The Parent Trap · 4:05pm May 20th, 2017

When I first heard about Parental Glideance, I was immediately filled with a sense of dread. Despite its synopsis saying we would be finally introduced to Rainbow Dash’s family, the red flags for this episode were popping up to me and it was looking to be like a disaster waiting to happen. Not only did it have a set up about the whole “embarrassing parents” plot line, but this episode also stars the Wonderbolts. Considering the last couple of seasons how the Wonderbolts have been handled, it didn’t help this episode at all.

I’m not against stories like embarrassing parents, but it’s hard to pull it off without you feeling exasperated at the end. The concept alone just didn’t sound good at all; esepcially when we are given the chance to see Rainbow’s parents and could ruin the long awaited arrival of them. So with all these bad signs together, I was ready for the absolute worst. Imagine my surprise that by the time the episode was over, I was legitimately in shock over what we got. This may be the most surprising episode of the season, or the series, I’ve seen.

Scootaloo is doing a report for the most inspiring pony to her; which is naturally Rainbow Dash. When she goes to Cloudsdale, she runs into Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles, who turn out to be Rainbow Dash’s parents. After getting to know each other, Scootaloo tells the parents that Rainbow is a full fledged Wonderbolt. Now suddenly dealing with her overbearing parents, Rainbow has to try to keep her cool and not be seen as a joke by her fellow Wonderbolts.

The long awaited introduction of Rainbow Dash’s parents has been something a lot of us, myself included, have been waiting for a long time. A lot of people were hoping that Firefly would have been Rainbow’s mom, but that is not the case. Who we do end up getting are some pretty great parents. The designs for Rainbow’s family is a huge step up from Fluttershy’s family. The color schemes for them work well and their overall dynamic really fit Rainbow’s parents. I could look at these two and believe they were Rainbow’s parents.

For an episode involving the whole embarrassing parents plot, it’s basically what you would expect from an episode like this. Rainbow’s parents, for most of the episode, go around bothering her a lot and just embarrassing Rainbow in front of the Wonderbolts. Some of the stuff they do isn’t too bad and can be pretty funny. But then you get into some of the stuff they do like shooting fireworks while the Wonderbolts are in the air (which I’m sure is illegal and could lead to felony charges of attempting to shoot down the Wonderbolts), to them barging in on Rainbow several times throughout the episode, even in places they should not be able to get to at all.

Scootaloo seems to be back to her major fan girl ways of Rainbow Dash. I know she’s always been a huge fan of Rainbow, but they seemed to crank it up a bit more in this episode. Compare it to some of the last couple of episodes of Scootaloo with Rainbow like The Cart Before the Ponies and you’ll see what I mean. She’s more overly ecstatic and really clingy on Rainbow again. It’s not helped that, for basically a full 30 seconds, she screams so loudly over meeting Rainbow’s parents. I get meeting them is a big moment for her, but having to hear her scream loudly for that long was unnecessary. To be fair, Scootaloo does get better towards the end of the episode and they thankfully leave out all that screaming for the rest of the episode.

While those story elements end up being kind of deterrents, what the episode does right is that it manages to take the cliched embarrassing parents plot and does some good twists to it. Usually when it comes to episodes like this, you would expect the cringe factor to be at 11 or so. Surprisingly though, the episode manages to avoid being too painful to watch or listen to. It seems to balance out between being cringy at times, but yet also provide some comedic and heartwarming moments. It’s really tricky to pull something like that off, but yet this episode manages to pull it off almost flawlessly.

Since this episode is also sharing the focus with the Wonderbolts, I was ready for more or less the same stuff we’ve seen from them the past three seasons. But what a breath of fresh air for the Wonderbolts in this episode! They are a little cautious around Rainbow’s parents, but yet don’t go around teasing Rainbow constantly. Sure they poke fun at her, but they aren’t being overly nasty like before. They give proper respect to Rainbow when Fleetfoot speaks to Bow, and even go out of their way to help Rainbow at the end. It’s shocking to see that after three seasons of the Wonderbolts being at their worst, we see a major turnaround for them at long last. It’s amazing how tolerable they suddenly became with better writing for them.

