My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Episodes 18 to 26 of Season 4.

I AM BACK...more or less.

And holyshit I forgot how much the formatting system of blogger sucks. I think one of the reasons why I stopped using blogger and making reviews here was that, once you stop using its formatting system and coding, you realize how easy other websites make it for you to write things down and edit posts. This might be a good blog to customize and everything, but the way this is set up is awful.

Anyways, I am cheating here though not really, because since I stopped writing reviews here I've managed to keep a good rhythm of reviews on The MBS Show's YouTube channel with my friends Normand Sanzo and Silver Quill. So I've decided to link those videos over here and save myself a world of trouble having to re-write my thoughts on the episodes. You can find all the remaining reviews right after the break.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Somepony to Watch Over Me"

I guess sometimes people can be wrong about their assumptions. I originally thought that removing the little summary at the start of the review would speed things out and would make the reviewing process a lot less muddy for me, as if I was going to breeze through the writing like it was nobody’s business. This will not always apply, though. So I have decided to do the little summaries before the real review starts on those episodes where they are necessary. Some episodes will need them, and others will not, and others I will be too wrapped up in details to even do them anyways. This week’s episode is going to have one, and the intro will be about this because I have also made the wrong assumption that I was going to have enough subjects to talk about before starting the review. It’s kind of disappointing to run out of topics, but it’s even more disappointing to stop a tradition that’s over three years old just because I get angry at the Brony Analysts, my commission queue, the pressure from the banks, or just sheer laziness.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies"

You people must all be Breezies. No, really, follow me on this. A few weeks ago I post an entry and I say I 

am going to be taking a break since I just can’t keep up doing these reviews and finishing my commissions. That one post gets flooded with people begging me to go back, for some reason or something. So I do, and I write another episode review the next week, though I end up noticing that the summaries take too much time to write. Some of you mention I could skip the summaries as they aren't really necessary to get to the review part. So for the next one I decide to skip the summary and go straight to what I liked and disliked of the episode. And what do I find? People complaining that they miss the summaries! I seriously can’t understand how SEGA has managed to put up with a similar behavior for over two decades, but the thing is that I don’t know how SeaBreeze has managed to put up with his squad of Breezies for so long either. For spoilers sake I am not going to say what happens in this episode right in the intro, but I have to mention how fickle and weak is the will of these Breezies and how more than once they made me want to smack their adorable, tiny faces. But this is not a place for opinions, it’s a place for intros. I am also skipping the summary for this week’s episode, and for the following ones. I am sticking to this shorter, more manageable style of reviews for the sake of my productivity and your time.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Twilight Time"

Last week I was talking about how it was going to be really hard for me not to make a summary of the plot before jumping into the review of the episode. Once again, I prove myself to be an idiot. I don’t think I will be submitting you guys to episode summaries for a while. I've discovered with terrifying dread that, every time I sum up an episode in one of these reviews, I abuse the terms “as it turns out”, “and then”, “the following”, “in the next scene” or “what happens next”. It’s boring, it’s robotic, and some of you don’t even need it. I am pretty sure nobody reads these reviews without watching the episode first, and it’s going to save the both of us a lot of time. You don’t need to read my pointless summary and I don’t need to write one. This means I’ll have to sacrifice my “oh so witty” comments in each one of the acts, but I’m pretty sure you guys won’t even notice. I can only come up with so many jokes before I resort to quoting Top Gear in every screen cap that I use.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Filli Vanilli"

