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Season 7, Episodes 8-9

Sadly, my MLP blog post series is going through the same problem my Homestuck blog post series went through in late 2016 and early 2017: I’m slow as hell and unmotivated to write them. To repeat my words from 2017: But when you’re easily distracted by certain things this kind of stops being the thing you do the most often?

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Season 7 Episode 8: Hard to Say Anything

In five words: Big Mac gains love interest.

Premise: The Cutie Mark Crusaders discover that Big Macintosh has a crush and thus sneak in with him on a trip to Starlight Glimmer’s old town. They try everything to help him win Sugar Belle’s heart.

Detailed run-through:

To begin this episode, the Cutie Mark Crusaders meet up at Sweet Apple Acres and rediscover their old costumes from a talent show. They’re not the same costumes from The Show Stoppers, but they look familiar because other characters wore them in the first two seasons.

Scootaloo: Whoa, that sure is a lot of apples.
Apple Bloom: Are you making another delivery to Starlight’s old village?
Big Macintosh: Eyup.
Sweetie Belle: That’s an awful long way for a pony to go, isn’t it?
Big Macintosh: Eyup.
Apple Bloom: You’ve been going there a lot lately. What is this, your fifth trip this week?
Big Macintosh: (laughs) Eyup.
Apple Bloom: OK, well, have fun!

Starlight’s old village is very isolated from the rest of Equestria, as you surely know. It’s not connected to anywhere else via public transit, so the only way there is by hoof. This begs the question: how did Big Mac discover a mare he liked all the way over there? I’m guessing it all started with a lengthy offscreen conversation with Starlight Glimmer, where an offhand mention of eligible mares piqued his interest.

I cheated and used captions to find what each of the Crusaders was saying.
(As you might expect, Sweetie Belle’s theory is the most logical.)

Scootaloo: Something is definitely going on. There can only be one reason a pony would travel so often.
(simultaneous)
Scootaloo: He’s been taking private skiing lessons!
Sweetie Belle: He’s training for a marathon!
Apple Bloom: I’ve been cooking a lot of broccoli and he wants to get away from the smell!
(Cutie Mark Crusaders laugh)

Remember in On Your Marks last season, where the Cutie Mark Crusaders went through the “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” trope and were disconcerted that their ideas were so different? I didn’t say it then, but I’ve come to realize that’s an example of a common problem with childhood friends: it often turns out that you and your friend don’t share that many interests today. Back then, the Crusaders had trouble accepting that they didn’t always share each other’s interests. Thankfully, now they’ve realized that their brains don’t all work in the same way and are eager to laugh it off.

OK, I admit the part about childhood friends not sharing interests isn’t that relevant to this episode. I just wanted to write it here, because I regret not putting it in On Your Marks. I want to stay on topic for the rest of this review, so my further thoughts on this subject will go in the miscellaneous notes.

Sweetie Belle is me when I’m in a long car ride or flight.
Scootaloo is me when I’m in a long car ride and forgot to bring a book.
Apple Bloom is me the last time I was on a flight and realized earplugs make me able to sleep in the plane.

The Crusaders invent spy identities using their costumes, then realize Big Mac just left and scramble to get inside his cart. The brevity of the scene above makes the journey seem quick, but each of the Crusaders’ expressions is in some way accurate to the experience of a long car ride.

The Crusaders decide to “act like apples” when Big Mac unveils the cover, which means covering themselves with a few apples and hoping he doesn’t notice, and miraculously it works! This has some interesting implications about Big Macintosh’s character. It shows that even without a love potion, romantic feelings make him tune out everything else around him. Knowing this, in Hearts and Hooves Day, did he even need a love potion to comically fail to notice anything else around him? And maybe Cheerilee always calls her love interests snuggly-wuggly cutie pies, love potion or not.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo don’t know who the mare getting all those apples is, but Apple Bloom recognizes her as Sugar Belle, whose bakery Applejack told her about. Now I feel silly for theorizing that Big Mac learned about his new crush from Starlight Glimmer, because he probably just learned about her from Applejack.

