S02:E08 - The Mysterious Mare Do Well

[bigbertha 410]

I really like this episode, but it does have two major problems. One, there's supposed to be a time skip near the beginning implying that Rainbow Dash has been boasting about her accomplishments for a long time, but there no indication of it. Two, the townsponies move on to Mare Do Well way too quickly. Rainbow Dash had been saving tons of ponies, but Mare Do Well saves one and the town immediately shuns Rainbow Dash? What?

Aside from those two problems, I think this episode is great. I like that it pushes Rainbow Dash to her lowest point to give her more depth. The comedy, while more mean-spirited, still worked for me. And the Batman: The Animated Series homages were great. Especially when Rainbow is chasing Mare Do Well at the end and you can hear something similar to that show's theme song.

Also, during the scene where the baby carriage is rolling down the hill, one of Rarity's screams is reused and it's incredibly obvious.

Score: 8/10

[darknessrising24 56]

Just now, bigbertha said:

I like that it pushes Rainbow Dash to her lowest point to give her more depth.

The problem is that it doesn't give her more depth, it just makes us feel sorry for her because her friends are acting like asses.

Pushing her to her lowest point with that method only makes the episode more mean-spirited, and it pretty much makes it seem like her friends don't even trust her enough to try to be honest with her.

Mean-spirited humor only works if it feels deserved, and this was just unnecessarily cruel.

 

[Thrond 3,257]

8 hours ago, bigbertha said:

Aside from those two problems, I think this episode is great. I like that it pushes Rainbow Dash to her lowest point to give her more depth.

What do you mean by this? I feel like Rainbow is unusually shallow in this episode. What you said is exactly how I feel about "Newbie Dash," so if there's something I'm missing here, I'd love to hear it. 

[bigbertha 410]

4 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

What do you mean by this? I feel like Rainbow is unusually shallow in this episode. What you said is exactly how I feel about "Newbie Dash," so if there's something I'm missing here, I'd love to hear it. 

This episode works in a similar vein to "Lesson Zero". Both episodes exaggerate the focus character's main character trait so they can learn a lesson about it. This episode doesn't work as well as "Lesson Zero" because of the problems I mentioned, but Rainbow still learns a lesson about controlling her ego like how Twilight learned to not take things too seriously.

[Thrond 3,257]

2 hours ago, bigbertha said:

This episode works in a similar vein to "Lesson Zero". Both episodes exaggerate the focus character's main character trait so they can learn a lesson about it. This episode doesn't work as well as "Lesson Zero" because of the problems I mentioned, but Rainbow still learns a lesson about controlling her ego like how Twilight learned to not take things too seriously.

Rainbow doesn't seem terribly anxious in this one, though, and I do think that's a crucial difference; I don't really see how most scenes contribute to us understanding her better. 

[bigbertha 410]

1 minute ago, AlexanderThrond said:

Rainbow doesn't seem terribly anxious in this one, though, and I do think that's a crucial difference; I don't really see how most scenes contribute to us understanding her better. 

Rainbow Dash's insecurities in this episode are more hidden than Twilight's in "Lesson Zero". The scene with Rainbow alone on the cloud states what the entire episode was hinting at. Rainbow's ego is just her covering up her fear of being alone.

[darknessrising24 56]

11 minutes ago, bigbertha said:

This episode works in a similar vein to "Lesson Zero". Both episodes exaggerate the focus character's main character trait so they can learn a lesson about it. This episode doesn't work as well as "Lesson Zero" because of the problems I mentioned, but Rainbow still learns a lesson about controlling her ego like how Twilight learned to not take things too seriously.

The crucial difference is the fact that Twilight's situation was due to her own actions. Rainbow Dash barely did anything aside from gloat the way she usually does and her friends suddenly took it upon themselves to go behind her back instead of being upfront about the problem.