Wow. Look at that response. You see, I think this is where I was coming from when I wrote that Little announcement about me stopping the episode reviews after “Simple Ways”. It had nothing to do with how much hatred was being spewed by the Brony Analyst community, it was because I felt like I was writing these reviews for just three people. My announcement about me quitting got more comments than last week’s review! It’s kind of frustrating to do something when it feels like nobody is watching. I love doing these reviews, I love to hear your feedback, and I love reading your comments, whether you agree with me or not. I don’t get anything out of doing this. I don’t have a partnership with Google. I don’t have ads on my blog. I don’t get revenue from visits. I literally do this for free. I don’t beg anybody at the end of my reviews to go to my Patreon account, because I don’t need to. I get my revenue from doing artwork and taking commissions, and so far I’m doing great! I do these reviews out of the passion I have for this show, but it feels like I am wasting it when all I get are two or three comments from the same people. I now know that more of you are watching, and I want to see you all participating in the upcoming reviews. I’m not super popular, and I don’t have a thousand followers, but I have you guys, and I like to know what you think.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Simple Ways"

Once upon a time I was part of the furry fandom. It was a dark and damp time during which a lot of Rule 34 was drawn and drama knocked at the doors of my gallery every week. It was also a time filled with self-righteous assholes coming at me and telling me that the way I was doing things was wrong. At least once a month during ten years I always had someone coming to my VLC gallery or to my FurAffinity gallery with a list of complains and a handful of pictures with red traces on them, to show me how to properly do anatomy. I wasn’t that confident back then, so I followed all of their advices as they shouted at me through the power of caps lock, and always the result that I ended up with looked nothing like what I had produced. It looked like someone had shat it through a Rob Liefeld generator, and it had the exact same aesthetic as what every popular artist was drawing at the moment.

That’s when I realized that doing what other people tell you to do only works on two cases: With truths that are universal (like telling the difference between “you’re” and “your”), and when they are paying you for it. Even with the last one there are some things you shouldn't be forced to cope with. You don’t need to change anything about yourself just because you want to appeal to other people. You have to be who you are, with all your flaws and all your virtues, and if you try to change because you want to make other people happy, then you are hurting yourself more than you can imagine.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Pinkie Pride"

It’s very easy to forget where you come from when you are so focused on what you are doing at the moment. It’s funny how this fandom usually forgets that it has its origins in one of the absolute worst places in the internet, yet the positive and helpful stuff that comes out of it still tramples over everything negative we do. It’s kind of a loaded argument to use, especially coming from a guy who was stuck in the furry fandom for eleven years until he realized that it was the closest one could find to a furnace full of ungrateful drama-loving douche-nozzles. My attitude towards this fandom has always been positive, and it still is despite all the bad that’s been hitting us lately, so no matter how hard others try I will still see this fandom as the best fandom I've ever been in. However, it is clear that many times we forget what inspired its creation. Why are we here? Why are we called Bronies? Why do we rush to our TVs and PC monitors every Saturday just to watch these pastel colored tiny talking horses prance around a non-existent land called Equestria ruled by two flying unicorn sisters that control the Sun and the Moon? And why do we still try to make sense of things like figuring out how old is Rainbow Dash? I never lost track of where we come from. We are basically new to the scene, yet we are as integrated and normal as every other fandom out there. So what gives us our personality and makes us stand out above everyone else?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Three's a Crowd"

When it comes to TV shows, Movies, books, comics, videogames, and every type of entertainment out there one of the most important things is setting. The world that the stories and characters are contained in is really important and it might be a key factor that can either keep the viewer’s immersion intact or it can shatter it like a sledgehammer. There have been many TV shows that ended up going down the drain almost exclusive because of poorly constructed and even worse developed setting. One of the biggest offenders when it comes to that is the TV series “24” which, during the first six seasons of its 8 seasons run, tried to sell us that Los Angeles was the international hub for terrorist activities in the whole World. It was always under the threat of president assassination attempts, nuclear bombs, viruses, nuclear bombs, nerve gas and nuclear bombs (one would think the writers for this fucking show were still shell-shocked after the Cold War or something). With such a poor setting filled with even more pauper stories and characters what we got was an insipid pile of unbearable bullshit that falls apart after a second viewing. Nowadays “24” is regarded as one of the most ridiculous TV series ever put together due to its repetitive nature and worthless socio-political commentary. Setting is the factor that differentiates a good TV show from a bad TV show, because with a good setting you can get away with pretty much anything to the point that you can allow yourself to write stories about nothing. TV series like “Scrubs”, “Arrested Development”, “Community” or “The Office” can get away with any kind of story, because their setting it really creative and their characters are really good. When you have very well developed and very likable characters and a very well developed world with an established set of rules, you can allow yourself to come up with ridiculous or simplistic stories that break these rules. Let’s take for example (and to segue into Ponies) the IDW MLP Comics Issues #9 and #10, also known as “Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair” where Big Macintosh ventures himself in the perilous quest for a box of nails. It’s probably one of the most original, non-pretentious, downright funny and narratively artistic exercises I have ever read in a comic. I was wondering if My Little Pony (the TV Show) was ever going to be so brave as to do something like this. Did they do it in this week’s episode? Let’s find out.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Rainbow Falls"

