Ranking the Wonderbolts Episodes (From Worst to Best) · 5:11pm Sep 28th, 2019
There's a reason why I'm not doing a ranking for the CMC episodes yet, as disappointing as this week's episode was for their final official outing in the spotlight they will have one more episode that I think counts as theirs to an extent. So meanwhile we have some other episode rankings to do. Since Maud Pie didn't get anymore episodes focused on her this season (she wasn't the character of focus in "Student Counsel" despite her party being crucial to the plot), I decided to start by doing a list I'm surprised I didn't think of sooner: A Wonderbolts episode list.
Now, I don't automatically count every episode a Wonderbolt appears in (so for example despite Spitfire's appearance in "Hurricane Fluttershy" it doesn't count as a Wonderbolt episode). For an episode to qualify it has to focus on the Wonderbolts in some way, shape, or form. And at least one Wonderbolt needs to make an appearance (so that means "The Best Night Ever" and "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3" don't count either, same goes for "Marks and Recreation" since although Thunderlane did play an important role him being a Wonderbolt was an extra detail that wasn't focused on). That leaves us with 7 episodes that qualify, and as always we're looking at how these episodes treated the character (or in this characters) of focus, not necessarily just which episodes were better overall. And as always this list is purely the result of my personal opinion so please respect it.
7. Rainbow Falls (Season 4, Episode 10)
Why it's on the bottom: By far the biggest mistake in this entire episode (and boy are there a lot of them) was including the Wonderbolts as the representatives for Cloudsdale. First of all, the Wonderbolts are professional athletes and also arguably militaristic so they're highly trained, isn't that the equivalent of sending marines to compete in an olympic swimming competition? Of course the marines are going to win, they undergo training that even professional athletes won't get. But the episode really goes wrong when Soarin gets injured. On a dime Spitfire and Fleetfoot decide to recruit Rainbow Dash to train with them and take Soarin's place, and we learn later that Soarin was okay to fly but they decided to just dump him because he got hurt. Fleetfoot is questionable since we don't know what her character is like, but this is OOC for Spitfire no matter how you slice it. The same Spitfire who kicked out Lightning Dust for her reckless behavior is now perfectly okay with bumping off teammates the second they get even the slightest bit injured. Even if you buy that this was all a test from them to see if Rainbow Dash would abandon Ponyville to fly with her idols it's still a portrayal from which some say the Wonderbolts never recovered. Why couldn't you just swap them out for new characters? You'd get the same results without having to destroy their characters and making us wonder why Rainbow Dash would ever want to fly with them!
6. Top Bolt (Season 6, Episode 24)
Why it's not on the bottom: Rainbow Dash's first episode with the bolts after becoming a part of the team and what they do, they make her the butt monkey. Everyone is picking on Rainbow Dash here for no reason at all, be it Misty Fly looking grumpy, Spitfire teasing Rainbow, or even Twilight just rolling with it when the recruits give Rainbow a hard time. To make matters worse, somehow even Spitfire isn't aware of what Sky Stinger is doing despite it happening in broad daylight (I know I keep harping on that but it's a serious case of telling us one thing while showing us another). And yet Spitfire blames Rainbow Dash but not Twilight when Sky Breeze starts to suck. Still, at least the bolts seem competent and mostly in character here.
5. Newbie Dash (Season 6, Episode 7)
Why it's in the bottom three: Now this is unexpected, the episode that many others felt ruined the Wonderbolts' characters even more than "Rainbow Falls" did and it's actually not dead last or just above it. Well the thing is, the bolts themselves are pretty fine for the most part. They have no idea of the fact that the nickname they give Rainbow Dash has such emotional baggage attached to it, and Rainbow never bothers to tell them. Instead she wastes their time and ours with her impressions on the bad advice of her friends, to the point where the bolts wonder what the heck is wrong with her. However, the justification for the embarrassing nicknames does hurt the Wonderbolts a bit. It's one thing to poke fun at little accidents that were caused by someone's arrogance or carelessness, like say misjudging a landing and coming down in the wrong place or being too slow, it's another thing entirely to make fun of someone for a painful injury like clipping your wing! Even if Soarin was a haughty jerk when he started out and clipped his wing on the flag pole because of his arrogance, I'm pretty sure he doesn't like to be reminded of that painful experience! That's just flat out sadistic and it really robs the Wonderbolts of a lot of sympathy. Plus, we never do learn what Spitfire's embarrassing nickname is (I personally subscribe to the idea of it being naughty and vulgar, I won't repeat what it is though).
