Two ponies spend an episode going to the spa. Sounds like a pleasant enough Saturday for this show.
Get your followup fill below.
So, uh, let's get this out of the way before we dive in, even if many of you know the drill with these things by now. Episode followups aren't held to any blog-wide standard, so it's totally up to whoever's helming for the weekend to do what they want with theirs. Some keep things to jokes, some go a bit deeper on the analysis, some pull from a list of movie references so deep that I suspect they quietly visit the folks at the Chinese every week or so with a pistol and make off with cans of celluoid. What we tend to veer away from as a whole is full-bore analysis, but you can get plenty of that elsewhere.
All of us write our followups putting our best feet (hooves? claws?) forward, however, and if we've managed to entertain a few readers out there on a Sunday afternoon, we've done our jobs.
Now, let's do this.
Rrrrright off the bat. Applejack and Rarity have spa days? If my previous followups haven't been any singular indication before, forget UPS, FedEx, and Cape [oops] Canaveral, I'd build mass drivers just to make my point about how I feel about these two together.
But... spa days? Let's keep going for now.
1) why would you ever have a pocket watch in a
2) WHY WOULD YOU EVER HAVE A POCKET WATCH IN A
And let's not even go into what's up with Rarity's horn, either, or what happens when you round up all the unicorns in Equestria and park them under Cloudsdale for a couple weeks straight.
Forgive me, Professor Wong -- screenwriting was three years ago as I butcher the formatting on this script excerpt:
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[EXT. SWEET APPLE ACRES -- DAY.]
(TWILIGHT SPARKLE, RARITY, and SPIKE are walking toward Applejack's farmhouse together.)
TWILIGHT:
Hi, Rarity.
RARITY:
Morning Twilight, Spike.-----
Dialogue like this turned up a lot in class that quarter, but hey, some seniors put off their writing requirements for graduation until the last minute.
Liked "Princess Spike"? "What About Discord?"? "The Gift of the Maud Pie"? This episode's for you guy!
Oh, and Spike, please stop breaking the fourth wall. That's not your character trait for this episode.
Sometimes you'll just cap a character mid-blink and have to roll with it.
Rarity sure does love those spa days with Applejack.
"But what about Fluttersh--" you try to ask, going all the way back to Season 1. And I allow it.
Whoa, layering error. Or maybe Spike's doing the finger gun thing. By the way, if I ever come up to you at a convention and make finger guns, that generally means we're in good with each other (or, I'd hope I'm good with you. (Please like me.)).
Foiled yet again by those unicorns and their pesky "Take-The-Precious-Away" spells. If you scrub through the frames carefully enough, you can see the exact moment her heart breaks.
Filly, please. Checklists are Twilight's thing. And of course she's gonna feed the pigs to Applejack's letter, 'cause look what happened the last time she tried using magic on the farm.
Whoops, wrong cap.
Wait, not that one either. Regardless, she hasn't always had the best ideas on Sweet Apple Acres.
Okay. Well, if you're coming into something for the first time, your friends are probably gonna have a better idea of how to go about it than you do and you really should just follow their lead.
"Rawr! I am Disorganized Dress-Mare, terror of your wardrobe! Fear my bargain-bin origin story!"
Somebody send the police to my apartment, because the animation crew are absolutely murdering me right now. Aren't best friends wonderful?
Pony pushes the gate, and looks cute doing it.
"So once again for our listeners, we're going to relax for an hour."
"Isn't that what we said leaving the farm earlier?"
"Indeed, darling. We just need to keep this up for another seventeen minutes."
Dashie. Wow! Did I expect her to patronize the day spa? No. Could I see her doing that? Putting my fanfic away, well... yes. I know a lot of y'all remember how she doesn't like having her hooves touched, but I think you'll also see over the course of the show that she isn't on the whole against the "frou-frou" stuff.
With so many different writers touching these characters, it's important to remember that we're going for a gestalt with this show. There are just too many details, many of them contradictory, in place to let a good story get told if all of them were to be obeyed.
Besides, have you seen the amount of impressions Dashie's done with Rarity in mind lately? They are scary spot-on, and likely, in this random's opinion, not from a place of complete inauthenticity.
"Tanks" for the memories. Hah, get it? So long, you silly reptilian slipper!
I've said this before and I will keep. Saying. It. It's hard to tire me out on these two seeing a lot more eye-to-eye on matters with the way the seasons have gone on.
Dash's continued inability to be subtle -- at all, at any [oh no] all -- unlocks something within me that wants to hug her and never let go.
