Non-Compete Clause Review · 4:33pm May 12th, 2018
Well, unless something changes, it seems like the show will enter a mid-season hiatus courtesy of Discovery Family after "The Molt Down". At this point, I really don't see why Hasbro bothers to maintain the deal with Discovery Family, especially with the show slated to wrap up next year. Bumping it to Netflix now wouldn't hurt anything, and they've got homes for their other shows as well. Heck, with Hasbro recently having purchased Saban, they could always utilize that partnership for their own channel or streaming service, like Disney's doing. Anyway, for this Mother's Day weekend, we've got another episode penned by a new writer, this one in the form of Kim Breyer-Johnson, who previously wrote for "Transformers: Rescue Bots". But what episodes she wrote for that show, I have no idea. Considering last week's episode wasn't exactly putting its best foot forward, and the fact that the last new writer for this season cranked out "Horse Play", the current high note, was this episode able to defy the incredibly weak expectations set for it? Or did it somehow manage to do even worse than anticipated? Well, let's find out.
We begin with something of a time skip, the school has now been open for several months, and each month Fluttershy has won Teacher of the Month. Most people speculate this is an in-joke about how Fluttershy won the best pony poll in the Hub days (boy do I miss them, the Hub was so much more creative than bland old Discovery Family), and often was at the top of fan polls for best pony (like how Luna always wins best princess). This erks both Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who are in one of their super competitive modes. Except of course, the award isn't supposed to be a competitive thing, it's not even like Employee of the Month. The award is supposed to be for the one who does the best job of actually teaching. So if they haven't earned it yet, it's because they clearly haven't done enough to win over the students!
Twilight then announces a teamwork field trip, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash agree to do because Twilight mentions it's a "Teacher of the Month" kind of thing. I was not aware that the hallmark of a good teacher was how they handled field trips, especially since field trips usually need prior approval and arrangement to even be conducted. This also means we finally get to see more of the Student/Young Six, seven whole episodes after the premiere (the most we got of them before, were non-speaking cameos, and one line of grunts during "Horse Play"), which just further makes the school theme seem like it was done solely for marketing purposes as opposed to the show staff willing to commit to an over-arching narrative season. Anyway, Applejack takes lead on the first phase of the field trip, building an apple shed. And immediately, Rainbow Dash and Applejack start competing against each other, which hinders the construction of the shed. But although the student six are clearly aware of this, they just go along with it and never once try to actually break it up. You know, the last time Rainbow Dash and Applejack were this competitive, at least no one else was being dragged into their argument.
Rainbow Dash leads the next teamwork exercise, a canoe race, but she's selfishly more interested in beating a speed record than in actually teaching teamwork! And this is the same pony who the episode admits is part of the Wonderbolts, an organization that is all about teamwork instead of individual achivement! It only gets worse when Applejack interferes, and causes the students to be unable to determine where to go! And Rainbow Dash nearly leads them into a river full of biteacuadas (not sure what was wrong with bearacuadas), before the arguing causes the canoe to hit a rock! Fortunately, everyone is wearing life jackets, but trouble emerges when Yona's life jacket gets ripped up by branches, and she starts to drown because she can't swim! But neither Rainbow or Applejack bother to save her, they just stand there with horrified looks on their faces, while Ocellus and Silver Stream save Yona's life! You know, this kind of stuff is exactly what Chancellor Neighsay complained about in the premiere (teachers being unqualified, and lives being put in danger)! And something tells me they weren't trying to make Neighsay have a point!
Twilight shows up and immediately calls out Rainbow Dash and Applejack for their behavior! But on a whim she believes they've learned their lesson, instead of taking over and sending the two back to school (because then we wouldn't have an episode, although if this was the only way for the episode to happen, maybe it would've been better to scrap the idea and try something else)! We get a nature walk that sees the opposite of competition, Rainbow and Applejack agreeing with each other and thus being unable to come to a decision. But this montage goes nowhere, except the predictable joke of going around in circles. Smolder then flies up to scout the location, noticing that they're way far away from the school, but should be able to fly everyone across the ravine and get to the other side to start on their way back. Yet Rainbow Dash and Applejack want to instead build bridges of twigs and vines respectively, neither of which actually hold up! They end up tangled in a mess of vines and sticks, dangling above the river from earlier. Yet we don't even get an "The Emperor's New Groove" type of thing where they put aside their differences and work together to climb back up.
