Augh............ This.... this...this....this episode! Whenever I do these character retrospectives, I try to be fair and give each episode a fair shake. But, we've reached a series low point. It's not the worst episode from the series.....
I'm not even sure, that it's the worst Dash episode but this episode is just so cruel towards Dash and presents the rest of the Mane Six in such a hypocritical light and as though, they are talking out of their flanks after Mare Do Well makes her debut. If you want a further delve into why this episode is so awful, check out Cartoon Hero's review.
The Plot
We open on the Rainbow Dash fan club and this is a scene that reminds me of something from Muppet Babies.
After the open, we get moments of Rainbow Dash showing off her heroics, which yeah she kinda is a hero as by this point, she had helped stop Nightmare Moon and Discord. And yes, Dash is brash and her ego does get the best of her but they exaggerate that way too much. Let's take a look at the hero worship that the Ponyville citizens heap onto Dashie.
The rest of Dash's friends have some issue with the way, she is acting and I want you to remember this exchange.
Scootaloo: There just aren't enough words in the dictionary to describe Rainbow Dash's awesomeness.
Twilight Sparkle: I can think of a few new words.
Applejack: And I bet 'modest' is not one of them.
Remember AJ's line there. We see Dash bask more in the admiration from Ponyville and she's earned it. Yeah, it is starting to go to her head but Dash's element isn't humility. So, it makes sense to me and look I get that the rest of her friends had an issue with Dash's ego getting outta hand but do they try and talk to her. No, instead they parade around as a new hero in town one-upping Dash at every turn. I'm not really spoiling the twist considering this is a season 2 episode and we just ended season 7. If you are a fan of MLP, you already knew about that reveal. Yeah, so we see Pinkie, Flutters, AJ, and Twily one upping their friend. I repeat their friend at various moments in saving the town. Which one can look at this as they cared more about teaching Dash a lesson than actually helping the citizens of Ponyville that needed help.
And this brings us to one of the worst moments from the show's history. The Mane Six in their infinite wisdom decide to praise the action of Mare Do Well. And this makes it all the obvious about what is going on and they are just adding more salt to Dash's wounds. Yes, her ego needed to be taken down a peg but they in this scene are acting just as bad as Dash did. We move on and we see how desperate Dash is to help but she just seems to get chided by anypony that she attempts to help. Granted, they didn't exactly want her help but it goes to show how fickle the citizens of Ponyville can be and we get a scene that as a Dash and Scoots are Best Sisters fan kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Scoots comes to invite Dash to a celebration and Scootaloo who idolizes Dash decides to leave Dash behind after Dash says that she doesn't want to go.
Which okay, let's bring something up in the interest of fairness here. It wasn't really until season, 3 in Sleepless in Ponyville that the sisterly bond between Dash and Scoots would start to develop. So, I get that. And perhaps, just perhaps the episode was trying to show that Dash had lost her biggest fan to the new trendy hero in town. But..... and follow me on this one, Scootaloo has idolized Rainbow Dash for as long she known Dash. Mich in the same way that Dash idolizes the Wonderbolts as Dash has idolized them since she was Scootaloo's age, maybe even younger. There is the argument to be made that kids get absorbed into the new "it" thing and we see that with Scootaloo and how her admiration for Dash has moved over to Mare Do Well in this one episode but like a lot of "it" things, Mare Do Well is a flash-in-the-pan. The hype surrounding Mare Do Well pretty much dies down and after the fiasco in this episode, Scoots goes back to idolizing Dash. After a lengthy chase, we get the reveal of who Mare Do Well is and....
It was Dash's friends. Dun dun... yeah, we knew that! And I'm sorry but they do not get to have the moral high ground on this one. As their brilliant plan was to lower themselves to Dash's level and show her how obnoxious her hero moments had gotten. Something that would be done similar in terms of her pranking and put to better effect in 28 Pranks Later. Look, there is the argument that sometimes you have to lower yourself to another's level in order to teach them a lesson. And that would work, if it were not for this line.
Applejack: And I bet 'modest' is not one of them.
The girls do lower themselves to Dash's level but they still act as though, they are better than her and nowhere is that more exemplified than during the scene in which the girls all heaped praise onto Mare Do Well. Now again, you could make the argument that they are trying to give Dash, a taste of her own medicine but the reveal undercuts that scene and makes them look as shallow as the episode wanted to believe Dash was acting. So, they were being no better than their friend, yet they wanted us to think that. And No, I can't go with that.
Characters
They were all awful in this episode. There is really nothing more that can be said about them than that. Yes, Dash's ego got a bit too extreme but while the show tried to present her friends as being in the right, they really weren't. And they honestly for me, come out looking worse than Dash because of their actions.
My Final Thoughts
I don't think this is the worst episode of the series but it's not hard to see why it's one of the most hated. As it is just so mean-spirited towards Dash. Now, it's not the most mean-spirited episode from the series.
And I think that is what keeps from completing hating this episode. In his review, The Cartoon Hero said something of this episode doesn't condemn it's fans and that is a fair point and that's why I hate Fame and Misfortune more as it's nothing more than outdated attacks on the Brony community. But this episode is still pretty mean-spirited, especially towards its lead character. And I think that is just as bad as this episode wants us to side with the rest of the Mane Six as they try to paint Dash in the wrong but I can't go with that as the more this episode tries to punish Dash, the more sympathetic, she becomes. It's very similar to how Feeling Pinkie Keen constantly punishes Twilight Sparkle and you side with her more. Admittedly, Pinkie Keen is worse than this episode but that doesn't make this episode any better. Join me next time as we look at....
Read It and Weep
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