You know what, it's the middle of February, spring is coming up next month, so you know what's a good way to celebrate that?
Reviewing a Christmas episode!1
This review comes from the opinions of the poster himself. This does not reflect the opinions of the rest of the Brony community. Summary: Pinkie Pie invites the Apple family to the rock farm for Hearth's Warming, however the 2 families have different traditions, leading to the celebration going wrong after Applejack tries introducing her family's traditions to the Pie family.
A little detail I liked about this episode's plot is how they refer to Pinkie Pie and Applejack being potential cousins, and they develop that bond more in this episode, by having the Pies and Apples celebrate Hearth's Warming together. This shows that it wasn't just some sort of one-time thing just for that episode, and that they actually plan to develop the bond they started after that episode.
Although, the main thing I liked about this episode was really the moral and themes of it. This episode demonstrates Applejack's conflict of feeling bad because she feels like the Pies don't enjoy their Hearth's Warming like her family does, and this makes sense. As we've seen in some of her previous episodes, namely Apple Family Reunion, one of her character flaws is that she is shown having is that she can worry too much over something that is pretty small, making a mountain of a mole hill if you will (heh that rhymed). This episode really develops her well with this in mind, as to her, the Pie family's traditions aren't usual, and when she realizes the Pies don't tend to get gifts on Hearth's Warming, she ends up feeling like their traditions aren't good and that they don't necessarily enjoy Hearth's Warming, and after trying to introduce her traditions, they have negative reactions to the point where her family is kicked out. Applejack feels bad for this, and on the way back, she realizes a way to fix the conflict, in which she mentions the main lesson of this episode - showing that you can learn about the family's tradition as opposed to trying to force your own. For this same sort of reason, I feel like this also provides some character development for Applejack as well, by showing one of her character flaws that was introduced eariler in the show in another light, and at that, showing how she makes up for it after it causes a rift between the two families.
Onto the characters, there were some great character interactions and decent characterization. We get introduced to more of the Pie family other than Pinkie and Maud and we get to know more about them than we did before. They were sort of talked about with their names being mentioned in the Pinkie Pie and the Rockin' Ponypalooza Party book (cross-media continuity!1), but this is their first outing in the show. It's nice to see 'em, but I feel one problem is that I felt pretty apathetic toward most of them. I didn't dislike them, but their personalities weren't necessarily too interesting. I will say I did find Limestone Pie and her dialogue about Staying off of Holder's Boulder, but the others.. eh. I did like how Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz were based off the amish, but their characters weren't anything too special, and to be honest.. *sigh* I didn't care for Marble Pie. Now, again, I'm not saying I dislike her, but like I said, she was more of a character I felt pretty apathetic too. I'm sorry, but the whole "shy" trope has gotten pretty overused in this show. It was already done with Fluttershy (y'know, one of the mane 6) and Coco Pommel and since she didn't add much new to the table aside from some weird ship with Big Mac, I really couldn't help but feel anything other than that towards her. But still, it was nice to see more of Pinkie's family in action other than for a couple minutes as fillies and in a book, and while they didn't have super amazing and deep personalities, they weren't bad as far as first impressions go, plus I liked the interactions among them and the Apple family - the moments with Big Mac and Marble Pie's shyness towards each other, Granny Smith's mannerisms with Igneous Pie and Cloudy Quartz and Maud Pie and Applebloom's conversations with each other, plus like I said, Applejack and Pinkie Pie being paired as the main characters in this episode to sort of continue and develop the idea of them being potential cousins. The characterization of Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Maud Pie and the Apple Family was really good in this episode too, with it being helped by the character interactions.
If there was one problem I had, there were a couple minor problems with the exposition of this episode. It was pretty redundant to retell what Hearth's Warming Eve was about since we already learned it in Season 2, and while it wasn't too major it did feel like a bit of filler, plus Granny Smith, while mostly good in this episode, she acted pretty dickish during the scene at the dinner table. They could've also added to "respect" other's traditions for the lesson of the episode, but it's nothing really major.
Overall Opinions: I wouldn't say it's my favorite of Season 5, but it's still a good episode. There's a few problems with some of the exposition, but other than that, it's pretty solid. The lesson was a great one, especially to have in a Christmas episode, it had good characterization and character interactions, and seeing them continue and develop the idea of Applejack and Pinkie being potential cousins. So overall, not the most amazing episode ever, but still really solid. Even better is reviewing it months after the holidays ended lololololololol.
Rating: 9/10
My Episode Ranking: 1. Crusaders of the Lost Mark (S5E18) 2. The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone (S5E8) 3. The Mane Attraction (S5E24) 4. Rarity Investigates (S5E15) 5. Amending Fences (S5E12) 6. The Cutie Map (S5E1+2) 7. Make New Friends But Keep Discord (S5E7) 8. Hearthbreaks (S5E20) 9. Brotherhooves Social (S5E17) 10. Canterlot Boutique 11. Tanks for the Memories (S5E5) 12. Castle Sweet Castle (S5E3) 13. Party Pooped (S5E11) 14. Bloom and Gloom (S5E4) 15. Made in Manehattan (S5E16) 16. Slice of Life (S5E9) 17. Princess Spike (S5E10) 18. Appleoosa's Most Wanted (S5E6) 19. Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? (S5E13) 20. The Hooffields and the McColts (S5E23)
P.S. stay off of holder's boulder pls