Episode Re-Review: Bloom and Gloom · 7:03pm Apr 20th, 2021
With the Cutie Mark Crusaders having started to mature in Season 4 and move away from obsessing over their cutie marks, Season 5 looked as if it were going to revisit that. Josh Haber was picked to write this episode, but his most recent writing endevor at the time had been the utterly bland "Leap of Faith" which had starred Applejack. So, was Haber more comfortable working with Apple Bloom, or did he only end up proving that Apple family characters were not his forte for interesting stories? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Apple Bloom calling a meeting of the CMC to drop a bombshell, Babs Seed has gotten her cutie mark. It's a pair of scissors with apple theming, which Sweetie Belle comments is because Babs kept fussing over her mane all the time. But that's only half true, more of it had to do with Babs' insecurities and the fact that she kept blowing her bangs out of her face. However, the real issue comes around when Scootaloo points out that apparently you can't be a Cutie Mark Crusader once you get a cutie mark. So the CMC are basically kicking Babs out of their group just because she got a cutie mark and they didn't. I don't see why they couldn't change the lines to Babs willingly stepping down from her CMC branch? What's even more insulting about this is that we will never see Babs Seed again, this is the last we ever really hear of her. And it turns out that her VA expressed an interest in returning to voice Babs, so I don't know why Hasbro and DHX decided not to take up her on the offer and just dumped her character so abruptly.
This in turns keeps Apple Bloom awake at night as she worries what will become of the CMC. And Applejack, despite being in the room with Apple Bloom, doesn't try to reassure her even when Apple Bloom worries about being kicked out of the family if her cutie mark is non apple related. Yes, we do get the "Hush now" lullaby from Applejack which is rather sweet. But would it have really hurt to have Applejack just say a line or two reassuring Apple Bloom that everything would be okay and that the family would never kick her out? Anyway, Apple Bloom falls asleep and wakes up. And you know something is gonna happen when we don't see her flanks. Eventually, she goes downstairs and finds out she's gotten her cutie mark. Apparently it's in pest control featuring this never before seen pest control pony. Specifically, this pony deals with creatures called twittermites which can generate electricity.
So Apple Bloom has to catch them, and soon as she does it right the first time the pest control pony retires. Then Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon show up to mock Apple Bloom over her cutie mark, with Silver Spoon even joking that Apple Bloom can just go out and catch friends whenever she needs one.
Apple Bloom runs away, wishing she didn't have this cutie mark right before a mysterious voice offers to take it away. Apple Bloom agrees, only to come back to find that the twittermites have gotten loose and she can no longer tame them (even though she still remembers what to do). It all ends with the barn at Sweet Apple Acres being destroyed (again). Then Apple Bloom wakes up and realizes it was just a dream, but she's gotten a different cutie mark. This time, the problem is that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo haven't gotten theirs yet and Apple Bloom can't really be part of the club because of it. I do like how this is again taking advantage of the established canon of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle appearing together in "Call of the Cutie" suggesting that they were friends before meeting Apple Bloom. Anyway, Apple Bloom runs away and agrees to have her cutie mark taken away again. But when she comes back she finds that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo got their cutie marks and now want nothing to do with Apple Bloom.
By now, things are becoming increasingly unreal as Apple Bloom awakes for a third time and finds she's gotten a cutie mark again. And this time her family kicks her out and says they will be removing all traces of her existence because she got a non apple cutie mark. She doesn't even think anything's weird when Applejack starts speaking with Big Macintosh's voice. It's only after she pleads for this too to end and gets bombarded by cutie marks that we get the revelation that this is all a dream. And it's only now that Princess Luna appears, well over the halfway point and far longer than she appeared in either CMC dream episode before. Her voice does seem to be taking on traces of how it sounded in the third act of "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils" but it doesn't feel as abrupt or jarring and still has that distinctive tone Tabitha St. Germain always provided. She rightfully explains how we can worry about something so much that we can end up trapped in a nightmare, which begs the question of why she didn't intervene earlier? It's not like she was waiting for Apple Bloom to learn a lesson like with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. I guess she just likes to make dramatic entrances.
