Surf and/or Turf

Friendship is Magic first impressions review: Surf and/or Turf (s08e06)
by Obake

(SPOILERS!)

The map calls the Crusaders and Twilight to Mount Aris, where half of the seapony population now live as regular hippogriffs. The other half still live in Seaquestria.

Twilight is there because she needs the signatures of Silverstream's mom and dad for a field trip slip. The Crusaders are there to help Silverstream's brother, Terramar (voiced by Cole Howard), decide whether to live on the mountain with his father, or in the sea with his mother.

Terramar's plight has some weight. As a kid, choosing what people to be with can be extra challenging, especially when they are family. He wants to spend time with both his mom and dad. The problem is that he can shapeshift from a seapony to hypogriff and vice versa, at any time. Neither of his parents are forceful about wanting him to stay with them. Heck, when his mom and dad meet on shore, they are happy to see one another!

The episode is mostly a missed opportunity. Sure, we get to see the Crusaders as seaponies, which is neat. I especially like that Scootaloo finds her flying handicap null, as she need not use wings to swim. Seaquestria itself is a unique setting for the show. But the crux of the story, the Crusader's solving Terramar's problem, is just so banal. The solution is having the hippogriffs and seaponies meet together on the beach during the weekends. If the episode made more a point about how simple solutions are sometimes better than complex ones, it may have worked. But it only touches on that lightly. Strangely, for an episode that tackles a deep issue (see the extras), it treats non-issues more seriously.

Extras:

• The episode is an allegory on divorce, but it is very light. The actual tensions of the subject are watered down, leaving Taramar's situation not as applicable where it should be. But it is better than the botched allegory on death in Tanks for the Memories.
• This is the first time the map has called the Crusaders on a quest.
• After the Storm King's defeat, the seaponies took pieces of the mystic orb and divided them amongst themselves. Thus what allows them to transform to hypogriffs and back at any time.
• Applejack's version of the movie had her being the one to defeat the Storm King, at least according to Applebloom.
• Hippogriff's enjoy drinking salmon juice. Ew.
• Twilight mentions that Silverstream is “one of her most hardworking students.” I'm still wondering when the school will be shown again.
• The Crusaders have a song number. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle fight over which of them is right (Scoot's prefers Seaquestria, Sweetie likes the mountains). It is fine, yet nothing groundbreaking.