This review will contain spoilers for those who have not seen the latest episode.
The premise of this episode is that Pinkie Pie's sister, Maud, comes to visit, and is unlike what the other girls were expecting.
As you can probably tell from that brief premise, this is a Pinkie-centric episode, and for that, I couldn't be happier. As I've said in previous reviews, with the exception of "Filli Vanilli", Pinkie has been one of this season's most consistently entertaining elements, and her focus episodes have been a real treat for me. On top of that, we have her in a situation that I've been hoping the show would explore for some time, her relationship to her family. So regardless of anything else, the basic setup of the episode is one that has me smiling.
Pinkie's family, as I said, has been something I've wanted to know more about ever since the show's first season. Back then, when her backstory was revealed to us, we were shown an entire family that has never had a chance to shine. Given Pinkie's nature, I'd always assumed that her story might not have been exactly as she told us, that her growing up on a rock farm was just a metaphor for an otherwise unhappy childhood. But, with her father's cameo in "Magic Duel" last season, that theory was blown out of the water, ad now we have actual confirmation of Pinkie having such family out there.
Something I'm sure many fans will be disappointed with in this episode is something that, to me, is not something really worth getting angry over, and that's the name of Pinkie's sister, Maud. Ever since Pinkie's sisters first made an appearance back in "Cutie Mark Chronicles", many fans have saddled them (no pun intended) with the names of "Inkie and Blinkie Pie", in much the same way that Derpy was given her name. As such, the fact that Pinkie's sister did not keep that name for this episode is bound to get on some fans' bad sides. I've said before that while this show has taken many nods from it's fans, final say on stories like this will be the full territory of the writers, and I'm willing to go with those little choices. I know some fans will disagree, but to me, having her name not be what we wanted it to be is nowhere near enough reason to criticise the episode.
Pinkie is the real heart of this episode for me and it's clear right from the start that she is truly in love with the idea of her sister and friends getting along. I can appreciate this position as I'm sure many of us have wanted our friends and family to be on good terms with one another, so the episode has a good emotional and character centre to it. Nothing much really happens in terms of the goings on and the episode is really more of a slice of life story, just a series of day-to-day stuff that people just go through. I have no issue with this as not every episode has to be some big adventure, and to it's credit it did allow for some good character moments, both with Pinkie and the rest of the cast.
As this episode heavily features a new character, let's talk about Maud for a bit. Despite the fact that she's clearly designed to be a character we're uninterested in, I found myself rather liking her. Her attitude stood in stark contrast to the more emotional behaviour of other characters that we're used to, but even so she never came off as a bad person. In past episodes, where old friends or some relation come to visit, things have often turned out pretty bad, like with Gilda back in season one, or with Babs Seed's first appearance. That's not the case here, and Maud never does anything to make us not like her. Quite the contrary in fact. It's shown throughout that she cares a great deal for her sister and appreciates everything she does for her, even though she may not have the same likes as her. This character really endeared herself to me and I hope we see more of her in future.
When it comes to the humour of the episode, this week's jokes, as you'd expect, centre around Pinkie Pie. Although there were several instances where she came close to "Filli Vanilli" levels of over-enthusiasm, she thankfully never got there. Her hyper moments were about as funny as they usually are, but apart from that there wasn't anything about her moments that were funnier than they normally are. However, what I found particularly amusing were Maud's interactions with the rest of the cast. Seeing her deadpan reaction to everything they did, and the awkward silences which followed, was just funny to me, even thought it was clearly meant to be deliberately unfunny. Not sure if that makes sense or not.
Onto songs now and this week there isn't one, which is a shame given how often Pinkie's episodes have them.
Time to discuss the moral of the episode and this week it seems to be yet another lesson that isn't stated outright in any journal entry and is thus left up to interpretation. As far as I can tell, the moral is that even though you may appreciate your friends, those connections aren't always going to be shared by others, and that you shouldn't force people to be friends when they don't really connect. This is an interesting lesson to teach as this show usually does everything in it's power to encourage making friends as much as it can. Nevertheless, I appreciated the lesson and I found it to be a very realistic one for children to learn, as we all know that, in real life, not everyone can make friends as easily as others.
So, how did the episode fare overall? I actually find myself rather torn on this one. While I liked the guest character and many of the inter-character moments of the episode, I can't really say that the episode was anything special either. It's not a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination, and many of it's elements, like Pinkie's ever-present enthusiasm, or a few jokes here and there, definitely make it one I'd recommend watching. But in terms of it's ranking in the episodes we've had so far this season, while I would probably count it among the good ones, it can't bring myself to consider it one of the great ones.
