S02:E24 - MMMystery on the Friendship Express

[Speedy_Dashie 11]

"Fine, I'm guilty! [crying] I wear false eyelashes! Oh, and I took a bite of the cake." Gosh she sounded so casual when she confessed. Really? Really? 

[Batbrony 16,053]

 Well... buck. *sigh*  I suppose it had to happen sometime, right?  I mean, no show is perfect; even the best have their duds.  But gosh bucking dang it, why did it have to come in Season 2, a season so exceptional and picture perfect in almost every way?  Why did it have to come so close to the end?!  Why oh why is "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" such a sweet-Celestia-what-were-the-writers-even-thinking-this-is-so-bucking-atrocious bad episode?!?!  *sigh* Well, no sense in fighting it, might as well write this review and be done with it.  Buck... whatever, let's get this over with. 

 

Get used to this train car folks, cause we're gonna be in this bucking bland setting THE WHOLE EPISODE!!!

 

OK, so seeing as there's so much wrong with this episode, let's go in chronological order, shall we?  First off, the Cakes: they're bucking stupid in this episode, even if they only appear for about a minute and a half.  Why, you may ask?  BECAUSE IT'S THEIR FAULT THIS EPISODE HAPPENS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!    They've baked a delicious looking cake for the National Dessert Competition in Canterlot (given the high-sugar intake of pretty much every pony in this show well-established by this point, this really shouldn't come as a surprise), BUT for no explained reason have left Pinkie Pie and the Mane 6 in charge of safely transporting it there.  Are they taking a different train?  NOPE, they're not going at all!  This seems stupid as it is, seeing as, oh I don't know, it's only THE NATIONAL DESSERT COMPETITION, a competition that could bring all sorts of rewards and open up business opportunities for the Cakes, and it comes across as even stupider once we see that THREE OTHER BAKERS are traveling on the same train, because they've figured out that, gee, maybe they oughta present their baked goods themselves.  The lack of an explanation doesn't really bug me if only because there is no good explanation for their not going.  Are they not going because they want to keep Sugarcube Corner open?  If so, that's bucking stupid; clearly pretty much every other baker in Equestria would rather close shop for a few days than miss such an important competition.  Are they worried about leaving Pound and Pumpkin Cake by themselves?  Well then maybe they should get a sitter, oh wait, THEY ALREADY HAVE ONE, WE SPENT AN ENTIRE EPISODE ESTABLISHING THAT, AND IT'S THE BUCKING PONY TRANSPORTING THEIR CAKE!!!  So I rest my case: the Cake's are bucking stupid for not going to the competition at all, and already we've got a major bit of bad writing on the writers' parts.  Brilliant, 2 minutes in and there's already a gaping plot hole!!!

 

Seriously, where the buck are these two?  What are they doing this whole episode that's so important they had to miss the National Dessert Competition???

 

Next, Pinkie Pie... oh Pinkie.   Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie... Pinkie.  BY LUNA'S SWEET FLANK WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS EPISODE?!?!?!?  Pinkie Pie, to be blunt, is an idiot in this episode, and as such, terribly OOC.  I get the lesson they're going for, I really do; they're trying to teach that you shouldn't jump to conclusions before you have all the facts, that's a commendable lesson.  But it's executed sooooooo poorly!!!  Pinkie is just dense as a doorknob the entire episode.  I mean, yeah, she's definitely not the brightest pony out of the bunch, but she's never displayed these levels of incompetency before or since this episode!  The most ludicrous part is that she actually believes these ridiculous "theories" she comes up with as to who bit the cake when she's accusing Gustave le Grand, Donut Joe, and Mulia Mild of doing so; this is a bucking shame, seeing as these segments are one of the only highlights of the episode, but when you realize that she actually thinks it happened that way, it loses all its comedy and just comes across as stupid, plain and simple.  She's coming up with these stories by the second, jumping from one to the next, and it seriously makes you question her sanity even.  I mean, there is just no way that any character in a show so-well written as this one, a MAIN CHARACTER, should act this stupid!!!  As a result of her stupidity, the entire effect of the lesson is lost, seeing as there should have been no need to learn this lesson in the first place AS MOST PEOPLE WOULD NEVER BEHAVE THIS STUPIDLY WHILE TRYING TO INVESTIGATE OR FIGURE OUT ANYTHING AT ALL!!!  Pinkie's incompetence completely kills the lesson, is extraordinarily OOC behavior for Pinkie Pie, and just gets plain annoying.  Two thumbs way, way down on the writing for Pinkie Pie alone!

 

Shoot, I think I left my brain back in Ponyville.

