Magical Mystery Cure: A Second Take
Entry posted by Queen Cassie
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So, in my original thoughts on the finale, I talked about why I felt it was a strong episode. Having since rewatched the episode, however, I have been having some serious second thoughts. There were a number of issues that nagged at me when I watched through it the first time, issues that become much more glaring on rewatches to the point that I can't quite set them aside. It's frustrating because there are a number of things I really like about this episode; the quality of all of the songs is extraordinary and I love every single one. I've had “True True Friend” stuck in my head for days. But I can't ignore these issues.
Before I begin, I want to emphasize that the following post is about the episode as an episode. It is not about whether Alicorn Twilight is a good thing or not, which I continue to believe it is. This also does not take into account production considerations. I am aware that season three had a reduced budget and that this episode was originally written as a series finale, and as a result they chose to make some serious compromises. This is simply about the quality of the episode as it has been presented to us.
The episode has a number of serious flaws when it comes to plotting. A lot of people point to the pacing as a flaw, which it certainly has issues with, but the pacing is only a small part of the story. The actual plot is rather flimsy and contradicts a number of things we've learned in the past, about cutie marks, and about destiny in general.
First, there's the way the episode cold opens into a song. Although it's true this song is followed up on at the end of the episode in a reprise, much like how The Crystal Empire Parts I and II reprised its first song at the end, the song itself is rather meaningless and takes up far too much time for the episode. In order to tell any kind of story, particularly the two stories that this episode is trying to tell within the span of twenty two minutes, a writer must budget time appropriately. A song about how everything is fine doesn't do this. While it sounds nice and definitely has a worthwhile melody to it, it's a huge time waster and should have been cut entirely. (Even the animators had a hard time doing much with this song; that's probably why Twilight jumps up onto a table and dances because there was nothing else for her to do with it.)
From there, we segue into trying to handle the crisis with cutie marks, far too fast. The cutie marks themselves have never been about a set destiny. This has been stated by every single episode to ever deal with cutie marks. And yet here it's contradicted. Now, in my previous review I expressed a belief that the spell affected the memories of the Mane Six, which it did appear to do, so it made them think they're supposed to follow a new destiny even though that doesn't make much sense. And it's fraught with its own problems, since it doesn't explain why everyone else in Ponyville is okay with the change.
In fact the whole plot constantly contradicts itself throughout because it can't work the way it does. No one in Ponyville tries to say that the Mane Six are doing things wrong. There's a whole weather team that should have been objecting to Rarity's spellwork, for instance. Angel wasn't protesting the sudden lack of Fluttershy. The Cakes were nowhere to be found, and Applejack's family didn't even appear when Pinkie was mismanaging the farm. And so on and so forth. So, this should mean the spell affected everyone elses' minds to make them think everything was actually fine, yes?
Well, no, it couldn't have because we later see Applejack's family helping her regain her actual cutie mark.
As we progress through the episode, from “What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me,” the plot accelerates trying to deal with everything at a super blinding speed; this is where people point to the episode having issues with pacing. We also only learn about what caused the cutie mark switch-up at this point, after which we spend more time wasted in the episode with the song “I've Got To Find A Way,” which not only presents us with Twilight becoming depressed without giving us any chance to actually accept it before the plot zooms to the next event, but it also presents some incredibly difficult to believe montage animation throughout. I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that the Mane Six are the only things keeping Ponyville working. I can't accept that the rest of the weather team wouldn't boot Rarity off or that some higher authority than the weather team of Ponyville—say, the weather teams of Cloudsdale or another major city—wouldn't come in and stop what she's doing. I can't accept that Pinkie is so bad at managing a farm that she utterly destroys it within a day, nor can I accept that the rest of Applejack's family would just let her or be that incapable of managing the farm. I can't accept that Rainbow Dash is so unable to care for animals that she can't even conceive of feeding them. I can't accept that Pinkie's entertainment is the only thing keeping everyone in Ponyville from turning against each other.
I just can't accept any of that. It's too absurd.
After Twilight's depression is over in a split second, she figures out how to fix the problem, gathers everyone up, and another song montage proceeds with the Mane Six being restored. Problem created, conceived, and solved in about ten minutes, some of which wasn't even spent establishing the problem to begin with.
Again I'd like to stop here and point out that I love these songs. They're absolutely great music. But they just present so many problems with this episode in terms of telling the story. Specifically, the songs are misused. If I might borrow from something a friend of mine once told me, the songs in this show are typically used for two things:
1. Establishing characterization
2. Covering story that would otherwise be tedious to cover in normal dialogue sequences
Examples of the first include “Smile Smile Smile” while examples of the second would include “Art of the Dress”(which is actually both the first and second) as well as “At The Gala.”
