Today’s our penultimate review. Fillies and Gentlecolts, may I present for your amusement, “Owl’s Well That Ends Well.”

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TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 1
Episode: 24
Written By: Cindy Morrow
First Aired: April 22, 2011

SUMMARY:

On the night of a meteor shower, Twilight and Spike are packing up to join their friends for a hilltop picnic. While finishing up their preparations, however, Twilight asks Spike to retrieve an old astronomy book for her. When he does so, however, a cloud of dust causes him to sneeze a blast of fire that reduces the tome’s pages to ash. He quickly hides the evidence and follows Twilight out to the hilltop, feigning ignorance over where the book is. The others are already there, all of them taking turns to baby Spike, culminating with Rarity giving him a gem-encrusted bowtie. Shortly after the shower begins, however, Spike falls asleep in the punch bowl.

After taking him home, Twilight begins work on a report on the shower, only for her notes to blow away thanks to a breeze. Fortunately, a passing owl grabs and returns them, and to thank him, Twilight invites him inside to stay warm. The next morning, Spike wakes up late, and tries to rush down to get breakfast finished, but to his amazement the owl, now named Owlowiscious, has not only made breakfast, but also finished all of his morning chores. This leaves Spike feeling more than a little jealous, and things only get worse when the same ponies that had been showering him with praise one night prior now turn all their love to the owl, even giving him the same bowtie they gave Spike. Fluttershy points out that Spike might be feeling jealous, but Twilight just laughs it off.

Later in the day, Spike tries to impress Twilight by being the best assistant, but Owlowiscious always outshines him. Finally, when Twilight’s quill breaks, he rushes out to get a replacement. After a harrowing battle with a chicken, he returns to find that the owl already gave Twilight one of its feathers to use. Enraged, Spike runs off to finish his chores and prove his worth…only to collapse almost immediately. While he was asleep, however, Owlowiscious found the burnt astronomy book, and he’s awakened by a very upset Twilight. Despite his best efforts to control the damage, she berates him for lying, saying she is very disappointed in him before leaving for elsewhere. Spike immediately blames Owlowiscious for this, and sets out to get revenge.

Donning a cape, hat and twirly moustache, Spike sneaks into Carousel Boutique and steals one of Opalescence’s mouse toys. He then returns to the library while Twilight’s gone and rips the toy to shreds. While he’s applying the ketchup blood, however, he bumps into a returned Twilight, and rather than flee or drop the plan, he continues his scheme by saying that Owlowiscious ripped up a poor, helpless field mouse. Naturally, Twilight lectures him again, telling him that this is not the Spike she knows and loves.

Unfortunately, Spike misinterprets this to mean that she doesn’t love him anymore and runs away into the Everfree Forest. It immediately starts to rain, but as luck would have it, he’s found a cave full of gemstones! Too bad said cave already belongs to a very large green dragon, who’s none too pleased to discover an intruder eating his gems. But then comes WONDER OWL, who easily distracts the dragon while Twilight grabs Spike and bolts. But the path is dark! Never fear, WONDER OWL is here! Using his night vision, he easily guides the two out of the Everfree Forest and back into the outskirts of Ponyville.

Spike explains why he ran away, but Twilight responds that she never meant to replace him as her assistant; she just wanted Owlowiscious to help out with the nighttime chores so that Spike could get more sleep. Realizing how stupid he’s been, Spike apologizes to the Gary Stu owl, and the three return to the library. This time, Spike writes the letter to Celestia, telling her that he’s learned that jealousy and lies get you nowhere and that there’s plenty of love to go around. And then he falls asleep.

REVIEW:

Let’s clear the air on this right now: “Owl’s Well That Ends Well” is not a good episode by any stretch of the imagination. Even FPK and OaB got their defenders, but virtually nobody came out to extol the virtues of this one. Even after “Mysterious Mare-Do-Well” came along to become the show’s lightning rod of hate, it still seems like the fans will gladly hold up that episode over this one. Why? Well, read on and find out.

The episode opens with Twilight and Spike grabbing supplies for the meteor shower, but that’s not what’s important here. Instead, the episode immediately starts building onto Spike’s relationship with Twilight, which feels almost like a mother/son kind of thing. This, along with Twilight hatching Spike’s egg, is one of the factors that led to the long-held belief that Spike views Twilight as sort of his mother, although Word of Faust has since said that she intended Celestia to be Spike’s mother figure. This fits the rest of the episodes better, where Spike is more of a bratty little brother than anything else. That, and a six-year-old raising a baby is downright awful, especially when said infant belongs to a species that nopony knows anything about, can breathe fire, and is capable of eating rocks.

What makes this significant, however, is that Spike is shown fawning for Twilight’s affection, much like an actual small child. He dutifully prepares everything they need, even making punch and baking cookies. I’m actually kind of amazed that he’s able to fit all that stuff into a red wagon and roll it down the stairs without anything falling out. Equestria is where the laws of physics go to die.

