Only tangential to this, but relevant to many of us who remember its use at past conventions: Skype has finally shut up shop. I'm sure all of us who went to cons years ago remember what a pain Skype could sometimes be, but it certainly played a significant part in that part of the fandom in the pre-Covid era. Consider this brief comment an acknowledgement of that.
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| "That means character, students, not random hoof raise! Have you even played charades?" |
S8E15: "The Hearth's Warming Club"
4 Aug 2018
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 7.7
Thoughts: This episode aired on the same day as "A Matter of Principals", and unless you find the Young Six boring or outright off-putting, it's more enjoyable. After the fine "Surf and/or Turf" I expected good things from a Brian Hohlfeld story, and so it proved. A friend noted recently that a good chunk of 2010s TV writers adore referencing The Breakfast Club, so probably this setup wasn't that surprising, but good execution can make almost anything work. Twilight's threat of collective punishment (no holidays for anycreature) really rubs me up the wrong way, but the rest is highly watchable, even if Gallus's guilt is fairly obvious from the start if you think about it at all. I didn't see his sad home life story coming, though. Changeling Hearth's Warming ("Carols carols carols carols carols!") is genius, and the Yak Song is great too. Sandbar's stories are dull, but I just suspect he's doing that deliberately as a deadpan satire on his boring old pony image. This is an episode where my initial four-star rating might be just a tad generous, but "THWC" really doesn't do much wrong, and by mid-S8 that's notable and refreshing. In the spirit of August Hearth's Warming, I'm going to let it stand!
Choice quote: Gallus: "Two whole weeks without classes, how will Ocellus survive?"
New rating: ★★★★
That was an entertaining experience. Unfortunately I now enter a short run of episodes which I don't expect to do so well: "Friendship University", "The End in Friend" and "Yakity-Sax". If any of those get more than two stars from me I shall be pleasantly surprised, but I will as always give them a fair go! First up will be Flim and Flam's time in academia.
As my first proper Student Six episode this season, having skipped all their prior ones (which means… the season premiere and "Non Compete-Clause", maybe "Horse Play", "A Matter of Principals" and "Molt Down" if you stretch it), I'm probably not in the best position to judge how well it plays after getting to know them, but given how they basically haven't had a featured episode since the premiere ("Non Compete-Clause" comes closest, but even that's shared with Applejack and Rainbow Dash being utter eejits), I doubt it really feels much different. Which is fine, as this episode's structure does serve as a way to dole out more personality/lore for these guys and their species.
ReplyDeleteLike many of the "good" late-season episodes that get over-fondly remembered due to what surrounds them, there are many times throughout this episodes where the timing/pacing does sag on the execution. The protracted first act of contrivances in the setup doesn't help, but this does make the several subversions and diversions in the mystery, and the framing of the vignettes, not do as good a job of keeping the episode moving and the mystery under wraps as it should. As usual, it feels like it could be funnier and snappier along the way, and outside of Smolder's story, it's just going for pleasant and fluffy. Well, and Sandbar's story, which I found funnier now than before, so that's something.
That said, those subversions and diversions are helpful: the writing skilfully steps out of the "Student gives their story then gets called in" template to avoid repetition as soon as it seems locked in, and this sleight of hand is only noticed when two are called in at the end. Even the order and rhythm is good: we bounce between the shortest and longest ones, as well as the more and less consequential ones, and while half of them (Ocellus, Yona and Silverstream) are basically just cute fluff pieces with inconsequential world-building nuggets, Smolder's is a great bit of dark comedy this show rarely gives us, and Gallus' provides a workable emotional backbone. It actually gives proper context for why he is as he is, and why he did what he did.
Also, it's a small thing, but after (as I recall) all the Student Six's prior appearances just reinforced the uselessness of the School by how they'd already grasped Friendship (better than the Mane 6, often!), the way the fight at the end happened, and escalated, and how Gallus broke it up, showed how they're still students. That leaves with a sedate and solid enough episode even if one has no real attachment to the Student Six, for they feel like kids/teens even within the TV-Y context of this show. No easy feat.
It's really just Twilight (and Dash as a hang-on) that drag this episode down, not just for the contrivances that lead to her conclusion which she takes as utter fact ("oh yeah, now there's no way past locked doors when baby unicorns can accidentally walk through walls"), nor for how dispiriting it is to see her as such a square, but for her settled on punishment if no one confesses. Like, real boarding schools in the 20th century wouldn't (and couldn't) do that here. It's not even the worst such stupid-and-mean reaction from her this season (not twigging that Cozy answering "Who's the Princess of Friendship?" with "Your mom" could only be an intentional failure, *cough cough*). The episode's workable otherwise, so this doesn't sink it the way such things have for others, but it does make the slow, expository first act even more of a drag.
Still, an easy improvement on the last "multiple vignettes" story ("Campfire Tales"), and while too sedate and plainly-told in the timing and pacing to be more than "fine" for me, it earns that. Last time I watched this one was for research for my first ponyfic: nice that it still works after that.
Even though I was squarely in the demographic The Breakfast Club was aimed at, I've never watched it, but it's impossible to have grown up in that era and still not know a lot of material from it. Not bad, but this is another episode that just didn't stick in my head and I don't think I've ever watched again after its initial airing. It's a nice enough setup for the situation and Gallus's reason for it, but it never really won over my sympathies. Not much better than average for me, which is still well above average for the season.
ReplyDeleteBest episode of season eight for me, and there's still one more 10/10 worthy episode yet to come!
ReplyDeleteYona was already my favorite out of the Young Six, but if I had to pick one out of them for second place, it would be Gallus, followed by Smolder, Ocellus, Sandbar and Silverstream (and even if she's in last place, she's still a good character). His backstory is pretty sad, not having a family to care for him full time, even over the holidays, and the Young Six are the closest he has to an actual family.
I feel like that's what pushes the episode way up for me; you don't need blood relation to have family, and that's one of the best messages to come from this season, let alone the entire show. And I think it's more relevant than ever than it was seven years ago.
Is The Hearth's Warming Club my top favorite episode of the show? No, only A Royal Problem and Twilight's Kingdom top out over it, but it still gets a respectable bronze from me.
I can't actually remember what your other favourite from this season was, so I'm amusing myself guessing. Don't tell me! I'll let you know when the time arrives if I got it right. :)
DeleteThe "cheerful, brutish one" is always a great character. Yona is a treasure.
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