Cutie Row and Wreck [episode spoilers!] · 4:21pm Sep 30th, 2017
I was gonna post some fic reviews today, but it's like, I've got a State of the Writer blog to make (that I should have already done...), I've got an episode to review, too much is happening today. D:
As for today's episode, am I the only one feeling like I missed something?
WHEN DID THUNDERLANE BECOME A WONDERBOLT? @_@ Seriously, was he in Wonderbolt Academy at some point and I just missed it?
Fittingly, that question set the tone for this episode for me. Not once did I really have a keen grasp on what was happening. Oh sure, there were funny moments ("What if I get a cutie mark in being bored?"), and it was pleasantly low-stakes, but I got the feeling there was a message in here somewhere that just was never readily apparent. Not to mention I never expected Apple Bloom's comment about a "cutie mark camp" from that one episode to actually pay off.
I mean, if I know one thing about this episode for sure, it's that Kettle Corn is best pony. She's cute as fuck and completely insane (c.f. drawing a perfect circle is a measure of insanity). Also, Skedaddle is a fantastic pony name.
And while I enjoyed watching Rumble be a little shit (there will be no living with the Rumbleloo shippers after this one), I never quite got invested in his story. Being confused about his brother certainly didn't help.
And that song, ugh. D: No disrespect to Vincent Tong, but every time I go to rank a new song this season and it comes in below "Best Friends Till the End of Time", I die a little inside. And thinking about it right now, the fact that we're supposed to be getting only one more song this season, it's probably because we've gotten at least half a dozen in the EQG shorts and summer special music videos. The only conclusion I can draw is that Daniel Ingram is a precious commodity, and DHX are not using him wisely. :|
I feel like this episode was trying to turn the whole "get our cutie marks" thing around on the CMCs, and maybe it did. But why? What's our takeaway from this? "Try new things" is kind of what the CMCs have always done, so it's not like it's a brand-new lesson or anything. It was enjoyable, like I said, but I just don't get it.
The Perfect Pear
A Royal Problem
A Health of Information
Parental Glideance
To Change a Changeling
Fame and Misfortune
Honest Apple
All Bottled Up
Daring Done?
Rock Solid Friendship
Forever Filly
A Flurry of Emotion
Triple Threat
Discordant Harmony
Marks and Recreation
Campfire Tales
It Isn't the Mane Thing About You
Celestial Advice
Not Asking for Trouble
Fluttershy Leans In
Hard to Say Anything
You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song
Best Friends Until the End of Time
Blank Flanks Forever
We're Not Flawless
Battle for Sugar Belle
Thunderlane is in the Season 3 episode Wonderbolts Academy. Also a little bit in Season 5's Top Bolt. And then in the background of Season 6's Parental Glideance.
Speaking of Thunderlane, I hate his voice in this episode.
I wasn't that surprised. We've seen the Wonderbolt induction process with Rainbow Dash: "You're in. Congrats. Be at headquarters at 0800. Bye."
What we should be asking is what's Thunderlane's embarrassing nickname?
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Thunderbutt?
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Blunderlane!
I thought we were only getting five songs this season? If so, that was it. Rumble's was the grand finale. I quite liked it, though.
Episode was written by May Chan, formerly responsible for "Not Asking for Trouble".
This episode contained thunderlane, rumble, and brotherly bonding, so sorry it's 11/10.
It was a shame the song didn't flow well, because his singing voice was amazing and it had some good parts, so that's why it doesn't get a 12/10
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Yeah, he just sounded like a moron. Better than that look he gave at the end of the episode. *shudder* now he's on some kind of watch list.
But yeah, he's been shown to be a wonderbolt several times since Season 3.
It was a cute episode overall.
-I thought "blank flank" was some kind of huge bully-word, and now everyone's dropping it casually left and right. >_>
-Plural of ponies is officially a "herd."
-I'd feel bad for the pony who got their mark in horseshoe tossing. Might be a competitive sport in Equestria, I guess.
-Much as I hate children, these are pretty dang cute. Wuv that widdle crush with Skedaddle and Kettle Corn.
-Rumble is the most adorable counter-culture edgelord ever.
-And Thunderlane is like that incredibly nice guy who's also kind of dumb so he doesn't realize when he's accidentally insensitive. Nice to see him get a personality.
Eh, I've gotten the feeling being a Wonderbolt is more-or-less like a jet pilot. Skill is required, competition is natural, and you're a rock star to little kids (and obsessive military nuts like Rainbow), but ultimately it's just a job you get trained for.
This season has had a lot of breaks with the formula. Sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's trash, and sometimes it's this. Not perfect, but not bad. Especially for a CMC episode - we don't talk about it, but those S1 ones were cringey as balls.
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Thunderthighs.
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Wow, shit. o.O
And yeah, his voice was not only different, but weird.
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The guy who does those "Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight" comics before each episode airs came up with "Speed Rump" (as a pun on "speed bump"), and the story behind it was amusing.
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Oh god, I hope that's not it. D: This season really blows in some ways.
And that episode was crap, hardly a good resume for this writer.
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Yeah, the blank flank thing really bothered me. <.< Like, maybe they've reclaimed the word -- Diamond is reformed, after all -- but we haven't seen that process.
