Episode Review: "She's All Yak" - Season 9 Episode 7

As it happens, this was the first episode this season I did not see live during the stream, as I was just floating down at the cinema to see Detective Pikachu. I'd like to think not watching it live didn't affect my experience of the episode, but I felt it was something you should all be aware of.

The notion of an episode that finally, FINALLY spotlights one/two of the Student 6, and does something interesting with their characters individually as they play off of each other, is a good notion. But even before the episode starts, there's plenty of red flags against it. First, it's, if not a shipping episode, at least playing within that general wheelhouse, and the few times the show has done romance, it usually only works with older, more mature ponies (Mr and Mrs. Cake, Quibble Pants and Clear Sky just last episode; heck, even Big Mac and Sugar Belle have more of that going for them then what are, in essence, teenagers). Next, of the Student 6 available, it picked Sandbar, the blank slate, and Yona, the yak whose personality starts at "cute yak" and proceeded haltingly from there. They have the two individually worst of the lot. Not to mention they've has basically no interaction between each other before, so the odds of any development in this feeling like a natural progression of what came before are astronomically tiny. Honestly, in the 33 episode I've been following the show, plus the various specials and shorts, there hasn't been an episode that appealed to me less then this.
I realise that Yona has her fair share of fans, and that's great, honest it is. She's not without her sweet and cute moments. But that doesn't change that I largely have no reaction to anything she's done in her time on the show, and I just end up floating there in silence whenever any of her scenes play.

Now, all this meant my expectations were very, very low. I want to really like the Student 6, honest, and the other four have had their share of charming moments (which just makes it all the more perplexing as to the two they picked for this one). So all this episode had to do to be better then I thought it would, would be to do something interesting with them. Anything, really. Surely it could manage that?

Apparently not.

I'll be honest, I barely even have the energy to discuss this episode. You know where it's going before the lengthy pre-title sequence has even finished, it goes there without an ounce of creativity (at least, not any that improve the episode at all), what's going on just isn't interesting at all, unless you're already invested heavily in Yona as a character. To be honest, that's all the review the episode needs. Like Yona, and you'll like this. If you don't, then like me, you're out of luck. But, I will give more. It's only fair.

After that opening sequence where Sandbar asked Yona to the school's upcoming totally-not-prom (gag me) that has apparently being a regular thing in Ponyville we've never heard about before (because of course they'd do that to construct the episode's arbitrary conflict), the next ten minutes follows Yona getting help from the Main 6, sans Twilight, on how to act like a pony. Because apparently it makes sense for Yona, a yak who's stubbornly proud to be a yak, to suddenly want to act more like a pony. The episode can't even stay true to the few traits of her personality that are consistent! There's an odd isolated funny gag throughout this stretch, and Rarity gets her fair share of great faces she pulls. And I'll be generous and admit there's a few clever conceits - it does make sense for the two pegasi of the group to be the most adept at dancing. But really, I don't know what else to say about this tedious slog up to that point, except it's just another attempt to make yaks doing yak thing funny. I'll get back to that.

That changes so much more when the dance actually starts, but all for the wrong reasons. Because good lord, Yona's new design is just a putrid pile of gunge. That's disappointing even for me, because her normal attire and hairstyle, with those looped pigtails and green blanket thing, are cute and charming in their own way. So enduring that and her emulating My Fair Lady was enough that I had to actually pause the episode, just to clear my spectral cranium before I could continue. When you have to take breaks to make it through the cringe, the episode's lost all goodwill I was willing to give it to get better.

Anyway... Yona messes up the dance as a result of trying to be different (though, she would have anyway, let's be frank), runs off to their treehouse from Uprooted (hey, remember that? Yeah, I wish I didn't either), cueing the expected scene of Sandbar assuring her she didn't need to try and be something else, he liked her for who she was. Yona raising her eyebrow was the best joke in the whole episode, I actually laughed out loud, more due to being malnourished for a laugh-worthy moment more then anything. All that's left is for them to return to the others and continue the dance thing, but not before the others apologise for not trying to make Yona out to be something else.

This is a good place to note how the episode actively irritates me in a way I didn't expect it to. First, they did mean to change Yona, they shouldn't deny that. But Yona asked them to do just that, due to her sudden desire to not expresses her Yak-ness consistently any more, so it's not something to apologise for anyway. And her klutzines would have ruined the dance anyway, that much is clear. More then that, it's another case of the characters and staff trying to endorse Yaks as being funny. It's telling that the Yak-centric episodes are ones I've never felt compelled to rewatch. Forget whatever intentions or morals or themes the staff have behind them as a culture, the show doesn't have a card to them before "yaks being destructive wrecking balls is funny". I may not like Smolder much, but there's at least potential, however clichéd, in those moments that show her grappling between letting her less-dragon aspects shine through, for a character who's personality also starts with "the dragon who's moved to pony society" and proceeds from there, though less haltingly so then with Yona.

This episode was just one I sat through in stony silence, and don't think I'm not very, very sad to write that. Even Uprooted was a decent bit better then this, as that was merely tedious and wasted potential, while this does that and actively irritates with the way its characters act. At least Sandbar's barely in the episode, so they get to mostly avoid his lack of a personality, though it's still a thing. I was honestly thinking "the episode can't be that low, maybe it's just me thinking it is", and I was midway through writing a review that was more neutral. Then I realised the fake-ness of those written words was clear as crystal and that I was fooling myself. So believe me, dear reader: however upset you may be at reading this, I'm just as upset at having to have written it, if not more so. It's the worst episode since Yakity Sax. I don't think it's worse then that, but fighting to be above that episode is not really a debate I want to bother having.
But if you like Yona, maybe you got something out of it. That's great, honest it is. Mind lending me whatever you were taking while you watched the episode?
Oh, wait, ghosts can't take drugs meant for humans. It'll just fall through our bodies. Never mind...

But hey, next week's episode focuses on Grogar's Legion of Doom being sent out on a mission! We've never had a villain-centric episode in the show before (its something many cartoons with recurring villains use to great effect: one of the best episode of The Powerpuff Girls does just that with Mojo), so this should be breaking new territory for the show. I recently rewatched that segment in the season premiere, and it's just as long as I remembered, at nearly 6 minutes. FiM has had many great villains, but its rarely been able to focus on them when they're villains (Discord being reformed in Keeping Calm and Flutter On doesn't count). So I'm pretty stoked for next week's episode; even if Cozy Glow is still just... there.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
- That moment where the rest of the Student 6 were playing cards to the side of the dance that clearly didn't interest them all that much was really good. Indeed, they got a fair share of zinging lines and funny faces throughout. Substitute this episode with 21 minutes of them doing low-key stuff, even that would have been better then this.
- There was a song in the episode? I suppose there was. Nothing to it, other then being Rarity's first solo since Rules of Rarity all the way back in Season 5 with Canterlot Boutique. It does turn into a duet with Yona towards the end. And was it just me, or did Kazumi Evans lose Rarity's voice at a few points during the song? I don't think it was just me.
- Some other moments I liked include Yona pouring punch from her head and Rainbow Dash not being able to bake. I imagine there are others.