Recap / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S9 E6 "Common Ground"

Not exactly one big happy family.

"They're a family. Even if it's okay with Clear Sky, I wouldn't ask them to make me a part of it if Wind Sprint isn't on board. I thought if I could convince Wind I was a big buckball fan, we'd have something to bond over, but I'm... I'm pretty sure she's on to me."

— Quibble Pants

Written by Josh Haber
Special Guest Star: Patton Oswalt as Quibble Pants, Meredith Salenger as Clear Sky, and Alice Oswalt as Wind Sprint

With buckball gaining popularity, a new buckball stadium and museum is built in Apploosa, with Ponyville's team — Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Snails — as the first Hall of Fame inductees. After attending the opening ceremonies for the inaugural buckball tournament, Rainbow Dash had promised Applejack to visit the museum first, but finds somepony is already waiting in line: Quibble Pants, the most un-sporty pony she knows. It turns out Quibble Pants is trying to learn about buckball to impress Wind Sprint, the daughter of his new special somepony, Clear Sky. While Clear Sky clearly is smitten with Quibble, Wind Sprint remains unimpressed as her father was a sportspony, and Quibble thinks by showing her that he is interested in buckball too, she will accept him as part of her family. But he has no idea how buckball, or anything sports-related, works and desperately asks Rainbow to help him learn.

Rainbow tries to teach Quibble some of the basics while at the museum, but Wind Spirit wants to get over to see the buckball games. Quibble buys a buckball almanac for Wind Sprint, with all the rules and statistics of the game, but she's completely uninterested. As Quibble gets Clear Sky and Wind Sprint settled into their seats for the games, Rainbow decides to take Quibble aside and try to make him an athlete so he can play buckball. But even this fails, as Quibble is slow, weak and uncoordinated. Rainbow tries another approach: for a half-time show, she arranges for a "fan" team made up of Quibble, Wind Sprint, and Snips against the Ponyville team, whom have secretly agreed to go easy on the fan team. Even with all this help, Quibble fails, and the one time his he able to make a basket, it is against his own team. Even when he argues that the rules state that the goal should still count, Wind Sprint flies off, and Clear Sky cautions Quibble that they may have to call it quits.

