Episode Review: "A Trivial Pursuit" - Season 9 Episode 16

If “The Point of No Return” earlier this season was rather similar to Amending “Fences” though in ways that don’t seem to necessarily be intentional, then today’s episode, “A Trivial Pursuit” is similar to another Twilight classic, “Lesson Zero”. Not so much on its plot, but the levels to which Twilight and the animators controlling her character rig are pushed, are very consciously seeking to remind viewers of that episode, or one-up it. Writer Brittany Jo Flores has only one prior Pony episode to her name, the reasonably good “Once Upon a Zeppelin” from Season 7, which, wouldn’t you know it, also involved pushing Twilight to levels of frustration, though without the craziness. And in that case, she handled it as well as anyone could, given what she was put through and what she ended up missing. Certainly, Jo Flores should be able to write Twilight decently.

Well, expect an episode of “Twilighting”, my friends, along with character acknowledgement of it, though less of the freakout-and-hyperventilating variety, and more of the obsessive-about-a-goal-to-the-point-of-being-a-bad-friend variety. Which, while not as worn down by this point, certainly doesn’t bear well on her character, negates much of her early growth in the show and continues to showcase how the current staff (or, well, story supervisors, mostly) can’t, or don’t want to, mix the Mane 6 and character nuance. And especially so for Twilight, who, lets be honest, hasn’t been written well regularly, except in fits and spurts (“Once Upon a Zeppelin” being once of those spurts) since Season 6 started. Guess one good episode does not a good writer make, though as is the case with these seasons, it's often near-impossible to determine how much of an episode's quality, high or low, level can be pinned down to the writer, as opposed to the story editors.

The reason for this level and type of Twilighting is Trivial Trot, a game involving randomly paired teams competing to win based on correctly answered questions (a mashup up of Trivial Pursuit and a pub quiz, basically). As explained in the cold opening where Spike and Twilight sport adorable pyjama getups (Twilight’s bed t-shirt with a stylised head of DJ-Pon 3 was especially cute), Twilights will get a consecutive hat-rick of three wins should she win this one, the first to do so. Next day at the event, there’s plenty of shenanigans one would expect of a game night (playful banter, Twilight theorising about how certain pairs tend to do, and so on – as an aficionado of games of many sorts, this pleased me quite a bit). The upset comes when Pinkie shows up and Twilight sweats because she’s a new player. Because this is a scripted episode, they get paired together last (the odds of which, given 12 participants, are only 1:66, or 1.51% - you can thank me later).

What follows is decent game night shenanigans with some amusing foul play around (Rainbow tricking Applejack into forgetting the specifics of a question on apples in a highlight), all while Twilight slips further into obsessive mode, coupled with not just memetastic faces (so overboard the characters seem off-model at times), but also Twilight’s mane getting more disheveled as the episode progresses. We also have to contend with how, despite flashes of her trying to help Pinkie, she is rather a mean jerk in it all – emphasised by how she tricks Pinkie into wandering off during the Cupcakes round and later gets her intentionally disqualified to pair herself with Sunburst instead.

And while this is not as tedious and as painful to watch as with the recent “2, 4, 6, Greaaat”, given it’s at least entertaining along the way, it’s still poor writing and meanspirited character regression. Twilighting always means that, but not to the point of Twilight being a jerk, because that not something she’s even been, except perhaps due to lack of social graces, and that doesn’t half compare to this.
The rest of the episode proceeds as you’d expect; more trying to hog the bell between Twilight and Sunburst, Twilight eventually realising her mistake when Sunburst almost gets her disqualified, and Twilight apologising to Pinkie and starting over from scratch while Sunburst re-teams with the hypersomnia-ridden Cranky Doodle.

