S07:E01+02 - Celestial Advice/All Bottled Up

[pnylvr 185]

Celestial Advice: Excellent all the way through. I particularly liked the parts where Celestia and Twilight were talking. My only complaint is that the "Starlight's so great! Woo woo woo!" stuff was laid on too thickly.

All Bottled Up: Great episode, particularly towards the end. I have a hard time seeing Trixie and Starlight as strictly platonic after that conversation ( though (hat could just be because I don't understand female friendship).

[ponylaces 1,870]

I am one of those people who believes Starlight's development has been a bit rushed so far (seriously, how the hell is she already graduating), but there was something so refreshing about Celestial Advice to me. 

I wasn't expecting it to be this great to be honest. I was expecting just another underwhelming premiere like last season's, kind of lackluster and not as interesting or entertaining. This really exceeded my expectations. I like the idea of it being only a one parter, especially since it was just a slice of life episode. At the same time, I feel like this episode was really needed. There was little to no attention for Twilight's perspective on mentoring Starlight in season 6 which disappointed me, since it has so much potential for developing Twilight. Seeing an entire episode dedicated to it is so great. It had some nice lighthearted humor, sympathetic characters (aside from Discord..), and some much needed backstory/serious moments. Basically everything that I love from the show. So yeah, I'm personally really excited to see where Starlight goes next with her friendship studies and overall I'm just hyped up for what this season has to offer. 

And uh.. the second episode was fun. 🤷🤷 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TL;DR - Celestial Advice is gooooooood

Edited April 17, 2017 by PonyLaces

[Music Chart Fan 819]

10 hours ago, AlexanderThrond said:

Well... except for the part where she didn't graduate after all. 

Twilight still refers to Starlight as having graduated at the end of "All Bottled Up":

Quote

Starlight Glimmer: Let's just say I learned a friendship lesson while you were gone.
Twilight Sparkle: You've barely graduated, and you're already taking initiative! [tearing up] Oh... So proud...

 

[Jeric 46,850]

@PonyLaces glad to see your perspective! 

What makes Celestial Advice work is that it felt driven by character interactions instead of the plot taking the characters for a ride. It boiled down to the characters sitting around and talking it out. It was important for relationship development and to fill a few missing opportunities as you point out, but the subdued way of approaching it made me think of live action shows that follow up a huge event with a self-respecting episode. 

Not sure if you are a Trek: TNG fan, but they followed up their biggest episode at the time (The Best of Both Worlds) with  an episode focused on answering the question "What did that event do to me or mean for me? Where do I go next?" Characters addressing their changing perspective and looking for new perspective. 

There is a maturity in that type of episode that I did not expect from FiM. 

[Truffles 2,033]

17 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

(Heh, Sparkle...  I love when Spike called her that, and I loved her reaction to it.  It was just....cute.)

It made me think of them as crime fighting duo like you see on police dramas, though more apt in this case would instead be "partners in crime".

I guess we can add that to the lengthy list of possible ways to describe their relationship with one another. (I would say the first instance of this pairing was of him and Pinkie getting drafted to help steal the time travel spell in "It's About Time," but he didn't seem all that enthused about helping her as he was here.)

[Truffles 2,033]

11 hours ago, JH24 said:

Wow, I'm slow. I only now realized that in "Bottled Up" Spike was washing all the cups Trixie had made earlier. Poor guy.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I felt bad for him too because it's a reminder that for the longest time he needed to do more with his life than just be Twilight's cook, cleaning service and secretary. On the other hand, no one asked him to do any of this and we've seen from his interaction with Zephyr he actually enjoys doing housework, or at the very least takes so much pride in helping out and keeping things neat and in order that it's an overall positive experience for him rather than a form of torture.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Truffles
additional thought

[mccuish1525 55]

I honestly found the 2 episodes kinda boring.

[Thrond 3,263]

42 minutes ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Twilight still refers to Starlight as having graduated at the end of "All Bottled Up":

 

Oh... yeah. 

Huh. 

