Now, Ahuizotle, you know I love you. But I can’t give you the ring 'til I’ve properly proposed. – Daring Do

Rainbow Dash is getting impatient waiting for the next Daring Do book to come out. When Twilight tells her the release has been delayed even further, she gets the idea that mundane concerns might be causing the delay, and ropes the Mane Six into going for a journey to help her. So they head out, in a shout-out to Indiana Jones, with a red line on the map representing their travels. A little nonsensical gag reveals the line to be something Pinkie Pie (who else) is painting on the ground…

Eventually making it to the house of the author of Daring Do, A.K. Yearling (subtle), they find the place a wreck. The owner herself arrives, wrapped up in clothes that do nothing to hide the fact that this pony bears a very strong resemblance to a certain in-universe “fictional” character. The Mane Six say they weren’t the ones who wrecked the place, and Yearling seems rather accepting of a bunch of strangers in her wrecked house and takes them at their word. Perhaps she has heard of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and therefore believes her.

After the Mane Six go outside, a group of shady looking ponies arrive and confront Yearling, who tosses her disguise away to reveal what we’ve all already guessed by this point – A.K. Yearling is in fact Daring Do!

A.K. Yearling is my slave name… You may call me Daring Do!

And right here, we have the first major contentious issue. Fans seem to either love or hate this revelation. I just find it old-pith-helmet, if you will. This particular twist is pretty common in cartoons. Now I’ve never been one to be against something based on the concept alone, but the execution has to be good for a cliché like this to work for me, and I just don’t see that they did anything unique with this idea. “It was real all along” is all that we get. Well, SolarFox, if you’re so smart, how would you have made this twist better? one might ask. Perhaps Daring Do has been embellishing her tales. Maybe Ahuizotle is just another pony who is Daring Do’s rival in the search for ancient artifacts, or is even the good guy in some way. It would be interesting to have Rainbow Dash having to deal with the disappointment of finding out her hero is in fact not so heroic. Just something, anything, to put a fresh spin on an old concept.

Another problem with this reveal is that the Daring Do books are steeped in Aztec mythology, while the entire show up to this point has been heavily biased towards Greek mythology. We’ve had a manticore, a hydra, a cockatrice, Tartarus, Cerberus, the Pegasus race as a whole, griffins, and even the architecture of Cloudsdale (not to mention Pegasopolis from “Heart’s Warming Eve”): all of these are very Grecian in flavour. So this new mythology creates a fair bit of dissonance. To be fair, it is clear that the Mane Six travel a long way, so maybe Equestria has different mythologies prevailing in different areas, which is true of real life. Maybe the area of Saddle Arabia has djinn, sultans, flying carpets and the like... alright, I admit that would be intiguing... Anyway, back to the story.

The Mane Six spend the next few minutes watching the fight from the window, while Daring fights alone to protect a golden ring. This is pretty cleverly lampshaded by Fluttershy, so a kudos point there. This fight scene is rather reminiscent of the crown throwing from Equestria Girls. The mid-level boss appears and takes the ring, leaving Daring Do herself injured. This is another small gripe: why is it that Daring Do gets injured every time she appears? And why does her injured leg heal completely a few scenes later? The thought that kept reoccurring to me throughout this episode was “We’ve seen this before.” I’ll come back to that.

Daring Do flies off after the ring, and Rainbow “Planless” Dash goes haring off after her, leaving her friends behind. Loyalty, huh... maybe she’s just being loyal to Daring Do. Yeah, that’s it. Despite Daring repeatedly stating she works alone, Rainbow Dash won’t give up following her and trying to help. Daring almost manages to bamboozle the bad guys with an improvised disguise, but her attempt at bluffing is thwarted by the appearance of the Big Bad, Ahuizotle, who demands the ring from the aforementioned mid-level baddy. Revealing herself again, Daring is forced to fight Ahuizotle’s returning cat minions (“We’ve seen this before”) including the cute little white kitten. The cats don’t seem very well trained, attacking one at a time, and Daring is able to defeat them rather easily. Rainbow Dash continues to just watch instead of helping, and is more interested in returning Daring’s hat to her. This leads to her being grabbed by Ahuizotle.

Yes, our brave Rainbow Dash, who has faced manticores, kicked a giant dragon in the face, faced down three other dragons to protect Spike, has been a hero in Ponyville… that Rainbow Dash, is reduced to the Damsel in Distress. With her as his hostage, Ahuizotle forces Daring Do to submit, and captures both her and the ring.

What’s wrong with this picture? You got it... cats can't tie ropes.

Rainbow Dash is devastated at this turn of events, and despite the others catching up to her, is for a while unable to get over her own failure. She even decides to abandon her hero to her fate, in stark contrast to her Element (and that’s okay, the Mane Six don’t always act in line with their Element). Eventually, Twilight reminds her that Rainbow is actually awesome and they all head off to save Daring Do. A nice little fake-out, though, since we only see five ponies heading towards the fortress.

The heroine herself is trapped in another over-elaborate, lingering, easily-escapable-with-any-kind-of-assistance death trap. You’d think that Ahuizotle would have learned better by now, after who knows how many books, and just thrown her straight into the piranha tank. Although perhaps he actually wants her to escape, to continue being a worthy adversary, given that the blocks she's tied to come straight out of the wall. Otherwise, the stupidity of this villain knows no bounds. Anyhoo, Rainbow saves her from falling straight into the piranha water, and Daring Do finally relents enough to team up with her.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ponies interrupt Ahuizotle's ceremony, in another admittedly very well done action sequence, allowing RD and DD to sneak in. During their discussion, Daring reveals that getting captured was part of her plan, as was removing all the rings so that the fortress will collapse. So her plan is predicated on not only surviving a death trap she wouldn't have survived alone, but also in lifting gigantic golden rings she couldn't lift alone... with that kind of planning, it's a straight up miracle she's survived so long in the first place.

The Mane Six battle distracts the bad guys long enough for Daring and Dash to lift all the rings, causing the fortress to collapse. Daring admits she couldn't have won without Dash's help, and then flies off to complete her book... which is about the events we've just seen. Exactly what story was she writing BEFORE Rainbow and Crew arrived, one wonders? I really hope Twilight also got a week-early copy, since she helped out just as much.

Wait, did Rainbow get cast as Short Round?

Pros: It adds a bit to Rainbow’s character. There are lots of cute moments, and even some genuinely funny ones. The second half is stronger than the first half, if not enough to entirely overcome the bad first impression.

Cons: The premise of the episode is a rather common twist, and is executed in a rather pedestrian manner. It also raises some concerns regarding the show’s universe, which take quite a bit of rationalization to reconcile. The Mane Six, particularly and especially Rainbow Dash, spend too much time in the first half just observing, instead of acting, which is particularly uncharacteristic behavior in Rainbow's case.

Highlights:

Daring Do giving Ahuizotl lip, and Rainbow Dash’s reaction to it. (You know what I mean, I don't even need a picture of it )

Return of Rainbow’s wub face.

Final Rating

5 – Celestia Rank: A great episode. It will be re-watched frequently.
4 – Luna Rank: A good episode, but with one or two problems that prevent it from being great.
3 – Spike Rank: An average episode. Positives and negatives are balanced.
2 – Discord Rank: Worth watching once. After that, turn it to stone and put it in the garden.
1 – Nightmare Moon Rank: Send it to the moon!

Runs to find a bunker to hide from the RD fans...

Stay sunny side up!