Once again this review will contain spoilers. Those of you who haven't watched this episode yet, you have been warned.
So our episode begins Applejack running an obstacle course. It's then explained that this is all practice for an upcoming rodeo that she hopes to win. An annual even she's won multiple times already in fact. Once the situation is explained we're led into the episode's title screen
As the episode begins proper, we find that the ponies are preparing a special celebration in honour of the rodeo, which will be taking place in the capital city of Canterlot. Applejack is the centre of attention for the whole town and is given a huge amount of praise and well-wishes for the upcoming event. After the celebration, she's sent of to Canterlot to participate. A week passes and everyone is setting up a surprise birthday party for Applejack when she returns from Canterlot. However, much to everyone's shock, who they find instead is a messenger, who delivers a note telling them that although Applejack will be sending back the money she won from the competition, she will not be returning to Ponyville
The main ponies, shocked along with everyone else that Applejack would do such a thing, vow to find her and set of on a search for their friend. They start off at the rodeo she was heading for. Despite numerous attempt to enquire, no-one knows about her. That is except for one pony, who promptly set them off in the direction of another town. Upon reaching the town, Pinkie, by coincidence, manages to find Applejack. The group finds out that she's now working in a cherry farm and attempts to find out why do not succeed. In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, they volunteer to help her work on the farm, which goes about as well as you'd expect.
Becoming increasingly frustrated over their questioning, Applejack just storms off. Rainbow then says it's time to take more drastic measures to solve the situation, so turns to Pinkie Pie to use her special brand of "help" to tackle the issue. Finding Applejack on the farm, Pinkie begins to pester her about every little thing under the sun until she can't take it anymore. She then promises to tell them everything at breakfast the next morning. However, that next morning, the group are shocked to find that Applejacks room has been abandoned, clearly showing that she has no intention of telling them the truth.
Applejack is now at the train station, trying to find a way out of town in an attempt to get away from the other five ponies. However, as those ponies find her and start to catch up with her, she convinces those in charge of a carriage to leave early so she can get away. The others board an unused cart and begin to catch up. After a subsequent chase sequence Applejack is knocked from the carriage by Rainbow Dash. This spills the contents of Applejack's bags, revealing many medal and awards, but not the blue ribbon of the rodeo. With the truth revealed, Applejack confesses to everything. She admits that she neevr actually won the rodeo and, after such a massive sendoff earlier, was too embarrassed to return, having failed to do what everyone believed she could do. The others tell her that they don't care about that and that they were more concerned with her not retuning.
And so the episode ends with Applejack learning her lesson-of-the-day, which I'll get to later.
And so the episode ends with
So, how does this episode hold up?
Well, in terms of the story I'd firstly like to say that it's nice to see an Applejack-centred episode after so long. Among the main cast she's one of my favourite characters and so it's been rather frustrating to not have her in any starring roles this season. The most she's ever had this season is supporting roles in episodes dedicated to other characters, like in "Sisterhooves social" and "Cutie Pox". In fact, now that I think about it, she didn't get much attention in the latter half of season one either. As such the characters doesn't really have much in the way of episodes from the past that I can compare this to. It doesn't really help matters that a large section of this episode doesn't even have her in it.
Overall, whilst Applejack is certainly not bad in this episode, I felt that her major conflict was not really anything for her to get so worked up over. I mean sure, not coming first in a competition, especially after such huge praise from you friends and realtive, is certainly going to be an embarrassing thing to experience, so I at least appreciate how difficult it would have been. However, I don't think that quite excuses the extremes Applejack goes through to try and avoid it. I mean, keeping away from your home, your whole family, just because you didn't win a competition? That really doesn't seem like the kind of thing Applejack would do, especially as she's always been one of the more practical and sensible characters of the show. Not to mention the fact that her backstory involved her realising how important her family was to her. As such, having her take this action seem to me like a big betrayal of her character.
And that's particularly difficult for me to say because that "mystery" part of the episode I actually liked. I was legitimately unaware as to what the big secret was going to be at the end and was expecting something much bigger than what we eventually got. I was kept interested in the overall story largely because the secret was so well-kept and intriguing to watch. I suppose I should give credit to the writers for making it something I wouldn't have predicted. But at the same time, the truth turned out to be a big disappointment at the end.
