My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Rarity Takes Manehattan"

Once upon a time I was part of the furry community in a website known as FurAffinity. It’s well known for its constant outages, technical issues, and a crowd so filled with scum and villainy it makes the Mos Eisley cantina look like a church. In there I met some nice people whom have followed me to the Brony fandom, but more often than not I was bullied, attacked, mocked, laughed at and, worst of all, got my art stolen several times only to be accused of stealing some else’s artwork. This went on for over six years until I encountered the MLP Fandom and then realized that people don’t usually attack and eat each other like a pack of cannibalistic hyenas fighting for a prey they didn’t even catch in the first place. Every fandom has problems with art theft, and the MLP fandom is no exception, but every now and then I like to think back to those years  to remind myself where I come from and how bad things could be. I did meet very nice people, I admit that, but I am really glad I put all of that behind me and finally moved into a crowd that I can appreciate and respect as much as they appreciate and respect me. When I write these reviews, or when I draw my pictures, I know there is going to be someone reacting to them and I love hearing their feedback. I like making fans of this show happy and give them something they’d want to add to their favorites, or talk about on Twitter and Tumblr. I don’t aim to become popular, I just like making people happy and give them something to think about. I think you can imagine where this episode review is heading, so let’s get to it.

I am going to bring back my TL; DR’s from 2011, those were faster and less flashy. Is this a good Rarity episode? Yes. Is this the best episode of the Season? Maybe. Is this the best episode written by Dave Polsky? Yes, for the love of Celestia, Luna, the Sun and the Moon, yes it is! And if you want to know why then you should keep reading!

So the episode starts with the Mane Six getting ready for a weekend of fun and fashion in Manehattan, and Rarity is inviting all of them to come along for the ride so they can see her and her designs at the show. She is so generous and excited about it that she is inviting all of them to watch “Hinny of the Hills”, the most popular musical in Bridleway (oh horse puns, you hurt me so). Upon arriving to Manehattan the six friends are rewarded with a city full of activity, interesting ponies, and Mad Men references, and they are so thrilled that they break into song as we see how Rarity’s generosity bursts left and right on the metropolis. At the rhythm of this new tune we see how her good intentions turn smiles upside down, as she fixes a taxi’s broken wheel, gives away her scarf to Daniel Ingram’s voice cameo, and gives considerable tips to bellboys in hotels. Sadly, singing, dancing and pole-dancing on the streetlamps takes its toll on Rarity’s time and she’s suddenly pressured to arrive to the fashion show’s pre-show. In the middle of the rain, and with a shortage of cabs, she seems to be in a desperate situation until the owner of the Taxi with the broken wheel comes in and saves the day! Everything seems to be going alright, until her friends and Spike realize she has forgotten the dresses.

And the prom is tomorrow!

Rarity finally reaches the reception of the fashion show, which seems to be run by the pony version of Janine from “Ghostbusters”, as she suddenly realizes that her dresses are not with her. 

Yes! Someone did it!

Right when she thinks she’s completely doomed, the bellboy who was so generously tipped shows up carrying the rack with all the dresses, as Rarity takes them but not before giving him another generous tip. Once at the preshow Rarity is met with a rather stern look from the show’s organizer Prim Hemline who tells her that, due to being late, she will show her designs last. Once Prim dismisses all of them Rarity is then greeted by an old…let’s use the word “acquaintance” to describe this mare, named Suri Polomare, who catches an immediate interest in Rarity’s designs and especially the fabric she’s made them with. Clouded by her generous nature Rarity agrees to giving Suri a roll of her fabric to use for the accents on her own clothes, but little does she know that this obnoxious sounding mare doesn’t want to do just the accents but her entire fashion line out of Rarity’s custom-made fabric! And if you think that’s bad, then things get only worse when we are told that she didn’t make the dresses; her assistant did, a meek looking fashion earth pony called Coco Pommel.

Who is going to win all the awards for Cutest Thing in the World.

