Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Expectations (Somepony to Watch Over Me) · 5:37am Feb 15th, 2021
It's easy to look back on the episodes that inspired you, and reflect upon what made them great - what made them personal to you. It's equally easy to look back on episodes that you hated, and stew on what sucked about them; or simply forget that they ever existed, and pleasantly write them out of your head-canon.
Today, on a whim, I decided NOT to skip over Somepony to Watch Over Me, even though I never liked it. For those who don't remember, this is the episode where the Apple Family decides that Apple Bloom is old enough - and responsible enough - to stay home alone and take care of the farm. Shortly after they leave, however, Applejack rushes back to check on Apple Bloom, startles her, causing her to make a mess. Applejack then concludes that staying home alone - and pretty much every other freedom that Apple Bloom had ever enjoyed - was "too dangerous."
The story is basically a series of hijinks where Applejack stifles Apple Bloom's autonomy in comedically extreme ways. Driven mad with frustration, Apple Bloom runs off. Her goal? To execute an apple pie delivery through treacherous terrain to prove that she can do it alone. So Apple Bloom ventures into a swamp full of fire geysers and monsters and stuff, and of course ends up getting in over her head. All is resolved when Applejack comes to the rescue, and sees for herself just how far Apple Bloom got the pies without help, and how successfully she had managed to protect them despite her own physical danger. She vows to respect Apple Bloom from that point forward. The end.
The show has always bent character continuity for the needs of a story or a moral, and that's totally okay, but this story turned Applejack into a helicopter parent with pretty much no justification at all, drastically altering her entire dynamic with Apple Bloom. I really hated that when it first aired. Upon re-watching it, however, I learned something important: it doesn't actually matter.
You see, I have been following comments and discussions of My Little Pony for ten years now, and one thing I've noticed is that when people analyze "bad episodes" - even when their criticisms are valid - they tend to catastrophize. There's a certain irrational gloom about it - an anxiety that poorly executed episodes are signifiers of THE DECLINE OF PONYTM.
I'm not waxing superior here. I have been guilty of this myself. Occasionally, they'd air an episode that really made me stop and wonder what the hay the creative team was thinking. It would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Then I'd have to wait a whole other week to find out if the next one was going to be any better.
Now that the show is over, everything has a whole new context. Even if you're new to the glorious phenomena that is My Little Pony, and you're watching it for the first time, you're going to process it differently. If an episode rubs you the wrong way, you can still binge forward if you want to, and see where it gets good again.
People for the most part, don't get mad at badly written episodes. We get mad because the show means a lot to us, and we don't want to have to watch it decline.
Having finally re-watched Somepony to Watch Over Me I found that, while my initial criticisms were still valid, I can also see passed them easier because I know that the show ended so exquisitely. I can even look at the episode, and see all the things that it did right. The comedy, and pacing were fine. At the very least, it gave kids with helicopter parents something to relate to.
It also taught those kids that the way to get your parents to see that you are ready for responsibility is to run away, and go on a dangerous mission into a mysterious swamp filled with fire geysers, and monsters just to prove your own maturity. If that's not a worthwhile lesson, I don't know what is!
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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I'm reminded of my friends' tales of watching Season 1 unfold week by week, back before I got into the show. At the time, the Crusaders themselves seemed like a plot tumor, annoyances who consumed screentime and attention that obviously should've gone to the real main characters. (At least, that's how those friends described the trio during my initiation into the Eleuwhinnyan Mysteries.) Looking back at the massive cast Friendship is Magic developed in a decade, I can't help but smile at that attitude. If only they knew just how wide the net would grow.
Thank you, as usual, for your thoughts. :)
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I did not like the crusaders at first either, and over time grew to love them as the show figured out what kind of stories they could tell.