The premise of this episode is that Pinkie Pie's sister, Maud, comes to visit, and is unlike what the other girls were expecting.
As you can probably tell from that brief premise, this is a Pinkie-centric episode, and for that, I couldn't be happier. As I've said in previous reviews, with the exception of "Filli Vanilli", Pinkie has been one of this season's most consistently entertaining elements, and her focus episodes have been a real treat for me. On top of that, we have her in a situation that I've been hoping the show would explore for some time, her relationship to her family. So regardless of anything else, the basic setup of the episode is one that has me smiling.
Pinkie's family, as I said, has been something I've wanted to know more about ever since the show's first season. Back then, when her backstory was revealed to us, we were shown an entire family that has never had a chance to shine. Given Pinkie's nature, I'd always assumed that her story might not have been exactly as she told us, that her growing up on a rock farm was just a metaphor for an otherwise unhappy childhood. But, with her father's cameo in "Magic Duel" last season, that theory was blown out of the water, ad now we have actual confirmation of Pinkie having such family out there.
Something I'm sure many fans will be disappointed with in this episode is something that, to me, is not something really worth getting angry over, and that's the name of Pinkie's sister, Maud. Ever since Pinkie's sisters first made an appearance back in "Cutie Mark Chronicles", many fans have saddled them (no pun intended) with the names of "Inkie and Blinkie Pie", in much the same way that Derpy was given her name. As such, the fact that Pinkie's sister did not keep that name for this episode is bound to get on some fans' bad sides. I've said before that while this show has taken many nods from it's fans, final say on stories like this will be the full territory of the writers, and I'm willing to go with those little choices. I know some fans will disagree, but to me, having her name not be what we wanted it to be is nowhere near enough reason to criticise the episode.
Pinkie is the real heart of this episode for me and it's clear right from the start that she is truly in love with the idea of her sister and friends getting along. I can appreciate this position as I'm sure many of us have wanted our friends and family to be on good terms with one another, so the episode has a good emotional and character centre to it. Nothing much really happens in terms of the goings on and the episode is really more of a slice of life story, just a series of day-to-day stuff that people just go through. I have no issue with this as not every episode has to be some big adventure, and to it's credit it did allow for some good character moments, both with Pinkie and the rest of the cast.
As this episode heavily features a new character, let's talk about Maud for a bit. Despite the fact that she's clearly designed to be a character we're uninterested in, I found myself rather liking her. Her attitude stood in stark contrast to the more emotional behaviour of other characters that we're used to, but even so she never came off as a bad person. In past episodes, where old friends or some relation come to visit, things have often turned out pretty bad, like with Gilda back in season one, or with Babs Seed's first appearance. That's not the case here, and Maud never does anything to make us not like her. Quite the contrary in fact. It's shown throughout that she cares a great deal for her sister and appreciates everything she does for her, even though she may not have the same likes as her. This character really endeared herself to me and I hope we see more of her in future.
When it comes to the humour of the episode, this week's jokes, as you'd expect, centre around Pinkie Pie. Although there were several instances where she came close to "Filli Vanilli" levels of over-enthusiasm, she thankfully never got there. Her hyper moments were about as funny as they usually are, but apart from that there wasn't anything about her moments that were funnier than they normally are. However, what I found particularly amusing were Maud's interactions with the rest of the cast. Seeing her deadpan reaction to everything they did, and the awkward silences which followed, was just funny to me, even thought it was clearly meant to be deliberately unfunny. Not sure if that makes sense or not.
Onto songs now and this week there isn't one, which is a shame given how often Pinkie's episodes have them.
Time to discuss the moral of the episode and this week it seems to be yet another lesson that isn't stated outright in any journal entry and is thus left up to interpretation. As far as I can tell, the moral is that even though you may appreciate your friends, those connections aren't always going to be shared by others, and that you shouldn't force people to be friends when they don't really connect. This is an interesting lesson to teach as this show usually does everything in it's power to encourage making friends as much as it can. Nevertheless, I appreciated the lesson and I found it to be a very realistic one for children to learn, as we all know that, in real life, not everyone can make friends as easily as others.
So, how did the episode fare overall? I actually find myself rather torn on this one. While I liked the guest character and many of the inter-character moments of the episode, I can't really say that the episode was anything special either. It's not a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination, and many of it's elements, like Pinkie's ever-present enthusiasm, or a few jokes here and there, definitely make it one I'd recommend watching. But in terms of it's ranking in the episodes we've had so far this season, while I would probably count it among the good ones, it can't bring myself to consider it one of the great ones.