 

The episode does not work because of that, nor does it teach Rainbow Dash of lesson, if anything it only harms said lesson because the main fix themselves proceeded to praise themselves and even attend the parade later in the episode despite them trying to teach her not to be so full of herself.

 

That's not a lesson, it's hypocrisy.

[Thrond 3,257]

2 hours ago, bigbertha said:

Rainbow Dash's insecurities in this episode are more hidden than Twilight's in "Lesson Zero". The scene with Rainbow alone on the cloud states what the entire episode was hinting at. Rainbow's ego is just her covering up her fear of being alone.

So, in a similar vein to Pinkie Pie in "Party of One." Interesting. 

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

On 7/14/2015 at 5:56 AM, thegamerator10 said:

I feel like I'm the one person on Earth and Nirn who likes this episode.

I'm a Mare Do Well fan.

[Cash In 21,489]

The first third of the episode is alright, but everything after that was awful. Rainbow Dash's ego was overdone. Yes, she is cocky, but competitiveness aside, she's supposed to be reliable, which the episode did a pretty poor job of conveying.

The scheme to teach RD a lesson was dumb. You'd think that Twilight and co would at least tell RD to cool down before deciding to play dress up. They comment about it to each other like twice max, but that's it. It feels very out of character for all of them. I honestly think Mare Do Well should've been a completely separate pony. Maybe Mayor Mare or something, I dunno.

The only good thing about the episode were a few of the jokes. Spike playing the ghost writer was pretty funny.

Yeah, this episode sucks.

Edited February 27 by Cash In
Updated thoughts

[bigbertha 410]

I appreciate this episode even more now. I love the way Rainbow's ego progresses. It starts with her being pretty humble and progresses to the point where she starts to get sloppy with saving ponies. I feel like a lot of people ignore the fact that her ego gets so big that it could end up killing ponies. When the hot air balloon falls, Rainbow Dash barely makes it in time. She just flies into the balloon. That could've easily progressed to not making it in time. This makes the mane six's action completely justifiable. 

The comedy is also really good. The writers do a good job of making Rainbow Dash have a big enough ego to be funny, but not enough to be unsympathetic. Her breakdown is very funny to watch, but when she gives up and lies on the cloud, the audience still has sympathy since she still has relatable insecurities behind the exaggerated ego.

The only issue for me is how quickly the town moves on the Mare Do Well. Rainbow Dash has been saving ponies for a long time, but Mare Do Well saves one and everyone moves on from Rainbow. That's dumb.

Everything else is really damn good.

Score: 9/10

[darknessrising24 56]

3 hours ago, bigbertha said:

 feel like a lot of people ignore the fact that her ego gets so big that it could end up killing ponies. When the hot air balloon falls, Rainbow Dash barely makes it in time. She just flies into the balloon. That could've easily progressed to not making it in time. This makes the mane six's action completely justifiable.  

I'm sorry but.... no.

Their actions were in no way justified, especially considering how far they took it in this episode.

Many people like to point out that she put many lives at the list due to her bragging. With the hot air balloon I can understand, if RD stopped signing autographs she could have saved the mare before MDW popped up.

But with the rest? Even if she had been super-modest and humble, nothing would've been different at all. For example:

Runaway carriage - Nothing more RD could have done with this one than she did. RD did not have the strength to even slow it down at all. She even hurt herself trying to stop it. AJ would've had to step in anyway.

The construction site- Nothing more RD could have done with this one than she did. She barely saved one of workers and only got out unhurt due to his help. Again, Pinkie would've had to step in.

The dam- If the theme is so fragile that simply leaning against it too hard caused it to give away, it was definitely gonna collapse anyway.

Being modest before then wouldn't have altered a thing. We never see Rainbow's over-confidence directly leading her to making a mistake. The times she wasn't able to save ponies in the second half of the episode (the construction workers, the runaway carriage, the dam) wasn't because she was overconfident. The way they set those up, she couldn't have handled those on her own regardless of whether she went in humble or bragging. So that doesn't support the lesson they were (allegedly) trying to teach.

