More than one reviewer has spelt the last name of this episode's title "Smokey", so I had to go back and check! I go by the on-screen title in the ep itself, and that's definitely "Smoky", so I'm sticking with that from here on in. :P Last week's "Frenemies" was overwhelmingly (though not quite universally) praised, which made it a bit of a hard act to follow for Kim Beyer-Johnson, especially given her rather disastrous debut episode of FiM. Most felt she'd improved drastically on that.
The
reviewers were a little more mixed in their assessments of this episode than they were last week. Although most came out on the positive side of neutral, most also had at least one significant criticism. Fluttershy got really good press, though! You'll note that some of the quote sections are quite a bit longer than usual – there were just too many reviews where cutting the summary down to a line or two was nearly impossible! I'll try to get back to my usual succinctness next week.
Cuddlepug
– negative (graded D; "a mean-spirited episode of Friendship is Magic that makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience [...] seeing bullies get away with shitty behaviour with very little punishment until the absolute end of the script isn't my idea of a good time.")
Dark Qiviut
– broadly positive ("This episode has rough edges. There were areas that could've definitely been improved on, one of them making [the side dragons] less half-dimensional. [However c]haracters remained in character. Beyer-Johnson expands dragon lore more. [Spike,] Fluttershy, and Smolder share great moments, and Garble reforms.")
DrakeyC
– positive with one big exception ("the individual components of this episode are all great [...] But... Garble. I wanna care about this redemption, I really do. But, I don't. And the reason is it isn't earned. [...] It was so satisfying to see Smolder and Fluttershy put him in his place at last.")
Dramamaster829
– mildly positive ("Because of all the cute and comedic moments that were displayed
throughout the episode, I can forgive some of the episode’s own faults
and abrupt choice of an ending so in a way I still had fun.")
JDPrime22
– broadly positive (rated 8/10; "Gotta say, the whole bullying Spike thing has really gotten old [but] mama Fluttershy really did steal the show (and Ember trying to imitate her was hilarious) [...] I thought the redemption was okay. At least it closes Garble's arc after so many damn seasons")
Lightening McQueen
– positive ("It was great to see Ember again [...] Spike was great as well [...] The moral was pretty good too, being about how differences should be something to be proud of.")
Louder Yay
– fairly positive (rated 3/5; "excellent to see Dragon Lord Ember again [...] Fluttershy [...] displayed a winning combination of adorableness and assertiveness [but] I was not especially impressed [with Garble, and t]he side-character dragons were pretty boring")
Mike Cartoon Pony
– mixed ("vastly superior to Non-Compete Clause [though] far from great [...] I'm probably one of five people that doesn't detest or at least dislike Garble [...] Alas, this episode's attempt to craft a "redemption story" around him doesn't deliver [...] a shame, because otherwise, this one had a lot going for it.
The characterisation of the 4 other main characters is quite unusually
good")
MLEEP Reviews
– mixed (rated 7.5/10; "Pros: Fluttershy [but the] ending felt like a seriously schmaltzy deus ex machina [...] never been a fan of Garble [...] an alright middle-of-the-road episode")
Present Perfect – very positive ("This was fantastic. [The ending was] was maybe the most surreal this show has ever been. [...] a good turn for Smolder, it’s always a joy seeing Ember, and Fluttershy was in top fucking form. [...] This was funny, it was clever, and it gave us a ton of Dragon Lands world-building.")
The Railfan Brony – fairly positive (rated Good; "Garble was very much one of the last characters I even considered redemption worthy. And yet... it works. [...] Even nicer was Fluttershy calling [Garble] out for being a bully to Spike for all those years [...] story and moral are pretty humdrum, but fortunately, the execution of both and the character moments pull through")
TheDragonWarlock – fairly positive (rated 7.5/10; "The ideas for this episode sound fantastic and I generally was very interested in this episode [but n]othing really gets explained much about what happens once the baby dragons are hatched [and] as far as [a] face turn goes, [Garble's] is probably the weakest one I've seen yet [...] it's really Spike and Fluttershy who are the main characters")
Uh.
ReplyDeleteA better reception than I expected I must say.
About where I thought it would be. Garble isn't popular, but Fluttershy, Smolder, Spike and Ember are. So it kind of balanced out to a little on the positive side of neutral. Maybe there was also a bit of pleasure at K B-J writing something so much better than bloody "Non-Compete Clause".
DeleteIronically enough, this episode removed KBJ from my "blacklist of writers". I mean writers who only did eps that I strongly disliked. With Kim removed, there are actually only two writers left on the list: Chris Savino (Boast busters and Stare Master) and Neal Dusedau (Princess Spike and What About Discord).
DeleteChris Savino? Given he hasn't written for the show since S1 (and is very unlikely to return, given more recent events) I'm a bit surprised you even think about him in 2019! (FWIW, I quite like "Stare Master".)
DeleteWell he wrote the only Twilight episode I ever disliked until What About Discord (kind courtesy of the other writer in my blacklist, lol) happened and mistreated her terribly in Stare Master (Petrified Twilight was the second worst moment of the series for me) not mentioning how annoying he made the CMCs.