[Baykush 328]

I'm going to be extremely nitpicky here  but why the hell does Pinkie say she's not good at riddle-solving? She solved the whole Scavenger Hunt in The One Where Pinkie Pie knows way faster than everyone and has proven to be smarter than the rest of the mane 5 sans Twilight in that kind of stuff. These writers also wrote Legend Of Everfree and I also nitpicked how they portrayed Pinkie there, I hope they'll know better if they write a Pinkie Pie episode.

I wanted to say that in my thoughts of the episode but I skipped it since it doesn't affect my opinion of it  I'm still not sure what to make of it.

 

12 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

Oh... yeah. 

Huh. 

She did graduate, and then went back to being Twilight's student. The point is she's still Twilight's student.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Baykush

[Thrond 3,263]

5 minutes ago, Baykush said:

She did graduate, and then went back to being Twilight's student. The point is she's still Twilight's student.

1

And yet, Twilight does still say that Starlight has "...just graduated," so it seems to be a "thing," even though both episodes make a pretty big deal out of Starlight not being ready yet. I don't really know what I'm supposed to make of that. 

[Fhaolan 4,483]

8 minutes ago, Baykush said:

 

I'm going to be extremely nitpicky here  but why the hell does Pinkie say she's not good at riddle-solving? She solved the whole Scavenger Hunt in The One Where Pinkie Pie knows way faster than everyone and has proven to be smarter than the rest of the mane 5 sans Twilight in that kind of stuff.

 

Personally I take that to be a 'I say these things in order to make others feel better about themselves' kind of thing. Yeah, Pinkie could probably deal with the whole puzzle by herself, but that's not the way I think she thinks. She probably thinks being a cheerleader and encouraging others to be better is more productive. She knows what the point of the exercise is, and it's not to solve the puzzle. It's improving their team dynamics by having everyone find a way to be useful in some way *while* solving the puzzle.

[Baykush 328]

2 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

And yet, Twilight does still say that Starlight has "...just graduated," so it seems to be a "thing," even though both episodes make a pretty big deal out of Starlight not being ready yet. I don't really know what I'm supposed to make of that. 

Well, I do believe it's a thing because Twilight herself thought she was ready. Maybe it was just left as a metaphorical graduation because she has advanced so much, like it's the next level of her studies.

[Thrond 3,263]

Just now, Baykush said:

Well, I do believe it's a thing because Twilight herself thought she was ready. Maybe it was just left as a metaphorical graduation because she has advanced so much, like it's the next level of her studies.

1

And I'm not convinced she's quite ready for that yet. I was convinced after the season 6 finale, but now she's back to solving problems in ways which could easily become dangerous, which feels far more like incremental progress than the show would have me believe. In particular, Twilight praising Starlight's "initiative" seems very unhealthy - what's Starlight gonna take from that? That she should just hide her screw ups? It worked for her this time! 

[Dzastur 1,719]

Just re-watched Celestial Advice. I think it featured some of the best writing of the last few seasons. There's some really clever stuff I missed the first time.

[Baykush 328]

4 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

And I'm not convinced she's quite ready for that yet. I was convinced after the season 6 finale, but now she's back to solving problems in ways which could easily become dangerous, which feels far more like incremental progress than the show would have me believe. In particular, Twilight praising Starlight's "initiative" seems very unhealthy - what's Starlight gonna take from that? That she should just hide her screw ups? It worked for her this time! 

Well, yeah, in that I have to agree. To be fair at least she wasn't doing it for her benefit but for her friend's, so I guess that's better, but she still needs Twilight's guidance and I'm glad Starlight herself realized that. We'll have to see what they do about it in future episodes, there's also the possibility that it was a meaningless line.

[Thrond 3,263]

5 minutes ago, Baykush said:

there's also the possibility that it was a meaningless line.

 

I felt like the episode didn't really think through the implications of what it was doing with Twilight, and that troubles me a little. 

[Regent 77]

I didn't like Discord for a change. Huh. I guess his shtick is wearing thin. I mean, I understand why he does it. It's all the chaos he can cause without going too far and getting turned to stone again. (his cheese idea might have resulted in that though). It would be nice to see more character development here. Give him a girlfriend. Look for Q's only episode in DS9 Season 1 for an idea of how that might work.

