My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 215 - The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

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While unquestionably responsible for almost all of season two’s best episodes, M.A. Larson’s Super Speedy Cider Squeezy is not among them.  It’s honestly difficult to believe he wrote this script, since Larson falls for many traps that sunk previous outings.  Filler, slapstick humor, questionable characterization, clichés, and lazy references all dot his effort, which also ends with no lesson.  Applejack’s family cider business isn’t able to keep up with demand, so the traveling salesmen Flim Flam Brothers roll into town on a machine that they say can.  After the Apples refuse to compromise their ethics, the brothers start a man vs. machine battle which will determine who will sell cider in Ponyville.  Clearly Larson wanted to tackle a big vs. little business issue, but that had already been handled better elsewhere (South Park’s episode 217 – Gnomes).  Then he has Rainbow Dash jonesing for a beverage she has never drank before, but it’s obvious from the teaser that not one drop of cider will ever purse her lips.  Larson at least tries to find a decent message and get everyone involved, but why he would stoop to the tactics of lesser writers in such an uninspired and unoriginal way remains baffling.  Painful and boring describe Super Speedy, which don’t fit any of Larson’s episodes after his first.  Whatever he was going for didn’t pan out, and we’re left with an uninteresting mess that’s sadly typical of the surrounding season.  Even while thankfully temporary, Super Speedy is an uncharacteristic misstep from a writer who’s frankly better than this.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 217 - Hearts And Hooves Day

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Hearts And Hooves Day is the story of how the mane six finally all get boyfriends.  I mean, it’s about the Crusaders realizing they like guys and trying to ask them out.  I mean, some combination of both?  Derpy finding love?  Rainbow Dash coming out?  Diamond Tiara dating someone poor?  Snips and Snails dealing with being the school’s first gay couple?  Better keep going, because it would be way down anyone’s list to come up with the Ponyville Valentine’s Day episode that Meghan McCarthy did.  Instead of using My Little Pony’s boatload of interesting characters, McCarthy took the two most boring ones and stuck them together.  When that obviously wasn’t working, she forced things by the love potion route.  Then this somehow has anything meaningful to say about relationships.  Hearts And Hooves Day is the third and unquestionably worst season two holiday episode, as it takes a premise that could have been good in just about anyone else in the world’s hands and completely fails to find anything fun or interesting.  This was a possibility for entertainment, a message about homosexuality, or something, but McCarthy went a very safe route that produced nothing of substance.  With a complete misrepresentation of relationships, painful moments, overly cutesy dialogue, and one huge missed opportunity, Hearts And Hooves Day is an utter disaster.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 212 - Family Appreciation Day

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Zap apples, timber wolves, bunny ponies.  For an episode supposedly about Ponyville’s founding, a lot of stuff never really caught on.  Cindy Morrow’s heavily retconned story ends up being about as much canon as Hearth’s Warming Eve, since almost everything is forgotten and there’s no guarantee Granny Smith ever told the truth.  Despite never being mentioned before, everyone at the Apple farm is excited about Zap apples.  These rainbow-colored fruits taste much better than the real ones, but their appearance and harvesting are both dependent upon magic that makes little sense.  Morrow’s goal doesn’t concern itself with this though, as she strives to show that older members of your family shouldn’t be dismissed because of age.  The sentiment is fine, but Family Appreciation Day doesn’t come close to doing so.  Instead, we have two acts of torture where Apple Bloom frets over how dumb her ancestor is acting.  Can’t imagine why she doesn’t want Granny Smith coming to school and giving a talk.  Thankfully, her story almost redeems the episode, as we glimpse a different Granny Smith from many years ago.  Then this somehow justifies dressing Diamond Tiara up as a bunny girl.  After head-scratching magic, pointless retcons, Granny Smith acting incredibly stupid, and many questionable scenes (such as one apparently inspired by Weekend At Bernie’s), Family Appreciation Days’ ending is in rather poor taste.  And that’s indicative of Morrow’s problem here, since she clearly has no idea how to say what she wants.  Except for Granny Smith’s story, the results are terrible.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 214 - The Last Roundup