Distraught, betrayed, desperate and absolutely heartbroken, Rarity runs to the hotel where she interrupts the celebration of her five friends to tell them that everything is ruined because she has been too generous in a town full of ponies that just look after themselves. Twilight decides to cheer her up and offers the help of all of them to make a new fashion line from scratch no matter what the cost. This leads to Rarity building up a sweat-shop out of her friends (did HotDiggedyDemon predict this or what?) and losing her cool in several occasions after hearing some legit complains from them. Despite all these set-backs and slowdowns the new fashion line is finished and everything seems ready for Rarity to blow everypony’s mind at the fashion show. And, wouldn't you know it, the audience loves it! They seem to adore these designs even more than Suri’s copycat collection, but this doesn’t make Rarity feel any better as she notices that her friends are absent in the audience, surely angry at her for not appreciating their generous help.

I wouldn't blame them, to be honest.

Taken by the concern Rarity leaves the fashion show, despite the complains of Prim Hemline, and rushes to the hotel to look for her friends, but in there the bellboy tells her that they are already gone. Thinking that she’s been left behind by her friends she wanders the streets in the middle of the rain as she breaks into song for a second time, but this time all alone. Once she’s regained her composure and fixed her wet mane, she returns to the fashion show to try and talk with Prim, but instead she’s met with Suri, who tells her that Prim is really furious at her, and her five friends and Spike, who all greet Rarity with the biggest of smiles. As it turns out the Mane Six missed the show because they overslept after a night of hard work helping Rarity, not because they were mad at her. They then tell her that Suri told them that she’s lost the competition, to which Rarity replies that she doesn’t give a flying feather about it. She is just glad that her friends haven’t abandoned her, and Twilight reassures her that what happened the day before hasn't affected their friendship. In order to make up for this ordeal, Rarity takes all of her friends to a private pass of “Hinny of the Hills”. Once the play is over they all wonder how she got tickets for a private pass, and Rarity explains that she cut a deal with the costume designer of the play in exchange of doing all the costumes for the next one. They all congratulate her for the opportunity, although they are also sad since they are not going to be seeing her in a while because of it.

We will miss your bossy ways and the sweat shop's swamp smell.

But then, coming out of one of the doors, enters Coco Pommel, carrying the trophy for the first place winner on the fashion show, which happens to have Rarity’s name on it. What happened is that she actually won, but Suri lied and hoped that, in Rarity not showing up to pick up her trophy, the judges would give her the award in forfeit. Coco then apologizes and tells them that working with Suri made her think that everyone in Manehattan was just out there for themselves, and it wasn’t until meeting Rarity and her friends that she realized how generous they were with each other. She realized that there was something better for her out there, so she quit and moved on. In appreciation for this, Rarity offers her the chance to work with the costume designer of “Hinny of the Hills”, since Coco’s fashion sense would work great in the theater. Rarity returns to Ponyville learning that even though sometimes others might take advantage of your generosity, one shouldn't give up on their generous spirit, and that nothing feels worse than taking advantage of the generous nature of your friends.

"Best Bitchy Pony Award? Well, that's better than nothing!"

Where do I start with this episode? I guess the best way to start is with what I think of it, let’s see the good versus the bad, and figure out why I consider this to be Dave Polsky’s best work to date.

What!? MADNESS!

I have no doubt when I say that this is one of the most hopeful, positive episodes ever put together for this show, if not the most. The whole thing is a build up to that final dialogue between Rarity and Coco, and the speech that the later gives about how generosity is repaid with generosity. It’s something that is present during the entire episode, and we see it happening before our eyes, though they never bash our heads with it. I loved how those who Rarity helped at the beginning, like the Taxi driver and the bellboy, show up later on to help her out. They were small examples that helped build up the sense of support that ended up exploding all over the screen at the end. The tone and rhythm of this episode are perfect. They walk the fine line between comedy and drama really well, and they never let the background swallow the foreground. It kept the cameos and references to a minimum, like the Mad Men ponies or the Grumpy Cat Pony, but they were not the focus and they felt like very nice throw away jokes. The episode kept itself focused on what is important, and that is Rarity and her ordeal to keep her sense of generosity alive in a town that seems to have forgotten it.