4. The Washouts (Season 8, Episode 20)
Why it's in the middle: Considering this is Lightning Dust's return we're talking about, and the fact that the Washouts are clearly based on (perhaps bordering on ripping off) the Wonderbolts, I think this can be said to count as a Wonderbolts episode. Spitfire's presence for the brief amount of time she's on screen is nice, I get the feeling this isn't the first time she's had to give this sort of speech to a young pony. And she makes an important point: Even the pros can get hurt, and disregarding the safety rules is a sure fire way to injure yourself worse than if you follow them. It is still disappointing that we'll never get to see the Wonderbolts and the Washouts face each other, especially since Short Fuse was an actual recruit we saw in "Top Bolt" (albeit in the background).
3. Wonderbolts Academy (Season 3, Episode 7)
Why it's in the top three: Spitfire's voice actually didn't change here, it was the same VA she'd had since "The Best Night Ever" (only for her debut appearance was she voiced by Nicole Oliver instead of Kelly Metzeger, I'm not sure why they recast the role but most likely Nicole was just a last minute decision before they had settled on what Spitfire's character would be like and sound like), though this was the first time she was actually on duty as opposed to prior interactions being informal public ones. The thing with Lightning Dust is that her actions occur in places where Spitfire legitimately can't see (in crevices and in clouds) so she's unaware of Lightning Dust's behavior until Rainbow Dash brings it to her attention. I also suspect that the real reason she made Rainbow Dash Lightning Dust's wing pony was specifically because she's already seen Rainbow be a capable leader before, and wanted to see if Rainbow could follow orders as well as she gives them (they never confirm that was the case but I think there's evidence to support that argument). The abrupt ending is a little bit jarring, as is the contrivence of Spitfire not overseeing the cloud busting exercise herself despite having been there for all previous ones (and at no point do we see another Wonderbolt filling in for her). If they had cut out most of the Pinkie Pie subplot or even just trimmed it down a little they probably could've worked out those problems.
2. Rarity Investigates! (Season 5, Episode 16 in production order/15 in airdate)
Why it's not on the top: This episode basically confirmed a chain of command within the Wonderbolts, at least to the extent of Soarin being co-captain (or whatever you refer to the one who takes charge in the captain's absence as). And this was also the first appearance of Misty Fly since "Sonic Rainboom" with Fleetfoot nowhere to be seen (Fleetfoot seemed to take Misty Fly's place) which could hint that Misty Fly was third in command originally, then went away for a while and Fleetfoot took her place until Misty Fly's return (perhaps after the Equestria Games?). Soarin really got a chance to shine here, proving that he's more than just a goofball or a klutz (if "Newbie Dash" is anything to go by he may be a bit accident prone). Some complain about the Wonderbolts not giving Rainbow Dash the benefit of the doubt and treating her with hostility, but you have to remember that from their perspective one of their own is missing in action and the replacement is suspected of foul play. Even on professional sports teams you usually get sidelined if something controversial comes out, at least until they can determine whether or not you did what you're accused of. Plus the bolts do give Rainbow a chance to clear her name and they seem legitimately shocked that Wind Rider was a dirty coward. But as nice as it is, the Wonderbolts aren't really the focus here, Rarity and Rainbow Dash are. A good chunk of the episode takes place independently of the Wonderbolts. Which is why I feel like it just misses out on the top spot.
1. Parental Glideance (Season 7, Episode 7)
Why it's on the top: I'm starting to notice a pattern of each season (starting with the third) devoting the seventh episode to the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash (a trend that abruptly dropped off in Season 8). It would've been so easy to make the Wonderbolts a-holes here, having them chew out Rainbow Dash the moment her parents show up and start causing trouble. But they treat the whole thing with dignity and respect, likely because they've dealt with this many times before. It's really saying something when Rainbow is the one who has to tell her parents off for their bad behavior and not any of the Wonderbolts. Though I really have to ask, why couldn't one of the bolts have pulled Bow and Windy aside sooner and talked to them? Because what Bow and Windy did was ruining the fun for everyone else. There is the odd detail of the bolts appearing in Rainbow Dash's flashback (maybe she knew some of them before they were Wonderbolts but it's still a huge leap of logic), but aside from that the Wonderbolts do such a good job here that I consider this their best outing.
And there you have it, come back tomorrow when we'll update the rankings for the Shining Armor/Cadence episodes (even though there will ultimately only be one addition).
For me, it goes:
The Washouts
Parental Glideance
Newbie Dash
Top Bolt
Rarity Investigates
Rainbow Falls
Wonderbolts Academy
5129547 Why is "Wonderbolts Academy" below "Rainbow Falls" considering the latter saw the bolts try to replace one of their own without even a second thought and despite knowing he was cleared to fly?