Episode Re-Review: Sounds of Silence · 4:43pm Jul 4th, 2021
So it was that Season 8 would introduce a new celebrity character in the form of famous musician/comedian Rachel Bloom, and would feature a map mission that would actually have two mane six members instead of anyone else. Most people can't stop gushing over this episode and what it introduced, and what's most surprising is that this episode was written by a one off writer named Gregory Bosignore who had previously done work for various plays. There may be a reason for that, though, considering what we now know about the song. But this episode truly worthy of the praise it gets, or is another "Twilight's Kingdom" in that it gets praise it doesn't deserve? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins by trying to hype up this map mission to a far away land by stating that this is the first time the map has called the same two ponies. Unfortunately, it loses a lot of its appeal since "Surf and/or Turf" and "The Parent Map" means the map can call anyone at any time to anywhere for any reason. See, that's what happens when you break the rules, you make the object that previously held some appeal or significance no longer seem special.
Rockhoof apparently knows a little about these creatures called kirin, but there's also creatures called the nirik (kirin spelt backwards, so it's obvious what they're going to be) who are these creatures of fire. And Fluttershy has a sudden bout of her old scaredy cat ways as Twilight says "Flanks don't lie" despite knowing that Discord is capable of tampering with the map.
So the episode wastes a considerable amount of time doing nothing of substance, down to the whole "Fluttershy can't be heard because she's so soft spoken" before the episode remembers that Fluttershy is beyond that by now and tells Applejack to listen to her.
Only once that's done do we get to the kirin village where the kirin apparently can't speak, despite Applejack trying to force them to do so. She eventually goes off by herself and that's where she meets Autumn Blaze, a kirin voiced by Rachel Bloom. However, Autumn Blaze is based almost entirely on a character Rachel Bloom had voiced in a different show, except that character was slightly more insane. She's also yet another Pinkie Pie expy. And when she mentions something about a "Vow of Silence", she decides to sing about it in musical fashion. This leads into the song "A Kirin's Tale" which was written by Michael Vogel and Nicole Dubac, and a demo version was leaked over a year ago that seemed to be closer to the inspiration for this episode's title.
So Rachel Bloom was hired later on and she reworked the song into the more upbeat and joyful tune that it is now. No word has been given on why Michael and Nicole didn't write the episode, Nicole stayed on the writing staff for Season 9 so it's not like she got booted off. But for whatever reason, Nicole left and Michael was probably too busy with other projects to write this episode. I guess Gregory was recruited at the last minute. This would explain why this song is so in your face about the moral, showing that Autumn Blaze already knows it but because the plot says so she can't convey it to the other kirin. It's a great song, definitely, but it highlights a big problem in that this episode wants to put Autumn Blaze front and center, sort of like what you'd see in modern The Simpsons where they get a celebrity just to have a celebrity.
Applejack then decides that she can convince the kirin all by themselves to welcome Autumn Blaze back, even though they don't listen to her when she talks because they're afraid of getting angry and turning into these fiery demons that are the nirik. And they have no way of communicating non-verbally. Applejack still comes back anyway, and gets into an argument with Fluttershy who protests that what the kirin did is the right solution to protect the forest. It's a valid point, but we never see Fluttershy do much of anything with the kirin, and it's never revealed how she learned about the kirin being the nirik. So she and Applejack start fighting, and this causes the kirin to pick them up with magic and threaten to dunk them in the Stream of Silence so they won't be able to speak or feel any emotions.
Fortunately, Autumn Blaze comes along in her fiery nirik state because she "can't have them silence the only one who will talk to me.", and now because the plot says so she can communicate with the other kirin and get them to listen to her. The only problem is, the cure for the Stream of Silence is a plant called Foal's Breath, and Autumn can't find any. Fortunately, Fluttershy knows where more can be found due to her animal friends, and that's what they were telling her earlier when Applejack wasn't listening to her. So all Autumn Blaze had to do was go beyond where she currently was and she would've found the Foal's Breath easily. Yet Autumn Blaze is praised for her work by the kirin's leader (named only in credits as Rain Shine), the same leader who made everyone take the vow of silence because one argument got out of control.
Then we get a reprise of "A Kirin's Tale" as Autumn Blaze spreads the Foal's Breath cure to every kirin, and Applejack and Fluttershy's cutie marks glow to signify a job well done.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, I'm gonna be honest, this episode is overrated. It really does feel like "The Autumn Blaze Show" because they are so in your face about her and about her being voiced by a celebrity. The show was good at using celebrities before, so I don't know why they were so lazy with Rachel Bloom and just focused on her so much that nothing else mattered. I suspect that it has something to do with the song being reworked after they got Rachel Bloom onboard, something to do with Nicole's unexplained departure after writing the song. Gregory was hired on likely at the last minute and just given the song to work with, and told he had to come up with an episode to meet the deadline. So this was the best he could do. However, the story really needed more time and polish. We know nothing about how the kirin function if they can't speak, and it doesn't speak very highly of them when they banish the only one of them who dares to look for a way to get back to normal. The fact that Autumn Blaze knows the obvious moral and would've easily found more of the cure had she just looked a little harder means that Applejack and Fluttershy contributed nothing of substance. This map mission could've been solved without them if not for the plot saying so. At least with "Viva Las Pegasus" it was shown that the map anticipated what Applejack and Fluttershy would do, and how only by both of them wanting to do what they do could they find the way to solve the problem. Here, this episode is focused on its celebrity character that it forgets about everything else. The kirin do have a cool design, I'll give them that. And it's a shame that we didn't get to see more of them. But cool designs and one good characters does not a good episode make. The foundation is there but the structure built upon it is lacking. So this episode gets a C, it's just so weak and uninspired, saved solely by Autumn Blaze.
*Sigh*, well reluctantly I'm going to tackle Season 8's finale seeing as I'm going to cover all two parters after it and have covered every two parter before it, so it's not right to exclude it. Come back tomorrow when we'll take a look at the worst season finale in the entire show with "School Raze".
For me, this is an alright episode that's elevated to great entirely because of the song.
And I do really like Autumn Blaze
A good way to introduce a new race and I love my little Autumn Blaze
Even if this episode doesn't exactly live up to the hype, I'd still take it over any of the The Simpsons' failed attempts at celebrity episodes, especially Lisa Goes Gaga, any day.
This is one of the few episodes of Season 8 that was actually worth watching. The cringe factor is low and it's fun to watch. Especially with the awesome song!
I don't think explaining how the Kirins function is necessary for the plot. There's plenty of ways you could fill that in without any thought. Hand signs or writing or something like that. Also the moral is amazing. Learning that anger isn't a negative emotion is something everyone should hear, both for children and adults. And weren't the plants somewhere Autumn would never think to look? That's why Fluttershy was needed, One last positive, Applejack and Fluttershy's chemistry in this episode was spot on.
5549383 Their "chemistry" was almost non-existent. And I'm sorry but we need to know more about the kirin and how they work if we're to get invested. I mean, there are so many questions that are raised from just the song alone about why they resorted to what they did over one argument that got out of control.
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Disagreed. And I don't think needing to care about the Kirins as a group is necessary for the conflict. It's like how you don't necessarily need to care about a planet to have stakes in a world threatening story. And I wouldn't just call it a simple argument getting out of control. Their emotion powers are pretty dangerous. It supposedly destroyed the whole town, which is a big deal from just one argument.