I know I ranted about this back in my "Applebuck season" review, but I have to mention it here too. Applejack, like I said back then, is supposed to represent the element of honesty. Throughout this entire episode she's dishonest, or at least avoiding the truth to those around her, and is completely unprepared to face the consequences of her failure. At least in "Applebuck season" I could've made the argument that her actions were based more on overconfidence. Here, there's no way out of it, and as such it really does feel like a big negative for the character.
As for the other characters, they all come across pretty good here. All playing up to their various strengths and weaknesses. However, aside from Applejack, the most prominent face in this episode is clearly Pinkie Pie. She is really on form in this one. The "Pinkie Pie Promise" moment in particular stands out as being completely in-character for her as well as being very entertaining. The lengths she'll go to in order to get after someone who's broken a promise to her was just completely crazy and yet still very in-keeping with what we already know about her character, which, let's be honest, can get rather intimidating at times.
Before we move on to other aspects of the episode, there's a certain scene thrown in here I'd like to discuss. It occurs immediately after the title screen when Rainbow is preparing the decorations. She's "helped" by a grey, cross-eyes pegasus that's been showing up in the background in other episodes but until now hasn't had any speaking role. This is another case where I have to delve into the fandom a bit to explain where I'm coming from on this one. You see, the fans of this show have taken a great liking to this character and given her the name of "Derpy", presumably because of her aforementioned cross-eyes. Now, she's actually named as such in the episode probably because of the massive number of fans calling her that.
Now I'm of two minds concerning this decision. One the one hand, it shows that the show's creators are paying attention to their fans and what the fans do, which is a good thing. On the other hand however, Derpy doesn't really do much here other than cause a pratfall that I didn't really consider funny. My worry here is that she's was only given a speaking role and given the fan-name purely as a means to make fans like the episode more. What's worse is that this might actually set a trend, giving characters greater prominence because of demands by fans despite the creators not being able to think of anything interesting for them to do. Not only that, but it harkens back to what I mentioned back in my "Luna Eclipsed" review, that part of what makes these fan-loved characters work is that we don't know much about them, so the fans can fill in the gaps. By bringing this character to the foreground, the show's creators risk damaging that aspect of her character and what made her liked by the fans.
Humour now and much like last week there were plenty of funny moments here. As I said earlier, the scenes involving Pinkie Pie were very funny to watch, as they usually are. What's interesting about her scenes here is that, much like her usual "4th wall-breaking", now the other characters seem to be joining in, knowing full well that a full-on dose of Pinkie Pie can be incredibly annoying to some people, like Applejack. However, the funnies moment by far for me was the scene involving the main ponies working on the cherry farm. As they enquire as to what Applejack's been doing, she was working a machine that made the conveyor belt move faster, which Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were working on at the time. Her increasing frustration of course led to a faster conveyor belt, leading to an increasingly frantic Fluttershy and Pinkie trying to cope. It's another one of those "laugh even though you know you shouldn't" moment and I was completely in stitches over it.
No song this week so I won't be talking about one.
This week, the moral-of-the-day seems to be that even though you should be proud when you win things, it's nothing to be ashamed of if you don't. Now let me just say right now that I have no problem with the moral as a whole. My issue is that, once again, Applejack's behaviour undermines the lesson. The reason being is that even though she learns the lesson at the end, it's not something she should've gone through all that in order to learn. It's made even worse by the fact that it's a lesson she's already learned. Back in "Fall weather friends", both she and Rainbow Dash learned a lesson about competitiveness and how being "number one" isn't always the best thing. This show is starting to get a nasty habit of forgetting the morals it's already used and I hope it doesn't continue.
Overall, despite the flaws I mentioned already, I did find this an entertaining episode. The mystery was compelling to watch, leaving you genuinely interested at what the truth might be. The humour was good and possibly even a step up from last week. And while I have an issue with the re-used moral, it's at least still a good moral.
Join me next week when Applejack gets a second round in the spotlight in episode fifteen of season two, "The supers speedy cider squeezy 6000".