 

Finally, let's talk about everyone else.  Are they as stupid as Pinkie Pie in this episode?  Nope.  They're just terrible, terrible, terrible individuals with HORRIBLE self control!  Let me recap what's going on here, just to put this in perspective; they're traveling to Canterlot for the NATIONAL DESSERT COMPETITION.  This competition, I'd wager, is a huge business opportunity for thousands of bakers across Equestria, including the Cakes, so there's a lot (and by a lot, I do mean A LOT) riding on their getting the cake to Canterlot intact, along with every other dessert.  So, should be no problem, right?  In a sane world, or just a logical world, they would've packed plenty to eat on the train ride or gotten some food on there at least.  Instead, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity ALL take HUGE bites of the cake just because (and here's the real kicker) Pinkie Pie made it sound delicious in her description of it.

 

 

Hey guys, guess what?  YOU ARE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!  This train ride takes about a day, you're going to a dessert competition that'll probably have thousands of entries that you can try, and you seriously couldn't restrain yourselves from taking three big bites of a cake that your good friends the Cakes are most likely counting on to boost their business?!?!  WHAT THE BUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!  Oh, and just when you didn't think it could get any worse, it does, it get a lot worse; THE BUCKING BAKERS THEMSELVES ALL TAKE BITES OF EACH OTHERS BAKED GOODS BECAUSE PINKIE MAKES THEM SOUND SO GOOD!!!  Gosh dang it, does the stupidity and lack of self control in this episode know no bounds?!?!  THEY'RE BAKERS, professional, seasoned bakers, they should know how to restrain themselves from eating product, especially when it's not their own to eat at the time.  Major kudos to Twilight and Applejack for being the only ponies to maintain their self-control in this entire episode (though according the Amy Keating Rodgers, Applejack was originally supposed to confess at the end that she did take a bite and just hid it... I'm really glad that didn't happen ).  Finally, their solution is possibly their stupidest decision of all; they combine desserts that have already been bitten into, not cut by a sterile utensil, BUT BITTEN, into one massive dessert crawling with the germs of at least four ponies, a griffon, and a mule, AND DON'T NOTIFY ANYPONY!  Not only is that kind of unethical given the competition format, it's also gross and extremely stupid.

 

Wow, that cake is all kinds of wrong.  I seriously do not want to think about how many different individuals have already bitten into all those desserts that they have now PUT TOGETHER AFTER THE FACT.  That is sooooooo bucking gross it's not even funny.  

 

On a side note, the real cake on the right is kind of amazing.  Assuming it wasn't made the same way of course.

 

Besides the terrible writing for so many characters, the episode has plenty of other problems.  It's terribly paced, with some parts dragging and others feeling too rushed, especially the conclusion, which is extraordinarily fast!  The setting is extremely boring; they're in one train cart that doesn't change at all for most of the episode, and my bucking gosh does the episode drag largely because of the stale setting!  Finally, it's just not that funny; aside from a few standout moments, such as Pinkie's ludicrous theories (which are a blast to watch to be honest) and Rarity's "I wear false eyelashes" line, there's really not that much that tickles my funny bone in this episode, and that just makes its stupidity all the more noticeable for me.  We've had a couple of bad episodes in MLP history, but they were never bad overall, they just had bad elements, and at the very least they usually were either really fun, had unique, interesting, and varied settings and stories, or both even!  This episode just has nothing, and it's a bucking shame because they send up a lot of genres that could've made for some fun material: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, silent movies, even ninja movies!  But instead, every pop culture reference either falls dead, comes across as forced, or just doesn't do that much for the viewer seeing as it's in such a terrible episode.  Besides Twilight remaining competent and those theory sequences being hilarious and pretty original, I can't say anything good about this episode.  Terrible writing resulted in poor execution, horribly OOC characters, a boring setting, and one of the stupidest conflicts I've ever seen in a kids show, born out of total lack of self control.  Overall, it's my least favorite episode in all of MLP: FiM; it's bland and stupid and just does nothing for me whatsoever, and I cannot recommend rewatching it more than you have to, say, when you're attempting to rewatch all of the seasons chronologically.  Beyond that, there's no reason one should torture themselves by rewatching this travesty out of order for its own merits, because as far as I'm concerned, it has none.

 

Besides the fact that I understand, with the season so close to an end and having already produced so many amazing gems for Season 2, Studio B must've been absolutely exhausted of ideas for the regular episodes of the season, there is only one other reason that I'm usually quite forgiving of this episode: because of what followed this episode... 

 

Well, this sounds like fun.  What could possibly go wrong?  

 

Till next time. 

[Rift enchanted 380]

This was definitely my favourite episode.

