Episode Re-Review: Secrets and Pies · 3:58pm April 6th
*Sigh*, might as well get this over with. When this episode first came out, I didn't think it would be possible for any episode to dethrone "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" for the worst episode of FiM in my book, but somehow this episode found a way to do that. It doesn't help that it had its big secret accidentally exposed early thanks to an IDW comic getting leaked ahead of time, so we the audience already knew what the twist was going to be. By now, the 2017 movie had come and gone with a mixed fandom reception (some really liked it, others called it a toy commercial or a cash grab), ultimately achieving financial success with a strong showing in China. Meanwhile, the remaining Season 7 episodes were getting leaked online again. And while all that was going on, Lewis and Songco abruptly left the story editor position and disappeared from FiM all together. They would come back to write "The Beginning of the End" (which turns five years old today), but no word has been given as to their abrupt hiatus. Anyway, taking their place in the editor's chair was Josh Haber, who would stay in the role for the rest of FiM from here on out, and alongside Michael Vogel would more or less be running the show. But who was writing this episode? None other than Josh Hamilton, who went from the problematic but still decent "Parental Glideance" to the lackluster performance of "Triple Threat" that, while as not as bad other bad Spike episodes, still felt like a waste of an episode slot. So a lot was already working against him, as he had yet to pen a true success in the fandom's eyes. But he came back for Season 8, so someone must've thought he was doing a good job. Where did it all go so wrong for this episode? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with the absolute worst pre-title sequence of the entire show, Pinkie Pie is expositing to Twilight about making pies while being quite a messy baker. Even considering pies will be part of the episode, this entire sequence is filler. Long time fans already remember Pinkie Pie is a skilled baker, and new fans would pick up this information pretty easily without this sequence. Plus, it seems to be yet another case of the writers inserting someone in for Pinkie to talk to because for whatever reason they think that if Pinkie is just talking to herself it will sound weird, nevermind the fact that they've done it several times before.
When the episode finally gets started for good, Pinkie Pie shows up to the Wonderbolts academy. And apparently, just being friends with a Wonderbolt is enough to let you onto the premise even though "Parental Glideance" specifically stated civillians aren't allowed on academy grounds without prior permission. Remember, Josh wrote "Parental Glideance" himself, so he should know that better than anyone. It's not a good sign when you forget your own continuity.
So anyway, Pinkie is showing up to celebrate a milestone workout for Rainbow Dash. Rather than celebrate with a cake, she's baked a pie.
Rainbow appears a bit unease about this, but accepts the pie anyway. A short time later, however, Pinkie happens to spot the pie being thrown into the trash. But when she questions the janitor, he tells her he never saw the pie. So what does Pinkie Pie do? Well, instead of confronting Rainbow Dash to find out what she did with the pie, she instead decides to more or less take up her detective outfit from "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", then question all the other Wonderbolts to see if they know anything. However, even though Soarin was frequently depicted as being obsessed with pies in the fandom, he is not present and does not speak during this abrupt interrogation.
Pinkie Pie then learns about seeming unrelated incidents involving animals ingesting pies. She learns from Cheerilee about a class hamster that's gotten sick, and Cheerilee thinks it's the students feeding it. Then we learn from Dr. Fauna about Tank having swallowed a pie, and she specifically mentions that animals aren't supposed to eat pies because it's like poison to them. You might wanna remember that, because the episode sure won't.
We then see Pinkie retreat to her secret party planning cave, as she attempts to connect the dots via colored strings. She starts thinking back to all the times she'd give Rainbow Dash a pie, and Rainbow would have her look away, then the pie would mysteriously disappear. Somehow, Pinkie believed Rainbow ate the pie despite having no need to ask Pinkie Pie to turn around. This causes Pinkie to realize that Rainbow Dash must not like pies. And from there, we get a filler scene of her thinking Rainbow Dash has been replaced by an evil pie hating clone.
So Pinkie Pie decides to test Rainbow Dash and expose her, resorting to increasingly elaborate ploys to try to catch Rainbow in the act. We proceed to see things like Rainbow not so discreetly feeding her pies to Tank (in what will be the last time he ever appears in the show, which could unintentionally suggest Rainbow Dash killed him by constantly feeding him pies), or her getting a bunch of children to eat a lot of pies right in front of Pinkie, who somehow never notices any of this.
Eventually, however, Pinkie's elaborate ruses finally succeed in catching Rainbow in the act. Rainbow tries to explain, but Pinkie Pie is of course insulted that Rainbow Dash has been lying to her about liking the pies even though she never did. Rainbow Dash is then forced to explain herself to Applejack and Twilight, revealing that she didn't want to hurt Pinkie Pie's feelings and that was why she did what she did for so long. She never expresses any remorse for poisoning animals, though.
There is a brief scene of Applejack asking Rainbow Dash what else she might be hiding if she's been pretending to like pies for so long. Probably the only joke in this episode that's actually kind of funny, and I'm surprised the fandom didn't run with that, even just for a little while.