So our episode begins Applejack running an obstacle course. It's then explained that this is all practice for an upcoming rodeo that she hopes to win. An annual even she's won multiple times already in fact. Once the situation is explained we're led into the episode's title screen
As the episode begins proper, we find that the ponies are preparing a special celebration in honour of the rodeo, which will be taking place in the capital city of Canterlot. Applejack is the centre of attention for the whole town and is given a huge amount of praise and well-wishes for the upcoming event. After the celebration, she's sent of to Canterlot to participate. A week passes and everyone is setting up a surprise birthday party for Applejack when she returns from Canterlot. However, much to everyone's shock, who they find instead is a messenger, who delivers a note telling them that although Applejack will be sending back the money she won from the competition, she will not be returning to Ponyville
The main ponies, shocked along with everyone else that Applejack would do such a thing, vow to find her and set of on a search for their friend. They start off at the rodeo she was heading for. Despite numerous attempt to enquire, no-one knows about her. That is except for one pony, who promptly set them off in the direction of another town. Upon reaching the town, Pinkie, by coincidence, manages to find Applejack. The group finds out that she's now working in a cherry farm and attempts to find out why do not succeed. In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, they volunteer to help her work on the farm, which goes about as well as you'd expect.
Becoming increasingly frustrated over their questioning, Applejack just storms off. Rainbow then says it's time to take more drastic measures to solve the situation, so turns to Pinkie Pie to use her special brand of "help" to tackle the issue. Finding Applejack on the farm, Pinkie begins to pester her about every little thing under the sun until she can't take it anymore. She then promises to tell them everything at breakfast the next morning. However, that next morning, the group are shocked to find that Applejacks room has been abandoned, clearly showing that she has no intention of telling them the truth.
Applejack is now at the train station, trying to find a way out of town in an attempt to get away from the other five ponies. However, as those ponies find her and start to catch up with her, she convinces those in charge of a carriage to leave early so she can get away. The others board an unused cart and begin to catch up. After a subsequent chase sequence Applejack is knocked from the carriage by Rainbow Dash. This spills the contents of Applejack's bags, revealing many medal and awards, but not the blue ribbon of the rodeo. With the truth revealed, Applejack confesses to everything. She admits that she neevr actually won the rodeo and, after such a massive sendoff earlier, was too embarrassed to return, having failed to do what everyone believed she could do. The others tell her that they don't care about that and that they were more concerned with her not retuning.
And so the episode ends with Applejack learning her lesson-of-the-day, which I'll get to later.
And so the episode ends with
So, how does this episode hold up?
Well, in terms of the story I'd firstly like to say that it's nice to see an Applejack-centred episode after so long. Among the main cast she's one of my favourite characters and so it's been rather frustrating to not have her in any starring roles this season. The most she's ever had this season is supporting roles in episodes dedicated to other characters, like in "Sisterhooves social" and "Cutie Pox". In fact, now that I think about it, she didn't get much attention in the latter half of season one either. As such the characters doesn't really have much in the way of episodes from the past that I can compare this to. It doesn't really help matters that a large section of this episode doesn't even have her in it.
Overall, whilst Applejack is certainly not bad in this episode, I felt that her major conflict was not really anything for her to get so worked up over. I mean sure, not coming first in a competition, especially after such huge praise from you friends and realtive, is certainly going to be an embarrassing thing to experience, so I at least appreciate how difficult it would have been. However, I don't think that quite excuses the extremes Applejack goes through to try and avoid it. I mean, keeping away from your home, your whole family, just because you didn't win a competition? That really doesn't seem like the kind of thing Applejack would do, especially as she's always been one of the more practical and sensible characters of the show. Not to mention the fact that her backstory involved her realising how important her family was to her. As such, having her take this action seem to me like a big betrayal of her character.
And that's particularly difficult for me to say because that "mystery" part of the episode I actually liked. I was legitimately unaware as to what the big secret was going to be at the end and was expecting something much bigger than what we eventually got. I was kept interested in the overall story largely because the secret was so well-kept and intriguing to watch. I suppose I should give credit to the writers for making it something I wouldn't have predicted. But at the same time, the truth turned out to be a big disappointment at the end.
