Reviews Recap / My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 2 E 8 The Mysterious Mare Do Well

I don't particularly see a parallel to Applebuck Season aside from setup; one of the Mane Six performs heroically and they help out around town for a while. The Aesop is quite different for both; Applebuck Season was about not being too stubborn to ask for help when you need it, while this episode denounces arrogance. While stubbornness and arrogance can overlap, they aren't the same thing. Also, if the formula you suggest is indeed common, then these episodes must also be similar to Art of the Dress; Rarity refuses to admit her problems with the dresses because it might hurt her friends' feelings, and later the Mane Six orchestrate a remedy when things go wrong. The feel of Art of the Dress, though, is very different from the other two episodes. I guess my point is that this is a common structure for Aesop stories, but the presentation is what makes them different.

I do think that your idea has promise, but there are a few mitigating factors, one of which is time. All episodes of this show have a rather strict time limit, and trying to fit the necessary scenes in that limit without rushing can be a bit tricky. I think one scene showing detriment to Rainbow Dash's friendship would have been sufficient, and perhaps the opening scene with the fan club could have been cut. However, your ideas for these scenes play havoc with Rainbow Dash being the embodiment of Loyalty, which might be treading on dangerous ground. Not that the other ponies haven't had issues with their respective elements, but when they do it's quite the spectacle. When Pinkie Pie was sad in Party of One, she absolutely BROKE DOWN. Applejack is a fantastically bad liar, and Rarity's bouts of selfishness are usually met with either her honestly trying to make amends (to Sweetie Belle in Sisterhooves Social) or with rather cruel punishment (almost dying in Sonic Rainboom). I don't think Rainbow Dash would be quite so quick to shrug off issues with her Element, even if she was being an arrogant prick like in this episode... although she did refuse to help Applejack in The Ticket Master just so she could nap. Kind of odd that Applejack didn't see her in a tree... on the Apple orchard... when she's harvesting apples...

Getting back on topic, since you've thrown the motivation for Mare-Do-Well into question, I wonder why the other Mane Six even needed to create another identity for doing heroic deeds. It's not like they're shy about helping other people, and if the point was to bring Rainbow Dash down to earth it makes more sense for her friends to be open about their heroic deeds since they have a good relationship with Rainbow Dash, instead of making a mystery mare who Dash does not trust, and in her heightened arrogance will most likely challenge, thus getting in the way of heroics. Perhaps they all did it in the spirit of pranking the prankster, which I can totally get behind. It definitely seems that way when they're all complimenting themselves and laughing.

I don't necessarily see that being the Element of X means that you are X all the time - AJ obviously lies to Pinkie in Party of One; Rarity is far from Generous in Sisterhooves Social, etc. But it should be the character's driving motivation. For RBD's Loyalty, being the town hero could be just as loyal as being a good friend, and add in her boastful nature, easily makes her initial characterization believable and the aspect that she'd ditch a meeting/job with her friends to bask in hero worship completely in line. (Of course, this is the same RBD that disliked Trixie in Boast Busters...)

But yea, it just needed one scene of the Mane five discussing the problem among themselves, maybe describing offscreen problems with RBD, etc, and then one of them coming up with the idea of creating MDW to defeat RBD's ego. Yes, this would have broadcasted the identity even earlier in the episode, but that wasn't a problem with it to start. And that's like, what, a minute of screentime? They could have kepts all the rescue bits but cut down the establishing shots or execution to make that time, easy.

I'm not saying this would make the ep perfect. There's a lot of forgotten aesops that come up throughout that a serious rewrite would be needed to fix it all. But much could have been smoothed out with just one additional scene. Chalk it up to first episode jitters to Merriweather Williams, perhaps?

Yes, elements are not definitive. But what I'm getting at is that when a pony goes against her element, she doesn't simply brush it off. They have major problems whenever they go against the grain. The setup for Rainbow Dash being both loyal and boastful is not only conceivable, it has been proven multiple times. Yet the problem lies not in the setup, but the execution. If Rainbow Dash ever discovered that her boastful nature was interfering with her loyalty, we would basically have to rewrite the entire episode because it's a major personality conflict. We could have gone the entire episode with nary a mention of Mare-Do-Well and just focused on Rainbow Dash. I'm not saying it isn't doable, nor is it less interesting, nor even that we couldn't arrive at the same Aesop, but I believe it would have changed the fundamental nature of the episode. Not bad by any stretch, just different.

