Daring Doubt S9E21 Review · 4:08pm Sep 21st, 2019
I've always been pretty apathetic on Daring Do and her episodes, don't hate them but they so nothing for me. So let's see how her last appearance goes for me.
First - Groom Q Q Martingale? Seriously?
I at least appreciate they don't even try to make it a twist that its Cabaleron, but then Fluttershy gets tossed the idiot ball to trust that he's not evil, just misunderstood, as he manipulates her into helping him retrieve an artifact. Of all ponies to give the benefit of the doubt, its Fluttershy, but this is ridiculous.
Anyway this episode was meh right up until the third act, when it got insultingly STUPID. Turns out Ahuizotl is just a guardian of the treasures and wants them left alone. He totally didn't plan to unleash a centuries-long heatwave in Season 4, that didnt happen. Nor did any other preceding episode with Daring Do, because this episode contracts almost everything we know about those characters in the name of redeeming them (including the fact Cabaleron knew she was AK Yearling). And why, was anyone really clamoring for Cabaleron and Ahuizotl to get reformed?
At least past Daring Do eps were watchable. This one is just a shitty redemption fic, how apt given its premise.
Best part was Rainbow's spa joke.
I wouldn't say it contradicts anything just puts things into a different context. Like that heat wave, it would have only affected that valley which would have been a good way to keep away adventurers. And nothing changed about Cabaleron, he's still a greedy jerk it just turns out he's capable of being a reasonable person.
Overall, weakest episode of the last season by far.
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By far. Even Root of the Problem and She's All Yak were better.
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"Root of the Problem"? Do you mean "Uprooted"? There's no episode with the former's title. I'll forgive you, of course - I try not to remember Uprooted either.
I don't know about worst of the season - I'd still put a, 4, 6, Greaaat, She's All Yak, and maybe A Trivial Problem below this. But it's still very much in " no, this isn't just mediocre or poor, this is actually legitimately awful, lads" territory. I thought this season would have to fight, hard, to be worse then season 8, but it's looking alarmingly close right now. Unless the next two episodes and the three-part finale really surprise, the show's going out on a true whimper.
Having been spoiled on the ending twist, I found myself less angry about it overall than I expected to be, but you're still 200% right. Cue shouts of "show staff don't care!" :B
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Lucky for me I don't care either, so I can't be too upset.
Caballeron's I could kind of buy, we don't know for sure how the team up offer with Daring Do went and maybe Daring did scorn him unintentionally. Though that doesn't justify some of the more extreme things Caballeron was happy to do to her or to anyone involved with her.
Ahuizotl though, I don't even get why they wanted to redeem him. He wasn't even in two of Daring Do's episodes.
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It's not trying to justify anything (you can understand a person's actions and still disagree with them) nor is it really trying to redeem them because that implies they were evil monsters, to begin with. The point of the episode was to show there are two sides to every story (a good lesson to teach I'd say), its not saying these two weren't bad guys in the past just that they had their reasons and that it wasn't impossible to work things out if they had just tried to talk things out rather than jump to conclusions or act out in anger.
Honestly, I thought this was a good episode, I didn't need a conclusion to the Daring Do stuff but I appreciate the fact that they tried to end things on a somewhat conclusive note.
5124768 But it doesn't match what we've seen of them before. And if they really wanted to tell their side of the story, why didn't they do so the first time they met Daring Do? Ahuizotl especially since if he's really what he claims he is, why would he not tell Daring or warn her?
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Because when someone does something to piss you off you tend not to want to sit down and talk about things first and Daring just jumped to conclusions in assuming she needed to protect these artifacts and didn't consider the possibility someone was already protecting them. Also, Cabeleron is a greedy jerk who was in it for the money, his motives are never in question he just comes to realize that maybe there are better ways to make money than stealing artifacts.
For this episode done better, I recommend this fanfic.
Actually, Ahuizotl just said he'd release 800 years of unrelenting heat on the valley, which certainly would keep those trying to steal artifacts away. True, it would kill the creatures living there too, but if his job is ONLY to protect the artifacts, then he did his job. But yeah, his presentation as a pure evil monster in past episodes didn't help. But it's really not very surprising. Most of the redemptions in this show have the characters acting really evil before their reformation, where they suddenly turn into a goody two shoes. Honestly, the best redemption (not redemption arc, I'm just talking about the moment of switching allegiances itself) was Discord's. His character didn't get a soft reboot like Diamond, he didn't just apologize and become trusted by almost everyone immediately, and him wanting a friend after eons of being alone is very understandable, and unlike other antagonists, there was actually a good reason for him to not just reach out to others (he'd be attacked on the spot). But even his redemption was sort of quick. Redemptions just aren't done well in this show, and that doesn't excuse this episode's use of it, I suppose, but I have to say that I think this episode had one of the best redemptions in the show.
With Caballeron, it was somewhat gradual, and it's not like the episode tried to justify his past actions (if my memory is correct, I haven't watched the episode in a little while), he just realized that he should stop. And with Ahuizotl, it also acknowledged how he acts ferocious and monster-like, which is more than I can say for most of the redeemed antagonists. And he didn't exactly befriend the ponies, he just went from an enemy to a neutral party. I honestly would say that these two had possibly the second best redemptions in the show. They still weren't great, but I don't think it was bad enough to call this a terrible episode.