And he used to watch a cartoon about He-Man and She-Ra where Skeletor learned the true meaning of Christmas.
After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy. This week's theme? Religion! ...wait, what?
Hold on, hold on, hold on. No, no, no. That can't be right. A cartoon for young children addressing religion, and I haven't heard a single group advertise it as a religious program or people rage against it for subtle meanings?
I must have mixed up an episode of My Little Pony with Davey and Goliath or something. Okay, so let's look at what happens.
The episode begins with Twilight Sparkle doing her best to turn some leaves, a stick, and a rock into a tuxedo, cane, and hat for Spike. Apparently magic requires concentration from both parties, which is why Spike ends up having a rock the size of his head land on him when he gets distracted by the greatest walking distraction the show has: Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie, it seems, has a tail that warns her when things are about to start falling. Twilight, who, let's remember, is a regular practicioner of mystical arts, believes the whole deal is hogwash. That is, until she takes a first (and last) blow to the face from the world's smallest biblical plague.
Okay, not really. It turns out Fluttershy is trying to transport some frogs from her pond due to overpopulation. She's taking them to a place that's actually called "Froggy Bottom Bog." Twilight refuses to believe that it's anything more than a coincidence that Pinkie Pie just happened to believe something would fall and then something fell (you know, that happens to me all the time).
That is, until Pinkie's tail starts twitching again. Twilight brushes off the whole thing as nonsense, whereupon she promptly falls into a ditch.
Twilight still refuses to believe it's anything more than pure coincidence that Pinkie can predict the future with a twitchy tail...but it seems others in town are a bit more open-minded when it comes to things that can't be explained.
Take Applejack, for instance, upon hearing the words "Pinkie sense" and "twitchy tail."
Yeah, and she's one more the more level-headed characters.
It turns out, as Applejack says, that once you've lived in Ponyville for a while, you learn to trust Pinkie's predictions. This is immediately followed by Pinkie's exclamations that her ears are flopping, which, last I checked, horse ears do sometimes. Don't they? Wait, hold on. Do- Okay, I'm getting off track.
When asked what this means, Pinkie simply turns to Twilight and says, "I'll start a bath for you." Twilight again laughs it all off as getting "more ridiculous" until a mud puddle gets splashed on her.
Now, hold on a second. Pinkie Pie knew what was going to happen to Twilight. Perhaps not the exact specifics, but enough detail that she could have tried to interject and keep it from happening. This leads to a rather interesting question: Does Pinkie Pie believe that one person (or pony, in this case) can't avoid their fate? Does she believe that her predictions are simply things that are supposed to happen? Or does she feel that attempting to stop the event from happening might be the actual trigger for the event in the first place?
This is getting pretty deep for a kids show.
Of course, all thoughts of deep, philosophical issues are somewhat trumped when we learn that Pinkie Pie has a pet alligator. Named "Gummy." And it's constantly trying to bite her despite not having any teeth.
That is amazing.
And I'm not kidding, the alligator attempts to bite Pinkie repeatedly as if trying to kill her. Lethal snaps from one of nature's deadly predators, negated simply by a lack of sharp calcium structures designed to rip flesh from bone. Or just eat bones.
Twilight still doesn't believe it, so Pinkie goes for one of the best arguments I've seen in this show when Twilight says she doesn't believe in "mumbo jumbo." Pinkie points out that Twilight does magic, and there probably isn't much difference. Twilight argues that magic is something that has to be studied, that the user has total control over how it's used, and controls what it does, whereas Pinkie seems to have no control over her "Pinkie sense."
Pinkie makes the exact same face I did at this argument.
This is a world where clouds are built, dragons fly, and a princess controls whether the sun rises or falls. I'm pretty sure something as minute as "Pinkie sense" isn't the most insane thing Twilight has ever heard of.
There's an entire forest that seems to be full of uncontrolled magic.
But let's focus on the episode.
Pinkie explains that there are also "combos" that can mean things like "there's going to be a beautiful rainbow." However, the combo that does happen leads to Twilight taking a heavy door to the face.
I'm starting to think someone watched a lot of Looney Tunes growing up, and his name is "head writer of this episode."
Pinkie believes that Twilight doesn't believe in the chance of someone having a sixth sense simply because she can't believe it, which lets us finally see what's in Twilight Sparkle's basement.
Now, see that machine Pinkie Pie is sort-of sitting on? See those clasps? Yeah, once Twilight turns on her machine, those clamp down on Pinkie's arms, effectively immobilizing her friend and it starts to read her brain waves.
Sometimes I get the feeling Twilight Sparkle is one bad day away from saying "I'll show them, I'll show them all!" We already know her mental state can be a bit fragile sometimes.
Sadly, nothing seems to trigger Pinkie's sixth sense, meaning the whole experiment seems to be a wash. We get a brief discussion about Pinkie telling Twilight that sometimes you just have to believe in things you can't explain, to which Twilight declares that she'll refuse to believe in anything that she can't prove.