Quibble laments to Rainbow that he may have lost Clear Sky, but Rainbow realizes that Quibble has been trying too hard to show that he was interested in sports and that Rainbow was the wrong pony to ask for help. Realizing his mistake, Quibble goes to Clear Sky and Wind Sprint and admits that he is not a sports pony, but would like to learn from Wind Sprint. At the game, Wind Sprint is only happy to explain how the game plays, and Quibble is able to show how the almanac helps to identify some of the plays, the first time he was able to connect with Wind Sprint. Quibble is pleased, and Clear Sky even more so, as she was asking him to quit pretending he was into sports with Rainbow's help, not ending their relationship as he had feared. Quibble, Clear Sky, and Wind Sprint happily watch the game together.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion:
  • In the episode, Quibble Pants is interested in having a relationship with another mare who had been married but either left her husband or became a widow (it's never indicated which, although it should be noted that all references to Wind Sprint's father, both professionally and personally, are in the past tense, making it much more likely that she's a widow), and who has effective custody of her daughter. In real life, Oswalt had his daughter, Alice, with his first wife, Michelle McNamara, who died 11 years after their marriage. Oswalt married Meredith Salenger a year later. This similar relationship led the show to seek out Meredith and Alice to voice Quibble's new mare friend and her daughter (as he explains on the Conan show).
  • Among the background ponies in the episode is one based on Meredith Salenger's first starring role, Natty Gann (complete with wolf companion).
  • Oswalt also had a routine about how he was initially disappointed that Alice didn't share his intense love of Star Wars, but then she developed just as strong a love of Friendship Is Magic itself, which he was determined to nurture despite having serious trouble keeping up with it thanks to all the other massive fantasy settings already taking up space in his head.
• An Aesop:
  • While wanting to bond with your kids is a good thing, you don't need to pretend to be something you're not to do it.
  • From Wind Sprint's side, having a Parent with New Paramour doesn't mean said paramour wants you to stop loving your Missing Mom/Disappeared Dad; it just means they want you to like them and that they love the parent they're dating.
• Affection-Hating Kid: When Quibble Pants and Clear Sky rub noses together, Wind Sprint sticks her tongue out in disgust. Though seeing her mother being affectionate with Quibble, who Wind Sprint openly said she didn't like at the time, probably didn't help either.
• Affectionate Nickname: Clear Sky calls Quibble Pants "Q" as a nickname.
• Ambiguous Situation: The exact circumstances of what happened to Wind Sprint's father and why her mother started dating Quibble are never explained. It is unclear if her father passed away or if he and his wife simply divorced.
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Evoked when Snips realizes they can profit from autograph sales, but when he asks Snails if he's thinking what he's thinking the other asks what's the sound of one hoof clapping.
• Athletically Challenged: Rainbow Dash tries to help Quibble Pants connect with the daughter of his girlfriend by training him to be more sporty. The attempt is a disaster; Quibble runs slower than a snail, can't kick a ball rolling slowly towards, or lift more than two books at a time.
• Bad "Bad Acting": During the demonstration match, Fluttershy is really not very convincing when she tries praising Quibble's skills.
• Bad Liar: Quibble Pants pretends to love buckball to get Wind Sprint to like him. However, everypony sees right through his act, including the kid.
• Be Yourself: As Clear Sky is consistently saying to Quibble Pants, pretending to like buckball when he very clearly doesn't is making things harder to bond with Wind Sprint. It's only when he stops trying to be so sporty that he manages to get closer to Wind Sprint, bonding with her over stats and numbers of the sport.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Rainbow Dash shouts "What?" after Quibble says he already tried to bond with Wind Sprint over Daring Do but she said that Daring Do wasn't athletic enough.
  • Later, when Rainbow Dash tell Quibble Pants and Wind Sprint that they're going to play a match against Team Ponyville, Quibble exclaims "We're WHAT!?"
• The Bus Came Back: Quibble Pants, who was last seen in the Season 6 episode "Stranger Than Fan Fiction", makes his second appearance.
• Call-Back: Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Snails reprise their roles as Ponyville's buckball team.
• The Cameo: Twilight's father Night Light makes a brief appearance in the buckball museum.
• Continuity Nod: After presenting Wind Sprint with the Buckball almanac, Quibble declares that the game has "more numbers than Ogres & Oubliettes."
• Damned by Faint Praise: Quibble's opinion of Rainbow's plan is that maybe it "isn't the absolute worst idea ever".
• Disappeared Dad: Wind Sprint's father is no longer around. It should be noted that every time he is referred to by anyone, personally or professionally, it is in the past tense, making it most likely that he died, but it's not stated either way for obvious reasons. The main reason why she is so resistant to Quibble is the preconception that he is supposed to be her father's replacement.
• Doorstopper: The Buckball almanac Quibble buys for Wind Sprint is pretty big (almost a third of the filly's height), flattening the bag he gave it to her in when she drops it.
• Epic Fail: Quibble's efforts throughout the Training Montage. He is unable to hit a buckball that is slowly rolling toward him, barely gets anywhere after running at top speed, and can't even lift two books over his head.
• Faceless Masses: The pony audience in the Buckball field scenes is a mass of multicolored blots with the occasional flag waving or pair of hooves clapping.
• Facepalm: Rainbow Dash tries to convince Wind Sprint that Quibble Pants is a pretty sporty pony too... just as they see Clear Sky pulls him out of the buckball basket he's stuck in. Rainbow Dash facewings as Wind Sprint deadpans "If you say so..."
• Feather Fingers: Rainbow tends to hold the buckball museum's brochure using her wings when showing it to others.
• The Ghost: Wind Sprint's father is mentioned several times, but he never actually appears.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Quibble's attempt at bluffing to Rainbow Dash is full of inaccuracies. Rainbow (and more importantly, his would-be step-daughter) sees right through it.
• Greed: Snips takes advantage of Snail's fame by first charging for autographs, then selling all kinds of merchandise.
