Well, let’s look at #34, “Secret of My Excess.”

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TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 2
Episode: 10
Written By: M. A. Larson
First Aired: December 10, 2011

SUMMARY:

On the dawn of the library’s re-shelving day, Spike emerges with a perfectly-aged Fire Ruby, which he plans to eat during his birthday a week later. When a visiting Rarity sees the gem, however, she charms it off of him, gives him a kiss on the cheek, and then leaves. A week later, everypony returns to the library for the birthday celebration, even bringing Spike presents. This is unusual for him, since in all the time his birthday’s been celebrated, the only thing he’s ever gotten is books from Twilight.

After receiving a ton of gifts, Spike rushes off to Sugar Cube Corner for a gem-encrusted cupcake Pinkie and the Cakes had made for him. But while trying to get said cake back to the library, he bumps into Cheerilee, and when she hears it’s his birthday, she gives him a pimp hat. The tiny wheels in Spike’s brain start clicking, and before long he uses his birthday to con people into giving him more gifts. Twilight, however, catches him in the act and sternly tells him to return his ill-gotten gains. He agrees…but the moment she’s out of sight, he begins planning to get even more stuff…

The next morning, Twilight awakens to discover that Spike’s bed is now buried under mountains of items. She angrily clears them aside, only to discover that her “baby dragon” has had a massive growth spurt overnight. Even worse, he’s obsessed with grabbing everything in sight, and neither one has any idea what’s going on. They try a doctor, but he won’t work on a dragon. They try a vet, but a dragon only flummoxes her. Finally, they go to Zecora, who reveals that dragons are naturally greedy creatures obsessed with hoarding things. The bigger the hoard, the bigger the dragon, and the bigger the dragon gets, the greedier they become. Unfortunately, Spike uses the distraction to steal everything in Zecora’s hut before fleeing to try and take Scootaloo’s scooter, all while his intelligence is dimming to the point where he stops speaking and starts acting purely on instinct.

Twilight tries to lock Spike in the library, but he breaks through the wall and rampages across town. He steals all the apples (and leaves) off of every tree in Sweet Apple Acres, grabs Fluttershy’s chicken coop to use as a basket for said plants and shrubbery, and finally attacks Sugar Cube Corner. Pinkie’s attempts to assault him with cake only make him bigger, and he smashes through the side of the building and walks to Carousel Boutique, where he grabs Rarity in his tail.

Now a full-grown dragon, he starts scooping up everything he can find, but stops when the Wonderbolts arrive and begin an assault. Eyeing a nearby mountain cave (possibly on the same mountain as in “Dragonshy”), he climbs up, stuffs his hoard inside, and then traps the Wonderbolts inside the top of the town’s water tower. Rarity, however, is enraged that he tore her new cloak, and her shouts draw his attention back to her. Before he could make a move to finish her, however, he notices the Fire Ruby necklace. Thinking he wants to steal that as well, Rarity says that it was a gift from a very generous friend. This reminder of who he was breaks the greed in Spike’s heart, causing him to revert back to a normal, baby form…while both he and Rarity are several miles up in air.

On the way to their deaths, Spike tries to confess his crush to Rarity, but she silences him, implying that she knew the whole time. Fortunately, Dash and Fluttershy use the torn part of Rarity’s cloak to catch the two and deliver them to safety. A short time later, Spike is overlooking the destruction he has wrought with no small degree of guilt, but Rarity telling him how proud she is that he fought back against his greed makes him feel better. And so the episode ends with Spike sending Celestia a letter, telling her that he’s learned that it’s better to give than to receive.

REVIEW:

The prologue brings back Twilight’s newly-acquired OCD tendencies, albeit in a much lighter and less annoying form than in other episodes. “Re-Shelving Day” is just hilarious in concept, and I enjoy the spectacle of the books rotating around her while she’s casually sorting the tomes onto the appropriate shelves. Of course, this ends when Spike distracts her, causing the books to tumble onto her (with one even getting impaled on her horn). It’s just a cute scene.

All of this immediately leads to Rarity entering the library, discovering Spike’s Fire Ruby. And when she learns he’s going to eat something that rare, she tries to gnaw her marshmallow leg off before manipulating Spike into giving her the gem he’s spent all this time aging. Honestly, this is one of Rarity’s lowest moments, next to what she did in “Sonic Rainboom.” We know from later in the episode that she already knows about his crush, so it’s fair to assume that she already knew how he felt about her. Thus, she used his own emotions to make him give up something precious so she could use it as a fashion accessory. Or, you know, it really was just a gift, but either way, this scene doesn’t leave me with a very positive opinion of Rarity.

Of course, the kiss on his cheek is just part of an old-timey gag about not washing that spot again, and after skipping to a week later, his cheek’s now covered in an unseemly level of grime and sludge. This leads to one of the funniest parts of the episode, as Twilight tries to teleport Spike back over to her continuously, only for Pinkie to suddenly get teleported in before continuing like nothing happened.

The birthday party is humorous, heartwarming and depressing at the same time. On the one hand, Spike getting trampled by the gifts was cute, I loved Rainbow Dash giving him a dumbbell, and when we see the whole range of gifts, he’s got everything from blankets to kitchen sinks. On the other hand, seeing him be appreciative of all the gifts was very touching, especially since it’s his first birthday. And then it becomes depressing once you realize that he’s never had a birthday party, the only gifts he ever gets are books, and he’s so out of it that he doesn’t even recognize what presents are. And once you factor in how this all turns out, it seems like he’ll never have a birthday party again, or at least one with presents.

