MLP FIM Season 3 Episode 4 Review "One Bad Apple" · 2:37am Nov 11th, 2019
I know, I know. I suck. It’s been almost a month. But the high school lazies really hit me hard this year. I doubt it’ll be easy, but I’ll try to go back to at least one review a week eventually.
Unfortunately, 4 episodes in and we have undoubtedly the worst episode of the Season. Let’s hop right in and find out why, shall we?
Scale of Ratings
1 - Disgustingly Bad (the worst of the worst; has absolutely nothing to make up for the huge flaws that riddle the section/episode)
2 - Awful (still really horrible, but maybe it’s not as bad as it could be, or there are 1 or 2 saving graces that bump the score up a tiny bit)
3 - Bad (just generally executed poorly. Not offensive or horrible, but bad enough that it stands out for how poor the execution is)
4 - Mediocre (Not particularly bad, but with more negatives than positives)
5 - Meh (Not exactly good or bad. It has some negatives and some positives that overall balance out)
6 - Decent (Generally positive. There’s more good than bad, but the good wasn’t good enough, or maybe the negatives are pretty notable and bring the section/episode down quite a bit.)
7 - Good (Solid overall. Satisfactory but not incredible. Perhaps there are some flaws that hold it back a bit, but the section/episode is fine overall)
8 - Great (Very well executed, with pros that far outweigh the cons)
9 - Amazing (Really exceptional, but perhaps it’s not as good as it could possibly be. Or maybe it’s near perfect with just a few flaws)
10 - Masterful (Basically perfect. Any problems that exist are negligible and don’t detract from the quality much at all. Only the best of the best get this rating)
Story
The story started with Applebloom getting ready for her cousin Babs’ visit. Then she found out her cousin shared her lack of a cutie mark, which made her gather up the other members of the CMC to meet her. She was nice at first, but then when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon showed up and taunted the CMC, Babs decided to join them. And she even broke the CMC’s float for the summer harvest parade. Sweetie suggested telling an adult, but the others disagreed. They tried just avoiding Babs for a while, but this didn’t work. Babs, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon even took over the CMC clubhouse. At this point, the CMC decided to fight back. They booby trapped a new float they made overnight (which somehow looked great), and goaded Babs into taking it from them. But then, Applejack told them about Babs’ tragic backstory in Manehattan where she was constantly bullied for not having a cutie mark, so they tried getting Babs out of the float. And with Pinkie’s assistance, they succeeded right before the float crashed into the nearby muddy lake. Everyone talked and made up, and Babs came back from the dark side. She even threatened Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon with telling their mothers’ about their bad attitudes.
As you could expect, I have mixed feelings on this story. It was at the very least generally entertaining and funny, but the way the episode painted the CMC as in the wrong didn’t sit right with me. Sure, I can get Babs not wanting to be bullied, but she should’ve been painted as more sympathetic earlier on. Or at least she should’ve shown some remorse. But she seemed to enjoy it. And Babs should’ve had some consequences for her actions. But no, she got off completely scot free and the CMC were punished instead with embarrassment and a bunch of mud in the face.
But I don’t just hate this story. It was filled with some pretty hilarious (if horribly corny) jokes, some of the moments, like Sweetie Belle crying, were actually kind of emotional, and I liked how the story was going until the twist. It was a sort of harsh, but necessary approach that made a lot of people dislike Mare Do Well and Ponyville Confidential, and made me love them.
And...that’s about it. I wish I had more to say about it, but the story wasn’t bad enough to tear it apart and didn’t have enough good things to talk extensively about that. It was sort of disappointing more than anything. Personally, I liked it more than I didn’t, but objectively, it could use some work.
4.5/10 - Relatively Mediocre
Characters
Applebloom had a few decent moments, and her enthusiasm in meeting Babs was pretty cute. It was also interesting seeing her come up with a plan to get revenge on Babs.
Sweetie Belle’s desire to to tell an adult, while often not being enough, was a good start and she probably had the best idea out of anyone. Telling an adult can make it worse, but usually that should be the first thing you do. Also, her wording things in just the wrong way when explaining why the float was amazing was pretty hilarious.
I don’t have much to say about Scootaloo here, except that the moment with the wrench on her flank was funny.
Unlike in most CMC episodes, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had very little involvement. They did have their usual attitude, but they mostly took a backseat here, only really supporting Babs’ bullying.
Speaking of, Babs was a pretty good antagonist until her backstory was introduced. She was very menacing and her imagery throughout the musical number was threatening and effective. But that’s the problem. If she was just kept that way, she would’ve been better off (like with a lot of mlp antagonists…). But no. She was so mean because she was bullied. That is NOT okay. That is NOT good enough. Honestly, the fact that she was good as a villain is kind of detrimental to her overall character because she’s supposed to be sympathetic. It’s really unfortunate, but it’s just how it is.
Thankfully, Pinkie was in good form. Her jokes were extremely bad, but they were still funny, which is usual Pinkie fare. Though she made more puns than usual. And I’m very okay with that.