We also get part of the later conflict set up with the astronomy book, which Spike accidentally destroys. This comes into play later on, but it also ties into Spike’s personality throughout the episode. Despite his pleas to the contrary, he thrives on the affection of the others, especially Twilight, who calls him her “#1 Assistant.” This becomes more evident at the picnic, where he acts like he doesn’t want the others babying or praising him at all, but then implores them to continue the minute they do what he asks and stops. And after Rarity gives him the tie, he ties to shift the praise session back to Twilgiht, who finally kills the discussion in a motherly way.

We also get another look at Scootaloo’s worship of Rainbow Dash:

I’d show the whole scene, but unfortunately all the copies on YouTube seem to end with sex jokes. Even worse, this episode was where Scootabuse came from. Let’s just end the discussion with that, since it has no bearing on the episode, is downright stupid and horrid, and sits alongside the reaction to MMDW and Derpgate as the third worst thing in the history of the fandom. Bronies, I am disappoint.

Anyway, the meteor shower itself is a gorgeous bit of animation, and is really the only completely positive thing about the episode. If anything, just hunt down this clip and give it a good watch. Of course, this is where Spike’s narcolepsy kicks in, leading us to yet another wonderfully out-of-context clip:

Alas, this is where the episode begins its descent. Twilight stars writing a report on meteors, only for her report to blow out the window. Now, Twilight is capable of telekinesis and teleportation, so how does she get it back? She starts panicking that this is a job for Spike, the baby dragon who’s fast asleep. This is one of my big complaints with how their relationship is portrayed, both in this episode and others. Twilight, for all her claims of loving Spike, treats him like he’s her slave. She rarely shows him any consideration, simply using him to fetch books, clean the library, cook the meals, and perform all the chores while she runs off and plays with her friends or just re-studies something she already studied. This becomes worse in Season Two, where he was seemingly abandoned several episodes at a time simply because he was no longer necessary for the moral.

And then we meet Owlowiscious. On a conceptual level, an owl is the perfect pet for a pony like Twilight. After all, owls are frequently portrayed as being wise and learned beings, and while Twilight’s WIS score tends to fluctuate, she’s still studious and learned. What makes Owlowiscious annoying, however, is that he’s portrayed as being better than Spike at everything, treated like he’s the greatest thing ever, and in the end saves the day because he’s so perfect and awesome and awesomely perfect. It gets worse once you factor in how the episode treats Spike, casting him as a jealous knucklehead in his first episode to himself. The juxtaposition of these two only serves to weaken the episode as a whole.

One other thing that annoys me about Owlowiscious is that each scene with him basically has one joke: a modified retelling of Abbot and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First?” routine. The first time it happened, it was kind of funny, especially when Spike’s eye twitches at the end. But the problem is that they never chance the joke. Even the Benny Hill gag was different both times they ran it.

I know I just complained about it a paragraph ago, but Spike’s jealousy is actually introduced fairly well. While the episode mostly portrays it as being about him being replaced as Twilight’s #1 Assistant, the underlying subtext talks about the fear children have of being replaced by a younger sibling. The kids the show is targeted at would be at just the right age for this kind of anxiety to set in, and Spike’s attempts to endear himself to Twilight – and later, to frame Owlowiscious for wrongdoing – are the kind of things kids actually do in this situation. This becomes especially evident when the Mane 6 are fawning over the owl like they would a new baby, while Spike just snarks for a bit before storming off. Heck, Fluttershy – probably the most traditionally motherly of the cast – even goes so far as to warn Twilight about this.

Unfortunately, Twilight – despite living with the dragon for a good chunk of her life and thus probably knowing him better than anypony else – fails to notice the bloody obvious signs and just laughs off Fluttershy’s concerns. And she keeps failing spot checks for the rest of the episode, even as Spike makes it clear that he just wants to impress her. She doesn’t tell him until she’s already made a book ladder that Owlowiscious found the tome she was looking for, and when the owl removes one of the books Spike was standing on, she barely acknowledges when he crashes into the ground. And when her quill breaks…well, this one was Spike’s fault, so I don’t hold any ill will towards her here. She at least tries to call him back. Shame that head trauma she got in “Look Before You Sleep” caused her to forget how to teleport; at least she got that power back once Discord’s influence was removed.

Spike’s quest for a quill is mostly some stock gags, but I do love the first one with “Quills and Sofas.” The sheer absurdity of a store that sells only those two things is funny all on its own. Pinkie throwing out a bunch of things that start with “Q” is kind of funny, although I do wonder why she had a quail back there. As for the chicken…yeah, I saw this one coming a mile away. And right at the end, Spike learns that his adventure was for naught, because Owly McAwesomeowl already loaned Twilight one of his feathers. Unfortunately, I can’t find a clip of when Spike walked in on Owlowiscious in the tub. That part was also somewhat funny in an absurd sense.

