EFNW is over, back to critical reviews: Break Up Break Down · 6:26pm May 21st, 2018
Big Mac is basically this guy now. Admit it bronies, we don't stand a chance anymore with men like this running around. You may not like it but this is the peak of male pony performance.
I hate Sugar Bell and Big Mac's "relationship." Sugar Bell is boring. It comes out of nowhere in a random-ass episode that was also awful (I don't care what you say, Featherbangs was literally the only good part about that one), and it's really just their secondhand attempt to put "romance" in the show where it was never necessary anyway. The worst part is, now that Big Mac and Sugar Bell are an established relationship, they don't actually act like they're in a relationship; they act like... well, actors. Actors in a teen soap opera show. What is up with this new trend of treating the minor characters who actually have speaking roles and episodes devoted to them like random props that just show up for incredibly random stories that feel so disconnected from the themes of the main show?
There's very little to say about this one. Big Mac overhears Sugar Bell saying things like "we're finished" and "do you think he'll be okay on his own?" He immediately assumes Sugar Bell is going to break up with him, and the rest of the episode is everyone just farting around until he's proven wrong. There's a moment that can feasibly be called "conflict" where Big Mac takes Discord's advice and tries to break up with Sugar Bell first, which obviously comes to nothing. Yeah, Discord's in this one for some reason? He and Spike have a bet on whether or not love is "real" as some kind of B plot. Why, and what does this have to do with anything? There's another weird B plot where Sweetie Belle gets the gift Mac got Sugar Bell and assumes she has a secret admirer.
This goes nowhere and is pointless. Also, it's kind of weird because the audience knows that Sweetie Belle is suffering secondhand pining for a guy at least ten years older than her and already in a committed relationship. Thankfully nobody comments too much on that when the other shoe drops. But again... this whole B plot could have been excised and the episode would not have suffered, which is never a good sign for B plots that actually make it into the show.
So yeah, Mac and Bell "break up" for about ten seconds, then of course there's your standard drama and Sugar Bell decides she really might break up with Big Mac, and then when she's on the way out of town her wagon breaks but Big Mac finds her before she leaves and it's all cleared up with incredibly maudlin and trite dialogue and they get back together. The end. There is a moment of "character development" where Discord reveals he broke Sugar Bell's wagon so Mac would have time to catch up with her because apparently their funky relationship was enough to make him believe in love (which means his standards are incredibly skewed)... even though Big Mac knows where Sugar lives and could just walk there anyway like he always does... so yeah. Ppppt. The lesson is supposed to be about not making assumptions, or something equally asinine. I don't need Big Mac acting like a complete tool telling me how to love.
It's just such a... I don't want to say predictable, but that's all I can think of. We know how this episode is going to go just by looking at the synopsis, and then it happens. Nobody really changes. Nobody really "learns" anything. Discord and his "LOVE ISN'T REAL EWWW BLECH" is reminiscent of Spike and his little boy archetype back from season 1, except done in an even more ham-fisted and egregious way. Also, seriously? Discord is the one saying love isn't real when he's living in Fluttershy's house, and we've seen how soft he is on her? And we've seen how he's come a long way since being a world-ending tyrant? Love is literally what saved him; maybe not romantic love, but love nonetheless! Self-sacrificing, committed, and visible love. But no, we can't actually have him using the lessons he learned, because we don't do that on this show. Instead, everyone is reduced to whatever high school cliche they want to address.
Keep it coming Season 8. I enjoy ripping things up as much as I do genuinely enjoying them! No seriously, this is fun.
This is what the adult fans and "analysts" have been begging for, and for some reason the writers have been listening to them.
I wouldn't say Featherbangs was the best part, so much as Vincent Tong's role voicing him was, but otherwise you're spot on. :B