My Little Pony: Thanksgiving Show 2

[Darth Wedgius]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/animation/mlpspecial7.php

SFDebris always surprises me. When I expect a holiday to get a pony video, nope. When I least expect it, ponies come flying out of my monitor. But if he's reading my mind, honest, I'm just grateful I'm not being blackmailed.

Rainbow Dash is a blue flying pony with character development. If people don't watch out, kids these days just might end up demanding more in their entertainment when they're adults.

I enjoyed the review a lot, and I enjoyed all the episodes covered, even "The Mysterious Mare-do-Well" (though I see shortcomings that bothered people, and I think "28 Pranks Later" did better in that regard).

[Mecha82]

Nice that we got some more Chuck reviewing MLP. These are always joy to watch. So this time focus was mostly on Rainbow Dash and her character. To be honest I found her rather annoying during these early episodes but on retrospect I can see what they were going for based on character development that she got later on.

[CmdrKing]

Weirdly Mare-do-well is one of my least favorite episodes of the show, or at least of Season 2. I feel like the rest of the cast crossed the line between "okay we gotta try something to get through Dash's head that she's being a jackass" and "we're just gonna be jackasses and claim it was for a good cause later". I dunno what it is exactly that makes it come across as kinda meanspirited, but it doesn't really work.

Tank meanwhile is the best and I'll not hear otherwise.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

all I can think of at the moment is the joke Chick made at 12:23. with all the characters that are Easily Forgiven or are Karma Houdinis, I wish their was a flogging on the show.

[ProfessorDetective]

Okay, is it just me or do most of these specials focus on Rainbow? Not that I'm complaining, but...

Also, sometimes a taste of their own meds is whats needed to get someone to listen, and I never saw the girls' actions as too much. Too much would have been putting her in proper danger or actively mocking her. Better than the time they tricked her into thinking she's caused a zombie apocalypse, THAT was too far.

[Edvarius]

Yeah, people may give the rest of the Mane 6 crap for how they acted during Mare Do Well, but I give them a pretty big pass given how they were saving lives while teaching RD a lesson.

[Sailor Nimue]

Weirdly Mare-do-well is one of my least favorite episodes of the show, or at least of Season 2.

I was under the impression that Mare-Do-Well was widely considered one of the worst episodes of the show.

As for me, I'm not a fan of it. I get what the lesson was going for, but the execution felt too mean-spirited, even for the moral.

[Trinary]

Weirdly Mare-do-well is one of my least favorite episodes of the show, or at least of Season 2.

I was under the impression that Mare-Do-Well was widely considered one of the worst episodes of the show.

As for me, I'm not a fan of it. I get what the lesson was going for, but the execution felt too mean-spirited, even for the moral.

You're absolutely correct. It IS one of, if not THE, most widely hated episode in the entire series. I was at an MLP convention last year. At one point they went around the room and were asked to introduce ourselves and mention the first episode that we saw. One schlub responded that Mare-Do-Well was the first episode he ever saw. There was such an immediate, simultaneous reaction of everyone wincing and groaning, all two or three dozen of us. You'd have thought he said he was born on Hitler's birthday.

I could write entire essays based on why it’s awful, but to put it briefly: this is like someone turned Christmas with the Kranks into an episode of MLP: the main character is a self-centered jerk surrounded by folks trying to get them to the change their ways by behaving like even bigger and more unlikeable jerks. If the Mare Do Well is meant to be a superhero, then I can only conclude her origin story involves being bitten by a radioactive asshole. Their methodology is so bad that they end up having to explain the purported ‘lesson’ to Rainbow at the end because she had no idea what they were going for. So that’s a fail right there. Not to mention it means they could’ve just explained it to her at the start and skipped this whole mess.

Making things worse is the fact that no one in town liked Mare-Do-Well better than Dash because she/they didn't brag. They just liked MDW because ... because it was new and shiny. Heck, MDW could've been an even BIGGER ego-case and the town's folk would've just as quickly and enthusiastically embraced her/them. There was no one in the entire town who was ever repelled by Dash's bragging EXCEPT her five 'best friends.' That really skews the painting of this whole thing. Not to mention the detail of, you know, never freaking talking to her about it or reacting like a normal person! Though even if they had, this was unacceptably awful.

There’s no depth to this moral, heroes don’t brag because—because! It’s not even a lesson about overconfidence causing you to get sloppy or make mistakes; they insist it’s just that bragging is a no-no. Sorry, but if someone wants to rescue me from a burning house so he can score bragging rights with his bros, do you think I’m going to complain? Further, it says something to me that Dash's friends took no interest in trying to help with the disasters going on ... EXCEPT when they found they didn't like Rainbow's attitude. And again, they were the ONLY ones to have a problem with it.

Even the rescues Mare Do Well makes and Dash doesn’t don’t support the idea that bragging makes you sloppy. Most of those rescues looked to be impossible for Rainbow to do alone regardless of whether she was boastful or humble.