3 hours ago, bigbertha said:

The comedy is also really good. The writers do a good job of making Rainbow Dash have a big enough ego to be funny, but not enough to be unsympathetic. Her breakdown is very funny to watch, but when she gives up and lies on the cloud, the audience still has sympathy since she still has relatable insecurities behind the exaggerated ego.

You have a pretty sadistic mindset when it comes to humor if you think watching her mentally break down like that the home she was practically alone and crying is something amusing to watch.

An endless parade of implausibly close-together disasters still doesn't validate shattering a friend's self-esteem and driving them into depression without even TRYING to talk to her.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have leaped to the rescue. I'm saying they should have sat Dash down before any of that, as a group -- maybe even with some of the pestered townsfolk tagging along -- and given her a firm but gentle talking-to. The exact one they gave AFTER emotionally torturing her. Tell her that it's okay to be proud, but not to rub others' faces in it. Tell her somepony is going to get hurt while she brags, and then NOPONY will cheer. All that stuff. Maybe even mention how bad Shimmer-Wing-Rarity made HER feel back in Cloudsdale.

3 hours ago, bigbertha said:

The only issue for me is how quickly the town moves on the Mare Do Well. Rainbow Dash has been saving ponies for a long time, but Mare Do Well saves one and everyone moves on from Rainbow. That's dumb.

 Everything else is really damn good. 

Again no.

I'm sorry, but you need to look at the bigger picture here.

I acknowledge that RD was in the wrong,there were points in the episode where lives were at risk and her showboating could’ve been saved for later. And while I understand that she kind of needed to be taken down a peg when lives were in danger, but the mane five were also in the wrong, and the way they conveyed their message was very poor and came off as VERY mean-spirited and hypocritical!

Not mention that Fluttershy didn’t even DO anything in the grand scheme of things aside from said flyby when RD expressed the joy that flying was the one thing she was the best at. So what? RD wasn’t allowed to be proud that she could fly?? That is NOT humbling someone, that’s just pouring salt in the wound!
 

Also, how can they call her out on bragging and saying she should be humble if they showed up at the parade? That comes off as more hypocritical since the episode practically begins with her enjoying the fact that she has a fan club and the Mane five get on her case about her huge ego while she’s at a gathering of said fans at Sugarcube Corner, which was technically after her heroics. And yet it was ok for Mare Do Well to attend her own parade under the same circumstances?

They both technically EARNED that praise.

While I can understand not being thrilled with Rainbow's boasting, both in and out of the show, the girls decided that rather than talk about it with her which worked to get her to dial it back in previous episodes, they would abuse Rainbow's trust in them to use her deepest fears and personal insecurities against her. realistically that should have deeply and permanently shaken Rainbow's trust in them, possibly to the point of breaking her friendships with them entirely.

Another one of the biggest problems I have with the episode was the aspect of "SHOW DON’T TELL" being ignored. "28 Pranks Later" worked better with that reason because of that solitary aspect. We actually SEE them SIT HER DOWN AND TALK WITH HER. And when that fails they have Pinkie confront her one on one. It’s one of the reasons why I was able to genuinely enjoy "28 Pranks Later" despite having a similar premise. For me, if we had seen the two scenes where they talk it out with her and she didn’t listen in place of the flyby and Sugarcube Corner scenes then it would’ve worked a lot better in my opinion. That way it doesn’t feel like they all just jumped in on the plan without thinking of other options, but instead the gang DIDN'T talk to her, then messed with her behind her back, then praised THEMSELVES (instead of Twilight praising the runaway vehicle save, AJ praising the Dam rescue, etc) in front of her. Even if she was too stubborn to listen, why can't they at least make the ATTEMPT? Then, if Dash rebuffs them, THEN they are JUSTIFIED in their actions!

 

More crucial are the issues that the Mane Five conceived of this plan -before- the balloon incident or anything like it occurred and most importantly, that was NOT their motivation for it. Their motivation was that "heroes don't brag."

