MLP:FiM Season 2 Review #8 - The Mysterious Mare Do Well

Rainbow Dash is just too awesome to have a single episode to herself, apparently, so here's another Rainbow Dash episode! And apparently even the introduction of a new pony, the titular Mare Do Well! The excitement is almost too much to take, hence my flagrant usage of exclamation marks!

Spoilers past the break, as if that wasn't relatively obvious by now.



So the episode starts out with Scootaloo making up for her non-appearance last episode by hosting the official Rainbow Dash fanclub! Also Snips and Snails are there, traitors. Not that I'm complaining, since I never liked Trixie much anywa--

WAIT HOLD THE PHONE, that's a Nyan Cat Rainbow Dash poster in the background! Okay, this episode is officially awesome. Rating, right now.

10/10



...carrying on...

Rainbow Dash has several little feats of heroism and is praised by all. But, since she's Rainbow Dash, she let's it get to her head and turns into a massive braggart who's more concerned about bolstering her popularity than actually helping ponies.

But then a mysterious masked pony that the mayor dubs the "Mare Do Well" shows up and steals all of Rainbow's thunder, helping ponies and disappearing just as soon as she appears. Y'know, like a fairly typical comic book superhero. In fact, she even gets posters that are straight parodies of the Batman Animated Series logo. This episode is just full of subtle little nods, isn't it?

Rainbow tries to outdo the Mare Do Well, fails spectacularly, and finally goes and angsts on a cloud. But then she finds out that the Mare Do Well is making a public appearance, so she goes to unmask the mysterious mare! The scenario culminates in a chase scene not unlike the chase scene with the Black Raven in Professor Layton and the Last Specter (though this one's almost certainly not an actual reference due to the game being so recent), finally unmasking the Mare Do Well and discovering her identity:

SPOILERS it's actually the entire rest of the Mane Six! Eager to teach Rainbow a lesson in humility, they came up with the Mare Do Well together, each taking on one of her various roles, with Rarity being the costume designer.

...and that's really it. The plot of the episode is simple enough, but the actual action scenes are good enough to prevent it from feeling like it drags on too much, with the possible exception of Rainbow's annoying gloating. It never gets as bad as Apple Bloom in The Cutie Pox, though, with much better pacing.

The problem, unfortunately, is that there's really not all that much to the episode. It focuses almost exclusively on Rainbow Dash, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it loses some of the vital character interaction that makes episodes of the series great.

And maybe it was just me, but the Mare Do Well's actual persona became pretty obvious once she used magic to fix the dam, and even moreso when she proceeded to fly around. It definitely wasn't as bad as, say, how obvious it was that the tortoise would end up as Rainbow's pet last episode, but it still seemed a tad bit too predictable. It lacked the subtlety behind the finale of Sisterhooves Social.

It's definitely not all bad, though. This episode has some fun moments with background ponies old and new, including one of the two infamous ponies from the Comic Con poster's balloon. Not to mention it brings up the Pinkie Sense for the second time in the whole series, and reveals that it's more than a simple prophecy, and instead is something that Pinkie can actually circumvent. Which is a little scary - is that perhaps too much power for one pony? With great power comes great responsibility, and Pinkie seems to lack in the latter, so...?

But I'm getting off topic. The Mysterious Mare Do Well gets a...

6/10

Pros:
-Continuity nods and further development of Ponyville
-Fun action scenes, and good pacing within and between them

Cons:
-A tad bit predictable
-A bit too simple, plotwise
-Too much focus on Rainbow, to the exclusion of other ponies

---

Am I being fair to these episodes? It's totally weird, because I keep feeling really really bad for giving sixes and stuff. I mean, I like the episodes, but I kind of set a precedent with Discord's episodes being sevens, so...

Gah, I don't know. Rating is so hard when half of everyone ever seems to think that anything below an eight is bad.

...if I hate rating things, then why am I even bothering with a number system?

...wait, that's actually a legitimate question. I'll get back to you on that one.

~ C.O