Okay, I'm going to sum up what I think was wrong with this episode this way: We had five or six seasons of CMC episodes, including I think their sisters/almost-sisters saying so (with the tone of the show indicating that they were right), showing that trying to force this was the wrong way to go about it. The implication was always that you get a cutie mark, generally speaking, not because you were trying to get one in whatever it happens to be, but because you're doing stuff you like and are good at. You develop your talent in it as a result of that, and ultimately hit an epiphany or breakthrough. This episode indicates that the CMC learned nothing from their entire experience as the CMC, including how they got their own marks--which was incidental to helping Diamond Tiara, not doing "try a bunch of stuff one time and then move on when it doesn't immediately work". This was, to me, a betrayal of years of development on their end.
Also there's the fact that none of them noticed from the start that Rumble was very specifically not trying, which is some powerful idiot ball action.
(Reactions along the way:)
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All in all, I'd say a pretty bad episode (with a good song), but probably not quite as bad as the Princesses episode.
I actually liked the song, though. Not as much as "In My Head...", but that's a pretty high bar.
One of the things I think got the point a lot more than this episode was this fan song (which I'd momentarily forgot was a fan song, not from the show, since the tone is just about perfect for it--and note that it's not against the idea of trying to find what you love etc., but it is stressing that getting the mark isn't the end-all and be-all, and there's no particular right time to get one):
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Wow, it figures this episode was written by the person who added to canon the idea that you can completely misunderstand your own cutie mark. After all, that's what the CMC are doing for over 2/3 of the episode. Really, the pre-theme segment did a great job setting the tone for the whole episode: the CMC should easily have seen the filly's interest and sought to push her into doing more of that, maybe incorporating the circle painting into some kind of more comprehensive abstract art. Why didn't they? Idiot ball + that wasn't the plot, so they had to go against the implications of everything since their friggin' talent show act in Season One.
I thought it was one of the best episodes about cutie marks the show has ever had. It finally up and says cutie marks aren't the be-all and end-all of a pony.
This is after seven seasons of them showing that cutie marks do in fact define who you are and what you do and literally control your perception of reality, to the point where losing your mark means losing your mind. Except when they don't, and then it's just "the thing that you do" or in the Princess' case how your magic works in general?
I always thought the way the show developed cutie marks was utterly stupid, and was glad to have the focus be off the marks for once.
So yeah, I'm basically saying I like this episode because it lines up with some of my headcanon.
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In the moment, I kind of got the feeling this camp was mostly meant for foals without cutie marks to meet each other, interact and have fun, and if someone gets a cutie mark, hey, bonus. But otherwise, I think you're on about it.
Kettle Corn is life! Kettle Corn is love!
The song was kind of meh, although I liked the hoof-snapping (HOW???) chorus. Then again, I haven't been captured by any of the songs since "The Spectacle" and Diamond Tiara's reformation episode, where she was sung into submission like it was a Macross series or something.
In defense of the CMC, their individual consulting business was unable to cope with the demand, which was how they looped around to Camp Throweverythingatthemlol. Anyway, it's the CMC. You can't spell "backsliding" without "CMC", as long as you skip some letters.
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I get where you're coming from there, but disagree. I think that the broader context of the show always indicated that your stance, that a cutie mark isn't everything about you or all you do, was correct. That's clear from the non-CMC episodes, from RD pranking (or heck, the fact her job is tangentially related at best to her cutie mark) to FS, Rarity, and Big Mac in the Ponytones to Twilight Time and Applejack's rodeos and other sports stuff. But even within the CMC episodes, it seemed to me there was always an undercurrent that they were thinking about them all wrong, and the adults were mostly humoring them while, perhaps, trying to subtly guide them to a wiser way of thinking about things.
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I tend to agree. The show has been so inconsistent about what cutie marks are or mean, I'm not sure meaningful analysis can be had at this point, and this episode does nothing to alleviate the issue. D:
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The answer, as is so often the case, seems to be to pick and choose what works for you, mix that with some beliefs you bring in and ideas you generate yourself, and hopefully end up with a synthesis that's more coherent and satisfying than the canon's. (Or kind of sweep it under the rug and use them almost more like an ornament or pure symbol than a key feature of the setting or characters.) I'm pretty fond of Estee's, for example.
To answer your question of "When did Thunderlane become a Wonderbolt?", the answer is sometime before the Episode with Dash's parents. Someone pointed out that he was in the locker room in one of the scenes.
See the following: https://derpibooru.org/1441488
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Wow, shit. o.o
I really feel like that's the kind of thing I would have noticed. The lives of background ponies are important to me! D:
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Yeah, I missed it too, and I LIKE THUNDERLANE! But yeah, I totally wiffed on noticing him there in the episode. Probably was too distracted by Dash's parents.
But yeah, no idea on a SPECIFIC time, but at some point before THAT episode.
With all respect to everyone being entitled to their opinion of course, I wholeheartedly disagree with your thoughts on the song. I thought it was incredibly catchy and fun and would have been my favorite of the season if not for the Apple Parents one, easily. After the episode ended I went back and listened to it like four more times. Though I can agree pretty easily with a lot of your thoughts on the rest of the episode.