If you want to argue that Rainbow's intention outweighs the fact that she was saving ponies, what does that say about her friends then? They didn't do a single thing to help until after they became annoyed with Rainbow's attitude. If their priority was saving lives, they wouldn't have bothered with the costumes and the charade. They would've just went out and helped, period. Instead, they put teaching Rainbow Dash a lesson over saving lives. How is that any better than what Rainbow did?

If anything, it's worse.

 

The argument since Rainbow Dash's ego could've risked lives, therefore what her friends did was correct, fails because her friends NEVER said a word about trying to prevent Rainbow from making mistakes or pointing to how over-confidence can lead to messing up. The ONLY justification they gave in-show was 'heroes don't brag.' As far as rationales go, this is far from convincing.

In fact, why did her friends bother with costumes at all? That was done SOLELY so Rainbow Dash wouldn't know who they were. It served no other purpose and I'm sure took time and energy that could've gone to helping ponies sooner. But they prioritized teaching a "lesson" over saving lives. This isn't like super-heroes safeguarding their identities in DC or Marvel. They had no secrets or love ones to protect. They only bothered with them for the purposes of messing with Rainbow Dash. So she was not out of bounds in trying to unmask them.

Go watch the episode again, they never talked to her about anything. If they had taken a minute for a scene with her brushing off the others concerns things would have been much better, but as is what happens is they see Rainbow showing off to her adoring fans and the next thing we know they are one-upping her left and right.  The other big problem is that they do not seem to care about how badly they hurt Rainbow at all in the final confrontation, and the fact that they rub it in after they one-up her makes things even worse.

Not to mention that this is the Element of Loyalty we're talking about here-to her, this is a pretty awful bit of backstabbing, in Sonic Rainboom how fragile her self-esteem can be, and Rarity's arrival and showboating only compounded the problem, to the point Dash suffers a mild nervous breakdown. So what would the Mane Six have done if she suffered a similar breakdown here?

if you have to resort to tricking someone into learning a lesson, you do NOT have the moral high ground.

There is no way Rainbow could've possibly gotten the "right" message from Mare Do Well. Her reaction (which the others should've known) would be to either try to outdo her, or to quit and retreat into self-pity and doubt. When other characters make mistakes (like Rarity in Sisterhooves Social) she's given the chance to realize that she made a mistake on her own and THEN let her friends help set her straight. Here Rainbow Dash wasn't, so the whole episode comes off as just dumping on her.

How could she get that message? "Wow, MDW doesn't sign autographs and ponies like her. I guess I should..." there's no logical way to draw a proper conclusion. And her friends laughing at her didn't help, especially since she went into depression soon afterwards.

Sure, Dash has an ego and occasionally she trips on it. However she also has a paralyzing fear of screwing up and being humiliated in public (as seen in Sonic Rainboom"), and her friends KNOW this! They could've showed up as themselves to do heroic actions and pointed out how Dash is better off with allies, or called her out on the autograph sessions since that could have got somepony killed. It's not like RD would've said “hey! Stop saving Ponies when I'm the hero!” She's not an asshole!

Also, there's the fact that RD didn't learn her lesson from MDW herself, but her friends. Not once does she ever think about MDW’s actions or have a realization that she's doing things wrong, it's only AFTER the Mane five take off their masks and TELL HER themselves that she gets the message, further proving that just talking to her might’ve WORKED.

Think about it, she only reacted negatively towards MDW but when she was faced with her friends, she actually swallowed her pride and acknowledged her faults. So in hindsight: MDW’s creation was POINTLESS.

This episode is bad, meanspirited, and well-deserving of it's bad reputation.

 

 

 

[Thrond 3,257]

On 1/5/2019 at 11:57 AM, bigbertha said:

I feel like a lot of people ignore the fact that her ego gets so big that it could end up killing ponies. When the hot air balloon falls, Rainbow Dash barely makes it in time. She just flies into the balloon. That could've easily progressed to not making it in time. This makes the mane six's action completely justifiable. 

