This post was created on Saturday, April 23rd, 2016. Today, there was no new episode of season six aired today. But that's okay, because I can't still make do with a whole bunch of other episodes to form an episode post out of. I could have chose The Crystalling, which is an episode of season sic that aired before the idea of episode posts came to my head. I could have chose Amending Fences, which I could endlessly praise as my favorite episode as the show. I could have even chosen Double Rainboom if I wanted to.
Instead here's What About Discord.
We begin with Twilight taking time to herself to sort some books. Some might say it's adorkable, some might say it's an annoying attempt to keep Twilight in-character. I don't think there's any harm in Twilight taking three days to herself to do something she wants.
Why would there possibly be anything wrong with that???
And after the theme plays, we get this scene. Interestingly, this is probably the first time in the series where Rainbow Dash doesn't act like Discord murdered her family. Instead, she's having some friendly jokes with him. They crack some admittedly cheesy but okay-in-small-doses one-liners that I'm sure won't be a big problem as long as they don't repeat them constantly throughout the course of the episode.
Twilight doesn't really understand the jokes, and Rainbow Dash explains that it's an "inside joke" from the weekend. She says to Twilight, "You wouldn't really get it unless you were there."
So yeah, Rainbow Dash leaves and says Twilight she'll catch her later. Discord is about to leave to, but before he does, he delivers the line, "Catch you later, Twilight." And when he says Twilight, he says it in a very snarky tone of voice, along with this face. This basically gives away the entire tone of the episode and removes all hope from anybody hoping for an episode where Discord is a genuinely nice friend.
Twilight leaves and goes to Rarity's place to pick up some books. Of course, Discord drops in with Fluttershy and they make some more jokes. They're not funny, but they're different from the ones he made with Rainbow Dash, so they aren't grating. On the contrary, where's the harm in seeing some ponies having a nice laugh?
In the picture, you can see Twilight and Spike as confused as the audience is- wondering why this is all so funny. I mean, to be fair, the audience had to be there with Discord and the rest of the gang to understand the jokes.
Twilight asks Discord what's so funny about the jokes and he makes a Bob Ross reference. If you don't know who Bob Ross was, then you need to check him out. He was an amazing artist. You could watch that guy paint for dozens of minutes on end.
A lot of people collectively agree that this reference is one of the only good things to come out of the episode. The scene ends with Discord saying that he can't do the joke justice and telling Twilight that she "really had to be there" with them on the weekend.
And of course, Discord is also with Pinkie Pie and Applejack when Twilight goes to visit them. And they make another corny joke and basically repeat the same scene from before.
I heard from a not-so-credible source that the episode's writer turned in the script and then had the script handed back to him with a note that said, "Moral or gtfo."
So now it turns out Twilight's jealous of all of her friends' fun. This is a bit off for Twilight; she's not really the type that gets jealous. Additionally, we've had a lot of morals dealing with jealousy at this point. That's not to say learning the same moral again is bad, but in this episode's case, it's quite hammered in.
Spike is blood thirsty to prove Twilight's jealous. Just look at this picture of him accusing her of feeling just that. Twilight goes into denial and somehow, someway, she decides she has to get her friends to waste their time recreating the entire weekend she missed out on.
So we slaughter a few minutes having Twilight's friends and Discord recreate the entire experience spawning all of these corny jokes. Of course, no matter how accurate they make it, Twilight still doesn't understand the jokes. She asks if anybody can think of any variables that are keeping her from understanding.
I have a factor! I think it's the factor of Twilight being ridiculous right now!!
But Discord says that it's Twilight. More accurately,
"You weren't there observing us. No matter how hard we try we can't possibly recreate our weekend of fun exactly as it happened- because you'll always be watching. And you weren't there."
Which I guess is true...
So that scene was a waste of time. But here, we can see Discord making a shit-eating face as he walks away from Twilight. Because in case you forgot, he's just being a jerk to Twilight for no reason.
Twilight ends up deciding that Discord has put her friends under some kind of spell. To be fair, that would be a logical explanation to how they would find all of the jokes, which are- of course- repeatedly used in the episode, to be funny.
Twilight's friends pounce on her and join the bandwagon on with Spike telling her to admit she's jealous. Discord shows up right when Twilight breaks down and admits that she is, indeed, jealous that she missed out on so much fun. As fun as running from a hose-stick-snake at the "Applejack Farm" can be.
Discord then openly admits he encouraged everybody not to invite Twilight and says he enjoyed emotionally tormenting her. He also pins it on trying to teach Twilight a lesson about friendship. Again.
The face Twilight makes here is basically the face a lot of audience members made in this scene. The episode ends with Discord getting some karma and then everybody making up, but I think I'll end it here.
The episode excels in the unimportant stuff. A few jokes hit their mark- none of the corny in-jokes between Discord and Twilight's friends, mind you- and the animation team probably had some fun with this episode.
Unfortunately, it suffers from bashing us in the head with its poorly executed moral and once again features Discord being an awful friend. For reasons like this, one person online has described Discord recurring on the show as a result of John de Lancie having to pay the rent.
I don't think anybody really holds this one as their particular favorite, but perhaps we should've given it a chance.
After all, we really had to be there.
No comments:
Post a Comment