My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 222 - Hurricane Fluttershy

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Man, I hate meetings.  Such a waste of time to go over things you already know, and any announcements are never good.  They always say you have to be there, but it’s never true.  Meetings are really only a way for companies to feel good about themselves, or at least to cover their asses in ad­vance of the inevitable complaints or lawsuits.  They show how smart and better the people in charge are over the lowly peons at the bottom, while wasting the money to pay them for not doing any work.

The meeting in Hurricane Fluttershy details how creating a tornado is beneficial for the country.  This really must be a fantasy show if making a life-threatening, property destroying natural phenomenon is a good thing.  Maybe this was like that one Star Trek: TNG episode where the Q had to kill that family because they tried to live as humans.  Maybe there were a few undesirables in Equestria that needed to be wiped out, and the rest of the residents would be better off after it.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 312 - Games Ponies Play

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Absurd as it may seem, Twilight’s method of calming herself down in Games Ponies Play can actually be quite effective.  She is tasked with entertaining a games inspector as the Crystal Empire bids for the Equestria Games, and naturally everything goes wrong.  For once, Cadance has something useful to offer her former ward, and the relaxing extended hoof allows Twilight to keep everything under control, or so she thinks.  The mane six pick up the wrong pony at the train station, while Rarity is confusingly tasked with doing Cadance’s hair for the occasion.  Thankfully, Twilight doesn’t allow herself to freak out despite being in put in charge of more than she probably should.  Worrying about such things not only helps the undesired to happen, but it also stands in the way of becoming better.  Dave Polsky’s fourth writing credit of the season may be bogged down by headshaking moments, but it has enough fun and intelligence to make for a solid effort overall.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episodes 225-26 - A Canterlot Wedding

 

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A Canterlot Wedding is probably always going to be an episode that many people will love, but not one I ever will.  It tries very hard to be epic, but without actually knowing how to do so.  A typical old boring retconned wed­ding isn’t interesting enough for a big season finale, so they added a bizarre evil enchantress that feels exactly like The Little Mermaid in the beginning and Star Wars by the end.  There are enough Broadway songs to qualify the show for the Tonys, a mind control plot that feels like it’s been seen hundreds of times, and yet another ridicu­lously strong villain that goes down incredibly easily and quickly.  A Canterlot Wedding could have been an episode that explored Twilight’s family dynamic, or at the very least dealt with the life changes that come with getting older and/or married.  But all of it was swept under the rug in favor of a di­rect-to-DVD Disney movie.  The premise was good, and all of the new­ness around is enough to keep it above the sadly numerous terrible epi­sodes in the second season.  But the unnecessary plot additions are too much, so that even an hour-long show feels very rushed with all it tries to accomplish.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 313 - Magical Mystery Cure

 

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M.A. Larson’s second outing of the third season is one hot mess of an episode that strives for no less than to summarize the entire series up to this point and completely redefine it going forward.  While Magic Duel could perhaps have used another 5-10 minutes or so, Magical Mystery Cure is very clearly a two-parter that has been smashed and stripped into a hurried 21+ minutes.  There are a lot of potential points to be explored, but no time for any of them, so the episode literally montages through the entire plot.  Larson is still without peer on the writing staff despite a couple of other members stepping it up, so it’s odd that he’s basically only a co-writer here.  Daniel Ingram turned in a season’s worth of songs for this one episode, and wrote most of the lyrics too.  Magical Mystery Cure is as much his as Larson’s, but he’s never been a compelling enough composer to make the series’ first musical episode a worthwhile idea.  His style produces second-rate Broadway or pop songs, which sound like something you’ve heard better before rather than anything original.  Fortunately for him, I don’t expect as much as I do from Larson, and Ingram’s songs are definitely passable.  They don’t distract from what is going on and are even almost emotional in spots, but it probably would have been better if there was more actual episode between them (such as in the second season finale).  Magical Mystery Cure is definitely a disappointment on first viewing, as it could have been so much more than what it is.  These problems ease on a second time through, since the strong cinematic tone produces a number of fine moments.  Most musicals are long for a reason though, and the decision to keep Magical Mystery Cure in one part is ultimately what keeps it from being the great episode it was clearly intended to be.  Larson’s talents are wasted, and what little work he is able to show is not his best.  Even a sub-par effort from him is better than most of the writing on the series, so Magical Mystery Cure somehow pulls through despite the flaws and its controversial and possibly unnecessary plot developments.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 408 - Rarity Takes Manehattan

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With M.A. Larson on hiatus during the fourth season, Dave Polsky had to do for a writer to look forward to.  And do he did.  Rarity Takes Manehattan is the first in depth look at Rarity’s life in the fashion world since season two’s Sweet And Elite, and the fourth season’s realistic feel make this positively gripping at times.  Apparently Rarity has been busy since then, as she has earned an invite to New York Fashion Week without needing to go through all of Project Runway first.  Everyone’s invited, and they’re also going to check out some crappy musical that’s totally awesome too.  The outsides are very strong, including a song that actually works well within the episode.  Unfortunately, RTM suffers in the middle with the introduction of some stereotypical characters (although fashion types like them almost certainly exist) and the plotline of Rarity’s fabric getting stolen.  Besides that though, Rarity remains My Little Pony’s most compelling character, and this is the first episode since Suited For Success that takes advantage of it.  There really wasn’t much of a need to introduce a plot, but thankfully it remains ancillary.  Like Castle Mane-ia, Polsky lets most of the episode evolve naturally, which is significantly better than forcing the action to fit the moral.  Also wonderful is Polsky’s sense of humor, which both made fun of how awkward some of the previous songs were and found an unexpected title drop.  Rarity Takes Manehattan just isn’t consistent enough to earn a better rating, but the good parts find the perfect tone that makes the fourth season stand out.  Even if Polsky’s fashion knowledge comes from TV, his characterization is from the heart.