So Caramel doesn't actually have a "tail", anatomically speaking.
Yes, I am twelve.
Appleyak.
She's a yak.
This episode makes slightly more sense than it did before now. Spa not perfect!
Really loving what Tabitha's been doing with the spa ponies' voices, too. I'd put her up there with Robin Williams on the big list of VAs who can do whatever they want in the booth.
What you don't know about all of those doors is that you'll find nothing behind them but whispers. Enjoy your stay!
Remember how Pinkie's one trait in "Gift of the Maud Pie" was "completely catatonic without her party cannon?" I guess Applejack's this week was "
Like, I get that it sucks when things don't work out the way you expected them to, but a pampered muscle massage sounds like a much better use of an hour to me than getting my horse pores opened up.
Applepout is adorbs, though.
Spoiled Rich? Now there's a one-off character I didn't expect to see coming back.
Didn't expect her to be such a huge Tommy Whinnyseau fan, either.
For a moment I completely thought that was Rainbow Dash standing third in line there, but that gray tail makes her Linky, Lyra's OG park-bench sitter-in-crime.
How the [stop] did this become the meme of the episode? Well, actually, I think I have an idea.
I glanced at this shot and it wasn't towels I saw at first.
Rarity, where are you even putting that pocket watch? Pony cannot hammerspace.
Nothing like significant internal bleeding to get that circulation going. Right, Mr. Cake?
Thankfully AJ made it to this hallway before they got to install the chompers.
Props to the background artists on this one, actually. I was wondering why there was a ramp on the side of the stairs. Granted, tho, dude's a unicorn, he doesn't need a cart.
I will aggressively pretend this never happened.
It's a valve. No, I'm not making a Half-Life 3 joke here.
*whipcrack.e--*
Applejack, stop. This isn't Johnny [love your mother] Test.
Spot on, Rarity. It's more like ten minutes (and two more wash runs) at this point.
Cute little suit-up scene, complete with eye safety. Order your PPPE (Personal Pony Protection Equipment) today!
Looking at the different threadings on these bolts, I can only think of two things. Equestria imports its plumbing bolts from many different places, and any villain attempting to unscrew all the nuts in the kingdom had better be prepared to do it twice, in opposite directions.
Equestrian plumbers will let you watch, ask them questions and even help out, but only after a tap on the head from their trusty horseshoe first.
Well, there's your problem, Twilight. You need to start from atop the barn, silly.
Mission: Impossible reference. Dude, that pig in the background? Those beady eyes belie deadly lasers that surely would have fired had Twilight hit the ground!
Imagine what she must be tasting right now. I think I can understand Twilight taking forty minutes mustering up the will to take a breath here.
I'm looking at that definitely-not-bungee-cord-or-counter-weighted rope and it looks like a rock-solid way of hang on those pigs have a nice house, man. Attic window and everything! All they need are some petunias growing in the windowsills.
>mfw
Filly can dance. Ow.
"Ah, that look of dawning realization is what I live for."
Whoever got to animate these chickens had the best part of the episode, no doubt.
>3 valves
>Half-Life 3 conf--
Aw, [running out of words to use here].
Unicorns invented planned obsolescence. I knew there was always something about Cereal.
Also, if repairing chicken-wire fences is one of AJ's regular chores, something actually tells me that this is a great way to bankrupt her family. Imagine that one @dril tweet about budgeting and switch out the food, and that's Sweet Apple Acres financial hardship illuminated.
"Did we hit our lesson yet?"
"Sure did!"
"Great, let's go over it again!"
... Actually, that IS pretty Twilight of her.
But at least Applejack finally gets to relax with her best friend, and this time there'll be no queue for the
Oh, Dashie can come too.
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Overall, this was an episode! It's nice to see that Applejack doesn't seem as opposed to stereotypically "girly" stuff like spa days anymore. It's not like this episode would've been better had Applejack displayed any kind of reticence against the principle of going to the spa. It more comes across as Applejack having always been fine with going to the spa, especially with Rarity, as a duo, which is territory even fanfiction approaches with caution.
The writers for this episode joined MLP only just this season, so I can sympathize needing to start somewhere with these characters and taking their time in approaching the deeper aspects of their personalities. Contrast this with last week's "The Saddle Row Review," however, and how it defined each of the Mane 6's basic personalities and you can make some interesting conclusions.
As always, it takes a lot of people working some crazy hours to bring us this show every Saturday morning, and that effort doesn't go unnoticed. Y'all keep on rocking.
Thanks for reading. CouchCrusader, out.
