Rating:
After Feeling Pinkie Keen and Baby Cakes, you probably
thought Pinkie Pie couldn’t get any worse.
But she does. A Friend In Deed is
basically an excuse for her to supremely annoy one character under the guise of
comedy. Once a new donkey magically
appears in town, Pinkie is determined to be friends with him. She does this by embarrassing him and
attempting to ruin his life. Then Pinkie
quickly finds his lost love right over there and boom, happy ending. Amy Keating Rogers has usually been one of
the better writers, but A Friend In Deed is a master class on how not to write scripts. Her pacing is entirely off, it’s front-loaded
with filler (including the teaser being from a different episode), and she continually
indulges Pinkie’s worst annoying tendencies.
Rather than attempting some sort of interaction, Pinkie Pie is just loud
and obnoxious. And this is practically
the entire episode. While Rogers’ lesson
was decent, she completely bungled things enough that Maud Pie had to address
it again. And not content with just
destroying the mane six, Rogers has Pinkie turn it on the unfortunately named
Cranky, who understandably can’t wait to get out of this series. A Friend In Deed completely redefines the
second season’s “mess”, and is absolutely unenjoyable and unwatchable
throughout. In a season full of them,
there are few more disagreeable experiences.
With basically no story, Rogers decides to get the filler finished
early. For some reason, her teaser is a
Baby Cakes reprise that finds Pinkie once again entertaining those horrid
twins. Even ignoring Rogers is calling
back one of the worst episodes ever produced, it has literally nothing to do
with her story and no part is referenced again.
Was this a planned Baby Cakes sequel’s teaser? Or did the animators throw it together when Friend
In Deed didn’t make its running time? No
matter which reason, this part completely wastes the vaunted 1:12.
But Rogers isn’t done pissing time away. We have more than four minutes before any
plot starts, so Pinkie decides to sing yet another song as she walks around Ponyville. To summarize, her ditty is a huge pat on the
back for Pinkie and how great she is at being friends with everyone. Bet you can’t guess what’s going to happen
once this mammoth beast finally ends. Almost
an entire act (6:22) passes before Pinkie comes face to face with Cranky. The donkey is just arriving in town, and
doesn’t appear to be in a good mood.
Pinkie decides her winning personality will certainly cheer him up.
His full name is Cranky Doodle Donkey, which the show seems
to find hilarious. His middle name has
no reason for existing other than the endless Yankee Doodle Dandy references which
quickly commence. And why is his last
name Donkey when none of the other ponies have Pony for one? Or what kind of parents would name their kid
Cranky? Is it supposed to be a
nickname? Nope, he introduces himself as
Cranky and has his initials stamped on the cart. I’m sorry, of course Cranky is supposed to be
a hilarious name that I’m just not laughing at for some reason.
Since it takes so long for the plot to start, Rogers
realizes she doesn’t really have one.
Pinkie spends most of the next 12 minutes being annoying as she tries to
force Cranky to be friends with her. She
won’t leave him alone, destroys his toupée, embarrasses him about that, gets
him another one, sends him to the spa, and generally won’t stop following
him. Pinkie also destroys his
possessions whenever possible. This only
stops momentarily when Pinkie asks Twilight what went wrong. Then she ignores Twilight’s advice and
becomes even more annoying trying to have Cranky accept her apology.
Finally with about two minutes left, we can begin the actual
plot. Cranky arrived in Ponyville after searching
for his lost love Matilda (and not working or anything else apparently) over
many years. They met at a Grand
Galloping Gala in the ‘20s, but she left that very night. Finally giving up this search now, Cranky is
ready for “retirement” before just happening to land right near his beloved. Once the two finally reunite (she calls him
Doodle, so you know they’re close), Cranky is happy to be friends with Pinkie
and they’ll totally hang out from now on.
I can only imagine Rogers had some sort of quick deadline for
writing A Friend In Deed, and either couldn’t be bothered or just wasn’t able
to produce any content. Her structure
was six minutes of filler songs, twelve minutes of Pinkie being annoying, and
two minutes of actual almost heartwarming plot.
Even I can crap out three act structure without trying, so a
professional writer shouldn’t be doing this.
Rogers has been a lot better elsewhere, which makes this absolute
failure here inexplicable.
Her problems obviously extend past pacing as well. Many dialogue portions are rather poor and
indicate a lack of thought or editing. For
instance, Cranky discovers Matilda wrote him a note explaining her disappearance. What is his response? “Holy shit!”, “…what?”, “you’ve gotta be
fucking kidding me?” Nope, he quickly
exclaims “No! I never got it.” That sounds like he knew of the note’s
existence and just wasn’t sure what it said, which doesn’t fit his forlorn lost
love angle. Even more auspicious is a
section about 14 minutes in. Rogers’
wonderful lines here include “All better?” “No, not all better. All SOGGY!”, “Oh, you’re sorry, well, then,
everything is fine” (multiple beats) “It is?” “No! It isn’t!”, and of course “That’s four
evers. That’s like…forever!” (dramatic
music cue). This is on top of Pinkie’s
annoying shtick from The Last Roundup being stretched out interminably (the two
minute “apology” segment features Pinkie saying “really” 27 times in a
row). Rogers should be better than this.
Cranky does qualify as a decent character by himself. He isn’t comfortable explaining his reasons
for not wanting Pinkie around, mumbles his awful middle name, and part of his
anger includes harboring a personal tragedy.
Some attempt at demonstrating how you can’t be friends with everyone is
made, since Cranky won’t ever get along with Pinkie Pie regardless of her
actions. But Cranky also has a habit of
shouting stupid things (see above), and doesn’t provide any justification for returning. He doesn’t have much depth if a one-night
stand from decades ago ruined his subsequent life, and an inability to do anything
about all that anger is frustrating.
Even worse though is Cranky’s decision to be Pinkie’s friend after she
solves his missing love problem within five seconds. So much for baby steps. This suggests a “cure” for introversion and
also teaches the lesson of being annoying until you get what you want. Pinkie learns nothing, except that you’re
apparently supposed to badger someone who’s quiet until receiving acknowledgement. While Cranky is still a decent portrait of an
introvert being put through this situation, having him accept Pinkie’s
friendship request ruins everything built up.
And that is but one example of how A Friend In Deed
completely fails to resemble a decent episode.
Like many writers before her this season, it is amazing just how many
poor choices Rogers made in succession.
Screenplays are theoretically supposed to be about structure, so most of
the problems start there. But the songs,
filler, and dialogue are all well below average, and Pinkie Pie somehow reaches
a new low. This script is littered with
problems, and refuses to show its concern from both sides. With bad dialogue, a “cure” for introversion,
dumb songs that waste time, a teaser that references Baby Cakes, and perhaps
the worst pacing of any My Little Pony
episode, I am left with little choice but another bottom rating. A Friend In Deed is nothing more than a prime
example of how not to write an episode.
That it came from someone with Rogers’ talent is shocking, but sadly not
surprising given the surrounding shows.
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