We then get a very disgusting climax where Rainbow attempts to make it up to Pinkie by eating pies out of the garbage. And she actually is about to go through with it just to apologize, until Pinkie Pie tells her to stop and promises not to keep making pies if Rainbow's not going to eat them. The episode then goes on to ignore the aesop about listening to your friends when they tell you they don't like something, because Pinkie embraces Rainbow in a killer hug, and doesn't believe Rainbow Dash when she says it's too tight. Not since "The Cutie Pox" have I seen an episode bring up an aesop, then completely disregard it mere seconds later. Maybe they were trying to be funny, or maybe they wanted this to be a justification for the lengths Rainbow went to. But all it does is destroy the story, making the episode pointless since Pinkie apparently hasn't learned anything.
*Sigh* and that's the story, so is it as bad as I say it is? You better believe it. The only episode after this that comes even remotely close to dethroning this episode for FiM's all time worst is "A Trivial Pursuit". And believe me, that episode sure tried its hardest to be just as bad as this episode. This entire episode's premise is one that should've never left the cutting room floor, Rainbow Dash not liking Pinkie's pies and Pinkie taking forever to realize this obvious fact. Even the target audience would realize how the mystery would end the moment the first pie ended up in the trash.
What Rainbow Dash does in this episode is not only not funny, but when it makes Pinkie Pie start to wonder if she's crazy or just imagining things, it causes Rainbow to be guilty of what's knowing as gaslighting. Gaslighting is the act of undermining someone's sanity, usually intentionally, making them believe things that aren't there or making them believe that what they saw isn't what they saw. The episode tries to justify this by claiming that Pinkie would get upset and wouldn't understand, but as the saying goes "The coverup is always worse than the crime". As Watergate alone can attest, that's true. When you tell a lie to cover up doing something wrong, it only makes whatever you did wrong worse because you tried to hide your involvement instead of confessing, committing more wrongdoings on top of the wrongdoing. Besides, the very idea that Pinkie wouldn't understand if Rainbow just told her outright she didn't like pies is completely ridiculous. Remember back in "The Cutie Map" when Pinkie mentioned that the smiles weren't natural? That wasn't a joke, it showed that Pinkie could tell when a smile isn't real. And as both "The Smile Song" and "Pinkie's Lament" establish, she wants her friends to be happy, but she wants the smiles to be sincere and not fake. She wouldn't want others to fake their happiness just for her sake.
It feels like this episode took a look at Dr. Seuss' iconic classic Green Eggs & Ham, but failed to understand what that was about. Not only was that story about not saying you don't like something until you've tried it, but it was also unintentionally about how you can't make someone like something by constantly shoving it in their face and asking them to try it. That's not what this episode does since Pinkie isn't pressuring Rainbow into trying her pies, she's baking them because she wants to and because she expects Rainbow to reciprocate. She would understand if Rainbow Dash told her outright she doesn't like pies. Why did this episode have to be all about that? Why waste Detective Pinkie Pie on a mystery that's not a mystery? Assuming the resolution had to be that Rainbow Dash doesn't like Pinkie's pies and has been trying to secretly dispose of them, why not just have the pies go missing, then later reveal that Rainbow was inadvertently leading Pinkie on a wild goose chase? You wouldn't need to have Rainbow Dash intentionally poisoning animals just to keep up her lies, and you wouldn't need to disregard the aesop for the sake of either a joke or a justification. But no, this episode just had to be the way it was. And it gets an F- as a result. It is that bad.
Well, at least the good news is it can't get any worse than this. And things should pick up next week when we re-review "Uncommon Bond", which is Sunburst's big day in the limelight. And leaks have confirmed that Sunburst is a Josh Haber creation.
do you need a hug?
5775570 I'm fine. But thank you for the offer.
5775571
just trying to help/being friendly
Yeah this is one episode we majority disagree on
For me, it's such a fun time i can't help but love it
How do you make an episode where I actively hate both Pinkie and Rainbow. Pinkie for being an obnoxious, oversensitive stalker who can't take an opinion of someone not liking a pie or Rainbow for ACTIVELY lying to Pinkie for years while also poising Tank through her escapades (wonder we never saw Tank after this episode). It's unforgivable how they spit in the face of 4 episodes (Pinkie Pride, May the Best Pet Win, Tanks for the Memories, and Griffon the Brush Off) and screwing a moral of how white lies are harmful in favor of gross out humor that would make Season 6-8 SpongeBob blush.
My opinion may change once I choose to revisit the series, but I do not like this episode at all.
Interesting fact: In the 2019 film Playing with Fire, when the characters are watching an episode of MLP: FIM, they're watching the pilot but John Leguizamo's character gives the plot synopsis for this episode. Needless to say, your response to this would most likely be the same as Voice of Reason's when he talked about Filli Vanilli in his Season 4 Lightning Round video and it referenced his least favorite episode at the time, Bridle Gossip:
Also, Thespio brought up in the Roundtable is Magic discussion of this episode that it might've been at the very least excusable if this had aired in one of the earlier seasons. Basically, any point before Twilight became an alicorn.