Now, I am someone who genuinely hates bragging and grew up thinking that it’s better to be under-confident than over-confident, constantly putting myself down out of fear that I might let my ego get away from me. So you know this episode dropped the ball because by the end of it, I was ready to rethink my own position and considered the prospect that I had been wrong all along. Nice going, morons.

So, given all that ... you might be surprised as to why I requested this episode be reviewed. Well, funny story. The thing is ... I didn't.

Okay, to be fair, I initially suggested this episode along with several others when I first requested a batch of MLP episodes back in January 2016. But I soon realized that talking about this episode when there were so many other, better, episodes to review was a mistake. So I sent an email informing Chuck that I changed my mind and gave him a new episode line-up. I even went back and requested some other episodes be added or switched in or out as time went on. Mare Do Well hasn't appeared at all on that list in well over two years, which I regularly update and mail to him as he covered more and more episodes.

So while I am a bit annoyed that one of my slots was used to talk about an episode I didn't want him to cover, and to make wider assessments about her character based said episode, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it given all the stuff I know Chuck is dealing with. I'm still grateful he's looking at all these episodes for me, but I do wish he had let me know earlier what episodes he was going to cover so this could've been avoided.

[Trinary]

Yeah, people may give the rest of the Mane 6 crap for how they acted during Mare Do Well, but I give them a pretty big pass given how they were saving lives while teaching RD a lesson.

I can't help but notice none of them displayed any interest in saving lives EXCEPT as part of Dash's "lesson." Before that started, they did jack-all. There was no thought given of using Pinkie's sense to find out trouble and help out BEFORE that.

Also, keep in mind: if they saw or learned of some impending trouble their very first action--was to take time to put on a costume. That means they prioritized this so-called lesson OVER saving lives. After all, they could've saved ponies without wasting time getting into costume or making sure Dash didn't realize they were them. But no. Their priority was (1) teach Rainbow a "lesson" and (2) help ponies, in that order.

[Cheerilee]

Regarding Mare-Do-Well, I think it strains credulity to believe that RD's friends always had the right pony in costume at the right time and place to save ponies better in that situation than RD could, and that tells me that RD's "friends" were manufacturing the "accidents" in order to teach RD a lesson. So "helping ponies" wasn't even #2 on their priority list. They were actively putting ponies in harm's way (or at least scaring them half to death) to solve what they probably could've solved using a couple of words (if they weren't all jerks in this episode).


Regarding the Iron Pony competition, I propose that RD blew the initial horseshoe competition because she wasn't taking it seriously. RD's first shot was good, and AJ couldn't match it. Then AJ playfully put RD's second horseshoe on RD's nose, and (since RD was winning and didn't feel the need to continue trying) RD chose to shoot from that position. Which is why RD couldn't hit the side of a barn (unless she was shooting for anything else). But RD was confident that her superior first shot would stand as the mark to beat. It didn't. Playing or not, a loss is a loss, which (combined with AJ's gloating) set off RD's need to win and her need to prove her superiority.

In the first half of the competition, RD gave herself a handicap and fought on level terms with AJ, and managed to tie AJ, with 5 points apiece (which is no small feat, considering AJ has a huge strength advantage, and RD doesn't normally stick to the ground). In the second half of the competition, RD flipped a switch regarding the terms of her handicap, pushing things to the limit of her non-wing ability, and then engaging her wings to tip herself over the edge (without hiding it at all). And the result in the second half was a 10-0 landslide in RD's favor. The results basically showed that RD is competitive without her wings, but if she uses them even just a little bit, then it's no contest.

AJ accused RD of cheating because there are two ponies with personality problems in this episode. AJ has a subtle streak of envy regarding wings and horns, and a need to constantly prove herself that rival's RD's need to constantly prove herself. AJ feels like she is owed a handicap, and to even suggest a no-handicap contest is an insult. The Iron Pony contest began with Rainbow Dash, and her bloated ego, but it ended with Applejack, and her sensitivity over her inferiority complex.


Regarding the tug-of-war portion of the Iron Pony contest, I've gotta disagree with Chuck. RD clearly lost her footing and would have lost the tug-of-war without her wings, but then she engaged her wings. Now, it would have been a dick move for RD to simply put her wings in reverse and add jet power to her leg strength. It would also have been a dick move to take to the sky and then abuse the power of flight to dunk AJ into the mud. But what RD did was, use her wings to flip the stage from horizontal to vertical. Now it's no longer a contest of leg strength and footing, it's a contest of grip strength. And... RD is burning energy trying to maintain this new stage she has come up with. And then RD won by tricking AJ into opening her mouth.

Yes, it is true that, win or lose, there was no way for RD to fall in the mud anymore (and similarly, win or lose, AJ had no choice but to fall in the mud), but victory in a tug-of-war is not necessarily determined by one side falling in the mud. You can also lose by letting go of the rope. (Technically, what matters is the position of the center flag, but effectively, that only happens after someone loses their grip).

RD won that one by using her wings in the least impactful way. Her wings didn't even clinch the victory, her trickery did. I would give RD a Commendation for Original Thinking on that one.