Episode Re-Review: The Parent Map · 5:52pm Jun 26th, 2021
Season 8 seemed to finally get a stand out episode with "Horse Play", a Princess Celestia focused episode. But even then it was far from universally praised. And it still seemed like the school and the student/young six were not being utilized all that much. When this episode premiered, fans initially hoped for some information to finally be shed on Starlight Glimmer's past, especially in light of Josh Haber issuing a statement that Starlight was a latch key kid (her parents were always away, so she had a key to get into the house and had someone check up on her). But Dave Rapp was coming back to write for this episode after he had taken Season 7 off, and most still remembered him for the truly awful episode that was "Newbie Dash". Still, he did sort of improve for "Where The Apple Lies", if only because it wasn't completely insulting. So maybe he could get to some semblance of quality? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Sunburst receiving a letter in a special seal, which he immediately discards without fanfare. I guess this is supposed to handwave him never getting any letters from Starlight at any point, but we don't even know if she ever tried to write to him so this possible handwave goes nowhere. Instead, it serves to demonstrate what they could have used to kickstart the plot, instead of having Sunburst be called by the map in Twilight's castle. Yes, that's right, Sunburst can be called by the map despite not living in Ponyville. This now means the map can call anyone anywhere at any time to solve any problem, there are no rules. But why did they feel the need to do this? Why did they feel the need to cheapen the appeal of the map and make it less special? The letters were a perfect way of kickstarting the plot, the map didn't need to be included.
Starlight is being called too, but she's not very enthusiastic because it's apparently to go back to her childhood town of Sire's Hollow. But she and Sunburst go anyway because the map cannot be ignored. We do get some lines indicating the two aren't looking forward to seeing their families, but this too amounts to nothing and is just a throwaway line. The two soon arrive in town and find things to be quite odd. One half is modern and the other half is historical, and both are insanely extreme such as replacing a fruit stand with an essence shop or making it so that an old library won't even let you touch the books. The historical stuff is courtesy of Starlight's father, Firelight, voiced by Adam Reed who was the voice of Justin in Total Drama Island and Total Drama Action. This is the only instance of a TD voice actor appearing on the show.
Firelight quickly establishes himself as an embarrassing, patronizing kind of parent. Unfortunately, the whole "Amazingly Embarrassing Parents" trope had been run into the ground by the show by this point, especially in the wake of how overdone it was with Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles, to the point where it became annoying and arguably toxic. What may be most interesting is that Firelight doesn't seem to have a wife, and neither is one mentioned at any point. So it's likely that he is a single parent, either through death or divorce. And he happens to be butting heads with Sunburst's mother, Stellar Flare, who is responsible for the more modern stuff. But the thing that keeps me from shipping her with Firelight is that at least in flashbacks we saw that Sunburst had a mom and a dad. It's possible his dad isn't alive anymore, but in the absence of proof either way I'm going to assume he is but was just out of town. Anyway, this entire conflict is apparently what's known as "Gentrification", a trend that started gaining attention in the later 2010's with the idea of transforming old or run down neighborhoods (particularly in downtown areas) into these hubs of modern businesses.
So Starlight and Sunburst take the liberty of showing their parents what they're doing wrong, and just when you think that this is where the episode is going to go the conflict is resolved. Firelight and Stellar Flare decide to put aside their differences and compromise. And since there's no glowing cutie marks, that means the friendship problem hasn't been solved yet. This really worries Starlight and Sunburst, the former of whom has deal with her father constantly patronizing her and treating her like a child (even offering her milk and cookies and a blanket), while Stellar Flare is determined to have "plans" for her son to the point where she starts making up problems for him to solve. Sunburst has to correct her repeatedly that the map "doesn't work that way". But by this point, given all that the map has done and what it seems to consider a friendship problem, it might as well be vulnerable to manipulation. That's what happens when you keep breaking the rules.
Eventually, Starlight and Sunburst sneak away to get away from their parents as we learn that Firelight is apparently very overprotective of his daughter. But they finally snap and tell both their parents off for their bad behavior, only to realize that maybe their parents are the friendship problem they've been sent to solve since they can't find anything else that counts. They do that, and viola, that's the problem! I mean, at least the parents get called out for their bad behavior here, a step up from "Parental Glideance" suggesting Rainbow Dash telling her parents off for being creepy superfans was wrong even when it wasn't.
