Mini Re-Reviews: "The Cutie Pox" - Season 2 Episode 6

APPLE BLOOM: "You know, I was being forced to do so much stuff with all them there cutie marks, that I couldn't even see half of them! There's a mallet, a fancy brush, two thin swords hitting each other... Man, am I glad I have just the one cutie mark now!"
DISCORD: "Cutie Mark related chaos?!? Why didn't I think of that? All the times I caused chaos, and I never did anything cutie-mark-related! Oh, Fluttershy's made me go soft!"
APPLE BLOOM: "Discord! Am I glad to see you! Some of those talents were pretty cool. Do you think you could... give me back some of those cutie marks just for a bit? Only one at a time, now!"
DISCORD: "But of course, Apple Bloom! It's so wonderful to witness another pony seeing the benefits of chaos! Won't be long now before Twilight sees the light..."

You all knew it was coming. "The Cutie Pox" is not a bad episode. It is, in fact, a good episode. But it is an ordinary and largely unremarkable one when stacked next to the five Season 2 episodes before it. Much like "Owl's Well That Ends Well", its placement in the episode lineup makes it seem meeker and less worthy of note then it actually is, being surrounded by several classics. In fact, having watched it, there's just not a whole lot to say about this one. But by golly, as always, I'll dig up as much as I can.

After a largely standard pre-title sequence that nonetheless contains an easy-to-miss-but-awesome-all-the-same Big Lebowski reference, the post-title scene posits Apple Bloom as being far more saddened at their failure to get a cutie mark then the other two. For reasons that don't make a lot of sense when you stop and think about it (was she intending on visiting Zecora, or just wandering while down in the dumps?) , Apple Bloom wanders through the Everfree and trips, chipping a tooth. Luckily Zecora is on hand to brew a cure, such that her teeth are once again pure.

...sheesh, small wonder Zecora is rarely a driving speaking force in fanfics, with all the rhyming she does sentence in, sentence out.

Yes, um, anyway, Apple Bloom pays Zecora's tactful reminders to patiently wait for a Cutie Mark no heed, and when the zebra departs briefly to find amethysts to finish her potion, Apple Bloom finds herself awfully interested with a flower, intended to help a rooster crow again, called 'Heart's Desire"... Before you can say "well, duh," Apple Bloom shows up the next day with a cutie mark of a sliver hoop, representing a talent in loopty-hooping. This middle third of the episode, before things starts to spiral out of control, is devoted purely to Apple Bloom showing off this talent and getting very slightly smug with it, and when a second cutie mark of rotating plates on top of poles appears, she starts doing that with the first trick too. Soon enough, she's marching down the streets showing off her tricks (with two killer visual gags in the hoop shrinking Rainbow Dash's napping cloud to a perfect circle, and Twilight's mane getting pulled into Rarity's mane style, to the point that Spike has hearts in his eyes). This third finally wraps up with Applejack saying Apple Bloom should be enlisted for the rodeo with those skills, the Apples retiring to bed... only for Applejack to be kept awake by tapping in the house. Turns out Apple Bloom sprouted a third cutie mark of tapping shoes, and can't stop tapping alongside the other two talents.

Would you believe me if I told you all the above took very nearly seven minutes? Not having much to say doesn't mean an episode is padded, but in this case, it kind of does. It's not entirely without cause - having the hooping and spinning play out as long as they do does take would could be dismissed as silly, gimmicky, weak talents and show not much rich variety there can be to such things. Playing them as if they were real, with all the surface-level stuff exploring the ramifications of these talents, does add a nice bit of variety to it all. But since we the audience know they're fake, it is still very much a "...this is fun, but when's the blow going to fall?" effect produced. This third lives and dies by the fun shenanigans produced therein, and while some are great, most are more amusing then actually funny. It just makes for an enjoyable but plain middle third.

The episode's last third fares a good bit better, due to the plot proceeding at a faster pace and some more hilarious gags that follow, from Apple Bloom speaking French to Ponyville citizens donning radioactive protective suits as caution against the Cutie Pox disease that Twilight's book cites has no known cure. Once Zecora shows up, she instantly pegs what's going on but remains coy about it, producing truth seeds that will grow into a flower for the cure only once the truth is told. Following a hilarious confession from Pinkie that she ate three times the corn cakes yesterday that she initially said she did, Apple Bloom spills the beans, gobbles down the flower, and in sporting a blank flank once again. All that's left is sweet but plain forgiveness and delivery of the moral from all concerned, along with the CMC learning only the part about a Cutie Mark being earned, and not about waiting for one, going right on back to trying out lots of things (with a neat nod to Apple Bloom's potion making skills that the rest of the show barely used).

I think something of the issue here is that this is the first episode that is thematically repeating a previous one - "Call of the Cutie", down to the same lead. One issue with the CMC, and one that seems to apply to Apple Bloom more then the others, is that since there's only so much to be mined from their blank flank angst angle, it can get repetitive fast when that's the sole angle. Truthfully speaking, the best CMC episodes have the cutie mark hunting as a backdrop to the plot's main point, and after "The Show Stoppers" made for a great story about that hunt, there isn't a whole lot left to be told there. Its a second-class citizen; when choosing episodes blindly, there's little reason to pick this over "Call of the Cutie" or "The Show Stoppers" unless those have been watched recently. "The Cutie Pox" falls more into the category of 'watch if you come across it, but rarely actively seek out to watch in full'.

Still, it's a good episode, if a bit flat and plain despite all the visual shenanigans therein; perhaps this being rather unmemorable comes from the shenanigans being all slapstick-based, rather then character-paces like the recent "Sisterhooves Social". Nonetheless, it gives us plenty of well-times visual gags, lots of effective instrumentation, another great showcase of Zecora only three episode after her last appearance (don't get used to it; after a brief appearance from her in "Secret of My Excess" four episodes down the line, that's it for this season), and a few memorable lines ("Ma sister's speaking in fancy!"). A unremarkable episode, but an enjoyable, pleasurable one all the same, and that's enough for it to still earn a 7/10.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- I suppose the fact of Zecora having a cure right away when even Twilight was stumped further posits there being much zebras don't know that is completely unknown to ponies. Another area the show never delved into much. Yes, yes, there's the upcoming "Season 10" comics, but even for I, someone who supports the comics, they have tended to miss more they they have hit over the years, so I wouldn't hold my breath there, either for their quality of one more zebra lore then is essential to the plot. That said, there are enough comic episodes I cherish (a lot of which, but not all of which, come from Friends Forever) that perhaps one of these days I might make a list of some of my favourite comic issues. Just to spotlight some issues I feel should be well remembered rather then forgotten, you know.
- Thanks to a fellow Pony enthusiast, I've been made aware of a exceptionally well-hidden lewd joke in the whole show. Listen to what Zecora is saying she's making prior to Apple Bloom's flower theft and you'll realise she's making a potion for a cock that's lost it's fire (it's split across two sentences separated by one of Apple Bloom's).
- ...yeah, I got nothing else. See you all next week!