Rating:
Of all the bad My
Little Pony outings, this is the WORST…POSSIBLE…EPISODE!!! That sounds like a good line, so I’d better
reuse it at least twice because writing 22-minute scripts is hard. Meghan McCarthy has shaped quite a bit of Friendship Is Magic (not usually for the
better), but never was so downright awful as in Lesson Zero. Twilight neglected writing her letter to
Princess Celestia this week, but filler abounds since that isn’t much of a
plot. Many phrases are repeated multiple
times (“I have searched high, I have searched low. Low and high! High and low.”, “Yes? Yes?
Yes?” “I really like her mane”),
scenes are dragged out either with or without such dialogue, and nothing much
really happens throughout. After wasting
three and a half minutes on Twilight Sparkles’ propensity to make checklists
(she’s so nerdy, it’s hilarious!), our future princess wanders around town to
find out nothing is going on. Her letter
is due by sundown (apparently, like all school assignments), so she quickly
goes bonkers at the prospect of being tardy.
TARRRDYYY!!! (Yep, that gets
reused too.) What’s even worse is that
McCarthy made sure Lesson Zero’s ripples were felt throughout the entire
series, because she removed Twilight’s importance in corresponding with
God. Now anyone can, which means we
don’t need her around much anymore. So
for a filler-filled bore whose only goal is the complete destruction of
Twilight’s character, I dub Lesson Zero the WORST…POSSIBLE…EPISODE!!! Relatively speaking.
To describe McCarthy’s Twilight as anal would be kind. After a lot of balderdash about needing supplies
for and triple-checking a double-checked checklist, Twilight removes most of
the frosting from her dozen cupcakes order.
This occurs because she didn’t expect the baker’s dozen’s thirteenth,
and someone would be mad or something.
Also, we get two gratuitous shots of Spike getting hit in the face with said
frosting. Fortunately his tongue doubles
as a bath.
Unfortunately, Spike’s comment about not being able to write
this week’s letter due to early onset Carpal Tunnel begets a new wave of crazy in
his master. With no ability to just make
something up or ask for an extension, Twilight heads off to quickly solve a
problem around town. Nothing is going on
of course, but McCarthy sets up a few gotcha moments to make Twilight think
there might be momentarily. Rarity’s
pitiful crying is only due to some lost ribbon, which she quickly finds lying
over there (what a drama queen!). That
was (wait for it) easy. Rainbow Dash’s
destruction of Applejack’s barn isn’t because of a feud, but just standard demolition
ahead of a new building (not sure why AJ needed help knocking down barns when
she’s pretty proficient at it herself).
And Fluttershy’s not actually fighting that big bear, she’s just giving
him a massage! How could anyone think
otherwise?
Faced with no crisis to overcome, Twilight decides to create
one instead. Her attempts again show a
lack of creativity, as she digs out an old stuffed animal and tries to have the
Cutie Mark Crusaders fight over it. They
are less than enthused. Not giving up, Twilight
casts a spell on the doll to make them like it, but this charm soon spreads across
the whole town. In what will be the
series’ sole occurrence, Celestia gets off her fat ass and actually quells an
uprising. But (like anyone in charge) she
is pissed, because Celestia didn’t become the ruler of everything so that she
would have to deal with regular townsfolk.
Twilight is stripped of her letter-writing duties, and her importance is
diminished for at least two seasons. But
Celestia wasn’t really mad, she just got a letter from Spike and came to
help. As will happen again, Celestia’s
“loyal subjects” must finish Twilight’s work for her.
Twilight is the only character with any sort of
“development”, but she’s barely recognizable.
All of that checklist hoopla is absurd even for her, and she doesn’t do
crazy nearly as well as Pinkie Pie in Party Of One (aired only four episodes
earlier). While that episode provided
some memorable moments, Lesson Zero’s crazy feels like a barely tolerable
rehash (from the same writer, no less).
And Twilight’s flipping out makes even less sense than Pinkie’s while
lasting longer. She’s gone from the
first assignment mention, and her hair grows scragglier for no discernible
reason. But there isn’t anything enjoyable
from this either. Twilight annoys Mrs.
Cake, bothers her friends, and then tries to get someone in Ponyville killed,
while none of it would even produce the letter she desperately wants to write. Since Celestia doesn’t exactly check her work
when she can even be bothered to show up, Twilight was better off just forging
a letter and calling it a day. Which
means this episode shouldn’t exist, needs to be removed from canon, all that
stuff. Having Twilight pretend she
solved a problem would have made for a better lesson too, since kids will
probably find themselves doing so someday to get through school. But no, McCarthy went the lazy route. And like in Winter Wrap-Up, having characters
accurately criticize an episode from within isn’t a good idea either (“Hmm, oh,
yes, much better”).
Perhaps McCarthy meant for Lesson Zero to mirror her own
struggles with writing the episode, or maybe an earlier bout with writer’s
block, but the well-known cure for this malady is just to write. Twilight never does, and as a result pretty
much won’t have to for the rest of the series.
I guess that counts as a message of some sort. But McCarthy doesn’t have anything
interesting to say about the problem either.
Instead, she fills her episode with pain, from Twilight’s
cringe-inducing behavior to all of the blatant filler moments, and the
supporting characters can only shake their heads at an incredible
disaster. There are no comments on difficulties
with writing, no useful development for the series’ ostensible main character (or
others), and no moments worth remembering.
What exists is only lazy boredom that counts as the meanest any writer
has been to a character since Feeling Pinkie Keen. Whatever love remains for Lesson Zero is
unjustified, because it still ranks among the most painful My Little Pony episodes ever produced. For all of these reasons and a supreme lack
of insight and inspiration from the show’s “head” writer, I award you, Meghan
McCarthy, with the distinction of having written the WORST…POSSIBLE… EPISODE!!! What?
I really mean it this time.
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