Uprooted Review · 5:06pm Apr 13th, 2019
So the student/young six are back for the first time since the end of Season 8. Considering how polarizing they were throughout all of last season, it's definitely a huge risk to bring them back for the first episode after the premiere of the final season. But hey, two of the all time best episodes of Season 8 focused directly on them, so maybe success is guaranteed? Well maybe that would be the case, if not for who the writer is, the infamous Nicole Dubac.
You remember Nicole from last season when her solo writing endevors involved cracking out some of the most infamous episodes of Season 8, "Marks for Effort" and "A Matter of Principals" which featured character assassination for Twilight Sparkle and Discord respectively. And it got so bad that she was trying to defend her choices on social media. Then she inexplicably wrote just the first part of "School Raze" before part two got handed over to Josh Haber. She did write the song for "Sounds of Silence" but that episode went to a new writer for some unknown reason. A shame when you realize that Nicole got her start penning the Ponyville Mysteries books with Michael Vogel and writing "Shadow Play" with Josh Haber. Despite all that she has working against her now, was Nicole somehow able to redeem herself, or did she just prove that Hasbro and DHX made a mistake letting her stay on the writing team? Well, let's find out.
We begin with the student six having dreams. Silverstream's is interesting, she wants to be the first non-pegasus Wonderbolt but she's scared when she has to perform right away. Ocellus and Gallus have very predictable dreams, Ocellus fears not being able to graduate and Gallus fears being trapped in small spaces. Smolder's dream somehow involves her tea party dress, Yona's dream involves flying (or rather falling), and Sandbar's is about not being able to choose which cupcake to get. What, were you expecting them to do something to actually flesh him out more? Nah, they must think they're covered with what he got in "What Lies Beneath".
The combined dreams are interrupted by a summons from the Tree of Harmony, and they all come to Twilight's school (still out for Summer vacation at the moment) with Twilight freaking out about highlighters. I guess since she's not taking over Equestria just yet she's not quite handing over the reigns to Starlight to run the school. Anyway, the student six all come bursting in and Twilight tells them the Tree of Harmony was destroyed by Sombra. They demand to see the remaints of it, and Silverstream thinks they can just bring it back to life by thinking happy thoughts. It goes about as well as you'd expect. Then they decide they need to do something to honor the tree's memory, before suddenly Thorax shows up. Turns out the students (minus Sandbar since he lives locally) all left without telling anyone, but somehow only Thorax bothered to actually go looking for them (I get why Grandpa Gruff wouldn't care, but you'd expect the other leaders or their representatives to do so). Say what you will about the princesses and Twilight, at least they care about their subjects. What kind of leader allows their young ambassadors to just up and leave without a heads up? Didn't they threaten to go to war the last time that happened?
So with Twilight's advice they all do the sensible thing and get permission. Smolder beats all the other dragons in an arm wrestle, Yona does all sorts of chores for her mother, Ocellus and Gallus basically just get their leaders to sign off, and Silverstream explains everything to her family (shouldn't she at least be asking General Seaspray?). They all come back to find out that Sandbar somehow did away with the remaints of the tree and planted a new, non-harmonic one.
This naturally upsets the rest of the student six, but then everyone minus Yona has a different idea of how to honor the tree's memory. So we basically get a rehash of "Castle, Sweet Castle". You know, the episode that did the typical "Too Many Cooks Spoils the Soup" plot that we've seen over and over again? I thought in this final season we'd be over the trend of trying to rehash old episodes, especially the ones people don't like. "Castle, Sweet Castle" itself looks like it's in the same boat as "The Mean Six" in that it was originally likely to be the season premiere, then it got tossed aside in favor of something else (because "Castle, Sweet Castle" credits Meghan McCarthy and not M. A. Larson as story editor). And you can just guess how the plot progresses from there.
Silverstream tries to do painting to show how she feels, Sandbar just tries to nurture the non-harmonic tree, Ocellus sets up all kinds of random nick nacks, Smolder tries to carve a memorial statue, and Gallus attempts to turn the cave into a museum that's basically a tourist trap.
Yona finally has enough and tells the rest of the student six to stop being stupid. She points out that the Tree of Harmony's memories will live on inside of them and that they should work together to determine the best way to memoralize the tree's legacy. This leads into a song "The Place Where We Belong" which is okay, but considering "Castle, Sweet Castle" had a song too this episode having one just makes it feel like more and more of a rehash. So the student six build a tree house out of the crystal remaints (wish they would've mentioned a line or two about being inspired by the CMC's clubhouse, at least Sandbar could've said he got the idea from them) and then it suddenly grows. Not content with being a rehash of "Castle, Sweet Castle" this episode also wants to rehash the end of "Twilight's Kingdom" and have a new crystal castle grow. This time it grows up and replaces the Castle of the Two Sisters, because even in the final season Hasbro apparently wants to sell even more toys (like they didn't learn their lesson with the school).
Twilight stumbles upon it herself after the Tree of Harmony talks to the young six as the new castle being a place for them to come back and rejuvenite their friendship. Supposedly this is now the Temple of Harmony, to diffriente from Twilight's castle. But any chance we'll actually see it again in any meaningful way seems slim at best, even though we know the Student Six are likely to be the new Elements of Harmony bearers. Unless they're saving that for the finale though, why couldn't we have gotten that here? Who doesn't love a good passing of the torch?
