SPOILERS? Mariusioannesp Reviews: "Applejack's "Day" Off" · 5:09am Jun 1st, 2016
WARNING!!! The following contains SPOILERS for the latest episode of MLP “Applejack’s “Day” Off”.
Now, without further a-what-the-heck-was-that-do, here is my review of “Applejack’s “Day” Off”.
Applejack keeps missing her spa days with Rarity because the time it takes for Applejack to do her chores on the farm have gone up significantly. In order for Applejack to finally get a chance to relax with Rarity, Twilight Sparkle and Spike volunteer to do some of Applejack’s chores. They soon discover that Applejack has a rather complicated way of doing things. Will Applejack learn that she’s making some unnecessary habits?
So, what’s the verdict?
Hoo boy. I find myself confused over what the point of this episode was.
So yeah, it was okay, I guess.
So, we shall start at the beginning as always though it’s not the beginning of anything wonderful. Rarity is waiting at the spa for Applejack, who’s running late for their spa day. (Since when does Rarity have a spa day with Applejack? I suppose she could have one with a number of her friends.) Anyway, she gets all pruney as she waits. 
Oh my gosh!
Later, Rarity is walking up to Sweet Apple Acres to collect Applejack for another spa day. She is joined by Twilight Sparkle and Spike who are going up there to get some more apple pies. Rarity laments the possibility that Applejack will once again be too busy to join her for the full day. Once they arrive at the farm and Twilight and Spike pick up their pies, Rarity inquires as to whether or not Applejack is ready to join her at the spa.
Unfortunately, Applejack forgot it was today and needs to delay as she’s still got work to get caught up on. Twilight tries to assuage the situation by suggesting that perhaps another of Applejack’s family can take over whilst she joins Rarity at the spa. However, the rest of the Apple Family is currently taking the harvest to market. Twilight then suggests that she and Spike could take over for a while whilst Applejack and Rarity go to the spa. Applejack is unsure but decides that if they at least feed the pigs, she could get away for an hour. So as Applejack and Rarity leave for the spa, Applejack leaves Twilight with a written list of instructions on how to feed the pigs. Twilight figures she’s got it covered because you know it’s a list and this is Twilight. However, she and Spike soon discover that the list’s instructions are quite lengthy and include rather confusing steps like opening the gate to the pig pen, then immediately closing it, and walking away. Thinking about it, it does kind of remind me somewhat of the overly detailed instructions Applejack left for Apple Bloom way back in Season 4’s “Somepony to Watch Over Me”.
Down at the spa, Applejack and Rarity run into the last of their friends that they expected to see at the spa. 
It’s Rainbow Dash. They didn’t think she’d be there because it’s not her thing you know. Rainbow tries to play it off by saying that she came in for a deep tissue sports massage because she pulled something at Wonderbolts practice. That’s when a spa pony comes by to inform Rainbow that they’re behind for her pampered muscle massage and indulgent hooficure. Wait, back-up just a step. Hooficure?! Y’all remember how way back in Season 2 in “Ponyville Confidential” Rainbow couldn’t have her hoofnails filed without cringing. Now she’s getting not just a hooficure but an indulgent one. I suppose she could have gotten over that in the time since then, but really. Either way, Rainbow sees that the spa is a bit backlogged and runs away, though she does surreptitiously schedule the same treatment for the next day.
If you can bear with me for just a moment, I understand why Rainbow Dash is used in this capacity in this episode. It’s supposed to be funny given how she tends to avoid stereotypically feminine activities. I thought it was kind of funny, but it just rubbed me the wrong way somehow. 
I suppose our Rainbow is a lot more like G3 Rainbow Dash than we thought.
Anyway, it turns this backlog also affects Rarity and Applejack as there is quite a long line to the steam room, which is their usual first stop at the spa. Rarity is willing to move on to their other spa activities given time is a factor, but Applejack in her typical stubbornness, refuses to skip her steam. Applejack goes cantering off to see what the reason is for this hold up. Turns out, it’s because the steam room takes a long time to properly steam up as can be observed from this helpful steam gauge. 
Why does it have a face?
Hey look! It’s Spoiled Rich. She’s in this episode for no apparent reason, except to remind us how spoiled rich she is.
Apparently, the steam room not steaming up has become such a problem that the Spa Ponies had to institute a warm towel service for the pony patrons waiting in line for the steam room. Applejack then goes on a little investigation. Applejack follows the towel pony who takes the now used towels back to the laundry room to be washed. Aloe the spa pony explains the necessity of washing the towels immediately to maintain the spa’s sanitary conditions. However, all the machines are being used a full bore due to the popularity of the warm towel service. Applejack follows once more as the towel pony exits the laundry room with freshly dried towels to give to everyone at the spa, and get the used ones thrown at him. 