As they spy on Big Mac and Sugar Belle, the Cutie Mark Crusaders start off thinking Sugar Belle has a strange obsession with apples. They’re almost correct; “apples” just needs to be capitalized. It’s Sweetie Belle, of course, who puts the pieces together and realized they have crushes on each other. It makes sense that only one of them realizes it because they’re all just kids and Sweetie Belle is the most romantically minded, plus she just got done reading a romantic fairy tale.

Big Macintosh admits to Apple Bloom that he has a crush on Sugar Belle, and his sister’s reaction is pure excitement. As far as she knows, Big Mac just got his first ever crush in the history of his life!

Scootaloo: First crush? What about Cheerilee?
Sweetie Belle: It doesn’t really count when you trick a pony into drinking a love potion, does it?
Big Macintosh: Nope!

And there we have it: the sinking of the first Big Mac ship to be canonically teased. I’ve always imagined that Big Mac and Cheerilee were uncertain about whether to start a romantic relationship after the events of Hearts and Hooves Day, because they couldn’t agree on whether their romantic feelings were legitimate. Eventually, Big Mac decided the answer was nnnope. As for Marble Pie, I think he felt it would be awkward to pursue something with her because Pinkie Pie kept mentioning they might be related. If he wanted to take the train to the Pies’ rock farm every week to spend time with Marble Pie, he totally would have done it.

Apple Bloom: Wait, does Sugar Belle even know you like her?
Big Macintosh: Uh-uh.
Apple Bloom: Then you gotta tell her!
Big Macintosh: Oh, um, I, uh…
Sweetie Belle: We’re pretty sure she likes you. I mean, she keeps ordering apples just so she can see you again.
Big Macintosh: Ee-you think so?

This fakeout away from “eyup” is a pivotal moment in Big Macintosh’s character arc. It shows that the times he speaks in full sentences will no longer be relegated to flashbacks, emotional ending scenes, or drag queen personas. Now we’re going to get regular episodes where he speaks at length, a perfect way to dig deeper into his character than ever before. His dialogue in this episode is pretty modest, but we’ll get a lot more in seasons 8 and 9.

When Big Mac starts attempting romantic gestures for Sugar Belle, we meet a rival contender for her heart: a boyband singer named Feather Bangs. His character is a great example of the late seasons featuring an archetype that you wouldn’t expect to be ponified. The Crusaders and Big Mac don’t know it yet, but one of Sugar Belle’s biggest traits is that she’s too polite to be comfortable saying no.

Big Mac is lost on how to outdo Feather Bangs, so Sweetie Belle suggests to replicate her fairytale books.

Sweetie Belle: I know exactly what to do. When I was younger, I read all the fairy tales.
Scootaloo: When you were younger, huh?
Sweetie Belle: Well, I was younger on the way here.
Sweetie Belle: It was a long ride!

Haha, this is so Sweetie Belle of her. She wants to present herself as mature and dignified unlike other fillies, but deep down she has a fondness for childish interests, just like every brony by definition. And she tries to make an excuse for reading this book, just like a fan of MLP might tell others “I only watched it because I lost a bet”.

Sweetie Belle: Anyway, as long as we do what the book says, you’re pretty much guaranteed a happy ending.

I love these little moments when Sweetie Belle shows her bookworm side. It shows the Twilight Sparkle inside her and distinguishes her from the other Crusaders. This line could be taken as telling fans they shouldn’t always interpret the friendship lessons of the episodes literally, but treat them as metaphors for how to behave in real life.

