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| "You really wouldn't like to be a tree, whatever Professor Fluttershy says." |
S8E22: "What Lies Beneath"
22 Sep 2018My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.3
The one with plumbing diagramsThoughts: Not everyone agrees with me on this, but I generally find Mike Vogel to be among the most reliable writers of the later seasons of Friendship is Magic. He largely hits the mark again with "What Lies Beneath", an episode which was extremely popular at the time and which prompted a lot of discussion at the time and probably only faded a bit because of its misfortune in being immediately followed by "Sounds of Silence" and the fandom's kirin obsession. "What Lies Beneath" shows us that the Tree of Harmony is a complete sociopath very powerful indeed, scarily so really. As has often been noted, Smolder faces the terror of being cute at tea parties, while Gallus faces the terror of being crushed to death by rocks. Silverstream and Ocellus's past traumas are more directly addressed than ever before (or since) – though "tell[ing] him exactly what you think of him" prooobably wouldn't defeat the real Storm King. Yona is cute as ever and commands a mighty spider army. Sandbar... well, he's a bit dense, but quite appealing anyway. Cozy Glow's manipulative behaviour is considerably creepier from a post-S9 viewpoint. The (other) students support each other, and that I was very pleased with. In 2018, I thought this was four/five-star boundary. I no longer think it's that good, but it's still highly watchable, even if the Tree is weird. (Mind you, it's not a pony, so why should it think like one...?) Take a star off and it becomes a top-end three, but I'm going to creep it over the line to a low-end four. The students' character moments, their care and compassion for each other, is what does that.
Choice quote: Cozy Glow, to the non-pony students: "Golly, it's so inspiring how relaxed you all are about studying friendship, considering your disadvantage." [Creepy in 2018. Even more so in 2025.]
New rating:★★★★
Next time, it is of course "Sounds of Silence". I am not someone who thinks kirin are the greatest things since sliced bread, so don't expect me to rave on and give it an easy five-star rating. It does have a reasonable amount of Fluttershy in it, however, which is rarely a bad thing. We shall see!
The tree was being rather cruel here, but it did give the students a way to have their personalities shine in a way they hadn't before. I was never too much of a fan of them, but this may be my favorite episode that focused on them. My main objection is how Smolder (I think she did this in at least one other episode as well) characterized her desires here as "silly stuff." I get why they didn't want to call it "girly" or some such, but the word they did choose seemed both inaccurate and implying it's of lesser value than other attitudes, which rankled me a bit.
ReplyDeleteProbably the only halfway-decent episode to come from Mike Vogel, mostly because the majority of the characters involved hadn't been around since day one (although the Tree of Harmony is debatable...). But also because it's hard to go wrong with the Young Six, in which this episode seems to set them up as the next bearers of the Elements of Harmony. I would gladly have taken that over Twilight freaking out over a trivia competition that no one cared about or... well, pretty much the majority of filler episodes that plagued the next (and final) season.
ReplyDeleteThe only real issue I have is Cozy Glow; her villainy is so blatant and obvious that it kills any tension the finale may have had, but then again, subtlety isn't one of Vogel's greatest strengths either. But that's a nitpick to an otherwise good watch.
coming into this, I was thinking it was just a "set up stuff for later" episode, but I actually forgot it finally gave the Student Six actual characters, that was a nice addition
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