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S3E09: "Spike At Your Service"
Written by Dave Polsky
29 Dec 2012
My original rating: 6/10 (=★★★)
IMDb score: 6.3
The one with 24,567,837 blades of grass
Thoughts: This episode has long been considered a bit of a mess by most of the fandom. And, well, they're right. It is. I mean, it does have its moments: Rainbow Dash's self-insert fanfic is one of my favourite moments of the entirety of S3. Fluttershy also has quite a good episode: right at the start, we see her walking Winona, and later there's her mild sassiness ("If she needed help, I think she'd realise it") and her adorable part in the fake timberwolf setup. Rarity was fun in her all-too-brief "how to be a damsel in distress" masterclass, too. Talking of timberwolves, the real ones are really quite interesting monsters (and variously animated) and they could perhaps have been used a little more in future eps. On the downside, though... Spike's "Dragon Code" both comes from and goes to pretty much nowhere. It stretches credulity to think Twilight wouldn't even notice Spike saying he was off forever. Also, the central story itself feels like a subplot stretched (somewhat thinly) to main plot status. Considering the actual risk to life we see more than once, it's surprisingly emotionally uninvolving for the most part, too. But the worst thing about this episode is the way it treats Spike. He's shown as frankly a bit of a fool. Whatever faults he may have, he really is not that. This wouldn't be my pick as worst episode of FiM, far from it. But it's not a particularly good effort, not even by S3 standards. My review in 2013 was a little too generous; two stars it is now, then.
Choice quote: Spike (to Rarity, natch) : "You even look good when you're chewing!"
New rating: ★★
Next up is "Keep Calm and Flutter On", a considerably more significant episode in retrospect than was immediately apparent at the time. Also an ep that divides opinion to this day.
For a change, we're in complete agreement. A pretty lame episode that's mostly made watchable by the little gags and touches around it than by the central plot, which is a disservice to Spike.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, a Dragon Code is a surprisingly apt thing for Spike to adopt. Not the nonsense about a random life debt (how many times has Twilight saved him before now?), but the idea that Spike has a chivalric side and a keen enough moral sense to follow his own self-generated ethical guidelines to the letter, if a bit zealously. It fits with Spike's knight fantasy in "A Dog and Pony Show" and sheds a more interesting, gallant, even sweet light on his precocious crush with Rarity. Plus, the idea of a dragon having a knight's outlook is a twisted but fitting idea.
It's just wasted on an episode that has to inexplicably turn him into a bumbling buffoon to get its cheap comedy. Or that thinks he's too dumb to occupy himself beyond using his stomach as a bongo drum.
And it's complete nonsense at this point in canon to attribute his "Code" to dragons in general. What, the red and green dragons from Season One and the teenage gang from Season Two are secretly knights in shining armour? In a world where next to nothing is known about dragons? Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.
Also, setting aside the CGI timberwolves (the design and concept of the Timberwolf King are both great additions, though), what's with the deceptive stunt at the end? I don't get episodes where the Main Six or someone else figure the best way to solve a problem is to stage a massive deception, unless it's someone like Rarity whose character is explicitly prone to twisting the truth. But all the Main Six coming together to trick Spike into leaving Applejack alone feels immature, just like it felt immature in "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well".
Back to positives, though, I quite like how Applejack and Spike interacted in this episode, especially Applejack's casual breeziness (at first) and growing discomfort (after a while). It's a team-up I wouldn't ordinarily consider, but the effort to do things differently is appreciated. And as anti-climactic as it is, the Timberwolf King's demise was pretty funny for how... off it was.
Overall, not the worst episode of this season, but a pretty weak effort that squanders what few good points it has.
What, the red and green dragons from Season One and the teenage gang from Season Two are secretly knights in shining armour? In a world where next to nothing is known about dragons?
DeleteI actually have a counterpoint! Think about it this way:
Spike is very frequently shown to consider himself a pony, but at the end of the day, he's still a dragon. And at this point, all the other dragons he's ever met have been monsters, brutes, negative examples of what "being a dragon" means.
The Dragon Code is Spike trying to reclaim his dragonness as something positive. Because he can't not be a dragon, he wants to have something -- like a silly crayon drawing on an index card -- to show ponies that he's a good dragon, and not a horrible monster.
I really wish now that they had explored this angle with this episode, because I just now thought of it and it's really sad. :( This could have been a direct followup to Dragon Quest, and a chance to expand Spike's character rather than make him look like a dingus.
That part's fine, but I was actually referring to the part where Twilight says "...this is dragon code we're talking about. Surely you know how important the dragon code is to a dragon!"
DeleteLike it's common knowledge dragons are ethical sticklers. In this fictional universe, of all places.
I can only interpret that as displaced motherly affection. :B
DeleteBut yeah, the Dragon Code doesn't make any fucking sense.
Given that both "Dragon Quest" and "Spike at Your Service" are by Meriwether Williams I think it makes perfect sense for Spike's dragon code to be a reaction against the dragons he met in that episode.
DeleteThis would of course have required Meriwether Williams to be a competent writer of ponies.
DeleteAlso, I'm skipping the next episode again, for three BIG reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I don't think the show's competent at handling villain/antagonist redemptions (to say nothing of the sheer number that it tries), because in some cases it's trying to build a bridge a hundred miles long. In this case, trying to redeem something as nasty as Discord only works by either retroactively neutering his threat level or pretending/failing to pretend he isn't as bad as he really is. Somehow, this episode manages both: Discord from this point on is not the Master of Chaos and Disharmony: he's basically a petty imp with extra powers.
Secondly, it certainly shouldn't be pushing a martyrdom-esque "I can change him by letting him do what he wants" message at the same time. Do I need to explain why that's a fantastically dangerous idea to trot out? Fluttershy's getting stern at the end doesn't counter the fact that she gambles the entire safety of her nation on this "martyr to Discord" stunt.
And thirdly, trying to cover its backside there by shilling friendship as "just that brute-force strong that even skeptics are turned on mere contact with it" rather than actually focusing on specialized aspects of it that make it so wonderful. It is precisely the sort of crude blunt-force approach to didactic storytelling that doesn't endear me to an episode's purpose at all.
This isn't even one of the worst episodes in the show's run. It's just the weird combination of "not exactly entertaining" and "ultimately completely pointless" that makes it such a drag.
ReplyDeleteOh indeed, there's certainly worse to come, especially in the last few seasons. (If a certain S8 episode doesn't get one star, I shall be very surprised...)
DeletePolsky demonstrates again that he has absolutely no respect for the established personalities of the characters or continuity. Throwing it all out of the window for the sake of a cheap gag is pretty much his hallmark.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I've seen this episode more than once or twice. It just has zero appeal to me. I don't hate it, but I just feel completely blah about it. It's so far out of my memory that I don't even recall the high points you mention, though they should be right up my alley as things I would also enjoy. All I remember is the stupid setup for the fake rescue that turns into an actual rescue.
ReplyDelete