Ep 14 The Last Laugh and Ep 15 2 4 6 Greaaat Reviews · 5:41pm Aug 11th, 2019
Forgot to post these, had them written up from leaks and it slipped my mind. But then it turns out I had no review written up for The Last Laugh for some reason, so I have some hasty look back thoughts on it and one review 
Last Laugh was enjoyable, Cheese Sandwich is as awesome as ever and Ponk is Ponk. I appreciate they don't make Sans Smirk a villain, he's just stoic by his nature but really does believe in what Cheese does, nice.
Not much to say here other than rather enjoyable episode, not as good as Pinkie Pride but still good.
Buckball again. Did not expect a second episode centering around that, but okay.
Right off the bat I question this premise. Okay, scholastic buckball league, fine. And Twi asks Rainbow to coach... the cheer squad. Huh? By her own admission Rainbow has no idea what cheer squads do and isn't interested in learning.
So how long before we start getting lesbian porn of Lighthoof and Shimmy Shake once this episode airs? I mean, derpibooru already has numerous screencaps edited or given captions for sexual jokes, and one piece of spanking fanart (EDIT - at the time of the leaked episode it did, there's lots more now, because of course there is). Also Ocellus, Yona, and Smolder are here, and so is Snips, still keen on merchandising the sport. I'll give this premise points for not going the route of "RD shirks her duties and the cheer squad is awful because of her negligence", no they rope her back and demand she help them because they wanna do a good job. I like they subvert that old cliche and the students hold Rainbow accountable.
Stop. We had a line of dialogue where Rainbow mentions "Zecora" and "rhyming dictionary" in the same sentence, and we don't go with the obvious joke? Shame on you, writers.
Anyway this episode sucked, frustratingly so. The initiating incident is that Twilight assigns Rainbow to the cheer squad, which turns out at the end to be her just doing it to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson about how you should show interest in a friend's interests even if you don't care. First, that is a rather skewed aesop, and second, shut up, Twilight. Rainbow is your friend for years, she is your peer and equal, and she is a grown mare. She does not need you to "teach" her something like she's your friendship student, yet Twilight is proud of herself for this and is complimented by Celestia for it. It is just surprisingly OOC of Twilight to pull this on one of her friends, and it is very condescending of the episode to portray Rainbow as so totally in the wrong and everyone else in the right.
Yeah, Rainbow was being a jerk about things, but by her own admission she had no interest in the cheer squad, knew nothing about cheering, and didn't see any importance to it. Nevermind that this isn't consistent with Rainbow's past characterizations (she's had ponies cheering for her before and appreciated it), but she is perfectly right in that she is a horrible choice for this. This premise could have worked if say, Gallus was made to lead the squad, but not Dashie.
A frustratingly annoying episode.
Right there with ya on both accounts, good buddy. :)
I hadn't considered Twilight's role in 2,4,6 before, either, but you're absolutely right about that. The moment Dash declared not just her disinterest, but her lack of expertise in the subject is when Twilight should have delegated the task to someone else. Cuz, y'know, we just had an episode about her learning to delegate despite the fact she's already demonstrated before that she knows how. <.<
I never considered that, but you're right. A premise like this could've worked if it was Gallus. Not only would Twilight have an actual reason to "teach" the lesson to him, but Gallus also probably wouldn't be anywhere near cruel enough to insult the cheer squad or insist that anyone who supported it was wasting their time. Come to think of it, why did they put Yona in this episode and not Silverstream? Cheerleading would've fit her character perfectly.
5103965
I was wondering about Silverstream too, though I didn't state it in my review.
Honestly, if this entire episode was retooled to focus on the Student Six, it probably would have worked much better.
5103976 "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" in general felt like another re-tooled holdover from Season 8, even down to making the mane six member of focus look so incompetent so the student six look better by comparison. Something I thought we were done with.
5103965 That's a good point, making Gallus do it would have been more interesting.
Honestly I think they didn't bring in Silverstream because she would have been so good at it they probably would not have needed a coach, and the writers needed the cheer team to need Rainbow.