I also didn't like Trixie. She was my favorite character at one point. She was a ditsy brat the whole time. Even her apology came off as disingenuous.

On the plus-side, Spike was on his A-game and not cringe-worthy for a change. He's really matured if you compare this to the earlier episodes. Actually, every recent episode I think that. He might be my favorite character if they keep this up.

And the biggest plus, Starlight wasn't a complete a-hole! Wow.

It was also nice to see more of Celestia. I imagine writing her can be difficult, since a lot could be assumed about her character, but you want her to actually be likable without being perfect. (In hindsight, judging by what we've seen of her, she's anything but.)

[Jeric 46,850]

1 hour ago, AlexanderThrond said:

And I'm not convinced she's quite ready for that yet. I was convinced after the season 6 finale, but now she's back to solving problems in ways which could easily become dangerous, which feels far more like incremental progress than the show would have me believe. In particular, Twilight praising Starlight's "initiative" seems very unhealthy - what's Starlight gonna take from that? That she should just hide her screw ups? It worked for her this time! 

I agree that what she did was unhealthy, but not at the point that one can say that it is unthinkable someone would do what she did. Ultimately she is guilty of repressing her anger and not communicating. Far removed from purposely fiddling with ponies free will. 

Celestial Advice also did something interesting. It compared Starlight's graduation and possible departure with Twilight's assignment to Ponyville. Im fact, it went out of its way to reinforce this point. Prior to Celestial Advice, I hadn't considered the flexibility of Twilight's own path and how there weren't neat dividing lines. 

A case can be made that Starlight may actually be undergoing an exponential growth that exceeds Twilight's own growth. After all, Twilight did have Lesson Zero after Celestia decided Twilight reached a point that she needed to go elsewhere, and I consider that on par with what Starlight did last season to her friends. 

Now we're are at a point were she learned to communicate her disatisfaction. Normally we are presented with the character unaware of their own flaw in the episode until they learn a lesson. That isn't the case here. Starlight made it clear that she had created outlets for her anger.  We learned that she is possessed of a rare gift ... awareness of her own flaws. She is guilty of trying a wrong technique to address it. 

What I'm saying is, there is nothing in that episode that suggested she isn't learning or even ready to go mostly solo. What I did see is initiative that I rarely see among mature adults in the real world. 

If Rarity wasn't already my locked in favorite, Starlight would have taken the crown with this episode. 

[JH24 385]

9 hours ago, Truffles said:

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I felt bad for him too because it's a reminder that for the longest time he needed to do more with his life than just be Twilight's cook, cleaning service and secretary. On the other hand, no one asked him to do any of this and we've seen from his interaction with Zephyr he actually enjoys doing housework, or at the very least takes so much pride in helping out and keeping things neat and in order that it's an overall positive experience for him rather than a form of torture.

You're right. Spike does take pride in his work and I also think he enjoys doing this. My reaction was more about that Spike is so loyal that as soon as he saw the cups he took it up himself to clean them, while he had actually planned to read his comics. But yeah, I do believe as well it's overall a positive experience for him, and he did want to get away from Trixie and Starlight for a little while.

---

After re-watching the episodes I have to say I feel more positive about them. I loved the way Celestia, Twilight, Starlight and Discord were portrayed. (Trixie was a bit over the top but I still enjoyed her character) And I really loved how they showed Spike. He seems to work so well as a supporting character that interestingly enough it's him who steals the spotlight. Really like the dynamic and relations between him and Twilight. 

I like how Spike is more mature, acts as a voice of reason and is still his sarcastic self at times. He seems so much more confident than he was in the earlier seasons.

[Truffles 2,033]

17 minutes ago, JH24 said:

My reaction was more about that Spike is so loyal that as soon as he saw the cups he took it up himself to clean them, while he had actually planned to read his comics.

Yes, that bothered me, too. Here he was all set for some well-deserved "Spike time" to get through three of his new comic books, but he ended up cleaning and then helping look for the lost map table.