Where the episode does falter is that aside from Rainbow’s parents going overboard and Scootaloo’s screaming at the start, it’s the confrontation between Rainbow and her parents. After they break into the Wonderbolts’ locker room (further showing how bad security is in Equestria), Rainbow lashes out at her parents for going too far and getting too overbearing. For some reason, Rainbow is made out to be the one completely in the wrong here.

I’m not saying what Rainbow did was a good thing at all, but in a way, she does have a point about her parents. They barged back into her life, kept on interfering with her, wouldn’t leave her alone, and would constantly cheer her for really stupid things like hanging a towel. They just kept going after her the whole time through this episode and wouldn’t take a hint about it until Rainbow snapped at them. Yet, she is the one at fault? I’m not condoning Rainbow for what she said, but she did have a point about her parents and how overbearing they’ve been on her.

While that scene does confuse me, it does lead to probably the best scene in this episode. After meeting with Scootaloo, Rainbow gives a story about how she wasn’t always winning, but her parents cheered her on anyway. As time passed on, Rainbow moved up from participation trophies, to eventually taking the gold. It’s at that moment that Rainbow realizes that all that support really helped push her so much and made her into the mare we see today.

What makes this so excellent is that this is some fantastic character development for Rainbow Dash. We get a great insight into the character and what makes her tick. Her overall major confidence and being the best at everything and believing she can do anything is explored here. While I do believe the writers haven’t balanced out Rainbow’s humbleness with her cocky attitude, I really applaud this episode for exploring a major part into Rainbow’s character.

It’s easily one of Rainbow Dash’s best moments in the episode for sure. It fits brilliantly into her character and shows how she came to be. While Rainbow’s parents are overbearing, the fact that their cheering of everything gave her confidence and the ego to back it up to do anything makes them better. It’s one thing to do the embarrassing parents trope and pull it off right, but to make them likable and have a purpose to what they do is more impressive.

Parental Glideance is not only the best episode of the season, but it’s arguably Rainbow Dash’s best episode since Wonderbolts Academy. Usually, stories involving the amazingly embarrassing parents trope are instant garbage and leave a very bad impression by the time the episode is over. This episode manages to take the concept and execute it in a fantastic way. It’s next to impossible for something like that to happen, but Parental Glideance manages to avoid almost all the problems that a lot of these types of plots have.

It does suffer the problems of Rainbow’s family being overbearing at points, but that was kind of the point of the episode. Scootaloo’s fan girling did get annoying fast; especially with that screaming she did in the beginning (Seriously? Did we really need that?). Not to mention Rainbow being portrayed as if she was the one completely wrong when her parents did overstep the boundaries was confusing. But for an episode to not fall into a lot of the common traps we see from the embarrassing parents plot line, it’s amazing in what it does.

Despite the minor flaws in this episode, it does give us a good story that not only has some heartwarming moments between Rainbow and Scootaloo, but we get to see a great depth into Rainbow herself and how she came to be. While I do have my reservations with Rainbow Dash, I always appreciate episodes that give us a good look into how or why characters act the way they do. This episode manages to hit a lot of high notes ranging from Rainbow’s development to the way the story plays out.

It’s very obvious this episode is at the top of the list right now. It does everything right with an episode involving the embarrassing parents trope. It balances itself out with the cringe and the comedy. It’s truly amazing how this episode managed to pull something off like this without failing. Credit especially should go to Josh Hamilton, the writer of this episode, for taking a concept that sounded like garbage on paper and executing it fantastically. It’s really hard to pull of the embarrassing parents trope right, but Parental Glideance manages to pass with flying colors.

FINAL SCORE: 9 out of 10 (A-)

Season seven episode ranking list from best to worst:

Parental Glideance
Rock Solid Friendship
Flurry of Emotions
Celestial Advice
Forever Filly
All Bottled Up
Fluttershy Leans In

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