Episode Review - S7E4 Rock Solid Friendship · 4:05pm Apr 29th, 2017

The most rockin' pony ever returns.

Pie family here! Coluratura callback! Lyra namedropped.

Maud's full name is "Maudalina Daisy Pie." I accept this.

Sooooo, Maud is the one who told Starlight about the magical rocks that can trap the cutie marks of her village. Maud helped Starlight become evil... didn't see that coming.

I like them bringing Starlight in here. My major problem with S6 was that Starlight vanished when she wasn't the focus of an episode, which made it easy to forget she existed. I want to see her in the background of episodes interacting with characters even when the episode doesn't focus on her. Also, her interactions with Maud were good, they felt natural, like the two were really bonding over things. Maud is also good here, in her debut she had change in her facial expression and voice fairly often, but S5 and S6 really played up the stoic. Here we see more of her original characterization with visible changes in facial expression and more vocal variances. She even cracks a couple jokes that are actually meant as jokes on her part.

The problem with the episode... is Pinkie. She spends the second act stalking Maud and Starlight trying to force them to be friends. I know this is just how Pinkie is, hyper and excitable and she really wants Maud to move to Ponyville. But she is in full oblivious mode not realizing how annoying she is to the two. But they work with this well when they acknowledge that Pinkie and Maud are very different ponies, and Pinkie doesn't make friends the same way Maud does. Maud in turn gets depth and backstory because given her own quirks, she has trouble making friends; she likes other ponies fine, but not many of them "get her."

So, the end result - Maud moves to Ponyville, specifically in a crystal cave she and Starlight found. And this was very unexpected, I figured it would be a bait-and-switch, but no. Maud lives in Poynville now. I don't know how much of a supporting character she'll become but that's a thing now. We also get more character depth for her to show her detractors she actually has depth, and her characterization in this episode is more than the one-note awkwardness joke she has been previously.

Overall a good episode, didn't blow me away but it was satisfying.

PS - I look forward to Maud meeting Trixie and recognizing her from the rock farm.

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