What makes the songs in “Magical Mystery Cure” misused is that they're not just covering plot elements, but zipping past and outright skipping super important parts of the plot. They also fill time that could have been better used for other things.
For example, instead of revealing that Twilight received Starswirl's book only after we see the cutie marks have switched, why not open with her discovering the book and casting a spell, only for it to do seemingly nothing? It'd be a more effective use of time than a song that, while great to listen to, was ultimately meaningless.
After solving the problem with the cutie marks, we cut to Twilight finishing out the spell in Starswirl's book, which for whatever reason causes the Elements of Harmony to blast her. I still can't quite understand why this happens. We're told that it's because Twilight has a destiny to become an Alicorn, but why would that cause the Elements to blast her to a celestial realm? It feels as though this only happens because the plot requires it. I can try to explain this by suggesting that the Elements of Harmony are part of some natural magic of Equestria, that they detect that Twilight has created her own magic and so that means she needs to become an Alicorn.
Alternatively, the fact that she's blasted into seeming dust and then ends up in a celestial realm could possibly be a kid friendly way of saying the Elements killed her and that she had to be resurrected as an Alicorn.
Whatever the case we barely get a chance to understand what's happening before Celestia tells us all about this in a song that tells us it's all about Twilight's destiny. Again I take issue with the destiny aspect because it suggests that her becoming an Alicorn was something pre-determined, that she only went through motions Fate dictated to her and that it's not her effort that resulted in her earning the position and the title of Princess.
It also significantly muddles where Alicorns come from because we don't know if Cadance went through something like this, or if Celestia and Luna did, and if they did why are they so much larger than Twilight. It presents further confusing issues.
Then we have the sequence where Celestia explains to the others what's happened. This would have been a great time, if the episode were a two parter, for the Mane Six to have experienced some significant angst. It's nighttime when Twilight Ascends, so they've spent several hours sitting there. For all they know, they'd killed one of their best friends; all that was left behind was smoking ash in the shape of Twilight's cutie mark. But alas, missed opportunities.
I take strong issue with how Celestia phrases things. She says, “I'll still be here to help and guide you, but we're all your students now, too.” Student of what? Of knowledge? Of friendship? We don't get an answer, and the way it's phrased makes things almost as confusing as possible.
After that, the rest of the episode concerns itself with feel good imagery and songs that can be summed as “Twilight is a Princess; yay!” It's full of some fantastic animation, and I do love the outfits the Mane Six end up wearing. There's also a few good lines, like Shining Armor's “liquid pride” but also some problematic ones, such as the way Twilight's speech to the crowd opens with “A little while ago.” I realize they were trying to avoid setting a specific timeline, but that phrasing makes it seem like she could have ended up in Ponyville just a couple of months before she Ascended, or even just a few weeks.
On the whole, the episode has severe problems with its plot. The pacing is just the most obvious symptom of that; the plot as a whole is contrived and doesn't offer up as much as it could have. The whole episode could have benefited from some significant rewriting. A friend of mine, Norse Pony, offers up here one possible way the episode could have gone differently: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/129557/spoilers-an-alternate-finale-or-rewriting-friendship
My feelings about the episode are mixed, to sum up. There really is a lot about it that I still like. I love the songs; even the ones that I said should be cut for time are really good. “True True Friend” which has a few issues with the plot glaring in its montage of animation is probably my favorite out of the lot and, as I said at the beginning, has been stuck in my head ever since I first saw the episode. Twilight's Ascension as an Alicorn is something that I believed and continue to believe is something this show needed not only for the future, but also just because I think she deserves it. Twilight Sparkle has been growing as a character throughout the show and it's all been building towards one ultimate goal.
I just take so much issue with how they ended up doing it. They wanted to do a musical episode, because when this episode was written, in November of 2011, they thought this was the end of the show. This episode was more fitting of a series finale than a season finale, and I rather wish that once season four had been ordered they'd been able to go back and axe an episode of season three so they could turn this into a two parter. It would have been nice, but it's not what they were able to do unfortunately.
So my revised score for this episode, taking into account both the fact that I really like parts of it but that the plot is contrived... is 3/10. Compared to most episodes it falls far short of what it's trying to do. My original score of 7/10 was a result of praising the concept it was shooting for rather than what it actually ended up doing.
Still, I do feel like the issues present in this episode aren't likely to be repeated. As has been pointed out by many, season three was underfunded, and it showed in a lot of the writing. They thought this was the end of the series so they were trying to do too many large ideas with what they had, and they stumbled. It's understandable. Season four is likely to open up with a good, strong two parter that will resolve a lot of the unanswered questions from this, and will sell us on Alicorn Twilight far better than Magical Mystery Cure does. I'm still looking forward, with interest and excitement.
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