While I did find the mystery predictable, I wouldn't have removed it without removing Mare-Do-Well; that is to say, I still wouldn't have shown the Mane Six coming up with the idea, even if I included them having problems with Rainbow Dash. In theory, we are supposed to follow Rainbow Dash in this episode, and she has no clue who Mare-Do-Well really is. Therefore, the audience should be kept in the dark until they either figure it out themselves, or Rainbow Dash unmasks the masquerader. It's just a really easy mystery, something the show's primary audience might be able to figure out. What little mystery might be there still gives the episode something unique.

And sure, it's not a perfect episode, but it's not bad either. I liked it better than Cutie Pox, at least, and I am willing to give Williams another chance to knock our socks off, if she writes for the show again of course.

I will agree that some more information (motivation, etc) would have fixed a lot about this episode.

I started out assuming that the Mane Cast was just personally annoyed by Rainbow Dash's bragging and that they anticipated every one of her reactions, incorporating them into the lesson. After two days of reading this wiki I switched to thinking they were probably concerned about the negative effects Rainbow Dash's bragging could have on herself and others and that they badly fumbled their attempted lesson, only pulling it out in the end because Rainbow Dash gets what they were trying to do once they explain it.

Even if assuming the best possible motives on everyone's part makes this a palatable episode, that is way too much Alternate Character Interpretation for a children's show.

Technically, she doesn't.

Mysteries have a common problem of not explaining motives very well, because they have to be secret up until the end and when they're revealed they can't drag on too long or they will be boring. That said, I don't think they spent enough time on the ending with the unmasked Mane Six. They mention Rainbow Dash's arrogance as their primary motive, but not much beyond that. Then again, this is a Rainbow Dash episode, and I'm willing to side with Bellisario and let it go. I prefer my theory that it was all a big practical joke on Dashie.

Also, with regards to Applejack "technically not lying," while that may be true she obviously still has problems hiding the whole truth.

That's possibly another problem, in that in addition to getting the moral "don't be a bragger" across, they tried to create a mystery around the idea of MDW: that's a lot of content for 22 minutes particularly for a show aimed at a younger audience. Which is why I would have been much happier if they wanted the moral as the focus, to establish the Mane Five's motivations, and even have Paper Thin Disguise tropes in place to make it obvious to the young viewer (but not to RBD) that its her friends behind the MDW, such that we didn't have the characterization problems that come about at the conclusion.

Technically, if the viewer has been watching the series it's already a Paper Thin Disguise. Well perhaps not paper thin, but certainly easy to see through. Kind of makes me wonder why Rainbow Dash couldn't figure it out on her own... probably because she's too self-obsessed to care much about her rival. Also, it's actually pretty easy to make a mystery with a moral and take up 22 minutes. The problem, as you say, comes from the characterization. After watching the episode again, I thought the moral at the end seemed rather rushed, especially compared to other better episodes, for instance "Green Isn't Your Color." If they spent a little more time at the end talking about why they did it, we would have a lot less questions about this episode. Of course, I'd still be pissed at Rainbow Dash for getting such a big head in the first place but what am I gonna do, it's the plot.

There's another major problem with your proposal: having the moral as the focus of the story is the textbook definition of Anvilicious, and I don't think any anvils about bragging need to be dropped. It also seems to spoon-feed character development to the audience instead of having it happen as a consequence of the plot. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't really gel with this show, which characterizes through events in the plot more than anything else. Williams may not have gotten the characters exactly right but she did at least write this episode in a style that is consistent with the show.

With the review, I quite disagree. In the disaster scenes where both Dash and Mare-Do-Well were present, we clearly saw that, without MDW intervention, Dash would have a lot of problems resolving the situation, partly because of how eager of herself she was. Which is quite the point of the aesop of the episode, not much for the fact that Twilight and co. were annoyied by her bragging.

Sure this lead to another question thou: why they didn't tell it to her in the first place, instead of elaborating such a complicated plan right in the beginning? Sure this can somewhat be justified by the fact tha Dash is not a very bright pony, especially when she's like that, so they already expect her to not listening on what what they were saying (sure, they could've at least try >:( ). Also, considering how her and AJ are quite similar, after what happened in "Applebuck season" they didn't want to risk something similar happening (that, or they had in mind Trixie, another pony who was so eager of herself and loved to bitching because of it).

Overall, I agree that this episode could've been managed better, with less action-rescue scenes and more about the actual point of the plot (examples: Mane five telling RD about her problem, some scenes of her failing the rescues etc.), but apart from it it's still a good episode with a clever moral.