Apple Bloom: How about this one?
Sweetie Belle: Rescuing a damsel pony in distress. That’s perfect! Of course, we’ll have to improvise without a dragon.
Apple Bloom: Huh, too bad Spike isn’t here. Not that he’s very threatening.
(Cutie Mark Crusaders laugh)

This passage hints that this episode will be all about subverting fairy tale tropes, just as the show loved to do in season 1. Big, scary dragons are a common trope in fairy tales, but the show’s most prominent dragon isn’t big or scary at all. Except in Secret of My Excess of course, or in Spike’s fantasies.

It feels obvious to me that Sugar Belle will subvert the damsel in distress trope, but it’s not too hard to see where Sweetie Belle is coming from. Much like children in real life, her idea of how the world works is heavily influenced by fiction. Big Mac is desperate to win Sugar Belle’s heart, so he’s willing to take any advice he can get.

Scootaloo secretly snatches Sugar Belle’s purse and Big Mac tries to rescue it, but Feather Bangs beats him to the punch. Since he’s driven by a desire for romance, Big Mac fears that Feather Bangs will steal his love even though he’s just some random dude that Sugar Belle doesn’t know anything about.

Sweetie Belle is thinking right now, “I really like his mane!”

Scootaloo: Alright, this ends now. Feather Bangs may have good timing, and a good mane, but let’s see him compete with a song!

Given that it isn’t discussed once in the script, I’m almost certain that the background gag where Sweetie Belle nods her head and looks infatuated is the animators’ doing. The animators probably saw that this portion of the script was lacking in jokes, so they added one themselves.

Big Macintosh: S… say what now?
Apple Bloom: Of course! Why didn’t we think of it before?
Sweetie Belle: Every great romantic story hinges on the romantic musical number!

You could argue that Sweetie Belle is speaking from experience here—Hearts and Hooves Day hinged on a musical number because the song ended with the Crusaders choosing Big Mac as Cheerilee’s love interest. This implies Sweetie Belle thinks the love potion incident was one of the greatest love stories in Equestria, which in turn implies she doesn’t regret feeding Big Mac and Cheerilee love potions at all. She may seem sweet and innocent at a glance, but all she truly wants is to drug unsuspecting adults so that her favorite ships become canon.

Big Mac’s song for Sugar Belle begins the second musical number of season 7, called “Daniel Ingram Had Way Too Much Fun Imitating Boybands from the 2000’s”, or for short, “Battle for Sugar Belle”. It starts off as a romantic country song, true to Daniel Ingram’s compositional style…

… but it proves itself as unusual among musical numbers when Feather Bangs sings an imitation of “Baby” by Justin Bieber, which is a 2010 song but music in the first year or two of a decade tends to sound like that of a prior decade so I’m counting it as 2000’s anyway. From there on, the song alternates between country tunes with poorly improvised lyrics, and imitations of 2000’s pop music. In Feather Bangs’ sections, Daniel Ingram did a really good job concealing his own composition style. These sections sound slightly like they could be Equestria Girls songs, but only slightly. Daniel Ingram is also good at maintaining cohesion when musical numbers switch genres.

I forgot to talk about the trio of mares who swoon at every line Feather Bangs says.
They exist, say hi to them!

Knowing her preference of showtunes over regular pop music that she expressed in For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, it may be surprising that Sweetie Belle is so invested in Feather Bangs’ singing. You could argue it’s only due to his good looks, but I think she lowkey enjoys the music too. I like to think that after this episode, Sweetie Belle became a gigantic fan of Feather Bangs’ music but is embarrassed to admit it, and that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo love to tease her about it.

Big Mac’s parts of the song get increasingly clumsy, whereas Feather Bangs’ are thoroughly rehearsed.

Big Macintosh: ♪ Sugar Belle, when I look in your eyes… (clears throat) ♪
Big Macintosh: ♫ I see the color… blue ♫
Big Macintosh: ♪ And it reminds me of the sky above ♪
Big Macintosh: ♫ Which is also… blue ♫

As you can clearly see, Sugar Belle’s eyes are not blue. However, since Daniel Ingram himself wrote the lyrics, it’s possible he didn’t know Sugar Belle’s eye color so he assumed it was blue. Then the animators took the opportunity to highlight this inconsistency and make Big Mac look like a fool. Since he rhymed blue with itself, he could just as well have sung the unrhymable “purple”.

