Tag Archives: rarity

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 73: P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View) + Where the Apple Lies

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Introduction

< Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 >

Season 6, Episodes 22-23

Season 6 Episode 22: P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)

In five words: Mystery solved through conflicting tales.

Premise: Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie have come back from a boating trip with their friendship in shambles, and Twilight Sparkle tries to piece together their contradicting stories.

Detailed run-through:

To start the episode, Twilight Sparkle is excited to hear how three of her friends’ boating trip went. We get an excuse for why Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy didn’t go on the trip: they were at a Cloudsdale flight school reunion. This leads me to wonder, why did the show choose Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack, out of all character combinations, to go on the trip? I’ll discuss this peculiarity in the overall thoughts, so that I don’t get ahead of myself.

I refuse to believe Rarity didn’t bring at least ten spare outfits to wear in case her current one got dirty.

The three ponies depart the train in separate directions, refusing to talk to each other. If they’re so mad at each other, why did they go home in the same car of the train? My best guess is that the rest of the train was full of excited ponies who had a delightful trip.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 72: Viva Las Pegasus + Every Little Thing She Does

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< Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 >

Season 6, Episodes 20-21

We’re almost done with season 6! My plan is to split the last five episodes into three posts: episodes 22-23, 24, and 25-26 (the finale). If I release the next three posts every week, I’ll be finished with season 6 on May 5.

Season 6 Episode 20: Viva Las Pegasus

In five words: Selfish hotel owner gets overthrown.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends another odd pair (Applejack and Fluttershy) to another odd place (Las Pegasus) to deal with another pesky two-faced celebrity (Gladmane).

Detailed run-through:

Before I begin, I’d like to say that this episode has me at an awkward position. I’m so close to an episode that I am extremely excited to analyze, in no small part because it’s a Starlight Glimmer episode, but I first have to pick apart an episode that I feel neutral about analyzing. That’s why I procrastinated on starting this post for about a week.

If the Cutie Map sent her to Appleoosa, I could already hear Applejack’s delighted “hoo-wee!”

The cold opening of this episode is short and effective, only 48 seconds long, since we know the map episode formula. Applejack and Fluttershy both aren’t very thrilled to enter the noisy party town of Las Pegasus. I find it amusing that Applejack has the worst luck when it comes to cutie map missions: seasons 5 and 6 both sent her to a big city that she’d rather not be in. It’s the exact opposite of Rarity’s level of luck—she got sent to both the cities she adores the most.

The efficient storytelling is continued through what TV Tropes calls a Gilligan cut. Applejack says that Las Pegasus probably isn’t as bad as they think; take a wild guess what happens next.

You guessed it! It’s even worse!

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 69: The Cart Before the Ponies + 28 Pranks Later

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< Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 >

Season 6, Episodes 14-15

Warning: this post contains the most negative review of any episode I have written thus far. The second review, not the first one.

Season 6 Episode 14: The Cart Before the Ponies

In five words: Crusaders’ sisters ruin the fun.

Premise: The Cutie Mark Crusaders participate in a derby competition where they have to build their own carts. They each get help from their big sisters, who all take over the project and make it theirs.

Detailed run-through:

After all the adult fan-oriented humor of the last episode, it’s quite the whiplash to hear a bunch of foals say “good morning, Miss Cheerilee!” Unlike in the Crusaders’ episodes of season 1, which featured tons of generic background fillies, all but one of the foals in the class is a named character, and the unnamed one is a colt with a clearly distinct design.

The class is very confused when Cheerilee tells them they’re going to learn advanced physics. Then when she says it’s going to be for this year’s Applewood Derby, they all cheer in excitement. I bet Cheerilee wrote a whole bunch of advanced math formulas on the chalkboard just as a prank to the class, so she could see their relieved and delighted faces when they learn about the derby.

I’m further convinced the math formulas were a joke when Cheerilee puts a much simpler blueprint over the chalkboard. Each of the foals in her class will be provided a block of apple wood that they have to make a cart out of in one day, and they can each choose an older pony to help them—the Crusaders all know who they’ll pick. There are three different awards for the race: fastest, most traditional, and most creative. It seems obvious which of the Crusaders would want to win each prize… right?