Rainbow's ego is preventing her from helping as well as she could, but it's also still pushing her to help. Consider how there aren't any background ponies or secondary characters stepping in. Rainbow's friends were probably right to step in and give her a hand, but it's worth noting that this only causes her to spiral further. 

I honestly thought making Rainbow Dash be less annoying was enough justification, though. I'm more bothered by how often we see Rainbow failing and embarrassing herself, and how her friends specifically praise their own parts in the Mare-Do-Well's actions. 

[CypherHoof 26,479]

I largely agree with @darknessrising24 on this one.

The rest of the mane 6 were poor friends, and their scheme was poorly thought out.

But that said, most of Dashie's problems in the later rescues seem to stem from her forgetting to be a pegasus pony.

Lets look at the first three;

1) She flies into a well and rescues a little filly that shouldn't have been down there. while almost any pegasus pony could have done that, it was Dashie who did do that.

2) She flies after a speeding filly carrage and stops it with her teeth and hooves.

3) She flies under a falling balcony, and slows it with her wingpower so she can lower it to the ground.

In all three though, it is her speed and pegasus wingpower that she uses to save the day.

Then we come on to the MDW saves.

1) She leaves herself insufficient time to reach the balloon and save it, but could presumably have done so had she not delayed setting out.  I don't think there is any doubt she COULD have saved the pilot had she set out earlier.

2) She tries showboating to the trollybus passengers before attempting a save, then tries to stop it with physical strength (she isn't an earth pony - given earth ponies have a significant advantage in strength, why did she do that? if she had pushed back against the trollybus with her wingpower, well... we already know a normal pegasus pony can support massive loads using wingpower alone, and she isn't a normal pegasus pony, but the pony with the highest wingpower in all of equestria.  Sure, AJ *did* stop the bus with physical strength, but AJ *is* an earth pony, so naturally would do that. It isn't much of a reach that AJ and Maud are stronger than Dashie, and Big Mac, who can drag entire buildings around without any apparent strain, is probably even worse.

3) Ditto the construction event; Dashie was right there, showboating, and was nearly hit by a ballistic beam. If she had been paying attention, she could have just nudged the beam left or right so it missed the building, and there would have been no collapse at all.  On the bright side, she saved one worker with sheer speed from becoming flattened by falling bricks, With pinkie nowhere to be seen.

4) Finally, the Dam. Dashie saw a leak, pressed on it, it cracked all around where she was pressing, and then she let go... and so did it (yes, I know, the whole thing with the little dutch kid and the dyke, but still, the correct action would have been to raise the alarm, not make things worse)

So while its true Dashie couldn't have done what AJ, Pinkie or Twi did, she shouldn't have had to - instead, she should have found a pegasus solution to the problems, not an earth pony, unicorn, or whatever-pinkie-is solution

[Rushing cash 824]

I have no problem with rainbows ego here, her ego is one of the reasons it makes her character entertaining but I really hate the trope when out of no where the town is flooded with problems and ponies to save and one of the characters become like a super hero who saves them, feels forced to me and out of character for the environment(is this a thing?). 4\10

[Lucky Bolt 34,914]

Another big fat 10/10 from me for this episode. Rainbow Dash makes episodes interesting. I especially love this one too cause I can relate. 

[CypherHoof 26,479]

3 minutes ago, Lucky Bolt said:

Another big fat 10/10 from me for this episode. Rainbow Dash makes episodes interesting. I especially love this one too cause I can relate. 

Pranks on Dashie are best Pranks

[darknessrising24 56]

5 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

Pranks on Dashie are best Pranks

It wasn't a prank, it was a vindictive attempt to "teach her a lesson" that was unnecessarily mean-spirited. Hence why it was terrible.