Big Mac and Feather Bangs fumble more and more to win Sugar Belle’s heart, till the musical number ends like so:

This image makes a perfect thumbnail for a video about this episode.

Please appreciate the top-notch slapstick where a pie falls on Sugar Belle’s face.

And just like that, Sugar Belle tells off both of her suitors and asks them to leave her alone.

Sweetie Belle: Are you okay?
Big Macintosh: Nope.
Apple Bloom: Sorry it didn’t work out with Sugar Belle.
Sweetie Belle: I don’t get it. Big, grand gestures always work in the fairy tales.
Big Macintosh: But Sugar Belle’s not a fairy tale princess. She’s a real pony. She’s kind, she works hard, and she’s sweeter than everything in her bakery.
Apple Bloom: That’s it! We should have been thinking about what would mean a lot to Sugar Belle!

This passage could be taken as telling viewers not to take lessons from works of fiction, which would be weird considering this show’s strong focus on friendship lessons. However, I interpret it differently: it tells viewers that they shouldn’t imitate romantic stories verbatim, but rather think about what would work for their own specific love interest (or anyone they want to do a favor for). Plus, this show has always made a point to subvert the tropes of classic fairy tales.

Big Macintosh: Hmm… (gasp) I know just the thing! But I’m gonna need your help.
Apple Bloom: Really? Even after we messed it up?
Big Macintosh: Eyup. Come on!

I like that Big Macintosh is so quick to forgive the Crusaders for their mishaps, especially his little sister. He knows they’re just kids who were trying to help and he needs their assistance anyway.

Scootaloo: Hello! My name’s Shimmering Spectacles, and I’m a librarian with a mysterious past!
Sugar Belle: Oh! Okay. I’m… Wait a minute. You look familiar.
Scootaloo: I shouldn’t. Um… I’m new in town. Mind showing me around?
Sugar Belle: Uh, sure. That’s the whole town!
Sugar Belle: It’s just the one street.

Sugar Belle sounds a little glum when she says the whole town consists of just one street. This suggests that while the rest of the formerly equal ponies are content living in this tiny village, Sugar Belle would rather live somewhere bigger, which is why she spends so much time in Ponyville in later seasons. We don’t know anything about Sugar Belle’s life before the cult, but I suspect that she came from a large city whereas most others grew up in far-off small towns.

With Scootaloo no longer able to hold her off, Sugar Belle arrives at her house just in time to see a special surprise. Early in the episode, Sugar Belle said she wished she had more space to display her desserts, and what do we see here? A brand new display case that Big Macintosh built, with help from Apple Bloom. It’s exactly what’s needed for him to win Sugar Belle’s heart. This scene is such a perfect way to show viewers the power of doing favors. It proves that Big Mac paid attention to Sugar Belle’s desires and really does care about her.

Sugar Belle says this is the sweetest thing anyone’s done for her, but I don’t know.
Starlight Glimmer inviting her to her wonderful, peaceful village filled with true friendship and equality was very kind too.

Big Mac and Sugar Belle nuzzle each other, which the Crusaders interrupt with an “AWWW!” They apologize to Sugar Belle for all the mishaps and explain the lesson they learned about romantic gestures, but we aren’t done yet.

Feather Bangs plays another song to try winning Sugar Belle’s heart, only to be told he missed the memo. The Cutie Mark Crusaders reveals he has a trio of mares admiring him and offer to help him romantically, and a shared laugh between them ends the episode. I like that this episode doesn’t portray Feather Bangs as a villain, but instead as shy and awkward beneath his charming gestures. His future is left open, a fitting fate for a one-time character.

