A Short word on "Forgotten Friendship" · 10:42pm Feb 17th, 2018

Today we have a small blurb about the much awaited “Forgotten Friendship” episode we got! I for one found it excellent for a few reasons. Now, there’s spoilers so if you’ve read this far, STOP, if you don’t want them and come back later :D I’ll even give you a huge image to buffer it more!

There now that's done.

So overall I won’t touch on play by play of the episode but I’ll talk about what I found remarkable.

Anatomy

Anatomy has gotten extremely well done, even when it comes to small gestures, expressions, shots and framing. There’s a particular scene where Sunset kicks off her slippers before bed as she’s writing to Twilight in Equestria. Typically, there’s no need to add such a small gesture, but it’s presence really shows both care and reality to the entire scene in my opinion. The more you can make any character feel real, the better, and it worked.

When we first started out with the series, the girls felt very static in their movements, their clothing, and gestures. They FELT like a puppet or rig being moved around. By now, what I can easily call our fifth movie, we’re seeing fingers and toes and costume changes for no other reason then depth of character. I’m very happy with that.

Long Time Coming

The 500 pound horse in the room is of course the Celestia and Sunset scene we’ve been waiting for since around Rainbow Rocks if not sooner. Handled very well, and quite frankly, long overdue. I was frightened that we’d simply end the character’s appeal once her guilt went away and her shame was gone, so far, I’m still hesitantly optimistic Sunset will continue to be Best Horse/Person ;)

..and Trixie Too!

Oddly, I was NOT annoyed by Trixie this time around, although this outing with her, combined with the recent Starlight Glimmer (who, remember, WAS NOT MADE because of the popularity of Sunset Shimmer! :P So they say..) makes me feel like she’s being forced on us a bit too much. Overall it felt organic enough I wasn’t put off, and she didn’t turn anyone into a teacup, so it’s nice to see her again.

Swimsuits were overdone before the episode so we won’t dwell on that. I found each rather fitting to the character’s personality.

Red Herring

Now, the Red Herring, which I loved but felt was far too obvious to a degree, was to be fair, properly executed. The entire writing structure of who was who and the whodunit element we get midway through the episode was veiled enough it took me a few moments to think it through. I appreciate a good mystery, but being of the mindset I am, I am constantly disappointed. (I’ve tried to turn it off in my head, I can’t sadly.).

Meta Presence

My favorite element of the entire episode was how meta we’re all getting as a show. More than three times we just all out acknowledge something we shouldn’t be. Trixie mentions how long a song was, someone else mentions they’d been present since half way through a song, and Pinkie’s interruption was priceless. (because let's be honest, by the time they all captain planet up at the end, we have SO heard Twilight give the same speech, it’s now a trope.). I hope we keep up this pattern.

Villain

The villain was actually believable, which the writers have gotten good at, but to extend on that element of it, they’ve gotten better at ending them. Far too many times, either due to running out of dialogue, time, or inspirations, the villains are executed well, but never resolved in a satisfactory way. We end up with someone asking for forgiveness or mercy or just running off (Those Sirens better come back) and then less then five minutes later we’re left with credits and an empty sense of justice being..served? This one at least gave us her reasoning and motivation presented in a classic if not cliche package. The resolution wasn’t forced either, we are given much more closure on the situation then “and they’re all friends now lets braid their hair”.

I give this a 9 out of 10, with points off because nothing’s perfect. ;) But this is close enough to being there so far in my journey with Sunset and friends. Can’t wait for more, lets just hope we can get some actual episodes if we show enough interest. Not to mention it gives more villains to work with in fanfiction projects ;)

Take care and watch often!

-DarkMalcontent