My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - "Boast Busters" - Talkback [11/19]

[The Huntsman]

Today @ 1:30 PM on The Hub

I'm still not happy with the timeslot, but it is what it is. I'll keep on watching.

The arrival of Trixie upsets the other ponies in Ponyville.

[Mesousa]

This one...didn't work on me, which is kind of sad, as this episode had a nicely different feeling.

For starters, Twilight's excuse to not use her magic against Tricia? Because she doesn't want to "showboat" herself. Yeah, uh, she's kinda tormenting your friends a bit there, shouldn't you, I don't know, stand up for them?

The new male characters didn't seem to work right here. I'm probably guessing it's because all they did is praise Tricia and do a really, really dumb thing by waking up the Ursa Minor.

And finally, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy weren't in this episode. Was Andrea Libman too busy or something? No Pinkie Pie pretty much killed any hopes for this episode alone, actually.

[The Huntsman]

And finally, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy weren't in this episode. Was Andrea Libman too busy or something?

I see you say that a lot. However, a voice actor being “too busy” is seldom, if ever, the reason for their character not getting a speaking role. The episodes are written well in advance and when they show up to record their lines, they usually record the entire season over the course of days. I figure a more likely explanation is that neither Fluttershy nor Pinkie Pie were needed for this episode. If they try to shoehorn every character into every episode, it would just get really messy. At any rate, I liked this episode. Spike’s infatuation with Rarity amuses me, as did his desire for a moustache in hopes that it would make her notice him more.

[Mandouga]

For starters, Twilight's excuse to not use her magic against Tricia? Because she doesn't want to "showboat" herself. Yeah, uh, she's kinda tormenting your friends a bit there, shouldn't you, I don't know, stand up for them?

On the other hand, Twilight rightly felt that she had nothing to prove, and thus didn't want to sink to Trixie's level; "two wrongs don't make a right", after all. Still, she did learn that if you're using your powers where and when it counts, and not just to boast, then it isn't sinking to the other pony's level, or otherwise showing off, and your friends will (likely) be grateful for it. In any case, her heart was in the right place, but I'm guessing Twilight was otherwise a little confused at first about what "showing off" really meant.

However, I didn't like the bit with the green colored pony ("Well, I never!") after Rarity complained about bad having green hair is. I didn't think it was funny or necessary. Fortunately it didn't ruin the entire episode or anything.

Overall, I was a little worried that this episode was going to subvert the aforementioned moral for the sake of comedy. I was kind of relieved it didn't. After all, even comedy has to be serious sometimes.

[Silverstar]

I liked this one; not as good as last week's "Griffin the Brush-Off", but still good.

Twilight Sparkle is one of my favorite characters, so it was good to see her get a spotlight episode again. She didn't want to lock horns (sorry, couldn't resist) with Trixie because she didn't want the other ponies to think she was tooting her own horn (again, couldn't resist) and lording it over the others with her magic, basically driving home the point of bragging VS humility.

It was also good to see Rarity get some scenes, since she's been all but absent from the last 2 episodes. But when you have 6 protagonists, some characters are inevitably going to have more to do than others sometimes. Like Huntsman said already, it's better than trying to squeeze every character into every episode just for the sake of getting them all in there.

Speaking of which, for those who may be upset over the lack of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy (the former was only seen briefly in a crowd scene and had no dialogue, while the latter was altogether missing), Pinkie Pie was featured prominently in last week's show, and Fluttershy will be getting a starring role in an upcoming episode.

Once again, like Gilda Griffin, this episode's "baddie", Trixie, wasn't rehabilitated at the end. No problem; every jerk doesn't immediately see the error of their ways, but I was a little disappointed that Trixie didn't face any real come-uppance at the end, other than being outed as being nothing more than hot air. On the flip side, I'm glad those 2 somewhat dimwitted male unicorns weren't really punished either; they really didn't deserve anything severe, they were just thoughtless fanboys who were sucked in by Trixie's tall tales, even though waking up the Ursa Minor just so they could see Trixie whomp it was a pretty stupid thing to do. But then, with musings like "Why do they call them 'flea markets' when they don't actually sell fleas?", it's clear that these guys aren't designing rockets in their spare time.

Finally, Spike is still carrying a torch for Rarity. (Aaaww...) I didn't think the writers would address Spike's crush again after that 1 scene in the opener, but it was cute how he tried to impress Rarity with his magic mustache.

3 out of 5 for me.

[aegisrawks]

This episode was awesome and I loved the ending!

The show is starting to grow the beard!(TvTrope that indicates when improvent is becoming more apparent in a show.)

[SigmasonicX]

I'm currently rewatching the series between the end of season 2 and the start of season 3, with two episodes per week, adjusting as an actual start time for season 3 is announced.

I was pretty surprised to see that the Trixie episode was right after the Gilda episode. I found it odd that the episodes involving two characters that are treated in pretty similar ways by the fans were right after each other.

I remembered Twilight and Trixie barely interacting, in contrast to the way they are typically portrayed in fanwork, but they actually did speak to each other more than I thought. I don't think Trixie ever actually learned Twilight's name, but then again, she didn't say the names of any of the characters.

A lot of people bring up how Trixie was just doing her job when riling up the audience, but watching the episode, the implication seems to be that while she is taking the appearance of a stage magician, she really is just wandering around and showing off how great she is. People point out that the main characters were heckling her, but they really were just talking amongst themselves until Trixie called them out.

Also, people didn't like how, in some season 2 episodes, the general population of Ponyville was shown to be mean, but they were acting pretty mean in this episode too, with them laughing at Trixie fooling the main characters. So it's nothing new to season 2, but it's more overt there. Speaking of that, people also complained about Rainbow Dash acting more like a jerk in some season 2 episodes, but she was a pretty boastful in this episode.

I assumed the idea that unicorn magic typically matched their special skill was just very prolific fanon, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually specifically spelled out in the beginning of this episode. Also, the fact that Trixie has a wand as a cutie mark shows that there are probably wands in this world. Perhaps it's a way for non-unicorns to use magic, and for unicorns to use magic beyond their special skill. It would be neat if a future episode addressed this.

I did like how the moral ended up being presented in this episode, once you accept the premise that Trixie really was just showboating for the sake of showboating. This is also the first episode since the premiere to have a big monster, which was nice after three episodes of purely slice-of-life stuff (beyond the pony and griffin part) and showed that that aspect of the series wasn't going to be abandoned. I also liked how they managed to show the range of unicorn magic, with Snails being terrible at it, Trixie being flashy but not too effective, and Twilight being really good at it. Overall, while I suppose the episode by itself isn't that great, I felt that its positioning among episodes really helped it out.

Edit: Forgot to point out that this is the first time Spike's crush on Rarity was been brought up since the first story, but I still believe it isn't brought up again until "A Dog and Pony Show". I also sympathized with Twilight's belief in these early episodes that any one wrong move would be enough for her to lose her friends, which is an entirely realistic feeling for her to have.

[The Huntsman]

I still like Trixie. I know a lot of people do, but I think most of her fans latched onto her after-the-fact, primarily due to how she became somewhat of an ensemble darkhorse and used in a lot of fan works. I wouldn't mind her showing up again before all is said and done.

[nakak]

Evidently the writers haven't forgotten about her since she was mentioned in "Ponyville Confidential". I wouldn't be surprised if she makes at least one more appearance.