Overall thoughts:

I’m afraid I don’t have much to say here—nothing particularly controversial happened in this episode, and nothing too iconic either. You could say, in fact, that it’s hard to say anything. In many ways, this is a characteristic season 7 episode: it’s a step forward for two characters’ arcs (Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle), it revisits a location and fleshes it out, and it explores a fresh new dynamic between two characters. It’s solid overall and I really have no complaints about it.

Grade: B

Pretend I wrote something funny here.

Miscellaneous notes:

• On the topic of childhood friends not sharing interests, I like the idea that as the Cutie Mark Crusaders become adults, they’ll still remain close friends, but each of them has another dear friend or two whose interests match theirs more precisely. For instance, maybe when she’s older, Sweetie Belle will have a new best friend who she can geek out about music theory with for hours.
• I’m annoyed that the TV Tropes pages for MLP:FiM characters don’t have a section dedicated to Sugar Belle, but instead lump her into the “equal ponies”. She deserves her own section, you doofuses! I mean seriously, there isn’t even a “Nice Girl” trope listed for her.
• Maybe you shouldn’t be too hard on Big Macintosh for calling Sugar Belle’s eyes blue. You know how people call orange hair “red” because red and orange weren’t originally separate words? Maybe the same applies to ponies having purple eyes—they just were called blue since the word “purple” didn’t exist yet. And maybe ponies in MLP can’t naturally have blue eyes and only make their eyes blue using customized lenses. For all we know, blue could be a popular color for ponies to dye their eyes, just like blonde is for humans.
• Late in the episode, we briefly see Party Favor and Night Glider on what looks to be a date. It seems that aside from Sugar Belle, the members of Starlight Glimmer’s former cult are content with getting to know each other instead of finding new friends.

While Big Macintosh struggled to be honest about his feelings in this episode, the next one will have another Apple sibling be too honest.

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Season 7 Episode 9: Honest Apple

In five words: Applejack learns to constructively criticize.

Premise: Rarity hires Applejack as a critic for a fashion show, but her unfiltered honesty turns out to do more harm than good. Also she plays guitar.

Detailed run-through:

This episode begins with the animators still overestimating the size of stacked paper. Spike has to be carrying at least 5000 sheets of paper, if not 10,000, going by a near-full package of 500 sheets of paper that I have next to my desk. Either Rarity wastes huge amounts of paper, or paper in Equestria is really thick for some reason.

Rarity reveals her flyers are for a fashion show hosted in Carousel Boutique, which will have three judges. The first two are familiar names we haven’t seen in a while: Hoity Toity and Photo Finish.

Rarity: And… (giggle) wait until you hear who else will be a judge!
Spike: Countess Coloratura?
Pinkie Pie: Sassy Saddles?
Spike: Spike?

All three of these are logical guesses. Countess Coloratura would match Rarity’s excitement to reveal her third judge, Sassy Saddles is a Rarity episode character like the other two, and Spike would have a lot of fun judging these outfits and be careful not to hurt the designers’ feelings because that would also hurt Rarity’s feelings.

The papers scattered about the floor are far fewer than would fit in the stack Spike was carrying.

Rarity: No. (laughs) The third judge for the Carousel Boutique’s Couture du Future fashion contest is none other than… Applejack!
Applejack: What?
Pinkie Pie: WHAT?!
Spike: What?!
Rarity: … What?

Think about it for a second. Rarity lists several reasons for choosing Applejack as a judge, like her eye for practicality and her brutal honesty, but her underlying rationale is that she trusts her friend to be good at it. Applejack is befuddled at this choice and doesn’t think she’d be a good judge, but after some convincing she agrees to consider it.

When doing chores with her siblings, something clicks in Applejack’s mind. She sees that Apple Bloom is struggling to harvest apples with a scarf holding her hat down, so she takes Apple Bloom’s scarf off and the problem is solved. That’s how she finally rationalizes why Rarity would ever want her as a judge. Once she has a reason that she can accept, she’s convinced her reason is right. And once Applejack has set her mind on an opinion, it’s almost impossible to change it.

