Monday 16 September 2019

Episode review: S9E20: "A Horse Shoe-In"

"I'm still winking, Starlight, even if you can't see me. WINK."
Slowly, inexorably, Friendship is Magic moves closer to the end. We're now into the 20s in terms of S9 episode numbers, but rather to my surprise we got a brand new writer. I knew nothing at all about Ariel Shepherd-Oppenheim, but of course I was hoping she'd hit the ground running and give us a good 22 minutes. After all, the odds were that it would be her only FiM credit. You know how it goes: join me past the cut for some episode-related rambling!

I think she did a pretty good job, all things considered, and quite frankly she did better than one or two much more experienced FiM writers have managed this season. While "A Horse Shoe-In" fell short of perfection, it got a lot more right than wrong and to my mind was the most entertaining episode of Season 9B so far. It didn't hurt that the show's reliably great double act, Starlight and Trixie, were the principals this time around.

Which reminds me that this episode had shades of last year's "A Matter of Principles", though I think this one was better. In S8, the plot revolved around the choice of Head Mare for the School of Friendship; this time, it was the Vice-Head Mare position that was up for grabs. This job title did lead to one slightly weird moment late on, when Big Mac stood down from consideration. We've had the title "Head Stallion" used in the past, so surely Mac would have used a relevant title? Oh well, minor issue.

"And this is where I add character regression!"
I was a bit concerned at the beginning that Starlight's talks to Phyllis would mean an episode where she'd go completely off the rails. Happily, I was wrong, and it was the conflict between doing the right thing and pleasing a friend that took centre stage. Starlight certainly learned a friendship lesson – but this one was also a leadership lesson, and once Twilight is out of Ponyville I suspect that it may be Glimmy who takes on the role of the town's moral guardian. Quite a rise from where she once was.

The cast of secondary characters vying for the VHM job was interesting, though the idea of Spoiled Rich taking any interest did stretch credulity just a tad. It was nice to see Dr. Hooves named in-show for the first time, and Octavia demonstrated that she has some interesting depths to her character. Big Mac wasn't quite allowed the range he's occasionally shown in the past, which was a pity. Which of course left Trixie and her winking certainty that she was the one for the job.

This leads me on to the episode's only significant false step: when we saw Trixie taking a class, I was very pleased to hear S1's Froggy Bottom Bogg name-checked... but I simply couldn't believe that Trixie would be capable of the spell she cast to bring part of it into the classroom. We've never seen any indication that ordinary unicorns can do anything remotely similar; even Starlight Glimmer couldn't quite clear up the mess and had to wait for a certain lavender alicorn to do the honours.

Your heart absolutely breaks for poor Gallus in this scene
Moving on, perhaps the most emotional moment in the episode was Gallus's unhappy appearance at the parents' evening. Although the point wasn't explicitly addressed, we know from "The Hearth's Warming Club" that the griffon's early life was pretty miserable and that he never had a loving family. Trixie was therefore being cavalier to say the least in the things she said to Grampa Gruff right in front of Gallus. To me, that alone proved Trixie was not VHM material.

I liked the resolution of this episode. Although it was a slight shame that there was no setup for it, Sunburst's appearance and acceptance of the deputy's role did seem fitting. (This time, the script carefully avoided the question of his actual job title!) Trixie as School Counsellor came a little out of the blue, and I do think she'll need a bit of coaching to learn how to handle the quieter, more sensitive students such as Ocellus, but I can see what Starlight is getting at there.

Add to that some amusing little touches, such as Octavia's unexpectedly unorthodox musical performances and Trixie backing down from the desk after her smoke bomb, not to mention Phyllis of course, and "A Horse Shoe-In" was an episode that did pretty well for itself. If only Shepherd-Oppenheim had come on board earlier, I'd have said I'd be happy to see her write for the show again. G5, perhaps? Whether that happens or not, this was an entertaining and interesting episode that I think will bear rewatching.

Phyllis is clearly a spy for Trixie. She's an obvious plant

Best line: Trixie, passim: "Wink!"
Best moment: Octavia and Vinyl's performance
Worst moment: Trixie's unlikely teleportation

Yays
  • Interesting, mostly satisfying story from a new writer
  • Lots of entertaining bits around the edges
  • Nice insight into a couple of the secondary cast members
Neighs
  • Trixie's powers of teleportation weren't believable
  • A slight shame Sunburst's appearance came out of nowhere

9 comments:

  1. A highly enjoyable episode in my opinion and probably the second best episode of the second half of the season. And even if Trixie was a pain in the rump, the chemistry between her and Starlight is always fun to watch. This gets a 8/10 from me oh and by the way Phyllis is best plant!

