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| I have my problems with the number of late-series meme faces, but "I see" is a true classic |
My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.2
Thoughts: "I found Cozy Glow rather irritating," I said in my 2018 review of this episode. Of course, at the time I had no idea whether she'd be anything more than a one-episode guest character!¹ Indeed, she doesn't even appear until the second act of what is mostly a CMC story. But with the benefit of hindsight, Cozy's emotional manipulation is very obvious. At the time, this mostly felt like a pretty nice Crusaders-centric tale, and watched in that light it's still an enjoyable one. The stilted dialogue in the staged "fight" had me giggling. The pacing is rather uneven, and Twilight behaved frankly poorly in immediately believing the CMC were guilty and not even apologising later on. Still, there's some fun stuff in here, and Starlight's supporting role as guidance counsellor is very amusing. I think "Marks for Effort" can still get a three-star grade.
¹ This was known at the time, since as usual by 2018 the show leaked like a sieve, but somehow I'd managed to avoid this one.
Choice quote: Students (to Spike) : "Oh dragon, my dragon."
New rating: ★★★
Next time it will be the final episode before the mid-season hiatus, "The Mean 6". Opinions of this were all over the place at the time, and that hasn't really changed in the intervening years. I liked it with significant reservations. Soon we'll see whether that's still the case now!
this isn't the one with Phyllis, is it? I really should have been watching along with you all this time lol :B
ReplyDeleteNope, Phyllis doesn't appear until nearly the end of the show -- "A Horse Shoe-In" (S9E20) to be precise.
DeleteNow this, for me, was where season eight started to take a turn for the worst. Even here, it's pretty obvious that Cozy Glow is set up to be the true villain of the finale, and by the time we get there, the tension is virtually non-existent, no matter how hard they try. And with Neighsay, you're very much left wondering "why is he even here at all?"
ReplyDeleteAnd that's not getting into Twilight falsely accusing the Crusaders for sabotaging Cozy Glow, making her look like a hypocrite if we take A Canterlot Wedding into account. Remember that episode? Apparently, the writers didn't, and it wasn't the last time they did so, but that's for season nine. That being said, it's not Twilight's lowest point as a character; again, that's for next season.
But apart from that, the episode is just not good. The first and third acts drag the story down despite the second act's best efforts, and it throws the season-long arc completely out of whack.
I did like Starlight in this, but she's the bright spot in what is otherwise a pretty drab episode for me. I appreciate that this is a toned-down version of her where she's still neurotic, but she realizes things like empathy cocoa work better than mind controlling princesses into confronting their differences.
ReplyDelete