awkwardreviews

 

So this week’s episode “Spike at your service” explores what it would be like if Spike were to ditch Twilight, and run off to the Apple family. Let me just say that I heard that this episode was meant to be a Rarity/Spike episode, but for some odd and bad reason they changed it to another Applejack episode. However, this paring has not yet been explored, so it did provide for some fresh onscreen dynamics.

The plot is pretty self-evident and clear in this episode. Spike gets lost, Spike gets saved by Applejack, he pulls some “dragon code” out of his ass, and starts trying to be a servant to Applejack. A few things wrong here… first, the whole idea of being bound as a servant forever is stupid, dumb, and sort of scary. Second, they made Spike completely inept at doing anything. Half of me understands, because, well, this is a new environment for him, and maybe he’s nervous. But they didn’t hint at that in the episode. All I needed was “man… I’m a bit nervous working for you,” or something along those lines.

Also, the entire idea that Twilight didn’t notice Spike saying his goodbyes… sort of scary. Since wasn’t his BIGGEST fear (from the crystal empire) the idea of Twilight leaving him? And now, he’s leaving Twilight? WHAT?!

This downright dreadful (almost purposefully so) continuity really damages this episode. But… once all of that is said and done, we get treated to a very entertaining twenty minutes. This is mostly due to the writers having splendid animation, especially with the Timberwolves, whom are yet another fantastic addition to the lore of Equestria. I say this because not only are they unique and original, but because they have a surprisingly frightening concept behind them.

This, plus the absolutely fantastic 3D animation they used to show them (especially the scenes when they explode into a hundred shards of wood) provided some really intense action.

Of course Applejack doesn’t want spike to work for her, so they set up this elaborate scheme to try and get him to save Applejack. This provided a really funny bit when Rarity pretty much tried to teach Applejack how to be “prissy and girly” and the entirety of it was comedy gold.

The fact of the matter is, that this episode really did a fantastic job everywhere apart from those massive drops in intelligence (from spike) and the big continuity problems that dragged it down. But at the end of the day, I was having a blast. Whether it was staring at the pretty animation, or the intense action sequences, or maybe just the timberwolf raising its paw to the ponies in attempt to clear it’s throat… there was so much to love, but a good amount to get disappointed in also.

This doesn’t mean this episode was bad though, in fact, I’ll go so far as to say that this episode is in fact sort of awesome! None of it felt like it was dragging along the floor like a dog with worms, all of it was quick, fast paced, and fun! Even if there are those issues that I mentioned, I still recommend a re watch as this episode shows that this series still has a lot of unique character pairs up its sleeve… even if Rarity instead of Applejack would have been better, in my opinion.

 

Pros:

-Fantastic animation

-More creatures to the Equestrian lore

-A decent pairing that did its job

-Applejack trying to act girly

-Splendidly paced action sequences

-counting grass

 

Cons:

-Glaring continuity issues that made me cringe to watch

-The “dragon’s code”

-Spike acting like a fool

-Needed Rarity more!

 

Grade: B-