There is one trend that happens too often in media, especially in pop-culture, and that is the trend of loving everything that has the same name, brand, director, writer, etc. in it regardless of its quality. There’s people who love every single thing about Doctor Who, or those who love everything created by Joss Whedon, or even weirdos who are obsessed with Silent Hill to the point of pre-ordering games without even trying them out first. I am like that too, believe me when I say that I am not exempt of this. I love everything that has to do with Mass Effect, and I love every single Pokémon RPG that’s ever been released (the puzzle games and the pet-caring games though, are a horse of a completely different color). There are times when this backfires immensely, and the end result is laughable at best and sad at worst. I am still baffled at the people who try to defend “Prometheus” just because it’s a Ridley Scott movie, and Ridley Scott can’t do no evil as he is always perfect! “Robin Hood” and “A Good Year” never happened! Not in my real world head canon! Judging the quality of something just because you love one aspect of it (the creator, the brand, the universe, one of the characters, the writer) is not fair, which is not to say it’s wrong. Your opinion can’t be wrong. It’s your opinion! You can totally like something just because you love the one thing in it that makes you like it, but don’t expect that argument to hold on too well when trying to defend it. Especially if the place where you are trying to defend it is the internet.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Pinkie Apple Pie"

This show has always offered two types of episodes for me. There are the episodes where all is fun and enjoyment and there is a lot of cool action scenes and funny parts; and then there are the episodes where the emotional investment is such you’d think Pixar had a hand in the writing of the script. Sometimes these two types combine which result in some of my favorite episodes (like Sonic Rainboom, Cutie Mark Chronicles, Sleepless in Ponyville, Sweet and Elite, Rarity Takes Manehattan) and other times these elements are absent which leads to some of my most hated episodes (Putting your Hoof Down). I find myself emotionally invested in many of the characters this show has, and this is a constant that has never changed for me. You know a character is well written when you can talk about them like you've known them your whole life. Let’s look, for example, at Rainbow Dash. One quick glance at her and you’ll think she is just a brass and sporty tomboy that’s just full of herself. But then you see her interact with the other characters and you will find more about her. She’s also insecure; she’s fairly clumsy and sometimes screws up; she likes reading adventure books and Broadway musicals; she’s best friends with Twilight and Pinkie; she wants to become a Wonderbolt; she’s a great flier and a really athletic sports-pony; she has a pet tortoise named Tank; and she can squee like a fangirl over everything because she is really passionate about the things that she likes. The same goes for every other character in the show, like Applebloom, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and so on. Everyone in this show has something going on all the time.

My Little Pony is not a show that I watch for the story, or even for the moral. Like any other character driven show that I watch, I watch it for characters, because I want to see them interact with each other and because I want to see them coming out of the situation they have been thrown into. You know that two characters will have two completely different ways to solve a conflict, and that’s where the entertainment value for this show is. So when I heard that there was going to be an episode pairing Applejack and Pinkie Pie I had nothing but hype towards it. This might be my most hyped episode of the entire season so far. It wasn’t the Super Hero episode. It wasn’t the next Rarity episode. This was the one, because I knew it was going to be full of feels and heartwarming moments. Were my expectations met? Let’s take a look.