Hoity Toity: We missed you at Miss Pommel’s debut in Manehattan last week.
Rarity: Miss Pommel is showing? I thought she was still making costumes.
Photo Finish: You haven’t heard? Everypony who is anypony is talking about it!

I think this episode was intended partly to catch us up on what all the Rarity episode characters have been up to, and this exchange about Coco Pommel cements it. It’s nice to have a little resolution to her mini-character arc, where she started as a nasty boss’s overworked assistant and now has become Manehattan’s newest fashion star. But I really wish we got to see some pictures of her in this scene. Maybe it’s for the best we don’t, because Coco Pommel’s unbeatable cuteness would make viewers’ eyes explode.

Wait, wait, my bad. She’s Miss Pommel now. My new headcanon is that after she became a fashion star, she adopted Miss Pommel as her stage name because she thought it would be weird getting so much attention under her full name.

Now that Applejack has mentally confirmed that her purpose is to bash on any outfit that isn’t practical enough, she wheezes in laughter when the other two judges show her a disco ball outfit from the Manehattan show, which gives them a strange first impression of her. Imagine if Coco Pommel could see in person how Applejack reacted to this outfit. Fans would be a lot more mad at Applejack if so.

Oh, screw it. We won’t hear about Coco Pommel again (except for a group picture in The Last Problem) so I may as well overly analyze her one last time. It may seem odd that Coco designed a disco ball outfit, but I bet this is the kind of thing Suri Polomare never let her make. Her wild, experimental outfits are an expression of freedom to make whatever crazy stuff she wants and be adored for it. And whenever she says “oh, it’s nothing special, anypony could have come up with this” and blushes, her fans just love her more.

Applejack would be perfect for voting on a Barbara Dex award.
(If you know what that is and are reading this, then you probably share TWO obsessions with me.)

Rarity: Lily Lace, tell us about your inspiration.
Lily Lace: You guys, this morning on my way here, I heard a bird singing literally the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. And I wanted to capture not so much the bird’s song exactly, but more like how the wind carried the bird’s song.
Hoity Toity: Powerful, yet at the same time, fragile and delicate.
Applejack: Uh… huh?

The fashion designers and the judges understand each other perfectly, but to Applejack, they’re practically speaking another language. It gets worse when she’s introduced to the designer who represents through drawings the dresses of the future, and the goth girl who designs everything in black. Applejack is missing the point that the dresses are supposed to be showcased artistically, not worn on a daily basis.

Inky Rose has a huge bucket of nails next to her. What could she possibly use it for?

Applejack: Are you putting holes in the clothes on purpose?
Inky Rose: That’s to create a distressed look.
Applejack: More like an old and tattered look. When a pony’s old clothes get holes in them, they don’t want to go to the store to buy new clothes with holes in them.

No matter how annoying you might think Applejack is here, the way she reacts to all these fashion choices is true to her character. As soon as she’s decided that a certain way of doing things is right, she won’t let anyone tell her she’s wrong. This trait of hers was established in Applebuck Season back in season 1, and it’s been a core part of her personality ever since. But these days, it’s more closely interwoven with her blunt honesty.

Pinkie Pie: Hey, Applejack! On your way home? How’d the first day of the contest go?
Applejack: Great! At first, I didn’t think I’d be much help, but thank goodness I signed on. Without me, they’d be doing all kinds of crazy fashiony things.

Whether they’re related or not, one trait that Pinkie Pie and Applejack share is that they’re often unaware of their own ridiculousness. Pinkie Pie with her crummy playing of the Chekhov’s guitar that we saw at the start, Applejack with her cheery description of how the contest has gone so far. If Applejack was only pretending she thought it’s gone well, then she’d sound clumsy and stilted, but she has no reason to lie about how she feels.

This is the face of someone who’s mad at her friend but really doesn’t want to be.