So, as said before, they were clearly aiming to push Twilight to “Lesson Zero” levels of insanity. While certainly amusing, this doesn’t work nearly as well, given her being made a jerk as a result, little nuance along the way and other slip ups common of the current seasons. There are moments here and there intended to justify her though process at given moments, and while these aren't worthless, there isn't enough of them for them to succeed in their goal of justifying Twilight's behaviour throughout.
There are certainly fun moments otherwise, both from other teams, from Spike and even Granny Smith, and the episode being aware how convoluted this trivia game is kind of neat. That said, while no other character is mishandled the way Twilight is, a lot of them have poor moments of writing too. Pinkie, is at times more distracted then she should be so the plot can proceed the way the staff want it to, and the competitiveness of the game night leads to not-nice attitudes as much as it leads to funny jokes, perhaps more. Sure, I play gaming outside of the video variety a fair bit too, mostly card and board games, but it doesn't mean I'm immune to the mean competitive streaks that arise in such lengthy environments. If you've ever had the board upended, you'll know what I mean. It's accurate, absolutely, but it's not pleasant. It's even less pleasant to watch, especially given the trivia here is all stuff we already know, so it's hard to be impressed by the writers doing their homework, given that should be expected by default.

But it all come back to Twilight, ultimately, and anyone who doesn’t like Twilighting, or find more then marginal amusement in it, will find his or her patience pushed a fair bit. Even if Tara Strong has a ball doing it, it's in a way that would work far better in a cartoon with more edge and less sentiment then MLP - something on Cartoon Network, you know. In the end, the episode fares a lot like “A Matter of Principles” – amusing, though your enjoyment on it will depend on how much a character being an uncharacteristic jerk bothers you. Personally, I found this weaker then that, given Discord being a jerk is far easier to swallow and somewhat more in-character for him. While this episode does fare leagues better then the one-two punch of one of its meanest last week, this otherwise ranks as yet another fitfully-amusing-but-embarrasingly-messy Season 9 episode. Three episodes out of the last hiatus, and things are looking a decent bit bleaker. Let’s hope it picks back up, my friends.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- Granny Smith calls out Twilight by her first name only, but says ‘Pinkie Pie.’ Fair enough if she’s on a no-titles basis with a Princess, but the lack of her surname while Pinkie has hers is rather peculiar.
- How long does this game go on for? By the end, the other five teams are averaging 50+ points each. And to judge from the examples throughout, questions don’t happen rapid-fire either. Factor in setup and the break and however much longer it goes on for past the ending, and this seems to be 7 hours, if not more. Wowzers, and not for the right reasons either. I've played games of Risk that ended quicker then that.
- Expectedly for an episode focused mostly on laughs, the logic for who’s ahead by what at what point is all over the place. Sunburst does just as poorly as Twilight before Cranky is disqualified, despite being “one of the best”. Meanwhile, Maud and Mudbriar, despite being an “unstoppable team”, are behind three others teams early on too. I guess a lot of the non-essential point totals weren’t specified in the script and left to the whims of the storyboards artists or the animators.
- Pinkie: “Wow. These rules are really convoluted.” You took the words right out of my mouth, Pinkie. Duel Monsters as mocked by Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged (as opposed to how those of us who play it know it to work) makes more sense then Trivia Trot’s hodgepodge of rules.
- Derpy/Muffins seems to be late for the game night, judging by her trying to get in during the closing shot. Wonder how she'd fare in non-Muffin rounds?
- It really seems so long ago that I was excited about Season 9, though really I was up until “Frenemies” – of the seven episodes to that point, only the two Student 6 episodes sucked, and that was to be expected. The Premiere and “Sparkle’s Seven” were really solid, “Common Ground” was pretty good, “The Point of no Return” was decent, and “Frenemies” remain a high-quality unique standout in the show’s history. But after that, the season’s first half concluded with a mixture of episodes ranging from decent (“Going to Seed”) to mixed (“Sweet and Smoky” and “Student Counsel”) to good-but-well-short-of-the-classic-it-should-have-been (“The Last Crusade”) to an incoherent mess (“Between Dark and Dawn”). Couple that with the recent trio of a fine-but-dull episode, an awful one and another messy, poorly-conceived one, and Season 9’s average continues to drive downhill fast. Not looking good, and call me pessimistic if you must, but my hopes for a satisfying conclusion and seasonal arcs being handled well continue to dwindle (especially given that, outside of the Premiere, both arcs, Twilight’s and the villain’s, have only gotten a single episode each).