I have to say, the slice-of-life episodes are my favorites. I wasn't as fond of the Season Six premier (despite Sunburst*), but I loved last week's episode and this week's.
Last week's was an adaptation of the old Gift of the Magi story - Pinkie and her sisters have a family holiday where they each go off in pairs and have a fun day together (though somehow I cannot see Limestone enjoying that) and then at the end, they exchange gifts. And every year, Pinkie feels bad because Maud's gift seems to exceed hers. But this year, she has a plan: Maud has her pet rock, Boulder (who apparently talks to her). She needs a pouch to carry Boulder in. So Pinkie figured out where a rock pouch store was ("Baby clothes!" "This place has got everything!"). Then she finds it's CLOSED while the owner is on vacation. (I know that feel, Pinkie. Any time I have to go ANY distance to shop somewhere other than a large store, I either call or e-mail to be SURE they will be open, after having been burned a few times).
So Pinkie is back to square one and enlists Rarity's help....and still comes up dry. Until she sees a pony with the VERY pouch and approaches him for a trade. But Pinkie is a corn-fed pony from Ponyville (or a rock farm at some indeterminate distance from same) and this guy is a city slicker, you can tell from his accent and his gold tooth and his little scraggly mustache. (Had this been set in WWII Britain, one would almost call him a "spiv"). And he talks Pinkie out of her most beloved item, her Party Cannon.
(Maud does not do a similar trade. I suspect it's because it would be wrong for someone to trade away their pet....even if that pet is a rock).
Anyway, Pinkie gets slightly sad over the loss of her party cannon (not sad enough for her mane to flatten out) but eventually Rarity figures it out (after doing a funny bit of a Pinkie impression). Rarity is uncommonly bad at keeping secrets and she winds up blabbing to Maud....who then goes and stares down said spiv and gets the cannon back.
The lesson is a nice lesson, delivered by Maud herself: gift-giving isn't a competition. You choose your gifts with love, not to be "perfect" or "impressive." And she adds that she loves Pinkie's gifts, whatever they are, because they are chosen with love and because she loves Pinkie.
We also get to see Maud wink in this episode. It's a .....slow....wink. Maud would probably get on well with Tank.
Also, this is where the swan boats show up - there is a pink swan boat that's been being heavily advertised as part of the current Pony line. My guess is Hasbro comes up with the stuff they want to sell and then the writers find a way to work it into the episodes. (Though I admit Pinkie's shifty-eyed comment about how there were also "REAL swans that you can ride" slightly disturbing, because my impression of a Pony's size would put her as being considerably larger than a swan....also swans, at least human-world swans, can be kind of mean)
This week's episode featured the Cutie Mark Crusaders (now with 100% more cutie mark!) but first, two things:
BARBER GROOMSBY CONFIRMED AS SHOW PONY. (he is one of my favorite of the blindbags, and he is from a considerably earlier wave, so I wonder if the writers were like, "hey, this design is out there, let's use it" or if there was some kind of long-game going on when the wave he was in was released).
We also see Treehugger again in passing, as an artist's model. Which makes considerable sense to me. (In the human world, of course, artist's models for art classes do it in the nude, and I think Treehugger would be, like, totally okay with that.) Also there's at least a Warhol pony in there; I will either have to rewatch the episode or wait for EqD's followup to see what others I missed.
But I was happy to see Treehugger again. She's grown on me considerably as a character....
Bulk Biceps shows up again and made me wonder if his "dumbbell" cutie mark had less to do with his ability to lift heavy things and more of a....metaphorical.....meaning. (Both Dr. Whooves and Sunburst are now in line behind Big Mac as my "favorite stallion pony" and Bulk has dropped a bit in my regard)
There are really two morals at play in this episode. First: "You don't always have to do things together with your friends" which is probably the moral aimed at the kid-audience. Apple Bloom gets depressed when Scootaloo wants to go off and do Bungee jumping (too scary) and Sweetie Belle wants to try crochet (too boring). So she spends the day wandering around trying to find something SHE enjoys.
(Neat little observation here: Apple Bloom notes they have spent so long doing things to TRY to get their cutie marks, that they don't know what to do now that they have them. Scootaloo (I think it was) suggested doing things they WANT to do and Apple Bloom is stymied by that. Which is totally me at the end of a week when I've done nothing but stuff for OTHER people. Or, as I said to the tv as I was watching the episode, "Whoa, getting your cutie mark really IS like successfully defending a dissertation....")
The second moral is sort of along those lines. It's kind of like the old story about the Buddhist monk, who was asked by a novice, "What did you do before you attained enlightenment?" "I chopped wood and carried water." "And then what did you do after you attained enlightenment?" "I chopped wood and carried water." In other words: some of the big things you think will change everything really don't change a lot of things, they may just change how you react to things. And I can totally understand the CMC's disappointment in "is this all there is?" because there have been some adult milestones (the relatively few I've met) that had that feeling - successfully defending my dissertation, getting a job, getting tenure at that job, advancing to the highest promotion I can without entering the administration, getting papers published.....there's really no resting-on-laurels and I admit I don't even really do anything to celebrate a paper coming out rather than noting that it HAS. Because there's always more that needs to be done.
And another tiny moral, and one I probably need to take to heart: you don't need to be really good at something to be able to enjoy it. When Sweetie Belle shows up wearing her first-ever crocheted scarf, Scootaloo searches for a polite way to describe it, but Sweetie Belle breaks in and declares happily, "It's terrible! But I had fun doing it" and I tend to get far too hung up on what I am doing being "perfect" or at least "good" that sometimes I tend to squeeze the enjoyment out of things. It's been too long since I was a rank beginner at something, I think.
(And Rarity again shows a bit of snobbery, commenting that crochet is knitting's poor cousin. Rarity, they're both good techniques, they're meant to do different stuff and they work well for different things, you should know that.)
(*And yes, I am seriously considering modding the Dr. Whooves pattern to make a Sunburst. I have most of the colors I need already, I just have to decide if I'm willing to settle for him having a more orangey body or if I want to seek out and buy a more golden-orange yarn. Yes, I know I said I wasn't buying more yarn but acrylic is comparably inexpensive, it would be less than 10 bucks for body yarn for him - I already have the colors for his hair and hooves, and the felt I would need for his face and flank insignia. And I kind of love Sunburst, the pony wizard who (apparently) thought he was a Squib. To cross the fandoms a little...)
(Then again, looking at some of the fanart: those versions of Sunburst are very close in color to one of the oranges I have....and I kind of like him in that color. So I probably don't need to buy any more yarn for him)
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