It’s Mr. and Mrs. Cake! And Bulk Biceps is on top of Mr. Cake… That came out wrong.... Or did it?
Applejack follows the spa’s water pipes until she finds one with a leak. Applejack discerns what the problem is. 
A small leak in the pipe caused the steam room to take a bit longer to get steamed up. The ponies waiting for the steam need warm towels while they wait. Keeping all the towels clean with the washing machines uses up even more warm water and further exasperates the problem. Wow, who would have thunk plumbing would be so exciting? (It isn’t.) But Applejack has no intention of moving on now that she’s identified the problem. She’s going to need her tools now. 
Applejack works on fixing the pipe while Rarity goes on to the rest of her spa activities. Eventually, Applejack gets the pipe fixed. With the steam room now working properly, ponies won’t have to wait, they won’t need as many warm towels, and they won’t need to be constantly washing them. Aloe of course is very grateful for all Applejack has done. 
Unfortunately, Applejack has used up all the time she had to come to the spa with this pipe-fixing escapade. Rarity wonders why no one at the spa thought to check for leaks. Aloe explains that with everything they have to worry about, they got a little too used to how things were, and they stopped realizing it was a problem. Rarity points out the need to sometimes have an outside eye evaluate these kinds of things. Rarity makes a last ditch effort to salvage their spa day, suggesting that perhaps Twilight fed the pigs and can figure out on her own what to do next. Applejack insists though that despite Twilight’s princess status, she isn’t a farmer like Applejack has been her whole life. It isn’t something you can just figure out. Really now. Rarity suggests then that they pop back to the farm to instruct Twilight in what needs to be done next so they can get back to the spa.
Back at the farm, Twilight is struggling to get the pigs fed in accordance with Applejack’s instructions. Twilight’s dangling on a rope off a beam being held in place by Spike while she holds a stick with a corn cob dangling on it and the pigs’ slop bucket. 
Twilight ends up slipping and dropping everything, causing Spike to get tangled up in the rope and pulled along with her. He grabs onto the railing of the pig pen causing Twilight to stop just inches above the ground all Mission: Impossible style. 
They even throw in a few notes from the theme song.
Mission: Impossible. That’s another movie I’ve never seen.
It’s at that moment that Applejack and Rarity arrive, and Applejack concludes that she’s going to have to finish her chores herself. Twilight apologizes for her failure in feeding the pigs, but Applejack understands it’s not easy to do what she does. At least Applejack and Rarity got a chance to relax at the spa, Twilight says. That’s when Rarity explains what happened at the spa and how they never even got the chance to relax. Applejack also goes into how the spa ponies had fallen into a habit that was making a lot more work for them. All the while, Applejack is going through a series of odd procedures in the process of feeding these darn pigs. She opens and closes the gate. She makes silly faces at the pigs. 
She starts acting like a chicken. 
She dangles on a rope from a beam with a corn cob dangling from a stick that causes the pigs to stampede after it and knock the slop bucket from the fence into the pig trough.
Rarity and Twilight question if everything Applejack did to feed the pigs was completely necessary. Applejack insists they are and explains the method behind this madness. The gate to the pig pen used to squeak so loud the pigs would run away in fright; she opens it and closes it so the pigs know it’s safe. However, it doesn’t squeak anymore because Applejack fixed it along time ago. She makes silly faces at the pigs to freak them out so they’ll run out of the pen, but they’ve gotten used to it. So, Applejack started acting like a chicken to let the pigs know that if they didn’t eat their slop, the chickens would. Since she’s a chicken, she couldn’t go through the gate so she dangles from the beam. Knocking the slop bucket into the pen was a fortunate accident when she left it atop the pen’s fence by mistake. Twilight deduces that Applejack has been fixing problems that don’t need to be fixed anymore, and Rarity adds that perhaps it isn’t so inconceivable to fall into such habits. Now that Applejack has realized what she’s been doing, she wonders if perhaps she’s been doing it with some of the other things she does on the farm. So, Twilight, Spike, and Rarity follow Applejack as she does her remaining chores to see what she’s been doing wrong. First, Applejack is feeding the chickens individually and collecting their eggs while they eat. Twilight and Spike suggest placing the chicken feed outside the hen house so the chickens will run out, and Applejack can collect all the eggs at once. Next, Applejack is irrigating a field, manually opening each section of pipe and then turning on the water. Twilight and Rarity suggest Applejack open all the sections of pipe before turning on the water so the whole field is irrigated simultaneously. This is the most egregious! We spent most of the episode seeing that Applejack already has a pretty good understanding of plumbing. She should already know this! Finally, Applejack is patching up holes in a chicken wire fence with patches of chicken wire. Rarity suggests she just replace the whole sections of the fence. When all is said and done, Applejack thanks Twilight and Rarity for their help, admitting that she got too used to doing things a certain way. Twilight notes that the outside perspective of a friend often helps in these situations. Well, it’s a lesson I can stand behind, but it’s delivery is ridiculous. Nonetheless, Applejack now has time to join Rarity at the spa. Once Rarity and Applejack arrive once more at the spa, they run into Rainbow Dash again. They apparently could fit her in today after their backlog cleared up. After some friendly teasing from her friends, Applejack and Rarity invite Rainbow to join them. You know, if she’s up to it. 