Princess Luna then shows Apple Bloom that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are having cutie mark related nightmares of their own. We see Sweetie Belle preparing to audition for what I assume is the pony equivalent of American Idol, before she gets a cutie mark that stops her from being able to sing. And Scootaloo is initially racing down a ramp on her scooter, before she gets a cooking cutie mark and ends up in a bowl with a cooking utensil. But again, Princess Luna has not been intervening in these dreams. She instead opts to bring all three Crusaders into a shared dream and basically tells them that worrying about cutie marks is the same thing as worrying about who you are. Except this runs counter to what they say about cutie marks before and after, how you're not defined by them.
It is nice for Apple Bloom to declare that the CMC will send Babs a care package to make sure she's okay, but why couldn't we have gotten to see her in a dream? Heck, why not show us ponies who already had cutie marks? In particular, considering what they had planned for Diamond Tiara this season, why not foreshadow it by letting us see her in a dream trying to live up to expectations? But nope, this is the extent to which we end up utilizing the dream world here. We get almost no clever visuals and are in it for only a few minutes. It really feels like the dream idea was an afterthought even though they wanted to complete the trilogy.
Apple Bloom finally wakes up for real and the episode ends with a sort of reprise of Applejack's lullaby, but not much else really happens. The episode just kind of ends.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, this episode just feels underwhelming. Considering how great "Sleepless in Ponyville" and "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils" were, there should've been no reason why this third and final LunaxCMC dream episode turned out so weak. But it really didn't become one until near the end even when it was becoming increasingly obvious that this was a dream. Did they originally want to do something else before someone mentioned that they needed to wrap up that trilogy? However, the bigger issue and one that casts a huge cloud over the entire episode, is Babs Seed's cutie mark. Babs' getting it and then basically being kicked out of the group raises a lot of questions that the episode isn't willing to answer or address. Even as a plot instigator it's kind of flimsy and feels like it was done solely to make it so we wouldn't ever see Babs Seed again. It also unfortunately proves that Apple Bloom really doesn't have anything going for her as an individual if you take away cutie marks and her family. Once those insecurities aren't there she can only at best play off of others, much like Applejack. Even as a transition to what would come later on in this season, it's not very good and there really isn't anything in other episodes to suggest that this one took place (not even "The Last Crusade" since the animators supposedly didn't put Babs' cutie mark in). It's a shame too because the moral is definitely a good one about not worrying about things beyond your control, and Princess Luna demonstrates her mentorship skills quite well here. If they would've cut out the third dream entirely and merged the first two together, we could've gotten to Luna much sooner and then this episode could've been much stronger. As it is, this episode gets a C-, a disappointing end to what was otherwise a great trilogy. It's like the Return of the Jedi of the LunaxCMC trilogy, a third act that doesn't quite match the appeal of the original first act or the higher stakes of the second act.
And up next is an episode handicapped by a mind boggling decision of how it wants to approach the subject of death, "Tanks for the Memories" which will see Rainbow Dash willing to do some very questionable things.
Yeah, this episode is just kinda meh when compared to the other two. On its own its still good, though.
in my cannon episode are in a different order and this episode and the episode marks and recreation are a result of starlight not yet being reformed...
It's a shame Apple Bloom got the short end of the stick in both the LunaxCMC dream episodes and the individual Season 4 CMC focus episodes.
Well next time will not only be Cindy Morrow's sole contribution for this season, but her final contribution for the series as a whole.
This was a really funny enjoyable episode but yeah definitely the worst of the dream trilogy. Also I wouldn't say Babs was kicked out exactly. She was still implied to stay friends with the group and likely helped blank flanks back at home still.
5503148 Maybe but that was never conveyed directly, not helped by us not getting to actually see or hear from her.
Ah yes, Tanks for the Memories....
5503156
Well yeah it sucks that we didn't get to see more of Babs, but that doesn't mean she was kicked out. It's not like she was ever shown before she got her cutie mark either other than the family reunion.