Episode Re-Review: Every Little Thing She Does · 5:52pm Jun 1st, 2021
So after an insanely long stretch of not being focused on or even being mentioned, Starlight Glimmer was finally going to get an episode to herself. And this time she wasn't going to be sharing it with Twilight, or Spike, or Trixie. This was Starlight's first true solo outing since her redemption, which was still looking questionable to many. Michael Vogel was going it alone on this episode, and his previous solo outing had been the quite enjoyable "A Hearth's Warming Tail". Yet many regard this as Starlight's worst outing, and some even consider it be just as bad or even worse than her previous outing in "No Second Prances". Has it deserved that reputation? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Twilight and Starlight having a magic showdown, ultimately culminating with Starlight conjuring up a variation of Captain America's shield. She then proceeds to show off other superpowers like super speed or being in two places at once. It's too bad The Avengers aren't holding auditions.
Twilight then notices Starlight hasn't taken on any friendship problems since Trixie, and so she tasks Starlight with doing just one friendship problem while Twilight is away giving a lecture in Canterlot. Starlight then has to "pretend" to be invested in the task given to her when Spike comes in, even though he sees right through her obvious lies. Starlight then completely on a whim decides to combine five friendship problems together to impress Twilight, completely ignoring Spike when he says that's not a good idea.
But Starlight goes ahead with it anyway, and naturally the five friendship problems do not mesh well together: Pinkie Pie is too messy to be near Rarity's fabrics, Fluttershy brought a ton of her animal friends over and Rainbow Dash can't find a good place to "chillax" in the castle. So Starlight Glimmer immediately retreats to the castle library to look for some kind of magical way to get out of the mess she's in. She settles on a combination of spells to speed things up and make her friends "open to suggestions", and thinks that all of them will be totally okay with this without her asking for permission. She casts the magical spell ball she's created, which unleashes a blinding flash that leaves her friends in a trance. And what does Starlight do as a result? She opts to activate a trigger condition to make her friends do exactly as she tells them to do. You know, the sort of thing she did when she was evil (except then she was using subtle manipulation instead of magical force).
Also, is it just me or does her voice sound suspiciously like Princess Luna using her "Royal Canterlot Voice"?
Except now the spell has made it so that Starlight has to feed instructions to her brainwashed friends because they can't do anything on their own. And they take all their instructions quite literally. Some of the antics are funny, such as Rarity literally copying a dress from a book and then trying to make one for a mouse, or Pinkie Pie managing to make a ton of cakes in the brief time Starlight leaves her alone, as well as Fluttershy being covered in insects because she was instructed to gather "all of the animals". They're really the only thing to like about this whole segment because at no point does Starlight Glimmer show any remorse or concern about any of this. And it gets so bad that she causes a fire in the kitchens, and when she asks for water she causes Rainbow Dash to bring in storm clouds to flood the castle.
And it's at that very moment that Twilight comes back in to find her castle in ruins.
We then cut to some time later as Twilight and Spike have managed to clean up the mess. But Starlight doesn't seem to realize where she went wrong, she thinks she just needed to tweak the spell a bit. It takes Twilight literally telling her that brainwashing other ponies is bad for Starlight Glimmer to realize what should be obvious.
So why did Starlight do it? Well, she has a "Freudian Excuse", doing simple social activities freaks her out. And not because she's afraid of other ponies knowing about her past or anything like that, she's just afraid of doing basic social stuff. She was even hoping to keep impressing Twilight with magical feats until she forgot about friendship studies, never mind the fact that Starlight was specifically taken under Twilight's wing to learn about the magic of friendship!
Twilight then rightfully tells Starlight she needs to apologize to the others, who are suffering from a magical induced hangover.
And unfortunately, the way this scene is conveyed Starlight Glimmer doesn't sound like she grasps the gravity of the situation. She seems to be acting like what she did was a minor mistake instead of a major violation of trust. I'm not sure if it's bad writing or bad direction. Maybe Kelly Sheridan for whatever reason underperformed? I mean, this is giving me prequel Anakin vibes of bad acting.
