Episode Re-Review: The End in Friend · 4:35pm 6 days ago
Season 8 kept on going, even as episodes started to be leaked ahead of time in other countries again. It looked as if the worst was over for Season 8 after "A Matter of Principals", "The Hearth's Warming Club" was widely praised and "Friendship University" was seen by most at least not an infamously bad episode (which Season 8 seemed to have an unusually high concentration of). And now we have this episode, penned by G. M. Berrow, who by this point had stopped penning chapter books and had become a writer for the show full time. Her most recent performance had "Daring Done?" in Season 7, but it still seemed like she had yet to pen an episode that was widely praised, as even "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows" seemed to land with mostly a shrug back in Season 5. This episode doesn't seem to get talked about much in regards to Season 8, again likely because there are so many other episodes with infamous missteps to talk about. But does that mean this episode is only slightly worse, or is at least decent? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Twilight and Starlight seeking out Rarity and Rainbow Dash for a demonstration at the School of Friendship. Specifically, they're trying to show how two individuals who don't see to have much in common can get along. The problem is, Rarity and Rainbow Dash can't really think of what to do together that they'll both enjoy. Rather than scrub the lesson plan as a result, Twilight and Starlight insist on putting their friends on the spot for the sake of the students. It predictably goes as bad as you think. Rarity takes Rainbow Dash shoe shopping, and Rainbow complains about getting glitter on her hooves.
But when Rainbow opts to play buckball and show off a new move, Rarity can't be bothered to pay attention for even five seconds and gets distracted. So Rainbow Dash can put up with Rarity's likes, but Rarity can't be bothered to even feign interest in what Rainbow is doing, even though she know they're being watched. This flies completely in the face of how well Rarity has demonstrated her ability to read social cues and effectively become the mask.
So the demonstration is ultimately a bust, and Rarity and Rainbow Dash start arguing and fighting, claiming they have nothing in common with each other. This honestly feels like an observation that would be made only by someone who never bothered watching the show. Rarity and Rainbow Dash have shown that they have areas of overlapping interest at least in terms of personality, particularly with their desires to bask in the adortion of crowds and shape public opinion. It also ignores the fact that in "Sonic Rainboom" Rarity was the only one who could spot Rainbow's performance anxiety, or how Rarity was willing to defend Rainbow Dash when she was accused of a crime she didn't commit.
And yet this is what the episode insists on focusing on for basically the entirety of two out of three acts. It gets so bad that Starlight tries to play counselor for Rarity and Rainbow Dash, even suggesting they read the books series that the other likes. Rainbow complains about having read Shadow Spade, but Rarity once again reveals that she couldn't even feign interest in something she knows Rainbow Dash likes. She also stupidly mocks Daring Do despite knowing that Daring Do is in fact a real pony.
But just as the two are ready to call off their friendship forever, Starlight summons them to Twilight's office for an emergency. Twilight apparently lost the Amulet of Aurora, one of the magical artifacts given to her school back in "A Matter of Principals". As it turns out, the amulet can actually control the tides. And Starlight more or less puts Rarity and Rainbow Dash in charge of tracking down the thief and retrieving the amulet.
So the two set off, following a trail of sparkles that were left behind when the amulet was stolen. They lead away from the school, and Rarity points out that they're not like the sparkles on the new boots she bought earlier. She also complains about the boots slowing her down, saying they were "not made for trotting" after all.
Well, eventually the trail leads into a swamp. There's only one problem, the only way ahead is to navigate through the swamp, and it's too thick to wade through without getting stuck. It sure is a good thing there's no dangerous wildlife in the swamp waters.
Luckily, Rarity manages to build a rig to get herself and Rainbow Dash across the water (Rainbow powers it using her wings as a giant motor). Once on the other side, they find that the trail has mysteriously gone cold, right before they encounter a huge frog like creature called a boufogrin. It talks softly because it has very sensitive hearing, and it has bad breath. Luckily, Rarity finds a way to trick the boufogrin into eating a breath mint, then talks to it and learns that the trail didn't actually disappear, it just went up into the sky. Rarity insists that Rainbow follow it alone, but Rainbow picks up Rarity and takes her with her as the trail leads to a cave. The door on the cave has the same symbol as the School of Friendship. And it will soon turn out that this is hardly a coincidence.
And as it turns out, Rarity's new boots come in with a built in lock pick via the heels. She then apologizes to Rainbow Dash for not being more respectful to her interests, and Rainbow apologizes for doing the same as the two renew their friendship whilst pursuing the thief.
Well, the cave doors leads right back to the School of Friendship. And the thief turns out to be Spike, making use of his new wings. Surprise surprise, the whole mystery turns out to be a set up by Twilight to get Rarity and Rainbow Dash to work together, and used it as part of her earlier demonstration. Rarity and Rainbow Dash then decide to go spend time together, with Rarity feeling inspired to create some new sporting attire. Kind of a shame we don't get a follow-up to this, even just in the form of her designing buckball uniforms for the school, or some kind of cheerleader outfit. I mean hey, Cheerilee pulled it off pretty well.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Honestly, this is probably the only case I can think of where an episode's third act saved it rather than almost ruined it. The first two acts of the episode are spent on a very infuritating and unfunny plot watching Rainbow Dash and Rarity argue. It makes them look so petty and childish, and this late into the show's run there is zero reason for this kind of plot to exist. It's the kind of plot that might have worked back in Season 1 or as a flashback, but in Season 8 after all we've seen, you can't possibly expect us to believe that Rarity and Rainbow Dash would still be friends if they had nothing in common, or that they would break off their friendship because of a disagreement. But honestly, Rainbow Dash looks like a saint with how much she's willing to get out of her comfort zone for Rarity's sake, whereas every time Rarity has to show support for Rainbow Dash she can't be bothered to even pretend to care, and that just makes her look awful. Twilight and Starlight lose a lot of points too for forcing their friends into a demonstration even when it's obvious they're not comfortable with it, and even when it's clear that putting them on the spot only made things worse. Once the actual mystery happens, though, that's when the whole episode turns around. It makes me wish the episode had started from there, and had Rarity and Rainbow Dash's disagreements be shown in flashback whilst they're working on the mystery. That way we could spend the whole episode watching them rekindle their friendship that they didn't even realize was starting to fray. After all, they would team up together a season later, so if it was good enough to revisit then why not revisit it here?
This is probably one of Season 8's more salvagable episodes. It really wouldn't have needed that much reworking to be good. As it is, the third act lifts it up enough to the level of a flat C, maybe a borderline C/C+. I know G. M. Berrow joined the writing staff later than most, but she was still present during Season 5 when we had "Rarity Investigates!" (which we now know went through a very troubled production history, which is why M. A. Larson and Meghan McCarthy got only partial credit for it). So she of all writers should've known that a premise about Rarity and Rainbow Dash having nothing in common wouldn't work.
Well, this brief period of decency was nice while it lasted. I've only got three more Season 8 episodes left to revisit, and unfortunately they're all pretty bad. First up is "Yakety Sax", which might just be the worst Pinkie Pie focus episode of all time in regards to her character, worse even than "Secrets and Pies".
Technically the events of those episodes are brought up at the start when Rarity and Rainbow Dash are talking to the students about their friendship, with the explanation being they don't really hang out one-on-one outside of those two episodes.
Goes without saying this is worse than Rarity's half-assed disguise for Twilight in the previous episode, as that was only a small part of the story.