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| Walls have ears, rocks have eyes |
16 Apr 2016
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.0
Thoughts: For a long time, "Spike episode" wasn't something fans said with much enthusiasm. Okay, the likes of "Dragon Quest" had their fans, but they weren't that numerous. This was the episode that changed that. The received wisdom is that it was the first really good Spike-isode. For the most part, I agree with that. For a start, it teams Rarity with Twilight. They were together (with Rainbow) in "Dragon Quest", but they haven't been a common partnership since. We of course meet Ember for the first time, and her constant changes from cheerful and friendly to grumpy and, well, dragonish are amusing. (I know some people use the word "tsundere" here, but I'm not an anime guy, so I won't.) Dragon Lord Torch, voiced with a fun Aussie accent by the apparently almost unknown Matt Cowlrick, does well in support. I still don't like Garble, but I find his nastiness less boring here than in "Dragon Quest", at least. The actual adventure part of the episode is generally great, even if we never do find out how the ponies got through that cave. Add in a whole load of world-building (some of which was actually used again) and Spike's decision at the end to give up the Bloodstone Sceptre to Ember, and this is an ep I'd happily watch again for fun. I thought quite hard about whether it was still deserving of a four. Maybe not by much, but I really do think it is.
Choice quote: Ember: "Please don't make me talk about my feelings."
New rating: ★★★★
Next
time, it'll be "No Second Prances", which doesn't have an unmixed reputation but which it turns out I really rather liked on first appearance. So we shall see!
This is always a somewhat tricky episode for me to grapple with, falling into the range of my take being slightly weaker then the consensus, but not nearly enough to call it overrated. Certainly, the achievements you mention hold true. The Twilight/Rarity team-up produces reasonable comic chemistry (though I can't help feel it would produce even more in an early season; only the side-thread of Twilight's eagerness to study dragons and a few lines from Rarity take advantage of their personalities); both Torch and Ember make good impressions in their roles; the adventuring segments are thrilling enough (I funnily misremembered Twilight saying she teleported herself through the cave), with the episode striking a balance of merging those action elements with the friendship and sincerity of FiM and mostly making them work (the small seams are nothing next to the tonal botch made of the same in Daring Do episodes). I do totally understand why this was regarded as the first great Spike episode, for it has no big, nagging problem likely to weigh it down for many. The bones are undoubtedly the strongest any Spike episode ever got.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, there are quibbles. Small ones, but a decent amount of them. A wobbly, uneven structure undermines some elements: the episode's cold open is totally unnecessary to the degree I'd forgotten it exists, while on the other end, Ember's return to Spike comes too fast and from nowhere even for this show, short-changing an arc the voice actress was really putting over to that point (it's readily apparent they were relying on the Act 2->3 commercial break to disguise this). While I'd never call any of this dialogue wooden, it's at times rather plain and light on wit, resulting in me finding Garble weaker here than in "Dragon Quest", among other things. Okay, that's mostly because he's just a one-note bully here, and there was some nuance to him before. And there's a not-small number of logical quibbles to the event and what we practically see (it would also take all of ten seconds to establish a reason why Twilight/Rarity can't help, be it disqualifying Spike or their magic not working here). I'll leave the laundry list at that.
All that's enough to shave it out of ★★★★ territory to a high ★★★. Still, easily the best episode thus far this season, and I'd be quite surprised if it floats out of the top six or so episode come season's end. And for all that the lore regarding dragons starts getting more "cheap animated series logic" here relative to what we got in earlier episodes, it's kept well afield of the infantile territory it descends to by "Sweet and Smoky". That counts for a lot, and makes this a satisfying, fun adventure episode, even if it's just plain in enough aspects to eagerly seek out for a rewatch.
Also, I'd forgotten how many episodes around this point used unique outro music in place of the show's theme tune. Nice bonus! This one was, naturally a brief melody of action material from the episode.
I always liked this one. Not only does it have a good message (and as you said, finally a good character arc for Spike), but the little detailed touches throughout felt like that actually fit rather than solely being referential humor. And as you say, the world building actually gets used again. I especially appreciated that in later seasons, Smolder became the exemplar of what this episode built: yes, she's learning about friendship, but that doesn't change who she is fundamentally as a dragon. It would have been uncomfortable indeed if the underlying message there was that dragon culture was inherently flawed and they needed to change who they were from the ground up. And that's very germane to the original message of the show, at least what was aimed at the target demographic, which is that there are limitless ways of being a girl.
ReplyDeleteGreat episode, and one that carried through.
Still a strong ★★★★ for me, just because I wasn't bored for a second while rewatching it, and had several good laughs. (And Spike really deserved a good episode!)
ReplyDelete"Okay, the likes of 'Dragon Quest' had their fans,"
ReplyDeleteYou called? :D
"but they weren't that numerous."
What!? You take that back! I'm plenty numerous!
Look at my username, for Pete's sake!
Anyway, as per the ep itself, count me in the same camp as iisaw. Much as I'd argue Spike had some good to decent eps before this one, this is really the only one I can think of that warrants being classified as "great!".
It's Spike's finest hour. He not only gets to be the hero on his own initiative (love how he backs out initially, then stubbornly changes his mind once he realizes his friends' homeland is on the line), but he also gets to be a solid ambassador for the values of friendship once he starts talking to Ember.
Epic questing and being a virtuous stalwart: that's the true step towards his childhood fantasy (dream, even) of being Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious.
Meanwhile, I like Pascoite's point about how Ember is a well-realized balancing act between traditional dragonhood and pony friendship without betraying either. She strikes a balance between Spike's camaraderie and her father's stubborn toughness, becoming her own distinct character in the process. She wavers between the two extremes throughout, so her turnaround in the final act struck me less as a rushed development as more as a natural extension of that ongoing back-and-forth balancing act. It's a testament to how believably uncertain-yet-certain she's portrayed that she can pull off the reluctant friend and reluctant lone wolf roles without feeling radically different either time.
As for everything else, I concur with iisaw that this is a very engaging episode, with action and visual aplomb and even bouts of physical and silly comedy (Torch's blunt orders being a highlight). I almost forget Twilight and Rarity in all this, yet their supporting roles are much appreciated in the moment (Twilight agreeing to cheer Spike on despite her own reservations being a memorable moment).
Garble seems off to me this go-around, though. I don't know if it's the way Vincent Tong voices him or if it's the writing, but I swear he sounds dumber and more bluntly thuggish, for some reason. Whereas last time he was basically a normal "cool dudebro" and toxic mentor figure to Spike. Even with that in mind, I think he works fine as the straightforward antagonist and threat, and makes enough sense in the role that I can slightly overlook how non-threatening he seems on occasion.
Only other thing is that I find the concept of "Dragon Law" unlikely, given how anarchic dragons have been so far in this series. But then Torch being their leader makes sense of that a bit: I can imagine him being an old-school "don't care what you do so long as you do what I tell you when I tell you" kind of leader, too. And I do love the fan theory that his forbidding of Ember was actually a clever political ploy to give her a chance to succeed him whilst showing no favouritism or nepotism.
The drama, the stakes, the friendshipping, the new characters, the comedy, the worldbuilding, the sheer hardcore nature of the dragon lands...
I'm running out of things to praise, but you get the idea. This is just an all-round awesome ep, and I love coming back to rewatch it.