I know I ranted about this back in my "Applebuck season" review, but I have to mention it here too. Applejack, like I said back then, is supposed to represent the element of honesty. Throughout this entire episode she's dishonest, or at least avoiding the truth to those around her, and is completely unprepared to face the consequences of her failure. At least in "Applebuck season" I could've made the argument that her actions were based more on overconfidence. Here, there's no way out of it, and as such it really does feel like a big negative for the character.
As for the other characters, they all come across pretty good here. All playing up to their various strengths and weaknesses. However, aside from Applejack, the most prominent face in this episode is clearly Pinkie Pie. She is really on form in this one. The "Pinkie Pie Promise" moment in particular stands out as being completely in-character for her as well as being very entertaining. The lengths she'll go to in order to get after someone who's broken a promise to her was just completely crazy and yet still very in-keeping with what we already know about her character, which, let's be honest, can get rather intimidating at times.
Before we move on to other aspects of the episode, there's a certain scene thrown in here I'd like to discuss. It occurs immediately after the title screen when Rainbow is preparing the decorations. She's "helped" by a grey, cross-eyes pegasus that's been showing up in the background in other episodes but until now hasn't had any speaking role. This is another case where I have to delve into the fandom a bit to explain where I'm coming from on this one. You see, the fans of this show have taken a great liking to this character and given her the name of "Derpy", presumably because of her aforementioned cross-eyes. Now, she's actually named as such in the episode probably because of the massive number of fans calling her that.
Now I'm of two minds concerning this decision. One the one hand, it shows that the show's creators are paying attention to their fans and what the fans do, which is a good thing. On the other hand however, Derpy doesn't really do much here other than cause a pratfall that I didn't really consider funny. My worry here is that she's was only given a speaking role and given the fan-name purely as a means to make fans like the episode more. What's worse is that this might actually set a trend, giving characters greater prominence because of demands by fans despite the creators not being able to think of anything interesting for them to do. Not only that, but it harkens back to what I mentioned back in my "Luna Eclipsed" review, that part of what makes these fan-loved characters work is that we don't know much about them, so the fans can fill in the gaps. By bringing this character to the foreground, the show's creators risk damaging that aspect of her character and what made her liked by the fans.
Humour now and much like last week there were plenty of funny moments here. As I said earlier, the scenes involving Pinkie Pie were very funny to watch, as they usually are. What's interesting about her scenes here is that, much like her usual "4th wall-breaking", now the other characters seem to be joining in, knowing full well that a full-on dose of Pinkie Pie can be incredibly annoying to some people, like Applejack. However, the funnies moment by far for me was the scene involving the main ponies working on the cherry farm. As they enquire as to what Applejack's been doing, she was working a machine that made the conveyor belt move faster, which Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were working on at the time. Her increasing frustration of course led to a faster conveyor belt, leading to an increasingly frantic Fluttershy and Pinkie trying to cope. It's another one of those "laugh even though you know you shouldn't" moment and I was completely in stitches over it.
No song this week so I won't be talking about one.
This week, the moral-of-the-day seems to be that even though you should be proud when you win things, it's nothing to be ashamed of if you don't. Now let me just say right now that I have no problem with the moral as a whole. My issue is that, once again, Applejack's behaviour undermines the lesson. The reason being is that even though she learns the lesson at the end, it's not something she should've gone through all that in order to learn. It's made even worse by the fact that it's a lesson she's already learned. Back in "Fall weather friends", both she and Rainbow Dash learned a lesson about competitiveness and how being "number one" isn't always the best thing. This show is starting to get a nasty habit of forgetting the morals it's already used and I hope it doesn't continue.
Overall, despite the flaws I mentioned already, I did find this an entertaining episode. The mystery was compelling to watch, leaving you genuinely interested at what the truth might be. The humour was good and possibly even a step up from last week. And while I have an issue with the re-used moral, it's at least still a good moral.
Join me next week when Applejack gets a second round in the spotlight in episode fifteen of season two, "The supers speedy cider squeezy 6000".