 

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

This seems to be an infamous episode among the fandom, and I've never understood why.  I liked it.  Rainbow acted like like a colossal asshat, yeah, but it was early in the series.  She just needed to learn a lesson, and she did.  This episode also had some great references to superhero stuff; the poster that looks like Batman The Animated Series, and the carriage stop scene based on the train scene from Spider-Man 2.  And we also found out that Twilight's horn doubles as an amulet of Uroborus!

Spoiler

 

 

[PhaseCassandra 13]

I do think it’s a good episode and it really teaches RD a lesson on being boastful and egotistical 

[Props Valroa 25,971]

Pretty good episode, seeing RD act all boastful is grating to me. But why are all these issues occurring, was someone causing them? I wish Mare Do Well was her own character, and her own pony. I like how RD's friends taught her a lesson, but what if it was another pony entirely? 

[JMTV99 1,348]

I remember this episode being the most hated of the entire franchise for many years, and I used to jumped on the bandwagon and saying how much it sucked.

However , looking back on it, it's still pretty bad, but not as bad as some of the later Rainbow Dash episodes of the series.

I'm well aware that most people don't like Dashie because of her cocky and egotistical personality, but I really like her personality because she does stand out amongst the Mane 6. However in this episode, she has been treated as like the hero of Ponyville (Powerpuff Girls style), but it comes across as forced, without showing any humility. Main 6 are no better either. I get that they want Dashie to stop bragging all the time, but they come off as hypocrites later on as they bragged about their accomplishments and Mare Do Well behind Dashie's back. Which, I can't even root for them either.

While the moral was good, but the execution was so contradictory and it muddles the whole point of the entire episode, in my opinion.

The best thing about the episode was Mare Do Well herself. She's really cool. The design was given that Batman approach and it works pretty well. Although, I really wish we could see her again and give her a better role because she had a lot of potential to be her own character instead of being a one-off.

Honestly, I get the feeling that Merriweather Williams wants to subverts the audience's expectations by making the Main 6 unlikable so we can feel sorry for Dashie, and it kinda backfired on her part. It's really no wonder why a lot of people considering Mare Do Well as the worst episode of MLP for a long time.

With that said, even though it's still a pretty bad episode, was it as bad as Newbie Dash, 28 Pranks Later, and 2, 4, 6 Great? Absolutely NOT! I rather watch Mare Do Well again then something like these aforementioned episodes because at least there some moments in Mare Do Well I actually do like. As opposed to something like Newbie Dash and 2, 4, 6 Great was a massive INSULT to Dashie's character.

Edited May 18, 2021 by JMTV99

[Props Valroa 25,971]

This episode was a rather poor one in my opinion - due to Rainbow's mass ego. Mare Do Well as a character came up by RD's friends was a good touch, I actually like that more on my re-watch here. The moral is good, but I feel as if RD did do a lot of heroic actions that shouldn't go un-noticed in the future. Though RD's ego was something I felt her friends could have been more harsh on. 

[Hadrien 937]

Second Rainbow Dash episode in a row, so I'm happy. I know a lot of people had troubles with the moral, and I'm inclined to agree that it falls a bit flat when you consider all that Dashie did vs. what the others did. RD is boastful, arrogant and has a big Ego, but she *is* the fastest flyer in Equestria, she *did* save those people, she *did* try to be the best for everyone AND herself. Being arrogant and boastful ain't necessarily a bad thing, although it can get on the nerves, but it's no reason to destroy someone self esteem. Just tell her to tone in down a bit and voilà.

I like how Rainbow uses her ego to shield herself from low self esteem. She could've done the same thing with humor, but Pinkie already too that spot, so arrogance is RD's flaw. It's how she copes with failure, how she wants her others to see her, because she doesn't necessarily see it in herself. It's not great to base your worth on what others think of you, but it's how she developped.

This episode is weirdly deep when you really stop and think about it.

8.5/10, I do not like to see my Dashie cry, it makes me want to hug her and tell her everything is gonna be fine.