Discordant Harmony Review · 5:19pm Jun 21st, 2017
Having found a pitch corrected version on DailyMotion, I've decided to watch this episode. Naturally, if you're still waiting on the U.S. (or even Canada) airdate, well you know the drill:
This is one of two episodes airing early in Australia, both of which have now aired. The Fox Brothers Michael P. and Will returned to write this episode, solely once again. Last time they did so, they gave us "Forever Filly", the current high note for Season 7 that managed to actually make a conflicting loyalties story and do it believably (something that has plagued the show for years). This time, they're stepping out of their comfort zone to write Fluttershy and Discord, neither of whom have appeared in any of their episodes to date. Naturally, Discord can be a very tricky character to handle if you don't know what you're doing. Some episodes have turned him into an antagonist in all but name, and even some of his best episodes have perhaps focused a bit too heavily on pop culture references. Since last season saw Discord do his first truly heroic act since his redemption, was this episode able to build on that, and were the Fox Brothers up to the task of handling Discord? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Discord at Fluttershy's cottage for another one of their tea parties, the two of them enjoying their time together. Seems Discord has moved on from his craving for cucumber sandwiches.
Convinced he's taken advantage of Fluttershy's hospitality for far too long, Discord decides he'll host the next tea party at his place. And not a week from today, but the very next day. Oh, and he does a lot of talking to himself in this episode, literally. Guess Aku's not the only who needs therapy.
Discord sets off to find the perfect supplies for his tea party, but he finds the pony tea and tea sets to be quite boring. So he opts to spice them up with his own chaotic antics. Though he makes sure to pay quite handsomely for the stuff, to the point where he drops an entire pile of bits onto the tea set merchant. While shopping for party supplies, Discord runs into Pinkie Pie.
Deciding it wouldn't hurt to get a second opinion, Discord asks Pinkie Pie how to best accomadate Fluttershy at his place, and Pinkie just tells him to make Fluttershy feel comfortable. Discord returns to his dimension to think about this, and he's horrified at what he sees. Convinced that Fluttershy won't like it at all, he decides to bring in a few copies of himself to spruce up the place and make it more normal.
It gets to the point where he has stairs actually leading to somewhere, plain old tea and tea sets, furniture on the ground and not the ceiling, and even tables that are held down by gravity.
The fixing up is completed just in time for Fluttershy's visit, and she's quite surprised at how plain and simple everything is. The tea party passes uneventfully, until the tea pot slips from Discord's paw, and when he tries to pick it up, said paw passes right on through the pot. Discord then begins to start fading away, Fluttershy concluding that it's because he's acting opposite of his true nature. But since Discord has already faded so much, he's unable to even snap his talons and do magic. Thus it falls to Fluttershy to start acting chaotic, to the point where she collects a bunch of reflective objects and starts talking to herself in their reflections.
Slowly but surely the chaotic behavior is enough to bring Discord back from the brink, and as Discord turns everything back to how it was he apologizes and confesses to Fluttershy about how he was worried she might not want to be friends with him anymore once she saw what his place was like, even going so far as to say other ponies don't get him and Fluttershy being together. But Fluttershy says she doesn't care, she likes Discord for who he is and wouldn't want him to be anyone else, because that's what drew her to him in the first place. After this heartfelt confession, the two enjoy a perfectly chaotic tea party, to the point where they have to catch their own sandwiches with butterfly nets.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, I really like it. It's a low key episode, but there's enough humor and even some good charm to keep you invested. This episode is basically a shipping episode for FlutterCord, Discord's behavior making even more sense if you consider this more or less an official first date between him and Fluttershy. I do think the stuff with the tea merchants lasted a bit longer than might have been needed, and I feel like the conflict would've been even stronger had Fluttershy offered to visit Discord, rather than Discord deciding to invite Fluttershy. I also feel that while they made Fluttershy work for the episode, the story could've worked just as well or even better with Twilight or Princess Celestia, someone Discord might feel pressured to impress. Fluttershy is more or less the only one who's been fine with Discord as he is and hasn't wanted him to change at all, everyone else to some degree has been skeptical of his behavior. The moral is admittedly one we've seen before, but they do add something to it besides the usual "Be true to yourself". It's not entirely a bad thing to change yourself a little, or maybe clean up a bit, there's always room for improvement. But trying to drastically alter who you are, just for the sake of getting ahead in life or impressing one individual, will only make you unhappy in the long run. As "Simple Ways" put it, if someone doesn't like you for who you are on the inside, you shouldn't feel obligated to completely change yourself. If there is one complaint I'd have with this episode, it's that Discord fading away could've had a bit of build up to it, perhaps a line or two about Discord feeling something changing inside of him but shrugging it off. But I don't find anything majorily wrong with it, as I said this is a low key episode. So I give it a solid A- putting it above "Rock Solid Friendship" which did take a while to get going and didn't handle Pinkie Pie the greatest, but below "A Royal Problem" which despite some questionable decisions was able to give us the royal siblings episode we always wanted, just wish they'd cut the middle man and let the princesses shine on their own like the expanded media does.
Now, depending on whether or not I can find a pitch corrected version (some things sound better in higher pitch, but others don't) I may watch "The Perfect Pear" and review it either later today or tomorrow. If it turns out the way I hope it does, it may become my new favorite episode. If any of you have already seen though, until I've seen I kindly ask:
Honestly , i think it's the weakest episode of the season.
This one was too low- key even for me
4578336 Low key doesn't always mean bad, at least this episode knew what it was doing, which is more than I can say for its immediate predecessor and the previous Fluttershy episode. It knew what kind of story it wanted to tell and what the moral was supposed to be, the episodes I mentioned had morals that were really questionable in delivery and execution.
4578351
Normally, I'd agree.
But in this case, i found the Fluttershy episode, Honest Apple, and the previous one better, simply because i can remember them more.
Well, after quite a few not so good episodes, I would say that the writing here was actually decent. The Fox Brothers are doing better now and they should probably keep that up in future episodes they write.