Pinkie Pie: Hey, Rarity! Applejack says the contest is going great! Good thing she’s there, huh?
Rarity: Yes, of course. Some of her thoughts are tough to swallow. But hopefully her candor will help the designers achieve the best designs possible.

This scene doubles down on Applejack’s honesty by showing that Rarity isn’t so willing to speak her mind. She just tries convincing herself that everything will be fine, as she so often does.

Pinkie Pie: You seem a little stressed. Want to try? Music is very relaxing!
Rarity: Sure.

I love Rarity playing a dramatic rock guitar riff so much. It’s so random and cartoony and out of nowhere and we don’t get enough zany humor like this in the late seasons. You might think this scene proves that Rarity has a bit of reality bending powers just like Pinkie Pie, and I do think she does. But for all we know, maybe the electric guitar riffs are how it normally plays, and Pinkie Pie is using her reality bending powers to play some dissonant acoustic chords instead.

It’s not that hard to believe that Rarity can play the guitar but never talks about it. I’m sure you know someone who has a very specific interest that they rarely bring up but are lowkey totally obsessed with. Not because they’re embarrassed to like it, but because they never feel a reason to mention it.

Rarity: (sigh of relief) Much better.

As exaggerated as the guitar riff may have been, this scene is right about one thing: playing music is a perfect way to destress.

Inky Rose tends to respond to criticism in an exaggerated, almost spiteful way: by doing exactly what the critic implies she should do and then making her look stupid by saying “is this better?” Though it’s hard to be certain of her intentions due to her perpetually deadpan tone. In this case, she detaches all buttons from this outfit because Applejack said it would be hard to put on.

Hoity Toity claims the feathers on this hat that Lily Lace designed are hoof cross double over stitched, yet the feathers all fall off when Applejack shakes it. The whole point of stitching is to make an outfit (or other item made from threads) strong and sturdy, so either Hoity Toity doesn’t know as much about stitching as he thinks, or Lily Lace is a terrible stitcher.

When Hoity Toity and Photo Finish debate over which of two identical belts fits better on a dress, Applejack is pushed to her limits.

Rarity: Is everything okay?
Applejack: They’re having a heated debate about those two belts.
Rarity: Ooh! Both good choices.
Applejack: There is no choice. They’re the exact same belt! This is so silly. Fashion is ridiculous!
(everyone else gasps)
Rarity: You don’t mean that.
Applejack: I do. I’m sorry, but that’s my honest opinion.

Rarity is right to doubt Applejack truly means her words. She’s the only member of the Mane 6 who regularly wears an article of clothing and has worn many of Rarity’s dresses throughout this show. But she’s so caught up in insisting on practicality that she drives everyone else out of the shop, including the other two judges, the three costume designers, and lastly Rarity herself. It’s all totally fine because she was just being honest… right?

Oh, how it takes me back to see Rarity and Applejack yelling at each other.

Now here’s the second most iconic scene of the episode. The leadup to it is a subtly sweet demonstration of how well Rarity knows Applejack. She knows that Applejack won’t listen if she’s simply told that she’s behaving wrong, so instead Applejack has to learn by example. This right here is the magic of Rarity and Applejack’s dynamic: when one is stuck in an irrational mindset, the other will always be there to reel her out of it.

Strawberry Sunrise: Oh, Rarity! Ah, what a nice surprise!
Rarity: Hello, Strawberry Sunrise. This is Applejack. I was wondering if you could tell her how you feel about apples.
Strawberry Sunrise: Don’t like ‘em.
Applejack: What?! Why? They’re crunchy, they’re sweet, they’re delicious.
Strawberry Sunrise: They’re not strawberries!
Applejack: You’re right. Apples are better than strawberries.
Strawberry Sunrise: Only if by better, you mean better at being disgusting.

