Dungeons and Discord Review · 5:31pm Aug 27th, 2016
A Discord episode? Well, his track record has been kind of hit and miss over the past two seasons. Perhaps that's why he's being paired up with Spike and Big Macintosh for this episode. Nick Confalone has returned to write this episode, he previously broke new ground with "No Second Prances" and "The Saddle Row Review", both of which saw him tackle a character in a lead role he hadn't handled before, this time he's taking a crack at writing Discord. Was Nick able to do a good job, or was this his first true misstep? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Discord hanging out with Fluttershy, who reveals she's been invited on a goodwill tour of Yakyakistan with her friends, courtesy of Princess Celestia. Discord wants to go, but Fluttershy says since it's a last minute arrangement he can't. She then suggests he join Spike and Big Mac's "Guys Night", and Discord isn't too thrilled with the idea of hanging out with so called "sidekicks". It takes a visit to opposite world, and a visit from opposite Fluttershy, to make him see sense.
Discord tries to stop the train from leaving, but Fluttershy holds him in check and makes sure he knows not to mess with the tracks. Meanwhile, the girls get ready to leave for Yakyakistan, and they're all packed up and ready. Applejack even mentions that Pinkie is the official expert since she visited that nation once before, albeit briefly.
As soon as the train departs, Spike and Big Mac start discussing their plans in secret, and Discord tries to ignore the urge to eavsedrop. Thankfully, he has no need, for Spike and Big Mac invite him to come over to Twilight's castle at sundown for their not-so-secret guys night. Discord at first expresses no interest, but soon enough he relents. However, upon arriving at the castle (through an overly dramatic fanfare), he is more than a little disappointed to learn the guys will be playing a game of Ogres and Obuliettes, the official pony version of Dungeons and Dragons, first introduced in the IDW comics.
Spike sets himself up as the dungeon master, and it becomes painfully obvious he's still got feelings for Rarity. In game he's a powerful wizard, and Big Mac is a magnificent unicorn warrior complete with sword and shield. Discord reluctantly joins in, as an archer, but he's quite disappointed when he can't cast any spells, and is constantly humiliated. He tries to get Spike and Big Mac interested in a more traditional guys night, but they just want to play the game. So Discord agrees, with a twist, he teleports them into the game itself, and serves as the dungeon master. And of course, the pain is real, but then what do you expect from Discord?
Spike and Big Mac demand that Discord return the game to normal, and reveal that they invited him over because they felt sorry for him. Discord is crushed at such a revelation, but when he comes back after wandering off he apologizes and the game resumes, with a new twist. The mane six come home to find the entire castle is an Ogres and Oubliettes playing field, and Spike and Discord work together to take down the squid wizard with an ice arrow. Twilight suggests just leaving and letting the guys have their fun, but Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash decide it looks like fun and decide to join in. Rainbow Dash is a rouge, and Pinkie Pie is a bard. But hey, at least she's not a gypsy.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, although the pacing lags in the middle, and the main selling point (playing the game for real) comes into play really late in the story, it's still really good for the first episode focused solely on the guys. Spike is once again treated really well, and while it might have been nice to have Big Macintosh speak a bit more normally at points (maybe they could've done so if they'd focused on the real RPG playing, in which he speaks in character), he does get some good moments (including a great laugh). Though better than his previous appearance, Discord is still somewhat of a jerk here, though it's understandable why someone like him would find a table top RPG to be boring (and let's be honest, not many people these days still play table top RPGs), but he manages to make up for it by being a huge ham. I would've also liked for a line or two about Shining Armor (maybe they were going to invite him, but he couldn't spare the time), still this episode manages to hold up really well. In the end, I narrowly give it an A+, putting it above "Spice Up Your Life" because I can't stomach that anti-critic message from a show that's usually so good about taking criticism, but below "A Hearth's Warming Tail" which despite being yet another parody of "A Christmas Carol" managed to be unique and entertaining with some really good songs ("Luna's Future" and "Pinkie's Present" remain tough acts to top). This episode's not completely perfect, but for the first episode to focus solely on the guys (even "Brotherhooves Social" and "Gauntlet of Fire" had lots of screen time for female characters), six seasons in, it's great. Let's hope we get more some guy focused episodes in the future.
Next week we've got a new writer for the episode "Buckball Season", in which it turns out Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are really good buckball players, so Applejack and Rainbow Dash decide to coach them for an upcoming match against Appleloosa. But when their coaching goes too far, Pinkie and Fluttershy apparently lose the big game. Yeah, right now the synopsis is a tad bit confusing, but I sure hope that it's not another episode where one or more of our main characters unreasonably act like jerks, especially for Rainbow Dash's sake. Even though I'm not much of a sports person, I'm hoping the episode will be decent, especially since it'll be our first PinkieShy episode (and one that will hopefully finally clear up the stain of "Filli Vanilli" for their interactions). But in the meantime, well, I'll let The Game Grumps do the joke.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't already be sure to check out this blog post, and give me your honest opinion about the question.
Of course he does. They won't go away unless he finds someone else who he'd love more than her, which is highly unlikely. Heck, even if Rarity DID end up with someone other than him, his feelings would still be there for a while.
For me, while the beginning and ending make up for the middle being a bit slow, I find this overall to be one of the weaker episodes of the season. However, it's still really great.
Is it me... Or did you ignore the Jazz part of the episode?
Anyways, it was ok. But I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't about being in the game that much... I wanted to see them play through it not have drama but the Jazz was awesome.
I like your review !
but ... I didn't really care for this episode I think they could of done a way better job.
Also it "kind of" reminds me of benders game. Just saying
Well for it being a Discord episode, this was one of the better ones, unlike the last one. But yeah, it's nice to male a character focused episode, I would like to see more of it sometime in the future.
I liked the episode; it had its funny moments. Pinkie and Dashie wanting to be two of the guys was funny. Discord definitely was a jerk, but it was nice to see him make two more friends. And yeah, Shining Armor or even Bulk Biceps would've made the episode better, possibly.