This episode is the second for Fox Brothers Michael P. and Wil. This episode’s flaws could be chalked up to the inexperience of these new writers. Applejack is not a character for new writers. Even more established writers have a tough time figuring out what to do with her. But don’t get me wrong. A new writer could perhaps have looked at Applejack from a different perspective and added something new to her character. Still, maybe this shouldn’t have been an episode for them to be tasked with.
This episode has a lot of things wrong with it unfortunately. That is what I’ll mostly be focusing on.
Applejack may have been possibly, dare I say it, out of character. Her characteristic stubbornness is on display, but her forming these inefficient habits doesn’t seem like a natural fit for her character. It’s more bizarre than amusingly ironic to see the contrast of Applejack identifying this problem at the spa, but oblivious to it in her own life. This is yet another example of what happens when the writers don’t know what to do with a character. The problem of this episode makes it seem like Applejack, a lifelong farmer, doesn’t know how to farm. In fact, given that the rest of her family didn’t even seem to notice or correct the way Applejack was doing things, it makes the Apple Family by extension seem incompetent at their chosen profession.
It would kind of make more sense if it was Twilight who has taken to doing things in an overcomplicated fashion. It’s already been long established that she has certain obsessive compulsive tendencies. And Twilight has had spa days with Rarity. She had one with Rarity way back in “Green Isn’t Your Color” because Fluttershy didn’t show up for hers.
It would also have made more sense if the problem of the episode was that Applejack couldn’t relax for some reason. She could have been running back to the farm from the spa imagining the worse things that could possibly happen, and Twilight would just have it under control. The moral would be that sometimes you have to relax and let things go and put your trust in your friends and such. It would also be somewhat in line with how Applejack was acting in “Somepony to Watch Over Me” way back in Season 4. It would be less out of character, at least to me. I know my suggested plot resembles an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, but it was back when SpongeBob was still pretty good. Plus, I’d be more than willing to see that what I just saw in this episode.
Why do Rarity and Applejack have a spa day anyway? Yes, Applejack does go to spa in Seasons 1 and 2, but she never seemed to be one to make a habit of it. Come to think of it, why was Rarity in this episode at all? I suspect the Fox Brothers included her because they’re more comfortable writing her, given the role she played in their previous episode “The Gift of the Maud Pie”. She was one of the best things about this episode after all.
In general, this episode forces characters to fit the plot rather than build plot around the characters.
Despite all the things I thought was wrong about this episode, there were some good things. Twilight and Spike were pretty good; they were the second best things of this episode. It seems after many seasons of fluctuating between various different accents and no accents, the Spa ponies are definitely Russian-accented. There have been so many Russian ponies this season. I think it means something for the future. What, I don’t quite know, but it does.
Overall, “Applejack’s “Day” Off” was a rather tripe episode. Frankly, I haven’t been this disappointed in an MLP episode in some time. It was just so underwhelming.
What did y’all think of “Applejack’s “Day” Off”?
God bless you all. God bless America. And God bless Equestria.
Happy Memorial Day! 
frankly, i was both angry and glad to see spoiled.
Angry because, as she was designed to be, i just hate her for how she treated her daughter and the cmc, and happy because, they DIDN'T decide, "well, we've shown her at her worst. Let's make it so being told off by her daughter made her turn over a new leaf."
angry again though, at the fact it seems she still has a job, or else she wouldn't have been so stuck up. Also, she has her own steam room at home and decides to use the one at the spa and then complains when things aren't going her way.
Bitch, if you're just gonna complain, go home and use your own steam room!
and as for the rainbow dash part, that was interesting character development and it was done right. it wasn't IN YOUR FACE, FOCUS ON THIS kind, it was subtle, "Oh, i didn't see that coming" kinda, which was nice and well done
Yeah...I agree with a lot of what you had to say. Maybe I was a bit too kind to this episode in my initial review. I dunno. But I can certainly tell that this episode won't appear on either of our "Best of Season 6" lists.
3990886 Concerning Rainbow Dash, I admit you might have a point.