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.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Bats!"

I've come to notice that all my episode reviews have started with me throwing a jab at the reviewing side of the fandom. I think I owe you guys an explanation as to why I do this.

I really like that we have a group of dedicated and passionate reviewers out there willing to take time out of their day to tell us all what they think about the newest episode. That’s pretty much where my enjoyment ends and my problems begin. These people are too obfuscated with what they hate that they forget to balance out what they like and what they dislike. They go for the nitpicking, the flaw-pointing, or just downright disregarding something because it gives them nothing to bitch about. They literally refuse to review some episodes because they can’t complain about anything, and so they hand-wave them as shallow and inconsequential. Never before I have seen someone beating around the bush so hard just to say they hated something, and the worst part is that most of them won’t even tell you that! I have watched too many videos where the final verdicts are never delivered. We don’t know if they enjoyed it or not. By the amount of hatred spewed in them one would assume that they hated the episodes, so I guess this side of the fandom isn't really having a good time with Season 4. But this is not the worst part. The worst part is when they go and admit that their reviews aren't giving that much constructive feedback to begin with, and that people can easily ignore them for other better suited reviewers. You know you are not a very good critic when you tell your subscribers to go watch someone else because your videos aren't good enough for the material you are criticizing. You are not being humble, you are just being a tosser.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Power Ponies"

Merry Christmas everybody. Let’s talk about reviewing and analyzing.

It looks like almost everybody has grabbed their cameras and editing programs, and decided to do reviews with this new Season. I have always followed a couple of these reviewers, and I was more than happy to see new people joining the group, but lately I have had to unfollow all of them because of the tone the scene is taking. It’s not only violent but also kind of awkward and very dull. It’s good to see people having different opinions, interesting discussions and varied ways to wording things out, but I am disgusted by how monotone, uninteresting and boring these reviews are turning out to be. I’m not saying my reviews are better, but after watching six videos from six different people saying how much they hated “Daring Don’t” and then another six videos from other six different people saying how much they loved “Flight to the Finish” my brain switches off and it starts playing Van Halen. I could excuse all of these problems if it wasn’t for how passively-aggressive they say these things. These people sound so angry and outraged, like the show stole their wallets and killed their pets in the way out. Something tells me they forgot why we are here. We are not discussing the newest Lars von Trier film, we are not trying to figure out if Harrison Ford is a Replicant or what the fuck happened at the end of 2001. We are here to watch a show about magical flying talking pastel colored tiny horses. If you can see past the setting, what problem do you have with the stories that take place within it? Why are you getting so hung up on the Pony of shadows or Daring Do being real? I can’t defend nor understand someone who rants for ten minutes, and all they say amounts to nothing but “Harble, garble, gurgle, my head canon is ruined, the house is wrong, I don’t like change!”. There is being analytical and then there is being an over-critical single-minded asshole.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Flight to the Finish"

Going into this episode I felt like this should be the type of episode that I either go crazy for or get really emotional with, like “Hearts and Hooves Day” or “Family Appreciation Day”. It’s weird that I say this but watching the episode a second time made me feel somewhat exactly the same as I felt the first time I watched it, and that is incredibly divided. Sometimes it’s really heartfelt and emotional, and other times it’s flat and pointless. Other times it’s gorgeous and breath-taking, and other times it looks as generic as one of the toys it promotes. Sometimes the characters are really engaging and relatable, and other times they are boring and uninteresting as you can get. And sometimes the writing is snappy and clever, and others it feels like it could have been written in your sleep.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Daring Don't"

Writing for a sequel, especially when the first part has had a lot of time to cement in the minds of fans all over the world and by a writer who so many people admire for her previous work, can be a tough thing to do. Nobody denies nowadays that “Aliens” is one of the absolute best movies ever made, and that its quality overshadows the original “Alien”, to the point that people remember James Cameron more than Ridley Scott. I’m sure nobody believed that “Aliens” was going to be better than “Alien” when it was being made, or when it premiered. It was time and time alone what put it where it is now. Following the work of another author can be difficult, so I can only imagine the size of the challenge Dave Polsky decided to brave.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Castle Mane-ia"

