Episode Re-Review: Equestria Games · 5:45pm Apr 15th, 2021
So, for the penultimate episode we got to see the Equestria Games actually play out, perhaps a sign of things to come in the next season for major developments (though I personally wouldn't be surprised if they meant for this to be in Season 3 originally when they working on a full season, and shelved the plans when it was cut to a half season). Ultimately though, it would end up becoming a Spike episode, a sudden and unexpected shift that was given no prior indication (leaks were almost never a thing back then). And it was Dave Polsky, the mastermind behind "Games Ponies Play" which had kickstarted the Equestria Games arc, who was writing this episode. By now, Polsky had branched out considerably and shed his usual comedic ways, but he'd never penned a Spike episode before. So, was this episode good at focusing on Spike, especially considering what was coming next for him and what was lurking over the horizon for Season 4's finale? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins on the train to the Crystal Empire as we get a brief reminder of what's led up to this point, including "Flight to the Finish" (which had a different draft that didn't involve Scootaloo's disability or even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, but was all the worse because of what it did do) and "Rainbow Falls". Heck, Rainbow Dash mentions that her team is the only one for Ponyville that doesn't have a chance to win gold. She says it's because they're up against the Wonderbolts, but we know that unfortunately the real reason is because Rainbow inexplicably saddled herself with a weak team (and I highly doubt she knew she'd be competing against the Wonderbolts, so the odds of her intentionally planning to throw the game to them are slim to none). It's not Polsky's fault, he had no control over what Corey Powell would do but once it was written he had to stick with it. Then we have Sweetie Belle inexplicably worrying about the flag, as Spike reveals he has a deep breathing trick to stay calm. A trick he never knew before and no one else taught him (are we sure it wasn't meant to be a nod to Cadence teaching Twilight a similar trick in "Games Ponies Play"?). Of course, that's right before he gets abducted by some guards and brought to Princess Cadence where he learns that he's a hero in the Crystal Empire. A hero that wasn't invited at any point prior.
Spike being hailed as a hero is because he brought the Crystal Heart to Cadence in time when King Sombra returned, which is reasonable. And because of that Cadence wants him to light the torch at the opening ceremony, making him the first dragon to do so (even though he's the only one living in Equestria, let alone friendly with ponies). Miss. Harshwhinny returns as she instructs Spike on what to do, before Spike enters the stadium to find it packed with ponies. And out of the blue, Spike gets stage fright and seizes up, and Miss. Harshwhinny completes fails to notice this and assumes Spike is just being difficult. Yes, maybe she's dealt with celebrities who put on such performances before, but Spike is still a child and his anxiety seems pretty darn real to me. This might just be the weakest part of the entire episode because there was no prior indication that Spike was nervous, and it was only at this moment that the episode established it was in fact a Spike episode. If this were say the opening scene it would be perhaps a bit less jarring of a transition.
Twilight, meanwhile, is with the other alicorn princesses in a separate stand compared to all her friends being in one to cheer on Ponyville. And we've already seen Shining Armor decked out in his captain's outfit, serving as master of ceremonies for the games (wouldn't Miss. Harshwhinny do that since she's officially part of the committee that oversees the games? Or does the hosting country for the Olympics get to have an important figure preside over the ceremonies if they so choose?). When Cadence orders a guard to go down and assist Spike (not sure what she thinks a guard will be able to do aside from maybe lighting the torch in Spike's place), Twilight secretly lights up her horn and makes the torch ignite so as to save Spike. It's nice that she actually cares about him here, even down to not wanting to hurt his feelings even when she has to tell him the truth. In fact, this episode avoids falling into the pitfall of being the third episode to do the "Too scared to tell the truth" plot (especially not after we just had a Spike episode where that was going on). If only we could've gotten stuff like this in episodes like "Owl's Well That Ends Well" or "Spike At Your Service".
It's a good thing Twilight does too because Spike briefly believes he can set things on fire with his mind, and believes that mind reading might be next. Once he learns the truth he's rather upset and goes to Miss. Harshwhinny to look for an opportunity to redeem himself. But she refuses to let him explain (and I'm not sure she would buy his explanation even if he was telling the truth), grumbling about him wanting to "put on a rock concert". That gives Spike an idea, but it will take a few minutes for it to come to fruition. Meanwhile, the aerial relay is about to begin and Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity scramble to their seats. However, the Equestrian equivalent of the TSA shows up with these special gates that disable all unicorn magic so as to "prevent cheating".
We get some exposition about medal counts, right before Rainbow Dash is able to close the gap with Spitfire but unfortunately still takes silver because she was straddled with Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps for no good reason. Then, as the medals are being given out, Spike opts to sing the national anthem. Shining Armor is surprised but agrees, before it turns out to be the Cloudsdale anthem since Shining explains that only the team that got the gold gets their anthem played. This leads into the scene where Spike just sings randomly for several minutes while the entire crowd (minus Pinkie Pie) looks on in shock and disbelief. It's come to light that Cathy Wesluck ad-libbed this entire part, so props to her for making this cringe scene feel as authentically cringe inducing as possible. But I have to ask, was it really necessary? Just having Spike realize he doesn't know the words to the Cloudsdale anthem and saying that there's been a mix-up would be enough for him to feel embarrassed and ashamed. But I guess they couldn't think of any other way to fill the run time since the games were only sparodically focused on and only Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were involved in an event worth watching.