"I've forgotten my dignity too! I need a pillow and a Manehattan cocktail!"

Rarity, by the way, is in her prime in this episode. We have seen her act generous before, and become self-absorbed as well, but this episode amped her personality to eleven. She is the way she has always been but with a touch of humility splashed all over her. She can be generous and well-intentioned, but she can also become bossy and angry, to the point of screaming to her friends and not even thank them for their hard work. She shows remorse and laments her attitude, and then finds the courage to walk back in there to ask for forgiveness. She gets her entire fashion line stolen, yet she doesn’t take long to take matters into her own hooves and design an entire new line from scratch. I was particularly worried by how they would portray her in this Season, especially after two years without a Rarity centric episode, but my fears are gone. This Rarity is my Rarity. The Rarity I identify with. The Rarity that I admire because she is as full of virtues as she is flawed, and the one character that is so well written that I easily forget she is a cartoon pastel colored marshmallow tiny horse. She is perfect in how imperfect she is, and she is believable in how cartoony her behavior can be.

Time to break into song! Come Darlings!

But if there is drama and cartoony enjoyment in this episode that is definitely focused on the songs. The show runners are definitely taking a page from the finale of Season 3 and are now using the songs as a very effective narrative resource that both moves the plot forward and establishes a certain mood for the rest of the episode to play. The first song, I will admit, does go on for a tad too long, but it’s very welcoming to see Rarity helping out and being herself in an environment that she certainly finds welcoming. The second song however is perfect. It has a perfect length. It’s short and sweet, but also very somber and dark. It shows how Rarity thinks she has lost everything, her friends, the fashion show, her career, even herself, because she was too focused on wining the competition and angry at Suri for stealing her fabric. It had a feeling of loneliness and despair few other songs had in this show, perhaps the closest we got to this is “I have to find a way”. Short but effective, right through the heart.

With enough wet-mane to compensate for the gloomy atmosphere.

But not only the tone, the rhythm, the songs and the focus were good, but also the story. There is no better setting to tell a story about generosity than the fashion and artistic side of any community. Let’s be fair, artists can be (and are) elitists. We favor and watch only those that touch our sensibilities. We rarely go out of our way to give advice and help out, and we can get to be a pretty obnoxious bunch of self-centered jerks. I am saying “we” because I count myself upon them. I can be like this too, and so can my other artist friends. But those moments of generosity do happen. Yes, I see a lot of selfish behavior, but I also see a lot of good coming from us. I see artists giving away free artwork, and opening charity drives to help other friends and other people with their talent. It is really touching to see that generosity alive out there, and the way they portrayed it in this episode is just perfect. It’s spot on, from the Fashion Show’s organizer Prim Himline being a bit of a stuck up to later on warm up to Rarity, to Coco’s final reveal and telling the truth.

Is this the Cutie Equines Convention Center?

Coco Pommel, by the way, is in my list for Best Things Ever (in this show). She had this parallel character arc that intertwined with Rarity’s, and it was wonderful to see how they tied them both together and made it all work like a symphony. You could see from the very beginning how working with Suri was breaking her, and how telling lies was also rotting her from the inside. The way she looked up to Rarity, and how she speaks to her at the end, is like Coco sees in her what she could have been have Suri not intervened in her life. She was also masterfully voiced by Cathy Weseluck, who gave her the absolute most adorable fragile pony voice. Her final speech, in which she talks about the virtues of generosity, has rendered me to tears every time I watched the episode. There needs to be fanart of this pony right now. There needs to be a plushie of her right now. We need blind bags. We need toys. We need fanfiction. Hell, I don’t read fanfiction, but if there’s any of her I’ll totally read it. This pony is one of my favorite things in this show right now, and she is not just adorable, she had such a good character arc it puts other characters in modern fiction to shame.