There is a problem within this fandom. It’s not a problem that should really be all that big but give a fandom a problem and it will inflate it so much you’ll think the Hindenburg was but a meek balloon in comparison. It’s not even all that big when it comes to how important it is, and other problems kind of overshadow it, but it’s big for me because of how constant and consistent it is. The problem is that we look too deep into things. There is always that one (or nowadays more than one) person who is always going to sharpen a scene, a moment or a dialogue and squeeze every single hidden meaning out of it. Subtext exists in My Little Pony and it can be used to provide an enjoyable experience for both children and adults, but it’s not there in every episode, and we shouldn't shun those lacking it for not having enough subtext to shame Kafka.

Case in point, “Castle-Mane-ia”.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - "Princess Twilight Sparkle"

It’s difficult to measure the impact and effect of something if we don’t see the it in its entirety. Sometimes we have to wait years or decades to figure out if that one little incident that we deemed as insignificant actually has caused some sort of world collapsing disaster. It’s like that horrible movie “Cutthroat Island” causing a massive hole in the movie industry ten years after it bombed in both box office sales and reviews. It wasn’t until “Marvel’s the Avengers” came into the scene that the industry started getting better. Actions in the past can lead to horrible consequences in the future, and not always is there a pretty pony princess ready to save the day.

And then we have the Brony fandom. I don’t know about you, but had the premiere of Season 4 been pushed another month (or, Celestia forbid, to 2014) we would’ve seen riots of angry bronies setting containers on fire in the news followed by a brief report about nerdy men been affected by the visit of Aunt Irma. It’s taken 9 months to find out what kind of impact the transformation of Twilight Sparkle into an Alicorn Princess has caused into the show, so let’s stop beating around the bush and review this two parter.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: "Magical Mystery Cure" Review

...

Yeah, I think it’s pretty good.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Games Ponies Play" Review

((Disclaimer: Yeah, I said I was going to stop reviewing the episodes for a while, but this whole situation has set me on fire, the words were coming out better than ever, and I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to get productive.))

Sometimes people think we need a reminder. It’s like they think we are not in this world at all, like we abstract ourselves into an alternate reality where laws and regulations don’t take place, where everything is a free for all and we can do whatever we want without facing consequences.

They are right.

I think there is no need to beat a dead horse (I am going to slap myself for that one) in the intro for my episode review, but I have to say I am feeling rather troubled by what our fandom has gone through during the past seven days. I myself cannot believe how many mood swings I experienced in such a short amount of time. It’s getting kind of ridiculous and I am running out of ways to express how pissed off I am, and the funniest thing is I don’t know who to be angry at. I won’t address this here, I am going to write an editorial about it as part of my weekly posting, mostly because I want to fill the gap that’s going to start when next week’s episode puts an end to a season full of mood swings, drama storms, fire, terminated projects and fan rage, but that has also seen a lot of charity work being made, new friendships forged, new conventions, a more positive portrayal of us on the media, and some of the best episodes in the series’ history. Because, in case any of you forgot (like I did) this is not just about selling toys. This is about one of the best cartoons in modern television.

On with the review!

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Just for Sidekicks" Review

It takes a while to get used to new things. New technology, new work place, new house, new friends, new anything, regardless, always, there is an adaptation period in between then and now that nobody can skip. Change is a difficult thing to deal with, no matter how hard we try to not be bothered by it. With “Sleepless in Ponyville” Corey Powell seemed to have skipped this process. In my opinion she nailed the characters in that episode, it was like she had been writing for the show from episode one. It’s kind of funny when I think about it because she has pretty much written my favourite episode of this season. It doesn’t matter how good M.A. Larson does it with the season finale, “Sleepless in Ponyville” is already in my top three episodes of all time. So how did she handle this episode? Good? Bad? Let’s not get ahead of myself and review the episode first.