I love how Rarity knows the perfect example of a pony to teach Applejack a lesson about honesty right off the top of her head. I like to think that when Rarity first met Strawberry Sunrise, she learned that Strawberry hates apples and immediately wondered how Applejack would react to that. Strawberry Sunrise remained in the back of her mind ever since, and now comes the time for the apple lover to meet the apple hater.

Applejack: You’d better apologize!
Strawberry Sunrise: Oh, I’m sorry… that you actually bite into those tasteless, mealy worm-filled things.

Strawberry Sunrise is such a gem. I bet that if you told her about your absolute favorite movie, food, or song or all time, she would tear it to pieces and make you feel like an idiot for liking it. And she would feel no remorse whatsoever.

Applejack: WHAT?! (grumbles)
Rarity: Applejack! Why are you so angry? It’s just Strawberry’s honest opinion. What’s wrong with that?
Applejack: Well, that’s fine if she doesn’t like them. But if she knew how hard we worked to make our apples perfect, maybe she wouldn’t be so mean about…
Applejack: Ohhhhhhh. Oh boy.
Rarity: Mhm. Doesn’t feel so good, does it?

Rarity is such a champ for pulling Applejack out of her rut so quickly. She didn’t let Applejack be inconsiderate any longer and that really helps the episode’s flow. It’s only fair considering all the ruts that Applejack has pulled Rarity out of.

Applejack redirects Hoity Toity and Photo Finish back to Ponyville by stealing the platform they were carried on, then she ties up the three fashion designers with a lasso so she can apologize to all of them. Can you think of any other character who would gather them up so forcefully just for an apology? Hmm… maybe Discord or Starlight Glimmer.

Applejack finally collaborating with the designer ponies is relegated to a montage and I’m OK with it this time. It doesn’t involve her honesty that much, but it is her way of making it up to Rarity which is very much something she’d do.

Since Rarity, Hoity Toity, and Photo Finish each voted for a different one of the three fashion designers, Applejack is the deciding vote and declares all three as winners. We’re supposed to take this as proof that Applejack’s honesty comes in handy, but I’m not so sure. I think she felt guilty about being mean to the designers and thus chose not to pick a favorite. Kind of a boring resolution if you ask me.

To finish the episode, Applejack encounters a dress Rarity designed and struggles to give an opinion on it. But when Rarity admits she messed that one up, Applejack returns to her blunt self and admits the dress is awful. Then they share a laugh at the end. I presume this scene was meant to tell viewers that sometimes, bluntly criticizing something is warranted.

Overall thoughts:

This episode is OK but not great. Applejack feels perfectly in character and I like that the episode combines her honesty and stubbornness, something season 1 often failed to do. The Strawberry Sunrise scene is of course legendary. But for a season 7 episode, it’s really low-stakes and unexciting. The conclusion in particular is a letdown: Applejack doesn’t do anything cool with her honesty and just awards the prize to all three. It would have been better if Applejack performed some proper constructive criticism near the end, because I think that’s what the moral was getting at.

Grade: C

I can enjoy watching this episode, as with most others in the show, but it fades into the background when I recount season 7.

Miscellaneous notes:

• When Applejack laughs at Hoity Toity and Photo Finish debating over which belt with a lightning bolt design is better because they all look the same, that’s how I feel when people debate over which Eurovision ballads are better, because most of them sound the same to me. Except for Balkan ballads. (Oh god, this is my SECOND time referencing Eurovision in this blog post. Please shove a fork in my mouth.)
• It’s entirely possible that Strawberry Sunrise doesn’t truly hate apples, but she’s more like the guy from Green Eggs and Ham who insists he doesn’t like green eggs and ham until he tries it. Or at least, that’s probably what Applejack wants to believe.

In the next episode, we see two royal sisters who aren’t so honest with each other.

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Eventually I’ll regain motivation to work on my MLP reviews, I promise. When that day comes, probably not for at least a few months, I’ll pump out a review of one of season 7’s most well-liked episodes.

>> Part 82: A Royal Problem