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 67: Spice Up Your Life

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< Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 >

Season 6, Episode 12

I decided to give this episode and the next one both their own posts because my review of Spice Up Your Life turned out longer than I expected, and my review of Stranger Than Fan Fiction will inevitably be super long. And also because I scrambled to finish this post today, publishing it a few hours later than the usual time. I haven’t started writing the next review yet.

Season 6 Episode 12: Spice Up Your Life

In five words: Family restaurant suffers blind judgement.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Rarity and Pinkie Pie to a family restaurant in Canterlot that is struggling to stay afloat due to a family conflict, but there’s a greater problem that they aren’t yet aware of.

Detailed run-through:

To start the episode, Starlight Glimmer and Twilight Sparkle perform a magic spell to restore the Cutie Map, whose functionality apparently ceased when Starlight Glimmer used it to rampage through time. I’m not sure why the episode goes out of its way to show this restoration; it feels like this was meant to be a difficult challenge to take up the plot of an episode, but maybe an episode focused on this premise wouldn’t have been interesting enough, so they instead decided to do this at the start of this episode.

This makes for one of those weird cases where Starlight Glimmer is there, but only for one small role or plot point fulfillment. But frankly, complaints about Starlight Glimmer stealing all the spotlight in season 6 are silly. We’re twelve episodes in, and so far, she’s played a significant role only in the premiere, sixth, and eighth episodes of the season. She’s a wonderful character who I love dearly, but she’s still a supporting character.

I have to admire how well Pinkie Pie has memorized the map of Equestria.

The Cutie Map flashes between several random pairs of Mane 6 members in random locations, including Twilight and Twilight in Twilight’s castle. We’re supposed to assume those are glitches, but are they really? Maybe those are friendship missions that the ponies missed out on when the map was dormant, and the missions eventually solved themselves. And who’s to say Twilight never had another mishap with alternate selves offscreen? There are plenty of possibilities!

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 66: Applejack’s “Day” Off + Flutter Brutter

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< Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 >

Season 6, Episodes 10-11

Season 6 Episode 10: Applejack’s “Day” Off

In five words: Applejack suffers effects of inefficiency.

Premise: Rarity wants Applejack to spend time with her at the spa, but Applejack has a busy and, as we soon find out, incredibly inefficient work schedule that needs some rethinking.

Detailed run-through:

Before we begin, I’d like to say that this episode should have just been called Applejack’s Day Off. I get that the quotation marks show she’s not taking a whole day off, but they make the title clunky and annoying to type. Plus, what do you do when you put the title in quotation marks? Do you do “Applejack’s ‘Day’ Off” or “Applejack’s “Day” Off”? Both look awkward, honestly.

I love that cursive R on Rarity’s robe.

How did Rarity’s HORN get wrinkled???

This episode starts off with Rarity at the spa—it’s unusually steamy, take note of that later—waiting for Applejack to join her. And right after Applejack joins, the spa closes, and we see that Rarity was waiting here the whole time against the spa pony’s warning. Such are the lengths Rarity will take for her friends.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 65: The Saddle Row Review

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Season 6, Episode 9

This episode was originally going to share a post with Applejack’s “Day” Off, but the review turned out long enough that I changed my mind. I’ll do more paired-up posts until I reach an even-numbered episode that’s worth giving its own post—my current candidate is The Times They Are a Changeling.

Season 6 Episode 9: The Saddle Row Review

In five words: Mockumentary tells boutique’s clumsy beginnings.

Premise: Rarity has finally opened her boutique in Manehattan, called Rarity for You, and it gets off to an incredibly bumpy start because her friends all are too concerned with the question: “What would Rarity want?”

Detailed run-through (aka The Saddle Row Review Review):

“The Saddle Row Review Review” is a joke I came up with before I even started this post series.

This episode starts with five of the Mane 6 running in panic, hoping they can stop Rarity from reading the review of her new boutique. Given the highly anachronic order this episode is told in, this is quite amusing. Even after successfully setting up Rarity’s boutique and admitting they screwed things up along the way, they still feel a desire to maintain a perfect image to her friend. Normally, Rarity is the one obsessed with keeping a perfect image, but this time, the rest of her friends take this role while Rarity happily embraces her friends’ quirks.

