Retrospective Review: Sisterhooves Social and The Cutie Pox · 3:38am Apr 8th, 2021
S2E5 Sisterhooves Social
This episode features a classic moral for children's programming: your family may bother you, but you would regret it if you lost them. But I watched this one, not finding anyone acquitting themselves very well. I wonder, if you were to show this episode to 1000 people who had never seen My Little Pony and asked if Rarity was more in the wrong or if Sweetie Belle was more in the wrong, if the answers would vary based on whether the watcher was an only child, an older sibling, or a younger sibling.
The character who can't cook at all is a well-worn trope.
I do like how Rarity's parents speak with a northern Minnesota/Wisconsin accent, and how that makes Rarity's posh Canterlot accent an obvious affectation. But how did Sweetie Belle end up talking normally? (And best not to think of the implications that the parents' accent is the same as the cows.)
Rarity's parents are terrible in this episode, using their older daughter as free babysitting, but it's reasonable to think they actually talked to Rarity, got her to agree on it, and then Rarity forgot when it was.
In this episode, Rarity learns a lesson that most people didn't accept as true until 2020 happened. You can work from home, and you can watch a child, but you can't do both at the same time.
My initial impression is that Sweetie Belle is most in the wrong; imagine trying to work while someone is at risk of damaging your tools or supplies. But Rarity is overly mean in response.
Meanwhile, Applejack and Apple Bloom show a much more wholesome sisterly relationship, and it's easy to see why Sweetie Belle likes it so much. And probably my favorite part of the episode is how jealously Apple Bloom guards it. One. Day.
This is a second episode showing the Apples corralling thinking, talking ungulates as if they were farm animals. And again, I don't think it comes up again.
The Sisterhooves Social is another good part about the episode. A wholesome get-together. It's something that would have been nice to have done as a kid. And the end is so warm and fuzzy, with Rarity showing she's willing to endure mud and grape juice to be with her sister.
But I'm most impressed with Applejack's lung capacity, to be able to stay under the mud that long.
S2E6 The Cutie Pox
Another classic moral from children's entertainment, a combination of "If you cheat in pursuit of an accomplishment, it's not really an accomplishment" with a dash of "Don't try to grow up too fast".
Bowling is one of those activities that simply doesn't make sense for ponies to develop. Human children have a hard enough time bowling, let alone fillies without fingers.
The Big Lebowski ponies are a perfect cameo, something that would make a parent watching the show with their children smile.
Apple Bloom seems unusually bummed out after this crusading failure, when it's nothing that hasn't happened before. Well, the episode has to happen, right?
Apple Bloom learned in Season One that no magic can make a cutie mark appear before its time, but she'll try the magic of Heart's Desire, because the episode has to happen.
The way I saw this episode was like a genie's wish, without the conscious attempt to trick. Heart's Desire can't make a true cutie mark appear, so it used the only known method of making cutie marks appear, inflicting the cutie pox on Apple Bloom. And frankly, the cutie pox is a pretty terrifying disease.
Forever a topic of debate among fans: is Fancy just Applejack's way of describing a foreign language, or is Fancy the actual name of the France-equivalent nation/language in Equestria?
Both of these episodes were pretty good overall, but not especially important in the overall series. Future episodes with Rarity and Sweetie Belle, and with the Crusaders seeking their cutie marks, really don't reference the lessons from these episodes.
Plus the cutie pox gave us “Story of the Blanks”
Sweetie Belle could well have picked her speech patterns up from other ponies in Ponyville. This sort of disparity between accents is very common for individuals trying to climb the social ladder; the classic example in literature is Jay Gatsby, who is trying to fit in with high class American society but is almost trying too hard. As a result, he never quite convinces anybody, not even the reader, that he fits there.
Étant donné que Prench est un mot utilisé dans la série, je conclurais qu'Applejack dit simplement «fantaisie» pour signifier «une langue étrangère que je ne comprends pas». (Given that Prench is a word used in the series, I would conclude Applejack is simply saying 'fancy' to mean 'foreign language I can't understand'.)
At least until they remember that one of those characters was a pedophile.
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Nope, the fanfiction came first again. However, unlike the linked blog it was actually vindicated rather than contradicted.
The script certainly supports that.
We certainly never hear from sheep again... unless you count Grogar.
Agreed! Maybe they snuck a snorkel under there?
Hey, that's unicorn magic. Twilight didn't say anything about alchemy. (But what could possibly match the value of a
human soulcutie mark?)Cutie Pox is indeed terrifying. I view it as more of a magical cancer, a normal process grown out of control.
I mean, Fluttershy explicitly says "French" in "Suited for Success," so those waters are even muddier.
Maybe not the lessons, but we do see the Sisterhooves Social and the bowling alley again. And Spike does consider the Cutie Pox remedy when Twilight's trying to find a way to undo the cutie mark swap in "Magical Mystery Cure."