...is there religion in the My Little Pony universe? We know they have a cosmically-powered princess who's been alive for thousands of years, and they have holidays....but maybe those are political or just planned so the post office gets a day off.
And because the show is a cartoon, their leaving the lab triggers another combo where Twilight gets crushed by another opening door. Slapstick humor! Not just for boys!
Twilight becomes determined to figure this out, so instead of simply asking Pinkie if she can tag along and record events, Twilight decides the most logical thing is to don a pith helmet and stalk one of her best friends through the underbrush to record events.
This leads to a series of events that involves Twilight being stung by a swarm of bees and falling down some stairs into an apple cellar. Twilight now has two broken front legs and has to be pushed around in a wheelchair. I guess ponies heal better in Equestria than they do in the real world, otherwise we'd see a doctor pony whose cutie mark is a shotgun.
And then...Pinkie's tail twitches. It's at this point I realized that any sense of physical harm having any effect on ponies (including brain damage from earlier episodes) is something that can be ignored for the sake of slapstick.
Amazingly enough, this doesn't kill Twilight. Oh, and if you wanted to know where the items came from? There's a flying moving van with some workers who apparently covered their hooves (which are already not great for lifting items) with non-stick cooking spray. A flying moving van.
Amazing.
Here's something else amazing... Pinkie Pie knew Twilight was following the whole time. So instead of warning her friend about bees, doors, or falling pianos, Pinkie just let it all happen. Once again, we're back to predestination versus free will, and I really don't think the show meant for this kind of philosophical debate to be happening.
So, back to the show. Pinkie suddenly suffers a full-body shudder, which is a new sensation for her. She doesn't know what's going to happen, just where. Turns out something big is going to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog, which, you might recall, is where Fluttershy was headed. But don't worry, they find Fluttershy completely safe, and Twilight gets her moment of gloating since not only did nothing "big" happened, but nothing happened at all.
At which point the hydra appears.
Yeah. That just happened.
We get a pretty intense chase scene as the hydra just keeps barely missing consuming the ponies in a single bite (quick, Pinkie, take out their teeth and it'll be harmless!). The ponies get cornered, and the only chance they have to cross a ravine (quick, someone tell me the difference between a ravine and a valley and a canyon!) is some stone columns to jump across.
We get a really nice continuity moment where Fluttershy, before jumping across, repeats to herself "hop, skip, and a jump" which you might remember came from the episode where she berated a dragon into kowtowing to her demands. There's also a pretty awesome moment where Twilight, to buy her friends enough time to jump across, actually charges the hydra and doesn't die in .03 seconds.
Once all of the ponies are safely across (after Twilight has to make what Pinky calls a "leap of faith"), it turns out that Pinkie's shudders still aren't done. When informed that a hydra wasn't a big enough "doozie," as it were, Twilight gets so upset she evolves into Rapidash.
And that's the doozie. Seriously. Not a really powerful ending.
The Good:
I love the fact we get another glimpse of just how terrifying the world outside of the safe boundries of "civilized" Equestria is. While not as awesome as a bear made of stars, the hydra was a pretty scary monster for them to fight, if only because the solution really as "don't stop running away" instead of "sing it a lullaby and lull it to sleep."
The continuity notes were also fun. Fluttershy's fear of jumping, Twilight pondering what a brave pony like Rainbow Dash would do, and other little touches were cute and a nice reward for people who have paid attention. I mean, not that I pay a lot of attention, or anything. I just, y'know, have this on in the background while I do awesome things. Like trapeze artistry and punching trees into logs.
Oh, and it was also nice to get some depth to Pinkie, though you'd think her sixth sense would've come up before. I have suspicions about it ever showing up again.
The Bad:
Honestly, I love Looney Tunes slapstick. But I don't think it really works in a show when one moment a character has an anvil, cart, and piano fall on them with little ill effect but later they're running in terror from a monster that can kill them. It gives the show a slight feeling of inconsistency, like it didn't know what kind of episode to be. We've seen that the ponies can be hurt (looking at you, Applejack), so to have even more severe events happen that can all be solved by Twilight shaking herself free from leg casts just leaves me puzzled.
Overall:
It's interesting that the show would base an entire episode around the idea of accepting you can't prove, and that sometimes you just have to have faith and accept them as real. While it doesn't become preachy or overly religious, it does seem to carry a pretty heavy subtext that you might want to find something to believe in, be it God or a flying spaghetti monster.
It's not one of my favorite episodes, but it's by no means bad at all. The monster was great, the jokes were funny, the peek into various characters lives was entertaining, but it just didn't seem as solid an episode as others have. Plus, it seems weird that the most cowardly pony who ever existed would go deep into the woods by herself without any company. It's not like they don't know there's monsters out there.
Maybe the next episode will feel a bit more "complete." What's the theme of that one?
Performance anxiety? ...well, it looks like one more pony is going to suffer a nervous breakdown. Let's hope it's just as fun to watch as the others!
No comments:
Post a Comment