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After seeing The Last Roundup again, I wondered where a rating as high as three stars came from.  Watched it shortly after the mostly terrible Family Appreciation Day and gave it a higher rating because it was a better episode?  Yup.  Applejack’s failures at the national rodeo lead her to abandon Ponyville for an old west cherry orchard, but Amy Keating Rogers can only find questionable moments to surround this shaky premise.  Pinkie Pie is super annoying (producing more groans than chuckles), a cherry sorting scene inexplicably references I Love Lucy, and it culminates in that little beauty up there.  Applejack risks her life and four others to run a train crossing in the middle of nowhere, which quickly proves pointless when Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash just fly over the train.  So much for that whole send a good message to the kids thing.  The Last Roundup is also notable for Derpy’s lone speaking role, which was controversial enough to be replaced in later airings by a voice even worse and more offensive.  Like everything else here, that scene has not aged well since Derpy’s annoying behavior is on par with Pinkie’s.  While the lesson of not dealing with problems alone no doubt has merit, one again wonders how a writer came up with this script to portray it.  Given so many poorly thought out scenes and absolutely no redeeming ones, The Last Roundup is a huge misfire and another example of writers’ “creativity” sinking season two.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 211 - Hearth's Warming Eve

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Hearth’s Warming Eve isn’t really an episode of My Little Pony, which is why it’s Merriwether Williams’ best effort.  Freed from the restrictions of characters and series history, Williams indulges in stereotypes while telling a hypothetical history of Equestria’s founding.  None of it can be true since Celestia isn’t involved (while Starswirl The Bearded gets namedropped), but the story is pleasantly watchable in a way most of Williams’ episodes aren’t.  The mane six have been tapped to present a Christmas play, and all perform excellently despite no previous experience.  They are cast as the three leaders of each faction (Pegasus, earth, unicorn) and their sidekicks.  Every pony in charge plays up their character’s personality: Rarity is prissier, Pinkie Pie crazier, and Rainbow Dash bossier than usual.  The second-in-commands are more level-headed and are actually able to get along.  Williams’ fable uses some fairly obvious symbolism, which is weakened by an ending that tries to explain it away.  Clichés pop up again (but not nearly as much as in Mare Do Well), and the fight-filled real mane six scenes mean our actual ponies’ absence isn’t missed.  Despite problems galore, Williams was given a story perfectly suited to her “eccentricities”.  That doesn’t mean Hearth’s Warming Eve is canon or worth having given her a second chance for, but it’s a decent enough Christmas offering without falling too deeply into the holiday’s “traditions”.  As we saw from Williams both before and after, she could be a lot worse.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 210 - Secret Of My Excess

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Secret Of My Excess is the single greatest demonstration of that tired old adage “it’s better to give than receive”.  While not really true in theory, M.A. Larson shows in fantastic terms where a life of receiving will eventually lead.  Spike gets numerous presents for his birthday, but this awakens a dragon instinct which causes him to start hoarding.  He grows abnormally large and rampages throughout town looking for anything he can hold.  After kidnapping Rarity, a memory from earlier restores his normal size.  Granted, Larson seems to lose his way after a strong opening scene between Spike and Rarity, but his method crystallizes perfectly once this realization occurs.  There is no purpose to possessing everything, and Spike takes no joy in rounding up useless items.  But bringing happiness to Rarity’s life for just a few seconds was infinitely more rewarding.  Unusually for Larson, Secret Of My Excess is uneven and begins to meander once Spike starts growing.  He also doesn’t resolve certain plot threads (Spike’s “disease” remains unexplained, and who’s going to clean up all that mess?), but these problems are worth the great scenes.  Rarity and Spike have never been better together, and their final moments are among the series’ best.  These and the lesson are what elevate Secret Of My Excess, even if most of it feels like a trying fancy.  For a series that often pretends to reach certain morals, Larson’s message here cannot be ignored.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 209 - Sweet And Elite

