Episode Re-Review: Inspiration Manifestation · 6:15pm Apr 14th, 2021
Season 4's second half really needed some good episodes under its belt if it didn't want to drag down the entire season with just two truly impressive episodes. Rarity was the next to get a focus episode in a season where she'd already notched two rather interesting ones, including her long overdue return to the spotlight in "Rarity Takes Manehattan". However, Corey Powell was writing this episode and she had been associated with "Rainbow Falls". Perhaps because of that, Meghan McCarthy was helping her out (although more likely Meghan collabing with Corey had nothing to do with "Rainbow Falls", which just makes Meghan's lack of editing there all the more jarring if she knew Corey needing writer babysitting). Meghan had already collabed with Ed Valentine for "Three's A Crowd" but that hadn't turned out so good. So it seemed like this was a combination doomed to failure. But was it actually? Well, let's find out.
This episode also happens to be a Spike episode, and we begin with an announcement about a Foal and Filly Fair. I get that foal keeps the literally tick going in the name, but it feels weird to use foal instead of colt when we mention filly. Interestingly, with Pinkie Pie serving as something of a town crier, we see Sweetie Belle with her parents (including confirmation that her dad is a unicorn and getting to see her mom's cutie mark) and Cheerilee with Truffe Shuffle who was a somewhat reoccurring background school foal. Then we see Rarity is preparing a puppet theater for the fair, a rather elegant one at that. Weirdly though, she calls Spike a friend before saying that he's her favorite dragon. It really does feel like for some reason they wanted to just ignore Spike's crush and pretend it never existed, but they can't do that after on and off teasing of it in prior seasons. Stuff like this makes it look as if Season 4 were a soft reboot, still in the same universe but not necessarily acknowledging events of prior seasons unless it absolutely had to. And I have to ask, when did the idea of Spike having a crush on Rarity suddenly become taboo? It's the same problem I have with "Dragon Dropped" in that you can't treat this platonically out of the blue.
But then Rarity is told her puppet theater is bad and completely unusable because it doesn't travel. This is a very big contrivence because we never know whether Rarity knew if she was supposed to be designing a traveling theater or not. If she did she's an idiot for making a traveling theater that can't travel. If she didn't it's the puppet master's fault for not specifying ahead of time what he wanted, especially if he was asking someone like Rarity instead of say a carpenter. And because of this, Rarity inexplicably goes into a slump because she won't be able to contribute something to this random fair we never heard of before. She's not hoping to impress some celebrity, it doesn't further her career. It feels like there was meant to be something more about all of this that never got conveyed. Anyway, Rarity starts crying and eating ice cream, prompting Spike to go to the Castle of the Two Sisters with Owlowiscious to find something to help Rarity contribute something. And we get another rehash of the unfunny "Whoo" joke, which is even less funny now that Spike can understand what Owlowiscious is trying to say (apparently).
Then Spike conviently pulls on a lever on a bookcase and exposes a hidden chamber guarded by a lock. He breathes fire on it to melt the lock and goes to retrieve the book within the chamber. A rather tacky looking book called Inspiration Manifestation.
Spike takes the book back to Rarity, emphasizing how it's magical even though Rarity is not one to normally be interested in magic. However, she becomes interested in the book and starts to read it aloud as a swirl of lime green magic takes hold of her, meaning the book is evil. But hey, at least it doesn't turn your head into a bomb because it belonged to a wizard.
Rarity is able to turn the book into something more pleasant, and turn her fainting couch into something far more elegant simply by concentrating on it. She then creates a new puppet theater that meets the puppet master's specifications (though he pulls it the wrong way), though she of course doesn't mention the book. The fair comes to an end sometime later and Spike requests Rarity give him the book so he can take it back. Rarity initially agrees, before changing her mind and offering to hold onto it for a little bit longer. Spike agrees and the next morning he finds that Rarity has been up all night creating, and now she wants to use her artistic vision to transform Ponyville. So this feels very much like Rarity's version of "Party of One" and "Lesson Zero" in that she's suffering a mental breakdown and going crazy. It's really telling that it requires an outside object to trigger it in her, whereas Pinkie Pie and Twilight went crazy of their own beliefs.
Spike follows Rarity as she starts by transforming one of the Apple family's apple carts into something far more glamorous, and she insists that she doesn't need to ask for permission because it's a surprise. Then she basically encourages Spike to keep it a secret while revealing that she's become attached to the book. You'd think this would be a tip off for Spike to get help, but he doesn't do so and just goes along with Rarity. I mean yeah, so far she hasn't done anything really dangerous but if she's treating a book like a sentient object and indicates that she wants to transform all of Ponyville without permission, that seems like something that should set off alarm bells.
Rarity proceeds to turn one of Fluttershy's bird houses into an elaborate mansion (that somehow doesn't fall off the branch it's on), and Rarity makes it clear that all she cares about is what Spike thinks. As long as Spike likes it so does she. So Spike stays silent, even as Rarity poofs Rainbow Dash into an ellaborate, fancy dress while she's in the midst of cloud busting. Wonder if this is perhaps her retribution for "The Last Roundup" despite how much time must've passed since then?