And apparently, one conversation is all it takes to make up for years of bad treatment and bad influencing (though the episode thankfully doesn't try to blame the parents for what happened to Starlight and Sunburst). Also, Stellar Flare mentions Sunburst apparently "flunked" out of magic school.
Firelight and Stellar Flare supposedly promise to change their ways so Starlight and Sunburst will visit more often, before proposing a road trip to come and see their children instead which seems to imply they're reverting back to their old ways already.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it feels like they originally were going to do something completely different, like Dave intended to tackle "Gentrification" head on and make an entire episode out of that. But then either he decided not to, or someone told him that wouldn't be a good episode idea. So he wrote something else, but didn't go back and rework what he'd done, which he really should've. The real problem is that aside from one throwaway line and a brief cutaway gag to Starlight's old room, we learn nothing about her past even though this episode was prime to do just that. It was a golden opportunity to fill in the many holes Starlight's backstory had, but all we got is Firelight and some implications.
Sunburst just feels like he was tacked onto this episode because they wanted to, because they wanted to tease shippers. Sunburst and Starlight do play off each other well here, but when so much of the episode is spent looking for a problem while nothing of substance happens aside from Firelight and Stellar Flare being annoying helicopter parents, it's hard to get really invested. It does seem like this episode does right where "Parental Glideance" did wrong, parents are not perfect and their behavior should be called out when it's wrong. Parents need to let their kids experience life instead of trying to control every aspect of it, you can do only so much to truly shield them from the world and the longer you do the worse off they'll be when they must inevitably strike out on their own (even in this day and age where many young adults remain in close contact with their parents). However, this episode was pretty much just a waste of a slot. Josh Haber statement about Starlight was made after this episode's script was already finalized and without any input from him, which makes you wonder why he bothered to put it before the episode in the first place. He could've easily insisted that be added (or he could've offered to collab with Dave). And for the record, why did this have to be a map mission? What did calling Sunburst accomplish other than reducing the map down to a cheap plot device, taking away any sense of appeal it might have had before? Someone really should've lent Dave a hand here, because this feels like an incomplete first draft that changed direction all of a sudden. It gets a C- as a result, nothing to be offended by but it's not worth coming back to soon it doesn't accomplish anything truly of substance. I mean yeah, Firelight's presence and Stellar Flare's influence can kind of give us hints as to how Starlight became what she was, but it's all implied.
There's no need to repeat myself on the infamous disaster that was "Non-Compete Clause", so instead we're going to skip ahead to the second act of both the guy's night and the SugarMac trilogies with "The Break Up Break Down", an episode full of cliches that became old by the time of the first Shrek.
This is, no joke, one of my absolute favorite episodes of the series.
It was the only episode to seriously give Crusaders of the Lost Mark a run for its money for the title of my pick for best episode, and even surpassed it briefly.
And, no joke, when this episode leaked, I actually did watch the leaked version multiple times before the official premiere, I liked it that much.
I can't wait to see your Horse Play review
5541544 Not re-reviewing it, my original review was just fine.
This is a good episode and we got to learn more about Sunburst and Starlight family a bit more
Odd how that worked out. As for Stellar Flare, her VA is Trish Pattendon, whose previous roles include Asajj Ventress from Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles and Remus from Wolverine Versus Sabertooh & Wolverine Versus Sabertooth: Reborn.
Also, in terms of visual gags, Starlight's goth bedroom was the best one.
Never heard of that episode before.
Probably never existed.
I repeat.
NEVER EXISTED
5541546
Oh, I forgot you already reviewed it. Time to find it
5541540
You like any episode that doesn't challenge your views.
I admit that this episode does explain where Starlight got her control freak tendencies from but at the same time it feels like the writers are trying to shift the blame again, just like they did with Sunburst.
This was one of the few enjoyable episodes of this disaster season. Mostly because A) the school wasn't involved, and B) the cringe factor in this was relatively low.
Personally, I give this episode a B.