[Rhodeana 17]

Definitely one of the best episodes (I've seen) yet!!

[baba_booey 4,302]

Episode about Trains?

Really, I like this episode, it's full of gags, which are hilarious.

 

Although, in real life, it would've been dangerous to exit a train while it is in motion and going at such a speed..

 

As a railway enthusiast,

that really bothers me..  :okiedokielokie:

[deathponygamer 1]

OH MY GOD ITS DISCORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! stop him or the train will end

 

 

[More_Fluttershy 127]

So it's basically "The Great Patty Caper" done right, down to the fact that there actually WAS a mystery. 

[GrauWitz 1,010]

So basically, it's a ponified Murder on the Orient Express with a bunch of awkward pop-culture references (including James Bond). This episode always made we wonder "Why the FUCK did Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Rarity take three huge bites out of Mr. & Mrs. Cake's entry into the competition?! Dumb bitches....." Yeah, it's not one of the better episodes IMO

Edited August 31, 2014 by GrauWitz

[Pastel 7,630]

This episode could have been better, I remember being disappointed the first time I watched it.

The idea is perfect though (the plot, the new characters...).

[Hopes and Memes 391]

This episode was terrible, I remember getting halfway through it and just going to the next episode. Who did do it anyway? It didn't make any sense to me.

[ponylaces 1,870]

The episode is okay. It seemed a little "kiddish" to me. But on the other hand, it is a little girl's show.

[Lucky Star 972]

Title: MMMystery on the Friendship Express

Air Date: April 7, 2012

Synopsis: A cake Pinkie Pie is guarding for a contest is ruined on the way to Canterlot and an investigation begins.

Source: Zap2it

 

 

---

A train? Relevant to my interests.

a cake? thats relevant to my taste buds. *licks lips*

 

 I loved this episode! <3 it had me smiling through the whole thing.

oh pinkie pie, she is such a spaz sometimes but thats what makes her so awesome.

[Ruddboy Olaf 10,628]

This is basically the kid's version of Clue.

 

I'm not kidding. The kid's version of Clue is a bite of cake,instead of a murder.

 

This episode would've been better if it was a murder.

[Yuntao 3]

I love this episode, it's one of my favourites.

Sherlock Pie and Joe Bond 007

So many YES

[TheJLeeTeam 914]

This was pretty good episode. It was interesting to see a train detective plot.

[radPie 7]

Just looking at THIS screenshot makes me hungry.

(Imma make it a link because the picture is too big)

I mean, imagine how tasty it is.

I think the only reason I keep on watching this episode is because of food. Food, food, food.

[RainbowTashie 378]

Why is it called MMMystery with 3 m's? :<

there is no justification for this. just why

[JonasDarkmane 19,785]

I liked it a lot. I found it to be really enjoyable and the humor was good . I loved the conspiracy stories/theories ^^. 

[Grepper 3,192]

I found some of the episode funny; I enjoyed the parodies of real-life bakers like Julia Child, though I did have to look it up to get the reference.

 

I hate that this episode had three of the mane six eat a friend's cake before it is entered into a competition. What the hell were they thinking?

 

Pinkie Pie's character seemed to be taken over the top when she rudely accused the other bakers of eating the cake without a shred of evidence.

 

A note of trivia: This is episode 50.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Greppertas

[slumberparty101 21]

I don't over-analyse this episode because it's deliberately crazy. The idea that even the delicate Fluttershy would chomp down on the cake is hard to believe - but I suppose if it tasted good enough. Shows Applejack living up to her element though by having nothing to do with it....

 

I love how they have overnight/sleep trains in Equestria, I find that awesome for some reason.  

[powerpuff-tsubasa 448]

cute. but a little too cheesy. couldve been better with the story

[twiia 1,843]

The clues were quite obvious but the 'criminals' weren't, okay episode overall

 

[cmarston1 5,959]

While this episode was pretty weird it was also highly entertaining.

[DerpyFIM4 70]

Overall, it seems like they decided to have a detective episode first, then tried to make a story. In my opinion, that will usually end up with a pretty weird story in the end. But it was a pretty hilarious episode of MLP, and my favorite part is all the jokes.

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

At first i thought, this Episode would be a build up for the Two Parter Finale, since they move to Canterlot, but nope. It had nothing to do with it, instead we had a slide show of unfunny references and Pinkie Pies usual stupid Jokes. The reveal was disappointing and how the Characters acted and how it was solved was...dumb. So, they did eat it, because they were told, that it tastes good? Wow, they are such good Friends, that they cant even stop themselves, from eating Candy, even though they should know, how important it was.

I found this entire Episode to be unnecessary.