Can I have another episode?

*squeeing internally*

No! No episode for you. And stop being so adorable!

In the other corner, Suri Polomare offers an interesting take on the antagonist role. She is what Rarity could have become had she been in Canterlot or Manehattan from the very beginning. She is a self-absorbed bitch with no creativity who doesn’t hesitate to lie and steal from others since her soul and inspiration are dry as a rock. Her attitude is poisonous, especially when at one point of the episode (around the time the Mexican sweat-shop scene starts) Rarity starts to act like her. She is here not only to show what Rarity could have become, but also what she can become if she doesn’t keep her ambition under control. And what’s really remarkable of this is that Rarity and Suri are both voiced by the same person, Tabitha St. Germain. I am not sure if it was intentional, I think I might be reading too much into it, but I like to think this is a very subtle way of telling us that Rarity has the potential to be both. She can either be generous, open, happy and creative, or selfish, self-centered, bitter and a complete copycat.

"I like being next to you Rarity, you make me look so bitchy"

As for other things that I liked I must mention the looks of the episode, and this goes from the production design to the camera angles and the designs of the ponies and the costumes. I thought that seeing a modern day city in My Little Pony (that’s not-fictional like Maretropolis) was a breath of fresh air. It looks slick and busting with activity but it never feels cluttered or messy. It has the perfect amount of detail and never get overwhelming. It was great to see the Statue of Liberty in pony form, as well as that ponified Broadway and even the Madison (Maredison?) Square Garden made a cameo in the background. Cameos were also the keyword of this episode. They went from internet memes (the already mentioned Grumpy Cat pony) to sneaking the ponified cast of Mad Men, a shout out to “The Sound of Music” and a poster of “Cats”. I found this quite interesting, because the whole episode looks and feels like a theater play. It takes place in four locations (the streets of Manehattan, the Fashion Show, the Hotel and the theater) and the camera, the scenes and the choreography are all set up like that of a Broadway musical, all the way down to the singing and dancing.

Pictured up here: Eye candy.

I must say that I really liked this episode even before I started writing about it, but now that I’m done I like it even more. You might argue that my opinion is completely biased, and that I had already made up my mind about it before even watching it. You might be right. I was already putting this episode amongst my favorites even before I watched it, and the fact that Dave Polsky was writing it had no effect on this whatsoever. We have to be fair here and admit that his work on the first season of My Little Pony wasn’t all that spectacular. He wrote one of the episodes that I hate the most (Over a Barrel), and he was completely absent during all of season two. But then came season three, and he signed ingenious episodes like Too Many Pinkie Pies, Keep Calm and Flutter on, and the unfairly hated Games Ponies Play, which gave us a very likable and quite spot-on representation of Rarity. So I knew he’d be a good writer for her, and I knew that Meghan McCarthy was also going to put a lot of effort in portraying her the way she is. After all she wrote “Sweet and Elite”, one of the best episodes of the show and the very last Rarity centric episode we had until this one. It’s a match made in heaven and it worked great, and I am so glad for it I feel like exploding.

Rarity is so good she could even make internet memes work.

This episode is fantastic. It’s a very clever, painfully relatable, gorgeously put together, perfectly acted, well written, funny, touching, hopeful, inspiring, positive, great episode of a, so far, great season. It captures the wonderment and tone of some of the best episodes of this show and it does it in a perfect manner. If this season keeps this up, I am going to have a hard time picking my favorite episode when it ends.

"Oh, wait, hang on. This is the award. Most Hopeful and Positive Episode Ever"

Now all we need to do is figure out what’s up with that rainbow colored thread. This show is throwing more foreshadowing at us than an Edgar Wright / James Cameron movie.

- Defining Moment: Coco’s confession at the end, and her subsequent redemption. I surprised myself when I started sobbing tears of happiness.

- Moral: Just because others want to take advantage of your generosity doesn’t mean you have to stop exercising it.