"Non-Compete Clause" Review: The Student Six are back!

And with this week it finally happened again, the thing the show needs these days: A Student Six episode! :D Nine months Seven weeks they left us waiting, but now they have given us another episode focused on the sextet of awesomeness! :D
And what an episode it was! Silverstream and Ocellus were heroes, Yona delivered another one of her punchlines and..... But let's start at the beginning.

Before I talk more about them, I feel a pressing need to clear out a bit of confusion about this episode. I've seen a rather high amount of criticism for it, as people seem to think that it is about Applejack and Rainbow Dash learning the same lesson they already learned once, namely, way back in Season 1, as seen in "Fall Weather Friends". A reaction similar to the one "28 Pranks Later" got in Season 6 and just as with that episode, an incorrect one.
"Fall Weather Friends" was about Applejack and Rainbow Dash competing as well, to win a race, but the lesson they learned after the race wasn't that competing is bad or how important teamwork is, it was that it isn't okay to cheat in order to win.
There is an obvious difference there, one lesson isn't like the other, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack always competed with each other, they never stopped doing that. Even though Season 1 was long ago, it's still important, and I think this shows that there are a lot here in the fandom who need to go back and rewatch that season (and maybe Season 2 as well, while you're at it, to remember "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" properly and see the differences to "28 Pranks Later").
Anyway, back to the Student Six..... One thing I am inclined to agree on, though, is how this episode is a lot more exciting because the Student Six have such a huge presence in it. And that presence delivered interesting results.
What at first looked like an episode where Rainbow Dash and Applejack, after being challenged to not compete with each other for some reason, learn a lesson about how their competitions aren't always good for them and that there can be situations where them working together and combining their abilities as a team instead creates something greater, turned out as something more complex at the end.
Even though it was their job to teach their students about teamwork, and the credits listed them undoubtedly as the mane characters of this episode, it were actually the Student Six who taught them about teamwork instead.
Which was a lesson that didn't really stick with them and they fell back into competing again after the field trip was over, but the students (secondary mane characters) teaching something to their teachers (primary mane characters) was an interesting take for this episode. I think this episode shows another time that the creators of MLP: FiM aren't too interested in making Mane Six episodes anymore, which is why they not only show them being teamed-up with other characters, something they already did last season for the most part, but also have started to actively fade them out of the show, with the goal to establish new mane characters.
Last season I was sure that Starlight, Trixie, Maud and perhaps Sunburst would become such a new mane character cast, but now, it looks like the Student Six are going to form one.
That we got to see events in this episode where the Student Six saved the day, even twice, one time when Silverstream and Ocellus saved Yona, then when Ocellus, Silverstream and Gallus saved Applejack from the Bitercudas, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash weren't doing much, further reinforces that, and lets me hope that we will soon get a ton more Student Six episodes.

And more Student Six episodes is definitely something the creators have to catch up on! There is one detail of this episode that shocked me when I saw it..... As we learned right at the beginning, Twilight is holding "Teacher of the Month" awards at her Friendship School. And we also learned, by the photos of Fluttershy in the background, that this award happened for the ninth time already, which means, it's now exactly nine months since Twilight opened her school! This is one month for each episode of Season 8 so far!
That's an academy record, but it also means that a lot has happened in Twilight's school that we simply didn't get to see! I'm strongly curious about what happened in those nine months at the school other than the events we saw in "School Daze", the short moments seen in "Fake It 'Til You Make It" and "Grannies Gone Wild" and the play we saw in "Horse Play", and I feel sad over it that we didn't get to see most of that time. Leaves us plenty of fanfic opportunities to fill that void with theories of what happened during that time, but I would have liked to actually see what happened and I feel we missed out on a lot of awesome stuff.
I am also wondering what caused the decision to let the show leap forward by so many months over such a small number of episodes..... Is it maybe an indicator of something coming? A Student Six spin-off or at least an on-going comic series with them once Season 8 is over? It better be, because the reveal of this episode made me hungry for more!

And that's it for this review! See you at the end of next week for more Afterthoughts!

Comments

[Blast]

In any event, Ashleigh Ball earned her dough that episode.