My Review of MLP: FIM season 9 episode 3 Uprooted · 3:08am Jul 26th, 2020
Grading Scale:
A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)
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Good evening, folks. Here is my review of season 9 episode 3 Uprooted. Honestly, this third episode was... an okay one for me. While I can say that it definitely does have good moments with the Young Six, it still has several questions that it left in my mind. For those of you that don’t know, I do not like the Young Six... like at all. I wanted to like these new characters season eight introduced to us. I REALLY wanted to. They had potential to be great characters, but... they weren’t developed enough for me to both care about them and like them enough as characters. Yona is probably the only decent character out of them all, but that really isn’t saying much. If the writers had made separate episodes for each of them to shine more and be more fleshed out characters, I would’ve liked them a lot more. So in this episode, they were... okay. They weren’t too terrible, but they still didn’t do anything to make me LOVE them, you know?
This episode starts with the Young Six having their own dreams together of something they really liked or what they are afraid of. Then... the Tree of Harmony/Spirit of Harmony appears to them in their dream? First off, I thought that only Luna has dream magic every night? Why does the Spirit also have that ability? Second, did she just address herself as “a messenger”? That part always confused me for an entire year ever since I first watched the episode. The season 8 episode “What Lies Beneath” clearly stated that she is the Tree of Harmony. Now, she is a messenger? If she is the Tree, then why was she talking in the third person? “The Tree of Harmony needs you!” Umm... you mean YOU need them, right? Because YOU are the Tree of Harmony.
Then we have Twilight reveal to the Young Six that the Tree of Harmony and its elements was destroyed by King Sombra. The students asked to go to the Tree to see what’s left of it. After seeing what’s left of it, they decide to honor it and its history through various ideas each of them except Yona brought up. After things didn’t work out for them, they bicker and argue about their ideas being the best for honoring the Tree’s history and involvement in Equestria’s harmony. Yona has enough of it and talks sense into them that causes them to stop arguing and see the big picture. I actually like how that she is the voice of reason for the Young Six and reminds them as to what Tree of Harmony is all about and what friends are to do for each other.
So after they have their decent musical score, they built a small treehouse that the Tree literally developed into this:
Hey, look! It’s a new toy from Hasbro! Buy our toys, kids! Don’t worry, kids, we won’t feature this Treehouse of Harmony much throughout the season, and we’ll just barely mention it once or twice until it becomes of no significance to this season’s final story! ENJOY!
Seriously, what other purpose does this Tree serve besides make its new appearance and become an abiding place for the Young Six to hang out and stuff? And we never see the Spirit of Harmony again after this. Wow...
However, this episode shows us that the fandom can honor the show, especially as it’s over, by making fanfics, blogs, fan art, videos, drawings, and everything else to remember the goodness that this show had done for the fans. That’s the way I see it after watching this episode. So overall, this episode is... okayish.
This gets a C.
Peace.
Eh, it was decent.
My opinion of this episode in a nutshell: Not great, not terrible.
Kind of strange the tree didn't have any effect on the finale, guess its now suffering the fate Luna and Celestia are suffering, being unable to protect Equestria AT ALL anymore and basically be powerless.
Only problems I have with the tree house is it undermines the impact of Sombra destroying said tree.
But also the fact on what the heck happened to the Castle Of The Two Sisters when the treehouse emerged.
Like out of the few appearance of the treehouse, its hard to tell on what happened to the castle.
Like how much of it did we lose due to the treehouse coming up? Like did we lose the castle completely?
There was so much more they could have touched on that castle and what lurks within.
Like the "Pony of Shadows" we saw at the end of Castle Mane-ia there.
5325610
You can tell that the writers didn’t give a shit about continuity and the interesting ideas that would be birthed from such places like the Castle of the Two Sisters. That again emphasizes my point that they cared less about incorporating the Treehouse of Harmony into the season’s main story arch. That’s just sad.
5325623
Its a pretty ironic fate that now the spirit of the tree is basically rendered useless now honestly.
The Royal Sisters were basically tossed aside due to not being able to use the Elements anymore, like now the REAL heroes have arrived. Now Harmony is suffering that similar fate
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Well, good news for you. They will have a chance to shine in my next story.
5325643
Very nice, looking forward to seeing that
What do you think about the Tree of Harmony's spirit btw?
5325648
I hate the fact that she has a form of Twilight. The animators had no imagination of what the Spirit of Harmony should look like. “Hey, let’s have her look like Spirit Twilight because why the hell not?!”
Why would she look like Twilight but not like Celestia or Luna or somepony else? Ughhh... And she’s just as bland as cornflakes cereal.
5325655
I guess Harmony choose that due to Twilight is its "chosen one" that it must shaft others like Celestia and especially Luna for.
I wonder since it gained sentience, wouldn't it begin to experience negative stuff like negative emotions and temptations that sentient beings in general are capable of experiencing?
With how it nearly screwed the Student Six over in that "test" in What Lies Beneath shows that thing needs to learn restraint or know more stuff or something.
5325665
All hail the plot holes...
5325671
I bet it might even experience hatred(aside from hating beings of darkness regardless if they are good or evil sadly) and true pain due to Discord basically got it killed. Losing one's body like that sure must be PAINFUL.
Like the episode. The only dislike I have on this episode is that the tree spirit take the form of Twilight. If the tree has it own form I would like it more