Episode Re-Review: Read It and Weep · 7:40pm Mar 1st, 2021
Season 2's second half was not looking so hot after Derpgate overshadowed "The Last Roundup" and "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" left no question in people's minds that M. A. Larson wasn't as on top of the world as he had appeared to be earlier. Cindy Morrow, coming off her forgotten episode "Family Appreciation Day" and still riding a high from "Sisterhooves Social", cranked out this episode centered not on Applejack but on Rainbow Dash even though she'd already gotten two focus episodes (and Fluttershy had yet to get one). But maybe Cindy Morrow was able to succeed where both Charlotte Fullerton and Merriweather Williams failed and create a Rainbow Dash focus episode that didn't make the character of focus look bad? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Twilight approaching Rarity and Pinkie Pie as they're watching Rainbow Dash perform for... something. It seems like Rainbow's just performing because she wants to. Pinkie Pie probably makes sense but why Rarity, exactly? Why not Fluttershy or Applejack? We also don't really see what Rainbow is doing, we just watch Twilight, Pinkie and Rarity follow the movements with their heads. Suddenly, Rainbow appears to be in trouble and ultimately crash lands. Given that Rarity is present and that this was coming out two episodes after "The Last Roundup" some speculated that this was what Rarity meant by "You're gonna get it, Rainbow Dash." but I sincerely doubt Rarity arranged for any of this. We then cut to Rainbow waking up in a hospital bed with a bandage over one of her eyes and one of her wings in a cast. A unicorn doctor explains that she's going to be okay, but the crash has made it so she won't be able to fly for a few days. Kind of odd that an unexplained and unseen stunt caused this as opposed to say Rainbow trying to pull off another sonic rainboom.
When Rainbow Dash complains that she'll be bored, Twilight gets an idea and pulls a book off a cart to show to Rainbow Dash. It's the first book in a series centered around a pegasus pony named Daring Do. Daring Do is a pallet swap of Rainbow Dash, and at the time I'm sure it was just to save time. But when Daring became real it does unfortunately raise the question of whether or not she and Rainbow are related somehow. However, getting back to the story, Rainbow rejects the idea of reading and says it's for eggheads. Her friends all laugh at the suggestion and say they like reading. And you can see where the episode is gonna go from here. It's not bad, but Rainbow really isn't the best character to be used for this sort of moral. And this isn't the last time the show would do this.
So Rainbow tries to pass the time doing anything but reading, which of course fails when no time at all passes. Reluctantly, she starts reading and becomes immersed in Daring Do's story, specifically because Daring is suffering from a sprained wing (though we never see it) like Rainbow is. Rainbow Dash realizes that she likes reading and is now afraid that she's "an egghead".
Rainbow keeps reading for a while, but when Twilight and Fluttershy show up and surprise her she opts to hide the book to avoid being caught. We get a pony version of Battleship (which Hasbro also owns) and Rainbow throws the game and then pretends to be asleep so she can make her friends leave. They do so, but Twilight is rather suspicious and put off by Rainbow's rude behavior. Rainbow Dash starts reading again as Daring Do makes it to the temple where the titular sapphire statue resides (they go back and forth between statue and stone), outwits the numerous temple boobytraps and pulls off an Indiana Jones homage when she rescues her hat just before a door slams shut.
There is a really odd moment when Daring steps on a tile and sets off another trap. She groans, but although her lips move she doesn't say anything. This isn't the only time there's this kind of mistake either. When Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rarity show up Rainbow hides the book again. She uses dinner time as an excuse, intentionally eating as bad as possible to gross out her friends (which even Pinkie Pie and Applejack are appalled by, that's how you know it's bad).
During this scene there's a lip syncing fail on Applejack. It is kind of hard to notice initially because it seems to match up, but if you look closely you'll see that her line comes just before the lip movement that was supposed to accompany it. Anyway, after her friends leave again Rainbow Dash resumes reading the story as Daring Do meets Ahuizotl, who I guess is supposed to be her arch enemy or something (though strangely enough Dr. Caballeron would occupy that role more often). He steals the sapphire statue and then leaves Daring in a deathtrap as he makes the classic villain mistake of not waiting around to make sure the hero dies.
Rainbow Dash doesn't get to find out how the story ends though, because she's discharged from the hospital the next morning while being told to just take it easy and let her wing recover for a few days. She realizes that she could ask Twilight for a copy of the book since Twilight said she owned the whole series, but Rainbow rules it out, thinking that Twilight will still be upset about being called an egghead (even though she didn't seem bothered by the insult at any point). So instead she tries to fake being sick to get back into the hospital, which of course doesn't work. With no other options in her mind, Rainbow decides to sneak into the hospital at night while wearing a black stealth suit.
She manages to make it into the room she was previously assigned to and starts reading, but it isn't long before the new patient mistakes Rainbow for a thief and thinks she's trying to steal his slippers (interestingly, this pony has no hair which led some to speculate he might be a cancer patient). This puts the hospital on alert as the doctor and some nurses (including one that I assume is an intern considering she looks to be a filly) attempt to apprehend the intruder. Rainbow gives them the slip, mimicking what Daring Do did in the book. But eventually she is chased and cornered outside the library as all her friends happen to have been woken up by the commotion.
