Episode Re-Review: P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View) · 8:00pm Jun 2nd, 2021
So after Season 6 gave us Starlight Glimmer at her absolute worst and made her the one character all season who couldn't apologize sincerely for making a mistake (Applejack and Rainbow Dash, Discord, Twilight and even debateably Trixie all managed to do when they screwed up at various points), it really needed something to be able to improve its reputation considering the lows were standing out more than the highs. But perhaps if that was the case they shouldn't have paired up the writing staff the way they did here: The Fox Brothers Michael P. and Will were picked to write this episode after they had only previously worked with Josh Haber when he was hung up on shoehorning Rarity into every episode he could. But for the story they picked up "helpers" in the form of Kevin Burke and Chris "Doc" Wyatt who had only worked with Michael Vogel before, and given "Every Little Thing She Does" it was now clear that even Vogel didn't always get the characters just right. This didn't seem like a very good pairing, but then again none of them had written stuff like "Newbie Dash" or either of Starlight's hotly contested focus episodes. So maybe, just sticking to established characters, this unlikely team-up could work? Well, let's find out.
The episode opens up with some very sloppy exposition from Twilight that's pretty much in the same boat as what we saw at the start of "Trade Ya!". It's pretty much an "As You Know" segment without the words "As You Know". But the golden rule of exposition still stands, the character repeating it should not be saying it to a character or characters that should already know the information. Anyway, all this exposition mentions Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie getting back from a boat trip at a place called Silver Shoals. And Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are missing it because of a high school reunion in Cloudsdale, a reference to a Friends Forever comic, but one of the worst ones since it was one of the ones that was just a dumping ground for someone's poorly made OC.
So Twilight arrives at the train station with Spike only to find her three friends looking less than ideal, they're all apparently covered in mud and seaweed and don't look too happy. Twilight believes something went wrong with the trip, so what does she do? She decides to immediately invite all three friends over to her castle for tea to get them to talk about. Apparently it doesn't occur to her that maybe they don't want to talk about the boat trip right away, maybe they'd like some time to rest and gather their thoughts. And if you think Twilight's being nosy now, just wait, she'll get much worse. Anyway, all three of her friends send their pets in with notes (Pinkie Pie wrote on Gummy's belly) that all more or less say the same thing: I don't wanna talk about the trip right now because I'm mad with the others and don't wanna talk to them at the moment. Twilight then decides that, completely unprompted and with no indication that this is a problem, the only solution is to stick her nose into her friends' trip and ask them about something they clearly have no interest in discussing.
First up is Rarity who actually has duck lips while brushing her mane in a mirror. Suddenly, she discovers a crab that's somehow stowed away inside of her mane, a nod to the whole "Rarity v.s. Giant Crab" fad that was really popular in the fandom in mid to late 2013 before it just faded away.
Rarity opts to give her side of the story, claiming that it's all Applejack's fault that the trip went badly. This is because Rarity, for some reason, imagines that Applejack became a pirate completely out of the blue.
According to Rarity, Applejack went so far as to throw some sandwiches Rarity made overboard while claiming it was her ship. And when a storm suddenly appeared, Applejack caused the ship to capsize but there's no mention of how any of them made it back home. Twilight naturally assumes that something must be missing, but Rarity insists that she saw what she saw and continues to blame Applejack for what happened. Twilight then goes to see Pinkie Pie, who claims that actually it's Rarity's fault the ship sank. Pinkie Pie mentions in her story that Rarity was acting snobbish the whole time, even throwing sandwiches overboard because to her they were "so last season". And it was Rarity who made the ship capsize in a storm, which came completely out of the blue. The story then ends as Pinkie insists her story is right, right before she catches a whiff of something burning and realizes it's her cupcakes.
So Twilight then goes to see Applejack, who blames both Pinkie Pie and Rarity, acting as if they were inexplicably behaving like flanderized versions of themselves (Pinkie Pie being a completely brain dead idiot and Rarity being even more snobbish to the point where she says "Darling" every five seconds). Applejack does mention that she accidentally knocked the sandwiches overboard and tried to apologize, but even she insists on a storm coming out of nowhere and Pinkie Pie and Rarity arguing with her and causing the ship to sink. And get this, the whole time Applejack was hoping to lead her friends on some sort of adventure. Yes, that's right, the same Applejack who is perfectly content to spend her whole life on her family farm now inexplicably craves a sea based adventure.
Applejack also claims that this is somehow a bad enough feud to where she, Rarity and Pinkie Pie may never speak to each other again. This just feels like it's tacked on to build tensions, like how Sonic Forces states Sonic has been tortured for six months by Eggman but we see him being completely okay (and it turns out that it was not in the original Japanese script and neither was it improperly translated. It was added in on purpose despite having no narrative purpose). So what does Twilight do? She opts to call all three of her friends back to Silver Shoals to tell them what "really" happened.
Somehow, despite the stories containing little in the way of clues, Twilight figured out that it was all just a happy accident. The ship didn't even make it out of the harbor before it sank, which is why all three ponies were unharmed and were able to make it to shore. And there was no storm even though that's the one thing all three stories were in agreement on. The sandwiches being thrown overboard lured this never before seen or mentioned creature called a trunip, which I guess is supposed to be the pony equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster or something. And it sank the boat by accident by stirring up waves with its tail. And Twilight somehow figured this out all by herself just from listening to three stories that were not in agreement with each other.