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    1. It's amazing how well the StarTrix duo get on. I used to dislike Trixie quite strongly, but ever since S6 my opinion has really turned around.

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  2. For me, this episode in general was one of the most realistic approaches to a real-life scenario (At least 'partially'). For Starlight Glimmer, this was more than just a friendship lesson but having to learn true leadership when it comes to determining what's best for the school and what's best for her relationship with others. It's been hinted that Starlight Glimmer would take over the school during the Season 9 premier, maybe earlier, and it seemed if Twilight could work better with her friends then maybe Starlight would do the same thing. Only to realize that not 'all' of her friends are qualified for a position, while we can say Trixie was being a bit obnoxious as usual Starlight put herself in the mess by keeping her along.

    Still, the episode was enjoyable with it's bits of comedic timing. It was nice to see some of the side characters get their chance to shine (Even though Sunburst came in rather late even though we figured he'd have a role in Starlight's business). Course I figured there's no way Spoiled Rich would get the job, whereas for everyone else, if not for certain flaws (Like how Big Mac was portrayed) it was an understandable concern that the position of Vice Headmare would keep them from the things they enjoy (Sure, let the Mane Six worry about that when they agreed to be teachers). Still, the chemistry between Trixie and Starlight was fun to watch even though Trixie did nearly endanger the students by accidentally summoning those bees from Season 7. Though to be fair, the fact that Trixie 'did' stand-up to Grandpa Gruff for Gallus while a little overboard I will admit it's admirable even if she doesn't know Gallus' situation. As a student counselor, Trixie would definitely need both practice and some measure of restraint but at least she'd have a better time with that job than as vice headmare.

    Overall, I'm glad with how this episode turned out overall. While I did admit that going in I wasn't so sure how this episode would turn out, especially with a new writer on board, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome we received. I'd say this would be considered a guilty pleasure episode for me especially for folks who can relate to the situation Starlight and Trixie are involved in. You know what they say? Any form of relationship in the workplace is never easy to manage and often times 'can' lead to unwanted trouble. I should know.

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    1. Yeah, I think this is one of those episodes that may resonate with older viewers more than it does with kids, precisely because most of us have been in such a position and most kids haven't yet done so.

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  3. "She's an obvious plant" goddammit >.<

    Talking about the writer, she's not just new to the show, she's new period. This is her fourth writing credit ever on iMDB, in a career that stretches back to 2015 and a short she also directed. Like, wow, how do you end up on a show like this and pumping out an episode this good?

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    1. *bows*

      I wish I knew what she did before TV writing. She can't have come into this (almost) entirely cold, surely.

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    2. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Connections is my bet.

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    3. This is why IMDb isn't always reliable, my friend. She also wrote a single episode for the Disney Junior cartoon Vampirina, which aired back in June. The reason it's not there is that shows aimed at little kids with almost no adult appeal like that naturally are very sporadic when it comes to data being updated on places like IMDb when it comes to individual episode credits. The show itself's a not half-bad show for little kids that, while largely devoid of any adult appeal, nonetheless has little to be embarrassed about in entertaining the 8-and-under set (it’s also produced in Ireland by local animation studio Brown Bag Films, so, you know, I always root for the home troops a bit).

      Given the lead times FiM's scripts have been employing the last year or so, she would have wrote this episode and the Vampirina one around the same time, the latter ahead by no more then two months (if indeed it came first at all). So, I can't say with certainty that the Vampirina gig led to her getting this (though given Nicole Dubuc jumped ship from being story editor for a gig at Disney after episode 13, it's certainly possible she bumped into Shepherd-Oppenheim over there, and liked her Vampirina script enough to recommend her back to Josh Haber who was story editing solo again for the last baker's dozen worth of episodes). Course, that still leaves the question of how she wrote for Vampirina with almost no other relevant credits, but hey, Hollywood's full of uncredited work that can nonetheless still be proven enough to land you a gig.
      That said, she did wrote something for a show called Llama Llama in 2018 I haven't heard of otherwise, so however she got that, maybe it led to Vampirina which led to MLP. Eh, stranger things have happened.

      For sure, though, her debut here was far preferable to when they hired Gail Simone to go crazy 7 episodes back.

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  4. This was a really fun episode. MLP often makes me grin and chuckle, but the "Phyllis, noooooo...!" line got a big laugh out loud from me. Trixie's general cluelessness is always a joy.

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