Rating:
I’ll see your Gilda and raise you a
Trixie. In many ways, Boast Busters isn't a whole lot
different from Griffon The Brush-Off , but at least it has a
scattering of decent moments and something of a plot. Instead of pranks, it’s magic that
ends up embarrassing the mane six, although they do react more appropriately this
time. There’s something of a decent
message in there that actually gets made, but most of the episode seems like an
excuse to embarrass some pony in one way or another. Long stretches are painful, and it’s
surprising how little actually happens.
At least Rarity is good in the Pinkie Pie role, and Trixie is much
easier on the eyes than her Griffon counterpart. Both are rather insufferable though, and given little depth too. I do have to give
props for Applejack getting hogtied, which is a surprisingly kinky moment for
the show. Unfortunately, I can’t really
increase the rating just because it’s obvious the episode was written by a guy.
Spike feels a lot of love for
Twilight’s magic after she gives him a mustache in the teaser, which
practically telegraphs that an equally-skilled unicorn is about to be
introduced. This is the great and
powerful Trixie, a light blue pony whose show apparently consists of taking
requests from the audience. She is
completely full of herself, but contrast this with Rarity’s later behavior in Sonic
Rainboom. Rarity is hilarious and knows
not to cross a certain line, while Trixie gleefully embarrasses any pony who
challenges her in front of the entire town.
She’s extremely unpleasant from the moment she first appears, and this
only gets worse as the episode goes on.
Also introduced are two somewhat
dislikable characters who have actually recurred a number of times. Snips and Snails are unfortunately named (and
apparently mentally challenged) male ponies who supposedly function
as comic relief. For now, they blindly
worship Trixie, which could be a comment on religion but isn’t. Confusingly, Snails is apparently a bad
Canadian stereotype, which is both strange and ironic (his accent does at times sound vaguely
Canadian, and he unnecessarily ends a sentence with “eh” once). Snails
also has a few Homer Simpson moments regarding mentions of food (mmm…hay), but
these don’t really add anything to that existing canon.
Spike chides the two for not having any
evidence to support Trixie’s claim that she vanquished an ursa major (*wink*,
it’s a constellation name), so they set off into the forest to scrounge one up
to watch Trixie vanquish it “again”.
Perfectly logical. They succeed
and bring the rampaging bear into Ponyville, only to find that Trixie was lying
and is apparently only good with parlor tricks.
This forces Twilight to step in, as her quick research led to realize
the bear was actually an ursa minor (hey, isn’t that another constellation name?),
and she sends him off to bed with a “bottle” of milk. Trixie can only run away after this
embarrassment, but at least it’s mustaches for all of our male leads.
There’s a fine line between knowing
you’re good at something and thinking you’re better than you are, and we see
both sides in this episode. Trixie creates a travelling show and has lackeys to
celebrate how wonderful she is, when in reality she’s likely no more talented
than Twilight. Unfortunately, Twilight doesn’t
think she’s all that good, and refuses to step up and end the episode early
since she doesn’t like to brag. It’s
almost touching how shy she is about her skills, but her “revelation” at the
end doesn’t make a lot of sense. Has
Twilight really been afraid to use her magic around her friends? Not so much against Nightmare Moon in the
pilot, although she didn’t do a whole lot in the successive episodes leading up
to this one. Considering magic is a
necessity to unicorn life and they all use it (even the great Snails), I’m not
sure why she’d be embarrassed about it.
After forgetting his crush in Applebuck
Season, it's good to see Spike remember his feelings for Rarity here. He hopes to impress her with a mustache that
actually looks pretty decent, but the better moment is when he starts talking
to Rarity without realizing it. Spike
stops mid-sentence, immediately turns nervous, and makes some apparent attempt
at an excuse before leaving (mustache!).
While this is a comment that has been made elsewhere before (at the very least in
an episode of 30 Rock), it’s nice to see that Spike’s nervousness is only in
his head. Sadly, Rarity apparently doesn't like the ‘stache.
The mane six are actually pretty
enjoyable in Boast Busters, and provide the best moments even though Pinkie Pie
and Fluttershy don’t have any lines (giving certain voice actors an episode off to save money is an unfortunate trend that started here). It’s fun seeing Rarity and
Applejack standing up to Trixie (not Rainbow Dash so much), but this is quashed
immediately when Trixie embarrasses all of them. Unfortunately, Snips and Snails get just as
much screentime, and the episode is bogged down by too many clichés (“Well, I
never!”, “the proof is in the pudding”, etc.).
None of the good moments can really overcome all of the bad, and
focusing on the unlikable Trixie makes for a rather painful episode overall.
Chris Savino’s first episode as a writer probably wasn't meant to air after Cindy Morrow’s, as this is the first of many times where two
similar episodes are aired back-to-back to the detriment of both. With the spotty-to-poor writing they
have, though, there really wasn't any saving either episode no matter when they
aired. Unfortunately, Savino’s episode
looks like a slightly more tolerable rip-off of Griffon The Brush-Off, and it took until season three's sequel Magic Duel to show that Trixie had depth that wasn't given to her here. One-dimensional villains aren't enjoyable to
watch, and yet the second season continued to introduce plenty of them (the Flim Flam Brothers, any dragon, Queen Chrysalis). Fortunately that wasn't always the case
(Discord, Princess Luna, and Chief Thunderhooves all showed an ability to reform), but an episode always suffers
when a character is evil just because.
That’s not entirely the problem with Boast Busters, but a lot of
it comes from the poor characterization of Trixie. Any isolated good moments and decent
lines (“oh, it, is, on!”) are completely obscured by the bad parts, which makes
Boast Busters quite a bit of a chore to sit through.
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