So let’s take a look at all the characters. Applebloom and Scootaloo were decent, Sweetie Belle was pretty good, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were decent, Babs was really good until her reasons for becoming a bully were explained, and Pinkie was pretty great. Not the best character writing I’ve ever seen, but at least it’s better than the story.
6.5/10 - Decently Good
Themes
This is where things sort of get messy. Because at least with the other bad lessons, the idea of the lesson was good, and it was just the execution that brought it down. But no, the stated messages and what I got from the episode were pretty much the same. The better of the two main lessons was that you should always go to an adult when you’re being bullied. As I already said, that’s not a terrible thing to do, but that’s where the lesson begins, not where it ends. An adult scolding a bully might discourage them for a while, but they might eventually continue doing the same thing as before. Or worse, they’ll find sneakier ways to bully you so they won’t get caught. Telling kids that adults can fix all bullying is just not good.
And the other lesson is even worse. Apparently it’s okay to be a bully, as long as you had a reason for doing it and you feel bad about it. No. That’s not a good enough reason for making others miserable. And if they wanted to go the realistic bully route, they could’ve at least shown that bullying has consequences. I realize I’m repeating much of what I said before, but the story, characters, and themes are connected.
Thankfully, there is one saving grace with the themes. And that is the fact that life is ironic. It doesn’t really have any practical applications, but I just thought it was a funny, good lesson to tell kids.
But still, the themes in this episode were just bad. Plain and simple. And I don’t throw that word around much when it comes to fiction. You could probably tell considering the lowest rating I’ve ever given in a review was mediocre (though honestly that might’ve been a little generous in a few cases). At least until now.
2.5/10 - Really Bad
Misc.
Thank god that at least this part of the episode was really good. I was getting sick of all the negativity in this review. Onto the animation!
Most of the animation was pretty good, but it was awesome during Babs Seed. I loved the way the characters moved in perfect synchronization with the music. The seeds in the background looked really cool, and the imposing Babs imagery was at its peak here. I even liked the way the recycled animation was used. It made it feel like the bullying just never changed no matter what the CMC did, and it was also great animation. Plus, the storyboarding of the chorus, with flashing seeds in the background, and the creative colors, was also great.
This episode was packed with fun, slightly more kiddish music than in most episodes, which is par for the course as a CMC episode. And because of the story’s content, there was a good amount of sad and intense music. I always like that a lot, which you’ve probably noticed if you’ve been reading all of my reviews. And this episode isn’t breaking the trends in that department.
And now we’ve come to the absolute best part of the episode. Babs Seed. The song, obviously. Babs wasn’t great. I’ve already talked about the way the visuals complemented the music really well. So I guess I’ll talk about the actual music now. It’s really fast-paced throughout, with an energetic, catchy melody. No matter how many times I listened to it, I found myself bobbing my head to the music every time. The vocals expressed the CMC’s concern really well at parts too. I’m usually not a big fan of pop-rock songs like this, but it was just so good. Besides the musical excellence, it was also an interesting way of conveying how bad the bullying was. This is definitely among the 5 best musical numbers thus far.
The voices for the CMC were really excellent during Babs Seed, and they were also great at conveying the wide range of emotions they went through in the episode. Babs’ voice actress was really good at completely changing her voice while still making it pretty much sound the same. The rest of the characters were voiced really well too.
It definitely doesn’t make up for the huge flaws that riddle this episodes’ writing, but the production value at least helped this episode from being a complete failure.
8.5/10 - Really Great
Conclusion
Story - 4.5/10
Characters - 6.5/10
Themes - 2.5/10
Misc. - 8.5/10
Overall - 22/40 - Relatively Decent
Yeah, the worst episode so far. To be honest, I feel like A Friend In Deed is more problematic than this, but the positives of this episode were worse than the positives of that one, resulting in a lower score. Honestly, I think even this rating might be a little high, because of the misc. section. Stuff like this is why I’ve considered making the misc. section have a weighting of 5 instead of 10. But that can be discussed later. Anyways, this was not a good episode at all. It had so many problems, especially the two morals, and the good stuff was average for mlp. But it’s still not bad.
Personal Rating - 4.5/10 - Relatively Mediocre
...however, it is mediocre. I wish I could say the humour was enough to think of this episode positively. I wish I could say the amazing song was enough. Or the character writing that was actually pretty good. But it’s not. The poorly handled resolution, bad morals, and Babs was just too much against this episode to call it anything above mediocre. But I don’t think it’s below that either, because of the aforementioned positives, and because even though the backstory and all the problems that arose from it were bad, it’s not the worst thing ever. Forgiveness CAN be good in SOME circumstances. And SOMETIMES telling an adult about a bully can be good. So even though the ending was messy overall, it’s not awful.
Now that that’s out of the way, back to the trend of great Season 3 episodes with Magic Duel. I suspect that’s gonna be a really good one, from my memory of it and the generally positive feelings on the episode from the fandom. Bronies aren’t right sometimes, but I agree with them more often than I don’t. Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this controversial episode and how well I criticized it. Was I too harsh? Too lax? Feel free to tell me.
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Um, yes. It's been a thing since May.