The student six spring into action, Ocellus serving as a distraction so Gallus and Silverstream can carry Applejack and Rainbow Dash to safety, and Smolder, Sandbar, and Yona all rip up the mix of vines and twigs. They go back to the friendship school and tell Twilight how they thought it was all an act to show what not to do, so the students would learn how teamwork is supposed to work. And Twilight believes them, before she whispers to Rainbow and Applejack about how they competed the whole time. And the episode ends with them arguing about it, instead of admitting to the lesson they've learned!
*Sigh*, and that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well it sucked, to put it bluntly! There's no sugarcoating this, the episode even admits Rainbow Dash and Applejack should be beyond this ultra competiveness by now! To think that THIS is all the writers can think to do with AppleDash after all this time! It's not even a poor man's "Fall Weather Friends", because that had the two learn their lesson in the end. This is just the typical teamwork aesop we've seen a million times, and done better, in other shows. The student six are this episode's saving grace, and even then they mostly just stand there and let Applejack and Rainbow Dash go about their competitiveness. We do get a little bit of development in the sense that Gallus actually has quite a bit of heart, and Yona is a bit uncoordinated. But that's about it, and it doesn't really do much to justify them being the focus of the premiere. I have no trouble giving this episode an F, it's the worst episode of Season 8, and one of the show's all time worst! It's only slightly better than "Secrets and Pies", but that's not saying much considering "Secrets and Pies" was a total failure on every level!
Well, maybe things will improve next week with "The Break-Up Break Down", in which Big Macintosh overhears Sugar Belle and thinks she's planning to break up with him on Hearts and Hooves Day. I'm pretty sure they won't after they went through the trouble of bumping SugarMac into the opening credits, but the journey will hopefully be enjoyable. Otherwise, it'll just make "Hard to Say Anything" pointless in the grand scheme of things.
I liked this episode because of the humor in the second act.
If that wasn't there, I'd probably be more inclined to consider it one of the weaker episodes of the season.
As is, though, it's right in the upper half.
Not among my favorites of the series, but definitely in the upper middle
Yeah, I'm sorry, but after this performance, I'm probably fairly right in saying that this writer shouldn't be even let near this show again. Seriously, writing AJ and Rainbow to the point where they don't even help a drowning student? (Granted, they look on in horror, but that's still hardly a excuse) I have a friend who actually walked out of this episode before the third act came around. Granted, he hates Applejack for reasons I have yet to understand, but just for this episode, I can perfectly see why.
This episode was just plain stupid.
4858895
That's a bit extreme, don't you think? To say that she should never write on the show again after one episode.
4859003
After a stinker like this episode which completely doesn't get the main character's personalities?
4859019
First of all, this episode is far from one of the worst in the series. It's a mediocre episode and the weakest of the bunch, but I'd hesitate to call it a stinker, don't be overdramatic.
Second, she's only written one episode of the series. It was a weak effort, but it's rare when a new writer writes a perfect episode on their first try. Who's to say that she can't write better episodes in the future if she stays on the staff.
One episode is not enough to declare her a bad writer. Don't be so quick to write her off.
4859022
Fair enough.
Also, I will forever think that you are wrong about Josh Hamilton and his episodes being bad.
4859023
For instance, I didn't care for many of David Rapp's episodes and intesely disliked "Newbie Dash" , but he's shown improvement with "The Parent Map", which is almost dethroned "Parental Glideance" as my favorite parent episode.
I'm preparing a short blog entry for this myself, and I'll just say here what I'm going to say there:
Thank Celestia for the Student Six / Young Six.
After eight years, it's certainly impressive that the crew can give us six new characters that are immediately and consistently charming. They were the saving grace this episode. The fact that they thought that AJ and Dash were purposefully doing everything the wrong way so the six of them would figure out the right way, was quite frankly, the best part of the episode.
Because if it were up to AJ and Dash, this would have been even worse than P.P.O.V., because they were even continuing to argue as we faded to the credits.
Yep, just as I thought, a colossal failure of an episode! For me, the worst episode since Newbie Dash.
-Agitated Sigh- Seriously. Just stop believing in those Leaks from Last Year!!! Unless Hasbro confirms it via either their Facebook or Twitter Page, It's just Rumors for now!
Piece of Advice: Things can change within a Few Years. Otherwise.... IT. MIGHT. NOT. HAPPEN!!!! Got that?!!
4860633 I think it's all but clear the show will wrap up next year. At best it could only run until 2020 before Hasbro has to make room for the next generation of the toyline. The stuff about G5 though, even though it was leaked there's no gurantee that's the official final draft. Plans might still change. The original pitch bible for this show was to be a more G1-esque reboot with G1 pony names and more adventure type stories.
4860656
IT. WILL. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