• Hope Spot: Quibble finally gets good at kicking the ball, and it seems like Wind Sprint is going to accept him... until it turns out he scored for Ponyville.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Quibble's reaction to Rainbow's plan to make him into a sporty pony.
  Quibble Pants: Look, I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, but it's a terrible idea!
• Implausible Deniability: After Clear Sky points out that Rainbow helping Quibble pretend to be a sportspony didn't work, Quibble and Rainbow awkwardly try to deny that was their plan.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Before introducing Wind to the Ponyville team, Rainbow Dash claims that knowing "the sportiest ponies around" must make Quibble pretty sporty too. This claim is demolished when Pinkie Pie brings up how Quibble spent a whole Daring Do convention "geeking out" about books, and Fluttershy mentions how Rainbow initially thought he was "the most annoying fanpony she ever met."
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Inverted Trope. The dad's the nerd, and the kid's the jock. Wind Sprint loves buckball, especially Ponyville's team, so Quibble attempts to bond with her over it.
• Malaproper: Quibble Pants cannot even get sport metaphors right, speaking about "throw up the towel" or "beating her to the lunch".
• Meaningful Name: Clear Sky's daughter is named Wind Sprint, which is fitting for a pony with a love of sports and athleticism since it's also a name for a form of exercise that consists of alternating between walking, slow running, and fast running.
• Memento MacGuffin: The buckball almanac that Quibble Pants buys as a gift for Wind Sprint. She initially rejects it (and implied has a general disdain for books) but it becomes part of the way that he is able to bond with her as it gives the statistics for all her favorite Ponyville players.
• Meta Casting: Patton Oswalt's wife and daughter are cast as his character's girlfriend and prospective stepdaughter, respectively. In an ironic twist, the situation in real life is inverted; Alice is Oswalt's daughter by his (now-deceased) first wife, and Meredith Salenger is her stepmother.
• The Millstone: Quibble Pants is a complete liability in the halftime show against Ponyville. He can barely do anything athletic, even in spite of Ponyville's players intentionally going easy on him. The one time Quibble manages to actually buck the ball, he scores for the wrong team, causing his team to lose.
• Non-Indicative Name: You'd expect a pony named Clear Sky to be a Pegasus. Nope, she's a Unicorn.
• No Name Given: Wind Sprint's father is never referred to by his actual name.
• One-Steve Limit: Partial aversion, albeit cross-episode. "Tanks for the Memories" had a Pegasus named Clear Skies for the sake of a Who's on First? gag. In this episode, we get Clear Sky the Unicorn. We also had ex-Wonderbolt Wind Rider in "Rarity Investigates!", while this episode introduces a filly named Wind Sprint.
• Own Goal: The disastrous halftime match Quibble takes part in ends with him bucking a ball into a basket, only to find that he scored for Ponyville. Wind Sprint isn't impressed by this at all, and Clear Sky eventually gets it through to him that he shouldn't pretend to be sporty when everypony now knows he's the exact opposite.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: G-rated version, but Wind Sprint is clearly disgusted by her mom and Quibble's Sickeningly Sweethearts routine.
• Parent with New Paramour: The episode revolves around how Wind Sprint disapproves of Quibble Pants dating her mom.
• Poor Communication Kills: Quibble is freaked when Clear Sky tells him they "need to rethink things" following his disastrous attempt at winning Wind Sprint's favor by playing Buckball. He finds out at the end that she had no intention of breaking up with him, and just meant that they would have to rethink things like the plan to make him appear to be good at sports when he's not. He's understandably relieved, and finds a different way to bond with Wind Sprint.
• Rules Lawyer: When Quibble accidentally scores for the other team, he tries to argue that since the official rulebook doesn't specifically state which goal the ball needs to go in to score a point, his team should get that point.
• Sarcasm Mode: When Quibble admits that he isn't "all that sporty", Clear Sky says "No!" with false horror.
• Shout-Out: In the beginning of the episode, there is a filly with a wolf (or husky?) that bears a resemblance to Natty Gann.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Quibble Pants and Clear Sky are very loving and affectionate with each other, to the point where Wind Sprint sticks out her tongue in disgust after the two rub noses.
• Split-Screen Reaction: The screen is split in three, showing the reactions of Fluttershy (worried), Pinkie Pie (giddy) and Wind Sprint (disillusioned) as Quibble is about to buck the ball by himself for the first time.
• Throwing the Fight: Subverted. At Rainbow's urging, the Ponyville buckball team intentionally plays as poorly as possible to give Quibble's team a chance to win. Unfortunately, Quibble's lack of skill means that it doesn't work.
• Training Montage: Quibble has one where he attempts to be more sporty with Rainbow Dash. However, he's so un-athletic that he can barely lift more than two books at a time, and gives up after only a few tries.
• Understatement: During the Cold Open, the Ponyville Buckball team are watching a movie about their exploits. Pinkie Pie asks if their fans know they're in the theater. Rainbow Dash responds "I think they have a pretty good idea"... and it is then shown that everypony in the theater is looking at them.
• Wingding Eyes: Snips gets the classic dollar sign eyes when he sees an opportunity to profit from Snails's fame.
• Winning Over the Kids: Quibble Pants really wants Wind Sprint's approval even though Clear Sky assures him he doesn't need to worry himself trying so hard.
• Worldbuilding: Appleloosa was expanded to include a new buckball stadium and museum.
• Written-In Absence: Rainbow states that Applejack wanted to come to see the new Buckball museum, but was "too busy". A bit of an odd case as one of Ashleigh Ball's characters is covering for the other.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Clear Sky knows that Quibble Pants is a bit uncomfortable with joining the family if Wind Sprint doesn't accept him, and assures him he doesn't need to try to try so hard to get her to like him and that everything will work out.
  Clear Sky: Q, this trip was a lovely idea, and the book was sweet, but you don't have to try so hard. Everything's gonna be fine. [kisses Quibble on the cheek]

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