MLP:FiM Season 2 Review #10 - Secret of My Excess

If you're sick of episodes focusing on various ponies, you're in luck, because this week everyone's favorite dragon gets his own episode! The closest Spike's ever gotten to having an episode to himself was Owl's Well that Ends Well, and I don't think anyone really liked that episode much, so this promises to be something interesting at the very least!

And it also promises to have a more grown-up Spike for part of it, and thus promises to give the fanartists a ton of draconian inspiration. And that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me!

Spoilers after the break.



So the episode starts off with... well, Rarity being basically awful, again. Spike's birthday is coming up, so he's been prepping a rare fire ruby as a special birthday delight for himself. Rarity sees the gem and more or less takes full advantage of Spike's crush on her to get the gem. While Spike seems happy enough to have gotten a peck on the cheek from his favorite pony, the entire scenario just seems so... wrong.

Rarity, I like you! I like you a lot, you're a pretty cool pony! But holy crap have you been awful these last two episodes. You're supposed to be the bearer of the Element of Generosity, remember? You're not the bearer of the Element of Taking Advantage of the Kindness of Every Other Pony in Equestria!

JEEZ. What makes it even more infuriating is that, as Rarity brings up the action several more times in the episode, everypony, including Rarity, acts like it was entirely Spike's idea. It's just so... it's just really annoying to me. It feels like the act itself was supposed to have seemed a little different, but maybe wasn't written as well as it could have been. I don't know, the entire thing just strikes me as odd and frustrating.

But we can move on from that now. I promise. Until I bring it up again, anyway.

So, skip ahead to Spike's birthday. The rest of the Mane Six brings him gifts, and he is really happy and having a great time! Then it turns out the the Cakes have a special surprise for him, so he goes to see them and gets a sapphire cupcake! Incredibly happy about how his birthday is going, Spike heads back to the treehouse only to bump into Cheerilee who, upon finding out that it's Spike's birthday, improvises and gives him a hat she had just purchased.

So Spike, not being the best role model in the world, decides to take advantage of the generosity of other ponies to get lots of gifts. Twilight catches him hassling a pony and Spike promises he'll stop. He doesn't.

So that's where the plot comes in: it turns out that when dragons express greed, they grow larger. And when they grow larger, they get greedier. So Spike gets caught in a vicious cycle of growing larger and greedier, and rampages through Ponyville.

It's a good plot for an episode, but has some odd implications. Is greed the only way dragons can grow? Will Spike be stuck forever young, as a sort of dragon Peter Pan unless he opts to hoard things? It's... relatively simple to explain around with fanon, but still a tad bit odd to explain as a wholly natural process.

The episode has its fair share of fun easter eggs along the way, too. There's a brief background scene with Lyra and Bon Bon (!!) as well as Ditzy popping out of a well in her most blatant appearance in quite a while. And, interestingly, there's a doctor that is pretty heavily implied to be Twist's father. He has a similar-looking cutie mark along with the signature lisp. It's a pretty cool touch, I think, and adds an extra dimension to the characters without being terribly blatant about it.

Plotwise, the episode isn't bad outside of that one instance in the beginning. The... perhaps less-than-stellar writing is only highlighted, though, as Spike giving the fire ruby away in an act of generosity (obviously the opposite of greed) ends up being a key plot point. And the entire time Rarity continues to act like it was entirely Spike's idea! It has to be bad writing, right? I hate to think that this show has any of that, but it's just so... so... bad that Rarity would act like it was entirely Spike's idea. Urgh, geez. I don't know. This is probably not anywhere near as much of an issue as I am making it out to be!

Outside of... that... I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. It has loads of characters in it, from Zecora to a brief cameo by the CMC to even some random Wonderbolts, and the overall message isn't a bad one at all. Spike gets some development both personality-wise and capabilities-wise (dat tongue), which is certainly welcome. Even Rarity's actions aren't anywhere near as egregious as they were in the last episode. So, overall, I'll give Secret of my Excess a


7/10

Pros:
-Loads and loads of characters!
-Fun Easter eggs abound
-Solid plot, if perhaps a little odd to be natural

Cons:
-Dat Rarity scene
-Suffers the common cartoon issue of getting off scot-free for blowing up the entire town
-Spike's design as a fully-grown dragon looks for all the world like he's wearing eyeliner

---

I like Spikey-Wikey, do you like Spikey-Wikey? If you don't you clearly have no soul.

...I really hope Rarity redeems herself soon. She has not been making me very happy as of late. Expect for her song last episode, which was good. But besides that, she really needs to get with the generous-being!

...though I have to admit that the scene with Spike and Rarity plummeting to their perceived doom was absolutely adorable. I... I might have to forgive Rarity just so I can ship her with Spike forever and ever. Because my gosh they are adorable. Quite easily the second-best MLP ship.

...so hey, next week's the holiday episode! I'm pretty stoked to see exactly how Equestria was made! Who wants to bet that Pinkie Pie ends the story with "...and that's how I got my Cutie Mark!"

~C.O