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Sweet And Elite is somewhat fun and finds a good final trope aversion, even as it wallows in stereotype.  Rarity visits Canterlot for the hell of it, which gives Meghan McCarthy license to create many rich characters that don’t stand out in any way.  Her knowledge of them is clearly limited to My Fair Lady and a couple of Gilligan’s Island episodes, as these new ponies act rather stuffy while being very elitist.  The scenes focusing on Rarity fare much better, although McCarthy fails to offer any insight into the fashion world.  Concepts like networking are vaguely hinted at, although there’s a sarcastic tinge that strongly suggests McCarthy finds such “important” ponies to be complete idiots.  Unfortunately, Sweet And Elite remains a surface level episode, even though Rarity’s problem of which crowd to mingle with may become very real someday.  Exploring how simple things can still be great art is much appreciated, but again the idea is barely mentioned and not without hinting that critics are morons who only follow herd instinct.  Considering how unwatchable many season two episodes are, Sweet And Elite at least provides solid entertainment while not falling prey to fatal problems.  But it also highlights McCarthy’s problems as a writer, since she retcons characters and events that won’t be important going forward while likely having no idea what she’s talking about.  As usual, this adds up to a middle-tier offering, but Sweet And Elite doesn’t contribute anything to Rarity’s character even as it treats her with respect (a rare occurrence this season).

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 208 - The Mysterious Mare Do Well

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Merriwether Williams’ first episode is also her worst; a script of legendary badness that only declines over time.  As would become usual, it takes place in an alternate universe with a Rainbow Dash fan club and where disasters happen all the time.  Then Williams uses her hate to completely embarrass Dash for the episode’s duration.  I was a bit more lenient upon Mare Do Well’s debut, considering Rainbow Dash is extremely over-loved by the fan community.  But agreeing with its sentiment doesn’t conceal that Williams wrote a terrible episode.  Mare Do Well is ridden with clichés (terrible is Williams’ middle name), practically plotless as it swoops from one potential catastrophe to the next, and exists solely for making fun of a main character.  We can see the lesson about bragging early on, so Williams doesn’t even bother having Rainbow Dash write her letter.  Because like Dash, Williams didn’t learn anything from this outing and continued making these same mistakes throughout an inexplicable run as a staff writer.  Don’t believe me?  Williams actually has the audacity here to have Applejack say Mare Do Well doesn’t brag as the mane six are all boasting about their specific contributions.  With a completely unnecessary resurrection of Pinkie Sense (which had mercifully been ignored up to now), The Mysterious Mare Do Well ranks as one of the unquestionably worst My Little Pony episodes ever to air.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 207 - May The Best Pet Win!

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Ask yourself right now: do you care what pet Rainbow Dash has?  And more questions.  Did you realize that all of the mane six have pets, even though the most visible (Opalescence, Angel) barely qualify as consequential?  Have you forgotten that Rainbow Dash “chose” hers through a long and ultimately pointless competition?  Or that it was preceded by a song that lasted almost an entire act?  Anyone wondering why a “fun” episode like May The Best Pet Win! deserves such a low rating need only consider these queries.  Not that it doesn’t also have filler, but Best Pet is basically one long string of “who cares?” and “did that really just happen?”  Feeling left out since she’s the only one of her friends without a pet, Rainbow Dash decides to find one who’s as fast and awesome as her.  Then after doing so in a contest, she settles on the exact opposite.  Charlotte Fullerton does find some funny moments involving the butterfly, but everything else is head-shakingly bad.  And a “surprise” ending is needlessly telegraphed early on with the tortoise’s introduction, since there’s literally no other reason for him to be there.  So Fullerton’s penultimate offering manages to be confounding, unnecessary, and predictable, while also embarrassing its main character.  Let me add “how did Fullerton last long enough to make another episode” to the list.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 206 - The Cutie Pox

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I liked The Cutie Pox better when it came out, but the episode really isn’t aging well.  Apple Bloom’s sudden acquisition of many cutie marks was a fun ride, but now the plot is kind of bland.  Amusing things like the appearance of a certain trio or Twilight’s new ‘do seem somewhat dumb now, but oh well.  Amy Keating Rogers’ Cutie Mark Crusader tale is mostly harmless filler that at least never offends anyone’s eyes or ears.  Her script lacks in substance while relying a few too many times on clichés (“you ain’t seen nothing yet”), and the dialogue otherwise isn’t very crisp.  But at least the story is fun once it gets going, and provides a few decent moments even if they don’t add up to much.  Rogers also finds a good lesson, since kids never want to wait for anything and won’t listen to such advice.  The Cutie Pox finds enough good scenes to make it passable, but sadly isn’t more than a mildly enjoyable diversion.