Episode Re-Review: The Cutie Pox · 6:05pm Feb 19th, 2021
Season 2 seemed to be doing well for most people up to this point, and there's no denying that with "The Return of Harmony" through "Sisterhooves Social" they were showing a desire to be more bold and explore avenues and characters that hadn't been explored before. Lauren Faust's contributing presence likely helped, since now the writers didn't have to worry as much about trying to please both Lauren and Hasbro (at least for the time being). However, this is widely regarded as the first true misstep of Season 2, an episode that no one really defends. It's written by Amy Keating Rogers though, so maybe her first CMC episode would be able to defy the curse? Well, let's find out.
We begin with the latest attempt by the Cutie Mark Crusaders to earn their cutie marks: Bowling. There's a bit of a debate about what to call themselves before they head inside. We soon see the three ways a pony can bowl ("Slice of Life" would add a fourth way ala a Flintstones reference): Push the ball with their nose, kick the ball with their legs or pick up the ball with their teeth and spit it out. Sweetie Belle gets a gutter ball and Scootaloo kicks her ball so hard it bounces off the walls and causes lots of destruction. Apple Bloom spits out her ball and briefly thinks she's gotten her cutie mark, but then it turns out someone else apparently has a bowling cutie mark already and Apple Bloom's ball loses all its momentum and fails to knock down a single pin.
For some reason, this particular failure has Apple Bloom down in the dumps. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle try to cheer her up through various ways but nothing works. Then Apple Bloom goes off by herself into the Everfree Forest and her friends just let her do it. She subsequently stumbles down a ledge and meets Zecora, who appears to have a rhyme ready even before she knows Apple Bloom's chipped her tooth. Zecora takes Apple Bloom to her hut and manages to create a brew that fixes Apple Bloom's tooth as if it was never chipped. Because of this, Apple Bloom gets the idea that Zecora could whip up a brew to fix "anything". Zecora insists she has no way to make a cutie mark appear, but then notices she's run out of an ingredient for another brew she's working on. She leaves to go get it and seems to entrust Apple Bloom with watching over her hut (I guess it's better than having her wander out into the forest). The next day, Apple Bloom shows up to school with a cutie mark. She reveals that it's related to a loop de hoop that was made out of a ring from an old barrel. This actually marks the last time Twist has a speaking role. It turns out that Hasbro didn't like her character and kept cutting her lines, ultimately resulting in her VA moving away (and the role was not recast, perhaps because her VA was friends with Diamond and Silver's VAs and they all apparently auditioned for the show together).
Cheerilee shows up to seemingly announce that Apple Bloom has to put her hoop away, but instead tells Apple Bloom to basically give the whole class a demonstration in how it's done. Apple Bloom does so, but suspicion starts to form when she gets a second cutie mark that involves balancing spinning plates. But when she can pull it off everyone is impressed, and then we spend a whole lot of time of Apple Bloom just showing off while nothing of substance happens. There is one scene where Apple Bloom's hoop causes Twilight to have Rarity's mane style and Spike appears to be in love with it, which I guess is implying Spike only loves Rarity for her mane?
The plot doesn't kick in again until Apple Bloom goes to bed, and Applejack woken up by sounds coming from Apple Bloom's bedroom. She opens the door and finds Apple Bloom tap dancing uncontrollably. So Applejack goes to see Twilight, who manages to identify the affliction as cutie pox.
But there's no known cure, which is a problem. Then Apple Bloom begins speaking French which Applejack says is "Fancy". They get the idea that maybe Zecora will know, but before they can set out to find her Apple Bloom starts getting more cutie marks and is forced to perform. Spike then lets it slip that Apple Bloom has a disease with no known cure which causes the town to completely panic. At that moment, Zecora shows up and comments on how deserted the town is, appearing quite upset that she thinks they're still afraid of her. But Twilight and Applejack tell her that's not the case, though Applejack asks Zecora if her "Zebra Sense" was tingling and Zecora seems to take offense to it.
Zecora says that she came to town because some of her potions ingredients "mysteriously" went missing after Apple Bloom's last visit. She tries to interrogate the filly but Apple Bloom is too busy performing to answer. Fortunately, Zecora has a solution, the seeds of truth. Once planted, they will grow if anyone tells the truth. The only real "confession" is from Pinkie Pie, voiced not by Andrea Libman but Shanon Chan-Kent. Shanon does a pretty good job of filling in, but when she starts to get upset she slips into her Silver Spoon voice and it can be kind of obvious. Anyway, there's apparently a joke about her lying about eating corn cakes, but the joke just comes out of nowhere and isn't funny even when they try to come back to it. Then Apple Bloom confesses to what should be obvious, she stole the ingredients and whipped up a potion to give herself a cutie mark. The seeds grow and Apple Bloom consumes the plant that they become. She's cured and apologizes to Zecora for stealing her stuff, but Zecora doesn't seem to be mad. And she disappears rather mysteriously in the midst of talking, not unlike Batman.
Then we get to the moral as Apple Bloom starts dictating a letter to Princess Celestia about not cutting corners to get something you want, and tacking on a moral about patience. But you know, there's no lesson to be learned about taking someone's stuff without permission or whipping up potions without consulting an expert even though both of those are serious crimes and a huge betrayal of trust. And that tacked on moral about patience? Completely disregarded not even ten seconds later as the CMC all rush off to go brew potions with Zecora (because apparently seeing Apple Bloom's solo attempt at doing so isn't enough discouragement from trying it again).
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Really, it's just a whole bunch of filler. The entire opening scene is the only thing with any real sembelance of a plot, and it would've worked better a short or a promotional bumper. Everything else just happens without much rhyme or reason. There are a couple of jokes but most of them have no real build up and have no real bearing on the plot. Scenes drag on and on for far too long, and by the end a tacked on moral is completely disregarded, making the whole episode feel like a waste. This episode easily gets an F. It can't get an F- because that would imply it put effort into being bad, and effort is something this episode clearly lacks. I'm not sure what happened when this episode was being developed, maybe Amy hit writer's block and was forced to come up with something for a deadline? I'm having a hard time believing anyone signed off on this unless they didn't bother looking at what was written, because the show was way better than this.
Well, now Season 2 is going to enter in an undisputed rough patch, because up next we have "May The Best Pet Win" which raised a lot of unfortunate implications.
To quote Brawny Buck:
Oh, God! The implications!
Yeah, this is definitely one of the weaker episodes of the season.
It's not my outright least favorite, since it's not mean spirited or anything, but most of it is just kinda boring.
One of my least favourite episodes of the season, but I managed to have some fun with the stunts and visuals and stuff. Not a great episode for sure. But I found some enjoyment from it.
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Being boring is worse than being bad, because at least you can have fun with something that's bad.
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment on this one. Once again, I think the core idea has a lot of merit- a disease that causes cutie marks to become hyperactive could be pretty freaky with the right portrayal.
This is not the right portrayal.
Rather, this is exactly the sort of screwing-around-unrelated-to-the-plot that always annoyed me in early seasons of the show. And it's got a didactic Friendship Letter at the end of it, too, which like a lot of the Friendship Letters doesn't quite make sense or contribute anything to the episode.
I will say that this episode had a few elements that made it less of a complete bore and more... well, I won't necessarily say compelling but at least worth remarking on, for instance ponies still acting extremely strangely around Zecora, and Zecora just having this wish-granting plant sitting around when later episodes treat artifacts of such immense power with the weight they deserve. But, ultimately... those issues are not even remotely enough to make the episode spectacular or "so bad it's good". Bad drama is hilarious, but bad comedy is just dumb, and I wouldn't say this was even a good premise to play for comedy to begin with.