*Sigh* and that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it's basically just a lazy rehash of "Castle, Sweet Castle" and speaking as someone who didn't like the original there is no way I was going to like the uninspired rehash of it. I thought we were done with these predictable stories that can't be done with any degree of originality anymore, but I guess Nicole Dubac just got lazy despite having plenty of time off from writing before this episode. As nice as it was to see Yona be the heart of the team, she should not be the only one who's actually sane enough to know the solution. And you can't possibly tell me that Sandbar dismantled the ruins and moved them away, thinking that was a good idea. Or that the rest of the student six would just up and leave without telling anyone, not even leaving a note. I get that they're children, but these children are supposed to be older than the CMC, they should be able to use some common sense. The ending might have been sweet, if not for the fact that it decided to rip off the ending of "Twilight's Kingdom" and just discard The Castle of the Two Sisters completely (I would've liked to see it be turned into a museum or have Celestia and Luna plan to move there after they step down from the throne). In the end, I give this episode a very disappointing E. It's not worth labeling any lower because it's a lazy rehash. Nicole Dubac shouldn't be allowed to write anymore episodes, she's not just good at it anymore. I don't know what changed for her between the end of Season 7 and Season 8. Maybe she just wasn't ready to step out from working with others, but she's proven that she just can't write good episodes by herself.
Well, next week will be quite interesting. We have "Twilight's Seven", the 200th episode of the show in which Twilight and Shining Armor compete in a battle of wits to settle their sibling rivalry, only to find out that they're not the only ones hoping to do so. It's apparently going to be a celebration of the "Six VAs who've brought us this far" but I have no idea who this sixth VA could be since Spike and Starlight have no siblings. It could be interesting, depending on who they use (I just hope they don't use Maud, she's overdone and she and Pinkie don't seem to have any sort of rivalry).
I actually thought it was pretty decent overall.
Was it similar to Castle Sweet Castle? Yes
Did the middle drag a bit? Yes
But I found the third act sweet enough that I give the whole thing 8/10.
As for the Castle of the Two Sisters thing, it wasn't so much discarded as it became part of something new.
You would not believe what happened when I watched the BN stream for of this episode: During when the episode was playing, the EAS system for BN King went off during the episode, which caused some to miss huge chunks of dialogue.
I will tell you though..... that has to be the most rarest thing that has ever happened for any MLP stream!
8h c8me on. This episode was great to me. And it not dispointed. OK. The writers did good. Im give it an B- for me because. Im loved everything they did but they do n lot better. Like don't give an E and I doesn't matter you give an bad grade of this episode. The writes are doing their best OK and you get this a an Dunb E Rank come on. What was the worng things happen in the episode OK
I thought it was fine, though i miss a bit of it at the beginning.
Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to disagree with this review.
I just saw it, and I thought it was an emotionally sweet episode. I couldn’t help but feel like crying when the Student Six sang the season’s first song. It didn’t seem like a rehash of “Castle, Sweet Castle” anyway.
I also think Nicole Dubuc’s doing alright, coming from a person who also enjoyed “A Matter of Principals”.
I appreciate you going to the effort to do this review/fair warning.
And, yeah, we figured there would probably be at least one or two final season episodes included in Volume Eleven of your re-write series, anyway, right?
Anyway, speaking of possible stuff to include in one of your AU stories, perhaps Grogar could expand his group by recruiting seven villains (okay, technically NINE, but you get the idea), representing the Seven Deadly Sins. Tirek represents Gluttony (magic draining power and all that), the Dazzlings (the reason it's NINE villains instead of SEVEN) representing Wrath (as their power is fueled by anger [I figure, if Grogar could resurrect Sombra and the Storm King, he probably wouldn't have TOO MUCH trouble reaching through the dimensional barrier to bring the Dazzlings back to Equestria and finding a way to repower THEM to a certain point]), Gladmane representing Greed (he might not see himself as a villain, but he probably wouldn't be stupid enough to argue with Grogar and Gladmane would probably be the only one on the roster WITHOUT an "arrest on sight" order against him, which means he could go for "info-dig" missions with minimal interference), Chryaslis could represent Lust and three other villains of your choice representing Pride, Sloth and Envy respectively.
It’s true that this episode is like Castle Mania. Honestly, I was kind of disappointed as that they start off with a low-grade episode. Let’s hope the rest of the season will make up for that. Btw, does “VA” stand for voice actor or something else?
While the episode was Meh, the tree sprouting something new was a surprising bit. I really don't see why Occelus had to go back to her hive, after the King nodded his approval for her to stay, but, beggers can't be choosers I suppose.
For some reason, I feel like I have seen the new Tree House of Harmony somewhere before. Perhaps one of the previous generations? It's a bit of a head scratcher for me.
As for Episode 200. I think that the seventh that might be a sibling team will be Celestia and Luna....... unless we find out Cadence and Blueblood are siblings. Yeesh, that's not a thought I relish if they keep Blueblood's behavior from the season 1 finale episode. I can't think of any pairs of siblings beyond them, unless we were to look into the Young Six, which I don't think they will do.
So that will be:
Twi vs Shining
Applejack vs Apple Bloom vs Big Macintosh
Rarity vs Sweetie Belle
Rainbow Dash vs Rainbow Blaze (possibly.) Or Rainbow Dash vs Scootaloo
Pinkie Pie vs Lime Stone Pie vs Maud Pie vs Marble Pie
Fluttershy vs *shudders * Zepher Breeze
Tia vs Luna or Cadence vs Blueblood (hopefully not)
That's the only sibling rivalries I can think of in link to Main Herd members. And reason I don't include Spike is cause even if he sees Twilight and Shining as Siblings, he'd probably use the fact he's a dragon not to get involved if they asked him. He'd probably join Discord in some popcorn to watch the fun, if they include him in the episode. So, I am hyped to see what happens.
Not a whole lot of logic.
5046933 For the episode or for my review?
5046960
For that episode.
So any tips on how to rewrite this episode without taking out the key elements to it?