Spike convinces himself it's okay because "it's just a dress" even though he must know Rainbow hates wearing dresses. But he goes off with Rarity anyway, thus not being around to see Rainbow crash (though she's not harmed). Rarity then transforms a birthday party featuring the same exact foals from Sweetie Belle's fifth birthday party into a more cultured thing, even turning the clown into a butler somehow. She then manages to poof in a fancy band, the very same one from "The Best Night Ever" even down to having Octavia Melody. And strangely, the band acts as if nothing has happened even though they were just pulled in from out of nowhere. Then we get a cameo from Pinkie Pie as she stumbles upon the party and is confused. A short time later, Spike finally decides to ask Rarity to stop. But she refuses to do so, instead giving Spike diamond armor that is very heavy.
Rarity goes off somewhere else right as Twilight comes along, and somehow she's persuaded by Spike's obvious lie right before she's called into action by Mayor Mare. Mayor Mare says "The Gazebo" even though she clearly means town hall, and apparently Rarity turned it into solid crystal with two ponies still inside. Twilight goes to rescue them while Owlowiscious interrogates Spike, making him realize he has to tell the truth. Except Spike then opts for a technacility of just getting rid of the book, before Rarity turns the roads in Ponyville into blinding gold.
Spike tries to steal the book from Rarity while she's not looking, but Rarity turns around at the last second and Spike has to feign innocence. He then makes Owlowiscious distract Rarity for him so he can steal the book, ultimately swallowing it whole when the distraction doesn't last nearly as long as he thought. Except it turns out Rarity doesn't need the book, and Spike doesn't suffer any consequences from eating the spell book. So what does break the spell? Spike simply telling Rarity "No" and ordering her to stop, opting for something of an anti-climax. It wouldn't surprise me if they originally wanted it to end with Spike eating the book and that being what broke the spell, before for whatever reason thinking that wasn't a good enough climax. The problem is that after the abrupt resolution they repeat the whole "Told you the truth" line a lot, and the magic that was corrupting Rarity just inexplicably flies off somewhere to never be seen again (much like Fluttershy's bat fang and the mysterious shadow from the end of "Castle Mane-Ia"). Then we have Spike writing in the friendship journal about how important it is to speak up when someone's doing something you think is wrong, a lesson that Fluttershy from "Bats!" or "Trade Ya!" could've stood to learn too. Then Twilight comes in with a frazzled mane and tail, scolding Spike for taking a book out of the castle without asking and mentioning that Princess Luna and Princess Cadence had to help her clean up Ponyville (no word on why Princess Celestia didn't get involved, you'd think she would before Cadence since Celestia was the most knowledgeable about dark magic). Interesting that this is the only time we ever get any indication of Princess Luna and Princess Cadence interacting together without Princess Celestia.
Then the episode ends with Spike cracking an unfunny joke about how Twilight doesn't look good, which ends up confusing the moral since Spike is just speaking up to be rude and isn't acknowledging the role he played in making Twilight work so hard. Even if it wasn't intentional, he could've shown remorse or even just said he was sorry. Why did they think they needed to have him laugh off corrupting an entire town?
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it has a very contrived start that is lacking in any sort of explanation and it has a very anti-climatic resolution that leads into confusion about the moral when Spike uses it just to be a jerk to Twilight for something that was his fault. Those things and the flat "Whoo" joke are big stains on the episode, which is unfortunate because there are good things that happen despite the beginning and ending. Rarity is written well, and Spike is too for the most part. Rarity's breakdown and descent into madness plays out very well, definitely capturing that creepy vibe Meghan McCarthy was so good at capturing. In fact, I feel like this is another "Three's A Crowd" case where Meghan's strengths were combined with her writing partner's weaknesses, in this case Corey Powell's struggles with contrivence and explanations. It wouldn't surprise me if the original ending was going to involve Spike eating the book and that being what broke the curse, it would've still fit into the whole "Too afraid to tell the truth" story that was definitely done better here than in "Leap of Faith". But Twilight really should've had a bigger role here, it feels weird that she comes into play midway through the episode and then appears again at the very end to scold Spike. Quite honestly, Owlowiscious' role should've been cut out since he doesn't contribute much of anything until the climax and largely just serves for Spike to have someone to bounce dialogue off of about how he doesn't want to do what must be done. So this episode gets a borderline B-/B, it's a much welcome step back in the right direction for Season 4 after so many medicore, underwhelming or just plain bad episodes in the second half.
Well, the penultimate episode of Season 4 would be "Equestria Games" and our first true look at Spike's insecurities although that was going to be taking place in an episode no one originally expected to be a Spike episode.
This is definitely one of the better Spike episodes, and pretty fun in its own right.
So overall, the general consensus when it comes to Corey Powell's episodes is that Sleepless in Ponyville and Inspiration Manifestation are in the top half while Just for Sidekicks and Rainbow Falls are in the bottom half.
Also, I recall Mr. Enter mentioning in his Writing Tips video Never Assume It's Funny that you should keep jokes far away from your morals as they have a bad habit of undermining what you were trying to teach.
I think this is actually a really great episode. I haven't watched it in a long time so it's hard to put into words why that is, but I just remember it being pretty impactful and being really creepy in a good way and having a great story.
One of the better Spike episodes for sure, it's nice to see a episode that focus on Spike and Rarity's relationship.
This is honestly the very first Spike episode that I can call legitimately great.
Also, there is a nice a reference to Saved by the Bell towards the end.