Rarity looks angered when her friends arrive, but it turns out she was merely exhausted from waiting. Then she squeals in adorable excitement because she wanted them to read the review together.

Rainbow Dash: Um… I have an idea. How about we don’t read it?
Twilight Sparkle: What she means is, before you read it, we should probably tell you about—
Rarity: No, no, darling. Please, no spoilers.

I’ve previously talked about a pattern in Rarity episodes where the rest of her friends are clumsy but well-meaning, always trying a little too hard to make Rarity satisfied. Though I consider it a Rarity episode, this episode plays with the pattern by focusing on the rest of the Mane 6 and what they think of Rarity, rather than on Rarity herself. This episode is all about playing with patterns and unusual storytelling styles, and I enjoy it very much.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 62: Gauntlet of Fire

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< Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 >

Season 6, Episode 5

Fun fact: this will be the last MLP post I write before moving out of my parents’ house. I get the keys today, and I’ll spend the weekend moving all my stuff. Exciting, right?

Season 6 Episode 5: Gauntlet of Fire

In five words: Spike’s second chance befriending dragons.

Premise: Spike goes to the dragon kingdom for the second time in his life, this time by force. He’s sent to participate in a competition to inherit the throne from Dragon Lord Torch. He’s reluctant at first, but eventually he gains a supportive ally.

Detailed run-through:

Knowing this episode’s premise, it’s interesting and fitting that it starts with Spike in his comfort zone: exploring a cave with a girl he likes to help her find gems.

Rarity: The last time I was here, I woke them and ended up with a mane full of bats. (sigh) Thanks for being my basket holder, Spike.
Spike: Basket holder? I thought I was your bodyguard.
Rarity: What? Oh, haha. Yes, yes, that of course, too.

I should say right off the bat that I see nothing creepy about Spike’s crush on Rarity. It’s a totally believable thing for a pre-teenage boy to do, and passages like this show that while Rarity has some special affection for Spike, she clearly views him as a kid. There are some episodes where one of them goes far enough to raise an eyebrow, but this isn’t one of them, and the crush in itself isn’t weird to me.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 60: The Gift of the Maud Pie

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< Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 >

Season 6, Episode 3

Matching with the content of the episode I’m reviewing, I wrote the middle half of this post during a short trip to a major American city. The city is Chicago, and I went there to get a new German passport—the first German passport I’ve gotten since I was a baby.

(Pointless trivia: Brotherhooves Social is one of few reviews I’ve written entirely away from home, on a little trip to Michigan.)

Season 6 Episode 3: The Gift of the Maud Pie

In five words: Gift exchange reveals Pinkie’s insecurities.

Premise: Pinkie Pie goes on a trip to Manehattan for her family’s annual gift exchange, where she goes to great lengths to find the perfect gift for Maud Pie. Rarity comes with her and helps find a gift while searching for the perfect location to open her newest boutique.

Detailed run-through:

You know how fans of just about any work of media analyze it in excessively rigid and methodical ways? One observation that has arisen from methodical, data-oriented analysis is that throughout the first five seasons, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were the pair of Mane 6 members who interacted the least. While there is nothing to indicate that Rarity and Pinkie Pie are a weak link among the Mane 6’s friendships, like Rose and Jade are in Homestuck (see miscellaneous notes), not until now has an episode paired them together. Season 6 gives us not one, but two episodes pairing Pinkie Pie with Rarity, which is really smart. It redeemed the issue of fans perceiving them as a rarepair, and now I see them as an ordinary pair of friends like any other.