The scene out in Ponyville is mostly just showing Spike’s gradual descent into darkness. The cupcake was interesting, although I mostly love it for when he stuck his tongue out to catch it. Cheerilee giving him the hat was also cute. There’s even Derpy popping up out of the well. But then the wheels start turning, and we begin to see the effect all this is having on Spike. It’s a good thing Twilight stopped him when she did. Still, you can also see that he’s not completely gone just yet, as he does seem at least a little sorry for letting his greed get the better of him. Of course, once her back is turned, he slips right back into evil mode…

And then we get to the puberty part of the episode. Where Cutie Marks seem to represent a sort of mental adolescence, with each pony who gets one coming to understand themselves a bit better and realizing what their goals in life are, Spike’s rapid growth is shown more in the light of physical adolescence in males. His hastening growth, deepening voice, and desires overriding his thinking are all symptomatic for the most part, albeit now filtered through a dragon’s greed. This scene, however, highlights another qualm with the episode; namely, why nopony knows anything about dragons. You’d think Twilight or Princess Celestia would have done at least a little research by this point.

The scenes with the doctor and the vet are mostly just more comedy. Both basically repeat the same joke, only in one he’s treated like a kid, while in the other he’s treated like a doc. Still, I do like the vet part a bit more, if only because of Spike’s reaction to getting offered the dog treat. And so we turn to Zecora, who is able to solve everything in seconds. When will medical science learn that they have nothing on a rhyming zebra who lives in a hut in the middle of an evil forest?

The idea of dragons rapidly growing as they hoard is…well, I suppose it’s interesting. It only makes sense if you consider it to be some kind of premature growth, or an early defense system against other dragons. Still, the fact that teenage dragons exist seems to indicate that it’s something they either get over, or the presence of adult dragons helps keep it in line. In any case, Zecora’s rhyming here is pretty off, and shows the challenge when it comes to writing a speech style like hers. I do love Spike stealing everything in the hut under their nose, though.

And that’s pretty much the rest of the episode. Spike steals stuff, gets bigger, steals more stuff, gets bigger, and so forth. Meanwhile, Twilight and the others keep failing to catch him. Applejack and Twi tying themselves to a tree was hilarious, especially when Dash came by to laugh at them. Fluttershy hiding on a tree branch was also funny, and shows that her fear of dragons has not gone away. And of course, we have Pinkie assaulting him with cake, which was hilarious. And it all ends with Spike, now fully-grown, kidnapping Rarity King Kong-style…despite looking more like Godzilla. We’re mixing up our Kaijus here…even though King Kong was an American invention that thus doesn’t technically qualify as…but he did fight Godzilla once and…whatever, focus on the episode.

One of the things I do like about this episode is the way Twilight reacts. She’s legitimately scared of what’s happening to Spike, and by the end of the episode, things have gotten so bad that she can only watch as her adorable baby dragon thrashes Ponyville. Another thing I found interesting was how Spike was still hoarding throughout the trip. He takes the candy dish from the doctor’s office, puts the dog treat in it rather than eat it, and when he steals the apples and leaves, he then takes the chicken coop to serve as a bigger basket. And when even that is too small, he takes the water tower and uses that as a bin. He might have lost his ability to talk and communicate, but he’s still a clever destructive monster.

I also love this scene:

After this, it pretty much becomes a straight giant monster flick, with Spike rampaging through town, getting attacked by the Wonderbolts, climbing up a tall mountain, and finally defeating the military’s attempts to stop him. But then we get to his reaction to the Fire Ruby, which triggers a very different flashback from what actually happened. And thus, Spike reverts back, but rather than just shrink down, he snaps back into his baby form…in mid-air. All of this, of course, is to facilitate this scene:

I’ve said in the past that I’m not a fan of Spike/Rarity, and I’m still not for a multitude of reasons. However, this scene is just perfect, and goes a long way towards redeeming her in my eyes at least.

Dash and Fluttershy make the save, stopping them just before they would have slammed into the water. (By the way, water will not save you from falling from a great height; in reality, that would be like slamming into concrete.) And so we end the way these things usually do, with everypony congratulating Spike on stopping the destructive rampage he started by overcoming the greed that wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t given him all those gifts. Oh, and I love that sad look he has as he looks over the destruction he has wrought.

As for the moral…it’s okay. A bit far-fetched to get there, but it’s okay.

CONCLUSION:

So, it sounds amazingly positive, right? Well, the truth is that I don’t care much for this episode. It has a lot of good points, but there are some other, more meta reasons for my dislike. For the second time in a row, Spike gets an episode where he’s the villain, and what’s really sad is that even in “Dragon Quest,” he still tries to join a gang of jerkass dragons, thereby becoming more of an antagonist to the ponies watching over him. I really want him to have more appearances like “A Dog and Pony Show,” where he managed to prove himself as being more heroic and capable than he appears. He doesn’t need to be used solely to prove to little girls how stupid boys are.

The other problem is that the way Spike matures just doesn’t click with me. It actually feels like the setup for an ultimately tragic tale where he’ll have to leave his friends and surrogate family forever just to avoid crushing their houses. And since dragons are just born greedy, he has to watch himself whenever he receives anything ever again. He can’t have another party like this one, despite how much he loved it, because it could just reignite that speck of greed and turn him into a monster again. In the end, it’s just…depressing to think about.

Still, it’s a decent episode if you can avoid thinking about it too hard. I wouldn’t count it anywhere near the top, and still think it’s one of the weaker episodes of the second season, but it’s nowhere near as bad as Spike’s first episode.

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And that’s our first Spike episode in these reviews. Man, I am in for a world of pain.