Common Ground Review · 4:47pm May 4th, 2019
Kicking off what looks to be a pretty promising stretch of episodes, we have the return of Quibble Pants and the return of buckball. Of course the real highlight is that Patton Oswalt isn't just back, but he's also brought along his wife and his daughter to be guest stars for this episode (his second wife, I should say. His first wife died unexpectedly in 2016, he remarried a year later). And it seems they won't be the last, though as of yet I don't know if it's been officially confirmed if Weird Al is indeed coming back to play Cheese Sandwich again (I hope he is, the role was made for him). Anyway, Josh Haber is in the writer's seat for this episode. His most recent solo outings were "Father Knows Beast" which was a disappointing rehash of "Dragon Quest" with slightly different window dressing, and for some reason taking over "School Raze" from Nicole Dubac for only one part (still no word on why that was the case, especially since both are still serving as story editors for this season). He did well teaming up with Nicole Dubac for "Twilight's Seven" but even then that was a script that was just taking ideas spitballed by the VAs of the mane six. So, for his first time writing an original script since his disastorus solo endevaors in Season 8, did Haber redeem himself or did he only prove that like Nicole Dubac he's only good if he can collab with someone else? Well, let's find out. Are you ready for some buckball?!
We begin with an old timey newsreel in a movie theater (how coincidental to have a movie theater right at the time "Avengers:Endgame" is crushing all competition at the box office and is on track to become the new highest grossing film of all time). Apparently, buckball has really taken off now. Ponyville remains the undisputed champion, but teams are popping up everywhere and fans can't get enough of the sport. Despite this, the episode takes place in Appleloosa which has built a new stadium (wish they would've snuck in a joke about trying to lure a professional team there, because that's exactly what teams do these days). And Appleloosa is also buckball central, they even have a museum (but no Hall of Fame it would seem). Rainbow Dash has to go to said museums because for whatever reason Applejack couldn't come, but wanted Rainbow to visit all the museums and tell her about them. They mention Rainbow Dash's Wonderbolts' career (but not her teaching job), so that seems like a kind of selfish decision on Applejack's part. It's not like she wanted to go originally, but then had to back out last minute. Oddly, Snips is in this episode, accompanying Snails despite the fact that Snips was nowhere to be seen in the original buckball.
Rainbow heads to the museum and finds a fan camped out before the museum is slated to open. It's there that she meets Quibble Pants, who claims to be a big fan of buckball, but it's obvious he doesn't know a thing about it, he can't even get his sports lingo right. So why is he doing all of this? Well, because his special somepony, Clear Sky has a daughter named Wind Spirit who's a big fan of the sport. In fact, her dad is (or was) a talented buckball player (they never mention what happened to him, would've liked an ellaboration on that even if it was a vague wording). I have to wonder if that's at all related to that Appleloosan pegasus who looked like Bulk Biceps' mother. They kind of look similar. Maybe Bulk Biceps got into sports because of his dad? Maybe he's working so many jobs because his dad isn't around?
Quibble enlists Rainbow's help to impress Wind Spirit, because she's a buckball geek and he's nowhere close to being a talented player. He hoped bringing her to the museum would be close enough, since she's not into Daring Do or Ogres and Oubliettes (thankfully he doesn't mention having met Daring Do herself). Yes, that's right, Quibble Pants is a nerd.
Clear Sky insists that he doesn't have to try so hard to make Wind Spirit like him, but Quibble still hopes that if he can show interest it'll be enough for Wind Spirit to accept him. Otherwise, he doesn't feel like he can make it work between himself and Clear Sky. It's a dilemma a lot of step parents go through. Buying an almanac on the sport doesn't impress Wind Spirit, who just wants to watch the tournament with Clear Sky. Then Rainbow decides to turn Quibble into a sports pony. She mentions that buckball players generally fall into one of three categories of skill: Speed, strength, and agility (though she says some can do all three). Training Quibble goes about as well as you'd expect, he can't do anything (he can't even lift more than a single book). Sadly, there's no sports montage song to go along with it.
The tournament gets underway with Ponyville's team continuing to dominate the competition (so in other words, they've become the New England Patriots of buckball, I'm not sorry). It's then that Rainbow gets an idea. First it's just a meet and greet with the Ponyville team (or Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy anyway), but then she arranges to have Quibble Pants and Wind Spirit play a friendly match against Ponyville for a halftime performance. Despite Rainbow's instructions, Quibble manages to do so bad that he scores two goals for Ponyville, and since it's only a first to three (probably because it's a halftime performance) Ponyville wins. Wind Spirit storms off and Clear Sky tells Quibble that they need to rethink things, so Quibble assumes he's getting dumped. We all know he should've gotten Spongebob to play at the halftime show. Considering he got snubbed at the Super Bowl, he'd love a chance to repeat his greatest performance.