Then we cut to an unknown number of days later (since it's never established how many days the games go on for. I would assume it's the same amount of days as the Olympics) as Spike has refused to come out of the living quarters for Ponyville. When the CMC stop by to check on him before the last event, he pretends to be too busy packing to come and see the games conclude. Then we see the games concluding with ice archery finals as Pinkie Pie exposits that Ponyville is in the lead for medals and then is told that Cloudsdale has two finalists and if they both place Ponyville will be overtaken. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Olympic finals usually only have one athlete or team per country for the ones that did qualify? Or is there no exception granted in the finals to countries and any country can have as many athletes in the finals as possible if they can make it? Anyway, Twilight comes by to ask where Spike is and learns from the CMC about him refusing to come out. So she goes to see him and talks to him, forcing him to come out (albeit in a trench coat and sunglasses almost like John Lennon). Spike laments that he's let everyone down and Twilight doesn't know what that feels like, but Twilight counters that she does and that no one got hurt because of what Spike did or failed to do. It's not enough for Spike to come out to the stands though.
Rainbow Dash then exposits about how ice archery differs from normal archery, the arrows are made to freeze whatever part of a target they hit and the winner is whoever encases their entire target in ice first. Suddenly, however, one of the archers misfires and hits a cloud.
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and several other pegasi all rush towards the cloud to try and steer it down toward the field while Shining Armor calls for the disabling spell to cut! He's told there isn't time, and right then and there Spike leaps into action! He bounces off of several pegasi until he can get close enough to melt the ice shards with his fire breath! Some might complain about how Princess Celestia and Princess Luna did nothing to help, and how this was Spike's chance to save the day because of a contrived circumstance that rendered everyone else powerless. I do sort of agree, but even though it's blink and you'll miss it we did see Celestia and Luna getting ready to help out (and I assume Cadence and Twilight were going to do the same). Plus, even during professional sports games accidents can and do happen. They explained earlier that the disabling spell was to "prevent cheating", and while that was a vague description I think it's believable considering Twilight alone demonstrated how one could secretly use magic without anyone noticing. It's a lot better than "Power Ponies" where the mane six had to be captured and rendered useless, and the Mane-Iac had to monologue for no reason at all for Spike to even have a chance to be the hero.
Cadence then praises Spike (as does everyone else) but Spike insists it's no big deal and that he did what anyone in his situation would've done. Twilight then realizes the real problem is Spike's low self-esteem, that he alone is beating himself up for his mistakes. Spike proposes going back in time to undo them, but Cadence instead offers to let him take her place lighting fireworks in the closing ceremony. I guess there isn't time to redo the ice archery finals since the grounds are too soaked, but they could make that clear, especially since that means Ponyville wins in the medal count (which Cloudsdale might be unhappy about since they were robbed of a chance to tie or even take the lead away). Rainbow insists it's the silver medal she and Fluttershy won that put Ponyville over the top. But if that medal were taken away Ponyville would've tied Cloudsdale for the lead, so the one that put them over the top would have to be an event where Ponyville medaled and Cloudsdale did not. Meanwhile, Spike narrates what I assume he'll later write in the journal (because we saw him do it in the previous episode) about how all the praise in the world means nothing if you yourself don't feel it. It's another reminder that sometimes you can be your own worst critic.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, there's no denying that it is very abrupt in its focus on Spike and that the initial conflict with him comes completely out of left field. I'm sure at least part of this is Dave Polsky salvaging what he could of the games after "Rainbow Falls" killed off most of its potential, but even assuming he'd written every episode in the arc he would've still had to fit the games into one twenty two minute episode. And since no other ponies besides Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were established as competing in events, that meant there wouldn't be much to do aside from just focus on Ponyville's medal count. So I suppose it made sense to switch the focus to someone like Spike. If anything, Twilight's princess status again being a factor is what ends up being the more wasted because it goes nowhere. About the only things that really hurt once the focus shifts to Spike is how Miss. Harshwhinny is rather unsympathetic towards him even when it's clear that he's riddled with anxiety, and the cringe comedy attempt from Spike trying to sing the Cloudsdale anthem when he doesn't know the words to the song. Yes, it's cringe comedy done right (we get to see the reaction of the audience) but cringe comedy is a very tricky thing to pull off, and I think this is a prime example of how even when you intentionally want to be bad that doesn't make what you're doing any less painful to watch. But this is leagues above "Power Ponies" for Spike's insecurities, in fact I daresay this episode did right what "Power Ponies" got wrong. So, at least in part because of that this episode gets a borderline B+/A-.
So Season 4's second half finally had some consistency, right at the very end and ironically it took Spike of all characters to bring that about. And now we come to what many still consider the best season finale and best two parter of all time (and some even say the best episode of the entire show) "Twilight's Kingdom" though I'm not quite as in love with it.
Like this episode, but wish they add more for the Equestria Game
This episode is pretty good. Not QUITE as good as Inspiration Manifestation, but still enjoyable for what it is.
Much like what Jem Reviews said in his Top 10 BEST Post Movie Spongebob episodes (Seasons 6-8) video about how Enchanted Tiki Dreams felt like an apology from the writers of those seasons for how they mistreated Squidward, this episode feels like an apology from the writers of this season for how they mistreated Spike.
Not the biggest fan of this episode, I think it should have focus more on the Equestria Games then on Spike, since it have been the part of the story arc throughout season four, it seems like a waste of a storyline in my opinion.
5499146 Well, I think that speaks to what the games themselves ultimately amounted to. Like I said here, only Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were established competing in an event, and "Rainbow Falls" made it clear that we couldn't see them in multiple events. So after the aerial relay there wouldn't be much to do all episode aside from just watching random ponies compete in events and have the mane six exchange dialogue about the sports and about medals. But the Spike focus should've been established much earlier on, the arc tying stuff could've come later on in flashbacks.
5499357
Agreed.