Rating:
This is an episode review and now I’m going to tell you what
I thought. It's going to be better than
the review you were going to write, or whatever you were thinking about
saying. As a fandom, when do we draw the
line and say this level of quality isn’t acceptable? Judging from many early returns, that time is
never, and I’d better get used most bronies never caring about quality as long
as colorful creatures are doing questionably funny and definitely non-offensive
things. Like many new writers before
them (Dusedau, Confalone, Williams), Michael J. P. Fox (bet he hasn’t
heard that joke before) and his brother show only a cursory knowledge of the
characters and probably hadn’t watched an episode before. Rarity is scouting locations for her eventual
second shop in Manehattan (something which should probably be much harder), and
for some reason this coincides with Pinkie’s planned “vacation” day with Maud. They exchange gifts “every year”, and Pinkie
really wants to give her sister a rock pouch for Boulder. Yep, that’s it for plot, but Mike and Wil
(Wheaton, bet he actually hasn’t heard that one) don’t give us much for
character moments or insight either.
Their script is unusually high in exposition and retcons, as they
literally spell everything out (including the final lesson). Few others can match their apparent mantra of
“tell, not show”. Maud does receive her
first extended concentration since being introduced during season four, and is
generally in top form despite everything else.
While having some Pinkie-like abilities seems fun, this also debatably
weakens her character slightly. Despite
doing what she can, there was no saving the episode’s poor quality. Fox and Fox’s dialogue is so exposition heavy
that the few ostensibly creative moments (like how Rarity and Pinkie find
asides with Maud right there) are undermined, lose believability, and feel like
trying too hard. With awful dialogue,
weak characterization (outside of Maud, who apparently can’t be poorly
written), and a lesson borrowed from O. Henry’s short story which inspired the
episode name, The Gift never reaches satisfactory quality. My
Little Pony’s brother tandem don’t prove themselves as worthy additions,
since writing a successful episode seems beyond their limited abilities.
After another wasted trailer where Pinkie Pie and Rarity
blabber about how excited/not excited they are to be visiting Manehattan again,
we discover Maud will be joining them on some bullshit acronym get-together
that totally wasn’t just made up since Pinkie does this with all of her sisters
every year totally. Because she usually
sucks at gift giving, Pinkie wants to buy Maud a rock pouch at one specific
store which totally only sells those because it’ll be perfect yada yada. They lengthily decide to work their way slowly
through town, eventually hitting the store and checking spots for Rarity’s
other boutique while simultaneously hitting landmarks and restaurants so Maud
won’t notice.
Because there wouldn’t be a show otherwise, the pouch store
is conveniently closed for an extended period due to pretend reasons. Pinkie nearly gets arrested attempting to
break in (nothing in her magic “violate every law of physics” bag can help this
situation apparently), and must mopily slink back to the restaurant. Rarity tries asking Maud what she might want,
but the latter only cares about rocks and sidewalk cracks. “Thankfully”, Rarity spots a mafia henchman holding
the very pouch they desired. Still
possessing no money, Pinkie eventually gets roped into trading her party cannon
for the pouch because she immediately spoils her bargaining position. Yes, Pinkie’s cannon is now an actual singular
item.
Sometime later when they finally exchange gifts, Maud’s single
word response indicates she indeed loves the pouch. Pinkie acts considerably more demonstrative
after receiving confetti for her cannon, since she of course goes through a lot. This “best present” ever doesn’t even last one
minute despite Pinkie not having a cannon for it. And because the episode wouldn’t have a
resolution otherwise, Rarity announces that Pinkie gave up something
significant to Maud, whose creepy look forces out everything else. Realizing that pouch kind of sucked anyways,
Maud vows to retrieve Pinkie’s cannon.
Using her “Maud Sense”, Maud quickly finds the mafioso standing
on a street corner where anyone can find him.
Using an impromptu good cop/ bad cop routine with Rarity, they extort
him out of the cannon by threatening physical violence. This means Pinkie hasn’t given Maud anything now,
but who cares I guess. Oh shit, we’ve
only got about one minute left. So here,
Maud states the lesson and Rarity finds a perfect spot for her shop. The end!
Phew, almost didn’t make it there.
With only two mane six ponies present, The Gift feels like
another map episode, including how little ends up being accomplished. Pinkie’s extreme overreactions regarding her
sister would seem like lies if they weren’t grounded in history, but going
through everything to find the “perfect gift” feels inauthentic when Maud only
responds with a quick and unenthusiastic “thanks”. Most notable was the Foxes’ trying to ground
Pinkie in reality, which both goes against canon and arguably exists for plot
convenience. She only has one party
cannon that when lost is gone forever, and the fourth wall-breaking teleporting
marvel is felled by a locked door. Why
not Pinkie your way in there and leave some money for when they return? Say it with me now: because there would be no
episode otherwise.
Rarity’s location search shouldn’t have been so easy,
particularly because Manehattan is a New York stand-in. She’d likely get stuck with that alley-wide
store, which obviously couldn’t actually be considered for clothing. Then her “final” choice is already pictured
on the map long before they reach it, which queries why she considered any
other location. Obviously getting into a
bidding war wouldn’t have produced better television, but this exact plot
thread pretty much happened on Pinkie’s side.
Rarity wasn’t terrible outside of her strange reaction upon arriving at
Manehattan, but her function was fairly obviously just to serve as Pinkie’s
foil.
Moving Maud closer to Pinkie actually helped them feel more
like sisters despite it likewise not making sense. Having her warp around worked well given what
was going on, and at least it attempts explaining how the mafioso pony was
found so quickly. But then we also dealt
with Maud not hearing Pinkie and Rarity’s discussions at the same table with
only a flimsy barrier between them.
Maybe she did and never said anything, but the script didn’t indicate
this at all. Even though the writers
probably got lucky, Maud feels carefully considered and had solid character
development. Given her monotone
unemotional deliveries and continued geology interest, that almost counts as an
accomplishment.
Unfortunately, The Gift still seems like the work of novice
writers. All three main characters don’t
feel right in different ways, and finding a lesson out of extorting some
stereotypical pony with connections looks completely tasteless. While at least attempting creativity and
character development, every choice the Foxes made came out wrong. Their plot wasn’t interesting, and they only
proved why “telling not showing” should be an almost unbreakable rule. Spec script writers are supposed to
demonstrate their ability to mesh with an existing series, but the Foxes never
did so. Even if it’s far from My Little Pony’s worst episodes and had
some future consequences, The Gift shouldn’t really be considered canon
either. Professional writers on a series
with over one hundred episodes and 4½ full seasons of material should produce
better quality, but history repeats itself again thanks to this clueless duo.
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