Rainbow talks to Quibble and convinces him to stop trying to be a sports pony, just try to understand the sport and ask Wind Spirit to teach him a few things. Meanwhile, they finally reveal the obvious dilemma for any step child or step child to be, the new step parent replacing the old parent. She feels like Quibble is trying to replace her dad, and Clear Sky convinces her that's not the case. An apology later and it's all good. Quibble finds a way to use some information from the almanac to get Wind Spirit interested, and I assume Ponyville goes on to win the championship.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, how much you enjoy it is going to depend on how much you enjoy Quibble Pants and new characters Clear Sky and Wind Spirit. They could've been focused on a little more, but having them be voiced by Patton Oswalt's actual wife and daughter helps to make the connection between them stronger. Buckball making a comeback was unexpected, but not unwelcome. They did more to flesh it out, adding so many more details to it that I have to ask what it's going to take for Hasbro to make an official licensed buckball video game. Rainbow Dash was definitely in top performance here, it builds on her character from episodes like "Flight to the Finish" and "Daring Done?" when she's willing to be a coach for others. She pushes them hard, sometimes a little too hard, but she never wants to see them give up on themselves because she knows they can be great. A little ellaboration on Wind Spirit's father and what happened to him would be nice, the implication is that Clear Sky is a single mom but we don't know if it's because of death or divorce (I could see either one being the case). I feel like Wind Spirit can be a little too mean at times. Quibble is willing to publicly humiliate himself just to try and be part of a sport his soon to be step daughter clearly enjoys. She could at least go along with it and then tell him afterward that she doesn't want him to try so hard to be something he's not. It's understandable why she doesn't, she's a kid, and a kid in her case often tends to feel like a new parent may be trying to replace the old one, and can cause them shut the new parent out without knowing it. I don't think we got to see nearly as much comedic stuff from Patton Oswalt's performance this time around, but that's fine because they were clearly going for comedy in the situation, not the dialogue. And Patton proved he can do serious roles. In the end, despite some nitpicks and a few oddities at the beginning (would've liked to get to Quibble's story a little sooner), I'm willing to give this an A+, making it the best episode of Season 9 so far, topping even "Twilight's Seven" which while it tried to utilize all the ideas given to it, didn't always find a way to make them fit into the story.
Next week, for Mother's Day weekend, we have "She's All Yak" in which Sandbar invites Yona to a pony dance (doesn't say what type of dance it is though some speculate it could be another Grand Galloping Gala) and so she goes to Rarity for advice. While it'll probably launch SandbarxYona (really need to think of a good ship name for that) the moral already sounds like it'll be another "Be Yourself" message which we've gotten twice before. Still, as long as we get some good solo interactions between a student six member and a mane six member, I won't mind it too much. We sorely needed that kind of stuff in Season 8 and the most we ever got was stuff like "Non-Compete Clause" that just made the mane six look bad so the student six would look good. Interestingly, Rarity's the one who gave Yona her hair band bows.
I thought this episode was nice and fun, but I'd put it behind Beginning of the End, myself
It was good to see Snips in an episode again! The dynamic of Clear Sky and Wind Spirit shows what most single parents and their children would be like. I was also surprised that Rainbow claims that books are awesome (I know she is into Daring Do, but it just shows that she admits to liking other things that may be different for her personality). Although it felt forced for Rainbow to have Quibble and Wind Spirit play against Ponyville's buckball team without informing Quibble about it.
So, it really felt genuine and well planned, because this episode, well, it reflected events that happened in Patton Oswald and his family's life, and it really did them honor, even if roles were sort of reversed on the parents in this episode. But all the same, it makes the episode feel more, well, down to earth.
While I can't say that I experienced what Wind Spirit went through with the loss of her father, I can say I know how it feels to let someone new into my life, since for the first 8 years of my life, my father figures were my Uncles and Grandpa, so it was a bit hard to adjust. Still, I love my new dad, and wouldn't trade him for anything.
I also do like that they mixed the pony races with the family, having Clear Sky be a unicorn and her daughter a pegasus. It at least doesn't keep the whole Pound and Pie cake were the only two oddballs in the show born to parents who weren't the same race as their kids.
This sort of gives me hope that Scootaloo will reveal her family and one or possibly both parents are not pegasus in her family.
5053772 There's speculation that her parents may finally make their debut in the upcoming "The Last Crusade" given the synopsis. But that's all it is, speculation.
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We'll just have to wait and see. They've honestly dodged the bullet too long on her family. I at least want that, if they're not going to give us an explanation for why she can't soar across the heavens of Equestria.
5054130 "The Washouts" sort of give us that. They didn't outright state it, but the implications are that Scootaloo is disabled. Though they still need to explain how that works, and I still think they've got ways around it.
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I feel that, and this is just my humble opinion, Scootaloo is magically imbalanced (handicapped). While she can walk on/move clouds without the aid of unicorn spells, she can't fly. What I mean is, her pegasus magic is imbalanced, since pegasus magic was a canon thing since the season 4 finale.
A good Scootaloo centered episode would be where she meets another pony (could be unicorn, another pegasus, or earth pony) who is also magically handicapped like her, and that pony shows her how to cope with the magical imbalance, and not let it dictate her life. That way, we can have all these wacked out theories, like she's part dragon or part changeling, or other outlandish reasons that state why she can't fly. I know parents being non-pegasus wouldn't be a reason, seeing as this most recent episode has shown us a pegasus filly has a unicorn mother, and she's still able to fly.
But yeah, there are two fields I really think should be more straight forward about Scootaloo. But I'll be satisfied if at least one gets a straight forward explanation.
This really was a cute episode. I liked the fact that it showed the dynamic with a single parent and their child having a new person enter their lives; it was a cool little bonus to have Patton's wife and stepdaughter as Clear Sky and Wind Spirit. Who'd have thought Buckball would've taken off so much? I find it funny that, as much of a bookworm as Twilight is, she's stronger than Quibble Pants, who had a hard time lifting even a single book.