribbons) and the town (for not bringing home the prize money).

This all leads to the moral, which I like and dislike. The actual lesson is very solid, and something even adults need to remember: you can’t run away from your problems, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. Her friends still accept her as the same awesome pony as always, the town is still excited to see her, and it doesn’t matter whether or not she won. It’s a great, lovely little life lesson. And then they smother the whole thing in more sap than a forest of maple trees before topping it off with an entire dairy’s worth of cheese. Oh, this line here…

I like to think that I can handle cheesy lines like this; otherwise, quite a bit of this show would be hard to sit through. But this is one of those moments where it just goes way too far. Still, if you have a higher tolerance than I, enjoy.

CONCLUSION:

“The Last Roundup” does a lot of things right, but also makes some mistakes along the way. I can’t honestly call it a bad episode, but it’s definitely not one I’d rate as one of the season’s best. It has its moments, I liked that the whole gang was together again, and the moral was a good one, but it’s just an average episode all around.

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Well, that’s that. I guess it wasn’t really painful at all. I’m pretty sure I didn’t forget anything, did I?

Oh…that.

Look, if you don’t like me yelling a lot, please just ignore the rest of this rant. This is a…complex situation.

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DERPY:

This episode is not remembered for much that actually happened, but rather, for one scene at the very beginning. Rainbow Dash is setting up a banner when a lightning bolt almost singes here. And then she mutters the immortal line:

At this moment, a thousand bronies’ heads explode, either out of joy at Derpy Hooves, the fandom’s most well-known creation, getting an actual speaking bit, or out of rage that the staff would pander to this extreme. Unfortunately, soon after that, things went straight to hell. “The Last Roundup” was pulled from the episode rotation and iTunes, while manufactures received a cease-and-desist ordering that all products with her on them were to be no longer sold. A short time later, the CAD was rescinded, but the episode remained missing for about a month, and when it returned:

If you thought the reaction to MMDW was bad, you had no idea of the Inferno that erupted on the Internet that day. And with no obvious target, the bronies unleashed their rage on everyone involved. Hasbro, DHX, big-name fans, soccer moms, each other; everyone got slammed on something at one point or another. It wasn’t until AKR herself came out and explained the situation that things started to calm down.

As it turns out, originally the plan was to name her Ditzy Doo, which was mentioned in “Winter Wrap-Up” and has often been used by the fans who didn’t care for “Derpy.” The name was changed to Derpy after the higher-ups decided to make it a more blatant nod to the fans. Unfortunately, Tabitha St. Germain was never told the character was female, so she voiced her like a clumsy boy she knew. The name and the voice in the same scene, when mixed with the eyes and the general clumsiness of the character, caused quite a few people to be upset and notify Hasbro that the character came off as being a jab at the mentally disabled. AKR, who has a son with a mental disability, was upset once she learned of the connotations, but still advocated keeping it as-is out of sheer simplicity. Hasbro ultimately gave the order to have the scene changed, not removed, in order to hold off a potentially damaging lawsuit. And thus, we have the edit.

Now, here’s my view on the issue, and I know a lot of people probably won’t like it: I didn’t like the Derpy scene. It was cute and charming when I saw it the first time, but the second time I watched it I could tell that it was simply forced in there for the nod to the fans. It wasn’t necessary to the plot; they could have just showed the town hall in ruins without any explanation. It was funny at parts, but it was a very simple, slapstick kind of funny. And here’s the other thing: I hated Derpy’s voice. I really did find the voice a problem. I never wrote off any angry letters about it, but at the same time, her lines were rather grating to sit through.

However, I am not happy with the edit. The new voice is fine, but I’m not happy with everything else. I hated that they “fixed” her eyes; that really sends the wrong message for me. But most of all, I hated the lack of professionalism on DHX’s part. They had to make an edit to an existing episode, and that sucks. But at the same time, they made almost zero effort, and that is something I cannot respect. You are a professional animation company, and if someone gives you a crap job to do, you do it to your best ability.

But most of all, I hated the fandom’s response. Hasbro screwed up by not being more open about what had happened, but at the same time, there’s a whole mess of legal red tape that surrounds something like this. The fans, however, acted like they had been personally attacked, like Hasbro had planned all this in advanced just to piss everyone off. I hated how everypony attacked anyone who actually brought up that yeah, people were offended by the scene. I actually know quite a few mentally handicapped folks who were deeply upset over the scene and the edit, but if anyone ever brought this up on the web, they were shot down because there’s no way anyone could find the word “derpy” offensive. I mean, it just means clumsy, right?

Let me put it this way. If someone’s calling you gay, they probably don’t mean you’re “merry” and “carefree.” Likewise, “derpy” has been used as a slur in the past; heck, 4chan used the word that way before, and the old fanon interpretation was that Derpy really was mentally handicapped. In short, people can be – and were – offended by the scene. And I don’t think it’s right to just say they’re “thinking too hard.” The whole bit was a mess, and really shouldn’t have been there to begin with. And it’s the fans, not DHX or Hasbro or soccer moms, who ruined this moment. It hurt when she was edited, yes, but it’s just a background character in a piece of fiction, nothing more. And yet we all acted like spoiled children, further soiling our name and making ourselves out to be complete psychopaths utterly obsessed with a little girl’s television series.

I was horrified when I saw the sheer level of hate spewing about. I won’t say I was perfect, either, but this episode was a true mess that nearly finished what MMDW started. And that’s why I dreaded reviewing this episode; it’s impossible to talk about this without bringing up Derpygate. But I’m done. I don’t want to even think about the ugliness we showed during that incident. And that’s where I stand.

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Well…that’s…that.