The transition from “Spike is jealous and cute” to “Horse apples just got real” is incredibly sudden, but at least it’s staged fairly well. Twilight is very much in her right here to chew Spike out for what happened to the book, and I like how she’s more upset that he lied to her rather than the fact that he burned the book. At least he got away with only a stern reprimand and lecture. Of course, being a jealous brat, Spike instantly accuses Owlowiscious of setting him up, and thus goes to do the same thing. This leads to one of my favorite gags in the episode, as Spike does his best Snidely Whiplash cosplay.

Spike’s plan is, in a word, stupid. He tries to make Opal’s mouse toy look like it’s been torn to shreds in an epic struggle with Owlowiscious by tearing out its stuffing, using ketchup for blood (with a footprint trail that will be important later), and finally tearing up one of Twilight’s pillows. Fortunately, the episode remembers how much it loves to point out stupidity like this and has Twilight catch him in the act. And thus, in the last funny joke of the episode, Spike immediately takes off his costume and acts like he’s just wandered into the room, acting as dramatically as possible to sell the gruesome murder of the rare stuffed field mouse to Twilight. Of course, Twilight is simultaneously angry that he’d try to frame Owlowiscious and that he’d put such little thought into it.

But then it happens. Rather than send Spike back up to the bedroom to think about what he’s done, or continue to lecture him about what’s right and wrong, and thus have a chance of finding out what drove him to this, she says this isn’t the Spike she loves and walks away. Needless to say, Spike takes the combination of her words and seeming abandonment to mean that she doesn’t love him anymore. Now obviously, that’s not true, but this kind of apparent rejection is something that kids, especially around Spike’s age, would be very sensitive to, especially after trying so hard to impress them. Even worse, Twilight leaves with the owl, which perfectly matches up with Spike’s fears of being replaced. In other words, Twilight did everything wrong. And that is why I will never see her as Spike’s mother, no matter how many heartwarming fics and art I see.

I will say this, though. This clip here is one of the saddest moments in the entire show:

This, of course, leads to Spike running away, complete with that little knapsack all kids carry when they run off in Fictionland. Choosing the Everfree Forest to run into is kind of an odd move, but considering he no longer has anything to live for, I guess it makes sense that he’d go into the most horrifying place in Equestria to live as a wild beast. This scene is milked for ever last ounce of melodrama, from the dark colors to the inevitable rainstorm. And then comes the dragon, which sets up the last part of our conflict, as well as the part where I grab my TV to chuck it out a window, remember that I have no money for a replacement, and finally set it back down gently to continue the review.

Owlowiscious flies in and easily distracts the dragon, allowing Twilight to get Spike out of the cave. And by “distract easily” I mean the owl effortlessly dodges every attack, gets the dragon to beam itself with its own tail, and just trounces the giant, rampaging beast like it was nothing. AND THEN it guides the two out of the forest when it becomes too dark to see. Folks, if you want to know why I hate this episode, you’re looking at one of the biggest reasons. Throughout the episode, there were small hints that Owlowiscious may not have quite been as innocent as he let on, from his eyes glinting in the window to him creepily turning his head towards Spike after Twilight busted him. Now, I knew from the beginning that he wouldn’t be evil or anything; I just figured it would be a series of red herrings, with Spike finally realizing he was getting jealous over nothing. But what they do here is undercut Spike as a character and make him out to be little more than a possessive brat, while pumping up the owl until it’s practically infallible.

When Spike finally reveals why he ran away, Twilight does what she should have done and explains why she got a second assistant in the first place, and that Spike will still always be her #1. I’d gripe some more, but this is a very common flaw in the show’s writing. A good story should not hinge on the characters being able to fix everything with a single sentence. Even worse, Twilight’s apology about not being more sensitive doesn’t sit well after she had been told this was happening, saw that it was happening, but did nothing to try and rectify the situation until after Spike had almost gotten himself killed.

As for the moral…it’s actually a good one, I’ll admit. On the one hand, it could work for anyone whose friend just made another friend that they don’t know; it doesn’t devalue your friendship with them, as there’s still plenty of love to go around. Likewise, if you take the “new sibling” approach, it works on a family level, telling the older children that their parents will still love them even after a new baby arrives.

CONCLUSION:

I really, really dislike this episode for several reasons. First and foremost, there’s that blasted owl. Owlowiscious is portrayed so aggravatingly perfect that you just know it has to be a setup for a twist…so when nothing like that comes, it just leaves him completely flat at the expense of Spike. Second, this is Spike’s first episode, and he ends up playing the antagonist for most of it. And third, Twilight is portrayed as being completely and utterly dense, to the point where she ignores Spike’s feelings even after they’re pointed out to her. While she’s right to be angry and disappointed with him, the implications the episode raises are very, very unfortunate. And even beyond these points, there’s not a whole lot to recommend here. Most of the comedy falls flat, and outside of the visually impressive meteor shower, the visuals aren’t anything to cheer about, either. The thing with the dragon comes completely out of left field, and is just there to make the owl look more heroic, thus leaving us with a disappointing conclusion to the episode’s conflict.

In other words, I don’t like this one.

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Well, there’s only one left. We’re nearing the ends, folks. Tune in tomorrow for the grand finale.