And this is all it takes to make this feud that was previously supposed to be bad enough to be friendship ending disappear completely, meaning the entire episode was contrived and pointless, nothing of substance was accomplished.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Quite honestly, I don't know how this episode was ever greenlighted in the first place, because it barely feels like it has a story or conflict. Nothing makes any sense at all, and the "mystery" turns out to be irrelevant since none of what we're told or shown via flashback actually matters aside from one insignificant detail that could easily be overlooked. The one thing the three stories actually agree on is something that didn't actually happen, and the revelation that the boat sank before it even made it out of the harbor further cheapens the whole thing. Nothing really went wrong, they could've easily just gotten the boat lifted back up and tried again (or rented another boat). And you mean to tell me that six seasons in, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Applejack all think so lowly of each other for no given reason? If this were in Season 1 maybe it could work, though even then Applejack's inexplicable desire for adventure feels more like something you'd see in Rainbow Dash and it feels like they just stuck Applejack in because they wanted to.
You know how this story concept is supposed to work? You're either supposed to intentionally exaggerate the details, or you're supposed to show how each of the involved members came to believe what they believe. We don't get that here. And meanwhile, we have Twilight being insanely nosey for no reason other than because the plot says so. Why should she care if her friends are having an argument and don't wanna talk to each other right away? Friends can get mad and hold grudges. If a day or two passed and they were still not talking, then that might make more sense (at least in "Putting Your Hoof Down" we got an illusion to the passage of time even if it wasn't conveyed the best). But this isn't a friendship problem, the map has specifically not been activated in response to it and there's no indication that this feud is somehow worse than any we've seen before from the three friends. The entire climax feels like it was pulled out of thin air, like they had to have something but couldn't think of anything. Part of me can't help but wonder if they intentionally wanted to make this bad so that "Every Little Thing She Does" would seem better by comparison. But that can't be because the show's episodes were worked on in no particular order, so much like "Newbie Dash" I doubt the intent was self-sabotage and it's just unfortunate coincidence that both of Starlight's focus episodes were quickly eclipsed by something far worse. This episode as it should've been scrapped, I would've rather had Ed Valentine's original vision for "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks" be re-purposed if they absolutely needed something to fill a slot, because this episode gets an E. I can't give it an F because it's clear to me that the writers involved here didn't bother to give it their all, they just wrote a first draft, turned it in and called it a day. Whether it was time constraints, burn out from this probably being a backburner project, or just general laziness or lack of communication between the four writers on the story I don't know.
Well, Season 6 could be said to somewhat improve from here since no episode after this one is anywhere near as bad, but that doesn't mean what we'll get next is back to the kind of quality we should have. No, up next we have the insanely cliche "Where The Apple Lies" that would only prove why the liar revealed story just isn't interesting anymore.
I mean, they definitely did THAT. Each of the three stories heavily exaggerated the personalities of at least one of the others.
I honestly find this to be a pretty fun episode.
5528986 Exaggerate details not personalities.
I feel like this is an episode similar to MMMystery on the Friendship Express, in that the mystery isn't supposed to be the main draw of the episode, it's just being ridiculous and beautiful and hillarious. Rarity throwing out sandwiches because they were so 10 seconds ago will forever be the highlight and one of the best examples of making fun of trends I've ever seen.
The bunyip is a swamp monster from Australian legend and folklore said to resemble an aquatic mammal or even a Diprotodon (a giant extinct wombat the size of a rhino). More about the bunyip can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunyip
I also think this episode's format was supposed to be a reference to the storytelling format of Rashomon.
In regards to your criticism on Twilight being nosy, I suppose you could make the argument that as the Princess of Friendship, she felt it was her duty to fix any sort of friendship problem, no matter how big or small it may be.
5528990
I'd argue that the personalities of the other people in the event are among the details.
5529037 Well in that case, if that was the intention, I don't think this team of writers quite understood how difficult that was to pull off within the confines of the show.
5529079
An episode from That's So Raven had a similar format, along with an episode from Rocko's Modern Life.
5529081 Yeah, and I've seen this story idea be done better on eleven minute shows like the original The Powerpuff Girls and Codename: Kids Next Door. But I think those writers had more freedom to write when they wanted to, whereas this show had free lance, round robin writing where writers worked on stories in no particular order and even handed off stories to each other for the slightest of reasons (Bats! as it turns out was Amy Keating Rogers' episode first, before it got turned over to Merriweather Williams even though Amy was not credited), which only ever seems to have made episodes worse instead of better. That kind of writing naturally didn't lend itself well to something like this, especially when both sets of writers had other projects they probably had to do first.
5529104
How would you do P.P.O.V. if you were in charge of the episode?
5529160 Replace Applejack with Rainbow Dash first and foremost, at least then it would make some sense for her and Rarity to be snipping at each other. I'd also make sure to indicate it's been at least a few days since the boat trip and everypony keeps avoiding each other, which is what prompts Twilight to decide she has to know what happened. I would have there be an actual storm, but it would be revealed that another boat came by to rescue the three when their boat capsized as a result. The sea monster wouldn't exist, but Twilight would show how, from each of the three stories she heard, each pony came to believe what they believed.
5529174
Interesting. One thing I would add is having a reference to the tri-horned bunyip as one of the possible reasons why the boat crashed or having them be water creatures that pass through waterways of Seaward Shoals.