DeleteIf I think about it, I reserve grudge toward both Savino and Dusedau for how terribly they treated Twilight in their episodes. I might sound biased, but Twilight IS my favorite FiM character and I just hate when writers handles her badly (on that regard I reserve some grudge on Dubuc as well for how she handled her in Marks for Effort and Uprooted, and yet she claims to love the character...).
I guess you might be biased on Stare Master as well since at least Fluttershy was great in that one. Bias is in human nature, I guess nothing can be done about it. ^^"
How was Twilight treated badly in Stare Master? She just got caught by surprise and turned to stone. It's not like that's a contradiction to her character or people unfairly ganging up on her. She was simply a victim of circumstance.
DeleteHonestly that was just cruel from the part of the writer. He was really unfair on her. I hated that episode for that.
DeleteInterestingly (or not), Savino's union suspension is actually up as of midnight last night, so he could theoretically have returned if there was a season 10 for him to work on, although he's still very much persona non grata.
DeleteA great roundup, as ever. When last I looked, Non-Compete Clause was the lowest ranked episode in FiM history on IMDB, so practically anything would have been an improvement, but I think I agree with the overall consensus here.
But you're still not answering the question. How is that so cruel to her? How is it more cruel than Elizabeak getting turned to stone, or Fluttershy beginning to? You're just rattling off that mantra as if I'm supposed to believe in it from face value only. You're not justifying it.
DeleteLet me put it in another way: what would have been changed to the plot if Pretrified Twilight didn't happen? NOTHING. He could have petrified something else, like only Fluttershy's chicken, and NOTHING would have changed. Petrifying Twilight in that one was cruel from the part of the writer and completely pointless from the story's point of view. Stare Master as of today is my second most hated episode of the series. And after recent events happened with Savino I had the concrete evidence that he was a mean person inside (who saw the recent thing happened with him during the production of The Loud house knows what I'm talking about). Don't you even dare to tell me that I would be the one in the wrong here, or I'll mark you as a Twilight hater.
Delete@Anonymous: That last sentence is out of order. Cut it out, please.
DeleteWhat would have changed if the chicken hadn't been petrified? Nothing. Yet I don't see you complaining that it was treated cruelly.
DeleteAlso: is it bad to expect (and admittedly wish) a redemption for Lightning Dust as well? She's IMO the only recurring "minor" antagonist left who deserves a redemption. And with the developments happened in eps 12 and 13 (I won't spoil anything, but who saw the early releases knows what I'm talking about), not counting a satisfying ending for the Mane 6 and a conclusion for the villains (which are gonna covered in the season regardless), a redemption for LD is the only thing left in my wishlist of things I want to see before the end of the series, altogether with Discord's origin story. I'm not counting too much on it happening, but hope is the last thing to die.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those episodes where seeing others' reactions to it has cooled my enthusiasm, though I don't think I'll enjoy it less.
DeleteAlso, c'mon, Cuddlepug, bullying has been okay in MLPFiM since the Pharynx episode, didn't you know? :V
While I don't about the other reviews, I can certainly see how mine was difficult to pare down to a succinct blurb; hence it's understandable why it came with a Mixed tag when I feel far more like Mildly Positive - for comparison, I'd put this episode around the same level as The Point of No Return. But as always, that's neither here nor there - the review can always speak for itself. Death of the author and all that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this sounds about right for this episode's reception, I reckon. It certainly proves why its good that you don't simply categorise these reviews as "positive" or "negative". Given both this and "Frenemies" last week had only one negative review, such a simplification would make it seem like the episodes were considered at the same quality level! It would be the Rotten Tomatoes effect, in essence; simply stating how many people liked or didn't like an episode gives very little of the overall picture. So, its good you do more then that, Logan. Not that that needs reaffirming, of course.
Yeah, it's often difficult to decide that part of the roundup. I suppose if I had more space, I'd have said something like "Fairly positive on the whole, but with a large reservation about Garble" -- but then it would be on the road to getting as long as the review extracts themselves!
DeleteAnd thanks! As you point out, "wildly positive" and "mildly positive" are not at all the same, despite only being one letter different. I think it's important to appreciate that.
The ratings are pretty decent with only one below average score, Kim definitely redeem herself by this ep. ;)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think pretty much everyone* is agreed that this episode was vastly better than "Non-Compete Clause". But then if it hadn't been it would have been an absolute disaster.
Delete* Except perhaps Cuddlepug, but you can never quite tell with them.
As I've said before, Non-Compete Clause wasn't (to me) *quite* so terrible as I remembered on rewatching it a couple of weeks ago; partly that might be because I was bracing myself for awfulness, but mostly I believe it's because the time spent with the Student Six feels less wasted now that we know them better. I think, given the evidence of Sweet and Smoky, that maybe its weaknesses are more to do with a duff concept and outline than bad writing per se. ('More', not 'entirely', it's still one of the weakest episodes in the second hundred!) Also, the bit where Pinkie points out how stupid the whole concept is was funny then and it's funnier now, especially if you give it a meta twist as a comment on the flimsy premise of the episode itself...
Delete