So apparently just saying "Sorry" without an understanding of what you did wrong is enough to convince ponies since the rest of the mane six decide to help Starlight clean up. I mean, what, are we going to give praise for the simplistic of good things?
And apparently, this is enough to count as Starlight doing a friendship exercise courtesy of a montage. It's like they took all the worst things about the end of "The Cutie Re-Mark" and did them worse! I mean, the episode ends without even really addressing Starlight's behavior, we instead have even Twilight joining in on the "chillaxing". Not sure about you, but I don't think I'd be in a rush to be around someone who brainwashed me, only vaguely said they were sorry and showed only a hint of remorse for doing what they did. It's not even like Starlight Glimmer panicked or anything, because we've seen her suffer actual anxiety and nervousness on-screen before.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, I guess Michael Vogel's entire thought process behind this was "Lesson Zero 2.0, but it's Starlight Glimmer". I'm not kidding. This episode seems to be in the same structure with a similar character as "Lesson Zero". Except brainwashing was only a small part of "Lesson Zero", and when Twilight did it she not only was already clearly shown to not be in the best mental state but also clearly regretted it. She didn't need anyone to tell her that brainwashing was bad, she was called out for it and was ready to face any consequences because of it.
And treating Starlight as if she's just Unicorn Twilight 2.0 is a huge disservice to her character. Starlight has so much more to her character than just potentially having something Twilight lost upon becoming an alicorn princess (which she did not since she still engaged in spell studying and was still as adorakable as ever. If anything, her being a princess initially seemed to mean nothing at all). For all the missteps there might have been in "No Second Prances", at least that episode let Starlight be her own character and the same is true for "The Crystalling". Magic is not what defines her, and if anything her being able to do all these things as just a plain unicorn raises questions about she could be so powerful, an explanation we wouldn't get until "All Bottled Up". I will say that Twilight at least somewhat looks like a good mentor here, an improvement over "No Second Prances" where she only retroactively became the sensible one when it was revealed Trixie was just using Starlight as a means of revenge. And Spike once again proves how great he can be at playing off of others and seeing through their carefully crafted bravado. The comedic antics of most of the mane five when they're under the influence of the spell are probably the one saving grace of this episode, and they only just manage to give this episode a borderline C+/B- as a result. For Starlight Glimmer, this felt like a huge backstep for her character.
And just like how "No Second Prances" was followed by something arguably worse in "Newbie Dash" (worse for me at least), this bad Starlight episode was going to be followed up by something even worse than it with "P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View").
I think this being her first season makes this mistake forgiveable though I get why it'd be irritating. Although, PPOV worse than this? Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That's close to the Saddle Row Review in terms of interesting framing device and pure comedic value.
This is an episode that I always have fun watching.
Anyone familiar with The Cartoon Hero/The Hero of Tomorrow knows that he does not think highly of this episode. Not only is it his least favorite episode of Season 6, its his least favorite episode of the entire series. If you want to learn why, you can check out either his Season 6 Reaction video (skip ahead to 33:47) or his Top 17 Least Favorite Episodes video (skip ahead to 21:47).
Starlight was a mistake
5530049 Eh, she ultimately wasn't. But stuff like this really didn't do her any favors.
Fun Fact: This is the only Starlight episode I dislike Starlight.
Let’s get this over with, first off I feel like Starlight was a bit OOC, she acts on emotion but I’m pretty sure she isn’t stupid. Here she’s dumber than Leni from the Loud House, she should’ve understood what she did wrong as soon as possible but no forget that, we need a plot. I will say this I’m pretty sure the spell was meant to be temporary, this line proves it: “Everypony will probably thank me for getting it all done so quickly.”
I will say that even if Starlight is unlikable this episode, she did still have likable moments, like when she revealed she didn’t want to be a disappointment to everyone, and her apology scene.
I know Starlight isn’t perfect, she has flaws but this wasn’t the best way to showcase those flaws.
Yeah, I understand why some people have issues with Starlight as a character and this episode didn't help matters either.