Anyway, this is the third episode where Rarity goes on a trip to Manehattan, and since three is the minimum number of times needed to recognize a pattern, this episode is the perfect time to subvert the pattern of Rarity bursting in excitement about this city. This time, Pinkie Pie is psyched about visiting Manehattan, while Rarity keeps her composure and says this is just a simple business trip. This feels a lot like a brony around the time this episode aired, insisting that new seasons of MLP are just a routine and that they aren’t that excited for season 6 to start…

… but when this metaphorical brony watches the beginning of season 6, they’re swept in excitement all over again, exactly like Rarity is. I think most people who have a dorky obsession have an instinct to downplay how much they like it, until they’re hit in the face with whatever it is they’re obsessed with. Once her eye catches the pony Statue of Liberty, she pops off in adorably goofy joy and ends with saying Manehattan is “everything ever”.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 52: Made in Manehattan

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< Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 >

Season 5, Episode 16

Season 5 Episode 16: Made in Manehattan

In five words: Coco Pommel revitalizes theater play.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Rarity and Applejack to Manehattan, where they have to help our old friend Coco Pommel garner interest to host a stage play.

Detailed run-through:

Before we begin, I’d like to tell you that Manehattan is NOT spelled “Manehatten”. Maybe it’s because I’m American, but I don’t understand how so many people could possibly make such a simple spelling mistake. And if you think it doesn’t matter how you spell this fictional town name, then clearly you don’t know that every time someone spells Manehattan as Manehatten, Coco Pommel cries. You don’t want to make Coco Pommel cry, do you?

The placement of the ladder on the left makes no sense.
It starts a shelf above the top of the other ladder, so how is Spike supposed to get up there?

This episode starts with Twilight Sparkle being bored out of her mind, until Rarity and Applejack both arrive revealing that their cutie marks are flashing. Twilight is briefly excited to have something to do, then sighs when she realizes hers isn’t flashing. This is the third time an episode has started with Mane 6 members’ cutie marks flashing, and three is the minimum number of times needed to recognize a pattern. As such, it makes sense that this episode starts off in the castle once again, even if it means the only role Twilight serves is as the brunt of boredom.

Rarity is insanely excited to be sent to Manehattan, whereas Applejack is confused. Some people criticize this episode for not bringing up that in her childhood Applejack ran off to Manehattan before getting her cutie mark, but I don’t think a mention of that would have added much to the episode. Since being a filly, Applejack has worked her way up to knowing how to be true to herself. She knows what she likes and stands for, and a huge, bustling city simply isn’t her cup of tea.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 51: Rarity Investigates!

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< Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 >

Season 5, Episode 15

Season 5 Episode 15: Rarity Investigates!

In five words: Mystery reveals celebrity’s nasty truth.

Premise: At a Wonderbolts event, Rainbow Dash is accused of tricking Spitfire into not attending so that she can fly in it instead. Putting on a charming film noir shtick, Rarity gets to the bottom of this mystery.

Detailed run-through:

In the last review, I forgot to mention Sassy Saddles’ fun little shtick of using two fashion terms at a time as interjections.

This episode begins at the same boutique Rarity had set up in the last episode, which is a bit unusual—perhaps a result of the broadcast order being different from production order?

Rarity: Oh, Sassy Saddles, don’t you just love my new Femme Mystique Chic line of gowns?
Sassy Saddles: (gasps) Sequins and sashes, Rarity, they’re exquisite. Where in Equestria did you find the inspiration?
Rarity: Oh, I modeled them after the adventures of Shadow Spade. Her stories are always full of mystery and suspense, and best of all… Fabulous costumes!

I find it admirable that Rarity owns up to what her real favorite thing about these mystery novels is. A lot of fans of this show struggle to admit what they like most about it and throw together complicated reasons to make themselves seem more cultured. While there are certainly tons of subtle things I like about this show, the main draw factors are the good sense of humor and the cute character designs. Simple as that.

Rarity makes a few adjustments to the dresses while talking about Shadow Spade’s attention to detail, then Rainbow Dash ruins the moment with a hasty entrance. While the Mane 6 are a tight-knit group of friends, not all two-way relationships between them are equal. Season 5 has quite a few episodes that pair up Mane 6 members who hadn’t shown up together much, and this scene establishes that we’re going to explore the dynamic between Rarity and Rainbow Dash. There are a total of fifteen pairings between Mane 6 members, which jumps to 21 if you add Spike, making for a succulent variety of untapped character relationships—untapped for now, at least.

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