There is a funny joke about the dog barking noise actually coming from a patient, and Rainbow confesses to her newfound love of reading. Her friends naturally point out that she had no reason to be ashamed or to hide it, and that there was no need to sneak into the hospital just to get the book and find out how the story ended. So the moral basically is "Reading is cool" though it does also have a bit of "Don't knock 'til you've tried it" worked in. Twilight lets Rainbow borrow the entire collection and Rainbow Dash finishes reading the story. Daring Do tosses her hat to stop the deathtrap, proclaims "Another day, another dungeon" and then swipes the sapphire statue from Ahuizotl and flies off into the sunset. Rainbow is delighted and then begins reading the next book in the series: Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, I do appreciate that they tried to have an allegory for being a Brony worked into the show at a time when the fandom was still relatively new. This is definitely Rainbow's best focus episode of Season 2, not that that's saying much considering what her previous focus episodes involved. However, the episode's story seems more like something you would expect of Season 1 and it's treating the mane six like children. Rainbow Dash really feels like she would be beyond this kind of assumption about reading by now. I know they used her as a role model character for the kids, but considering this show has actual kid characters they could use I don't think it would sacrifice anything to use one of them. This really feels like it could work for Scootaloo. Think about it: She crashes her scooter while trying to fly and has to go to the hospital. The doctors tell her she'll be okay but she'll need to stay overnight for observation and rest off that injured wing for a few days. She becomes bored but is dismissive of reading and looks for other ways to pass the time, but eventually she bites the bullet and finds out she likes reading. Then Scootaloo goes to great lengths to downplay it for fear of being judged (moreso by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon than her friends/fellow Crusaders), only to confess and maybe even have Rainbow encourage her about how you don't have to be ashamed of what you like. It wouldn't even need to be Daring Do, it could be romance novels or something Scootaloo would think she wouldn't be at all interested in. Almost all the weird problems with the set up and the story progression would be fixed. Things like the lipsyncing error and Daring Do's mouth moving without her saying anything suggests that this was a backburner episode, so that would still need fixing. All in all, this episode is fine and perfectly harmless. But Arthur did this story of "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it" and "Don't be ashamed of what you like if it doesn't hurt anyone" better when Arthur (the character) fell in love with a little kids show, so this episode gets a C.
Well, next up is a rather interesting episode since it's another holiday based one (as if having a Halloween and a Christmas/Thanksgiving hybrid episode in the same season wasn't enough) "Hearts and Hooves Day".
This is another good one, though I actually kind of enjoyed MMDW just a bit more back when I did my not-marathon of the series for the 10 year anniversary
I can only assume the show staff didn't use Scootaloo for this episode because they didn't want the CMC to come off as too much of a "Spotlight-Stealing Squad".
Yeah. I can DEFINITELY see your points here. Actually, the stuff you mentioned about Scootaloo could sound like a great re-write (i.e. Scoots gets injured in a crash from a stunt gone wrong. Rainbow offers Scootaloo something to help her biggest fan pass the time (a Daring Do novel, mentioning that Twilight introduced her [Rainbow] to the series during a game of "Truth or Dare" Pinkie set up to give Twilight a chance to really get to know the rest of the girls and vice versa very shortly after she [Twilight] first officially moved to Ponyville following the fight with Nightmare Moon and Rainbow admits the series has lots of way cool action [which is WHY Twilight correctly guessed Rainbow would enjoy the series], Scootaloo decides to give the series a try [after all, if Rainbow likes it, how bad could it be?] and actually does really enjoy it).
Perhaps something for Volume Thirteen of your "What If?" series (or Volume Fourteen in the outside chance you can think of enough episode ideas to stretch it out that far).
5464468 Maybe, but we'd already had two CMC focused episodes back to back earlier in the season (likely not by intention).
This is another episode that really weirded me out due to its inability to decide whether the Mane Six are children or adults, especially since that indecision is related to this odd "reading is fun" messaging. Party like it's 1999, I guess.
This is also one of two episodes where it was really conspicuous that things which would require more effort to animate (like RD crashing) are simply not shown. The other where it really stood out to me was Apploosa's Most Wanted all the way in Season 5. Either way, it makes the episode feel really odd to watch. I also thought the character models were kind of weird; a lot of the time RD moves and poses in ways that are a lot more humanoid than is reasonable.
I really did enjoy the Daring Do segments, but suspect I did so in a way that wouldn't have been possible when the episode aired- the first time I watched it, other people already familiar with the show had told me "by the way, this is all totally real. Daring Do actually exists in the world of Equestria and really does this stuff". I don't know if I would've been able to appreciate it as much if I was under the impression that it was fictional. (Which is a weird thing to say when of course the entire show is fictional, but you know what I mean.)
I will say this was where I thought the show was starting to figure out how to do comedy properly. Starting, but that's better than failing completely. That's hugely helped by the fact that by the fact that this is a Rainbow Dash episode and the fact that she’s an impulsive dumbass is actually one of the things that really endears me to the character.
A lot of these early episodes I find myself giving very mixed responses, and this is again the case here. This is more genuinely mixed than, say, Cutie Pox's "had potential but didn't realize it" verdict, though. It really is more like there are distinct very good parts and very bad parts to this episode intermingled.