17 minutes ago, JH24 said:

I like how Spike is more mature, acts as a voice of reason and is still his sarcastic self at times. He seems so much more confident than he was in the earlier seasons.

Indeed. He was snarky in season 1, but all the same there was an omen of things to come in how his very first scene in the series was the first instance of Spikeabuse. =(

Hopefully they don't overdo it on the snarkiness and voice of reason stuff, however. It wouldn't take much for him to go from being a fun character to becoming "Captain Obvious," as some have already noticed when he kept interrupting Celestia's story.

 

 

Now, as for another topic one of the great things about these two episodes are the fun little details they inserted into scenes. Some of these have already been noted, but these are some of the things that made me smile:

• The shading on the manes of many of the ponies at the ceremony looked really spectacular. Most notable was Lyrica, but many of the other ponies had smooth-shaded manes for a change!
• When Discord teleports away his funny glasses fly into the air and Thorax ends up wearing them.
• Discord waters the bouquet at the table near him with the tea Twilight drinks.
• The series continues the continuity of giving the changelings anatomical bug names, this time with "Cornicle," which is a part of an aphid.
• The new changelings can still mimic other species, or at least Twilight believes they can.
• The dragon that was cheered up by Garble in "Gauntlet" gets a cameo. I didn't see Crackle, however.
• We get to see the same lava pool the dragons dove into in "Dragon Quest." It makes sense in Twilight's fantasy since she was there to see that contest take place.
• Filly Moondancer makes a new appearance, along with all of Twilight's old friends!
• While Spike feeling obligated to clean the newly-transmogrified teacups was a mixed bag for me, I loved that they stuck this almost-an-Easter-egg visual here, since he could have been cleaning anything, really.
• "Magic is friendship 'n stuff." Trixie's reversal/mangling of the show's motto. XD
• We get to hear another weak "ta da" from Trixie, which is still one of my favorite moments of the S6 finale.
• Trixie (probably purposely) using Twilight's throne as her seat.
• The writers remembering Bulk Biceps working at the spa and making a joke about it being his other job.

Both of these episodes were a lot of fun. If the rest of the season can be this successful this could be the best season yet.

[Castle Bleck 19,332]

Huh, evidently, the more bats***-crazy Starlight is, the more her magic grows.

 

...

 

TFW you realize we finally, finally have a(n) (semi-)explanation for her OP moments:

 

 

Edited April 17, 2017 by A.V.

[The Nth Doctor 661]

Finally, Starlight speaks for everyone who despises Trixie, who finally gets served some humble pie and called out for being insufferable.

Shame they didn't force-feed it to her, but that's what fanfiction is for, especially since Trixie didn't learn her lesson at the end of the episode.

I think Starlight should teach Trixie about friendship, what with graduating from being Twilight student in 1/15th the time it took Twilight to graduate from being Celestia's student.

Edited April 17, 2017 by The Nth Doctor

[JH24 385]

1 hour ago, Truffles said:

Yes, that bothered me, too. Here he was all set for some well-deserved "Spike time" to get through three of his new comic books, but he ended up cleaning and then helping look for the lost map table.

Indeed. He was snarky in season 1, but all the same there was an omen of things to come in how his very first scene in the series was the first instance of Spikeabuse. =(

Hopefully they don't overdo it on the snarkiness and voice of reason stuff, however. It wouldn't take much for him to go from being a fun character to becoming "Captain Obvious," as some have already noticed when he kept interrupting Celestia's story.

True, I did feel Spike interrupted a bit too much near the end of the episode. But I can overlook that because they got the other scenes with him right. Personally I feel they've found a balance with his character during the last season. I also like how he's, besides being a close friend, a kind of a mentor/advisor to Starlight as well at times. 

Nice list of details of the episodes by the way. I had missed several of them.

[GrimGrimoire 4,973]

23 minutes ago, The Nth Doctor said:

I think Starlight should teach Trixie about friendship, what with graduating from being Twilight student in 1/15th the time it took Twilight to graduate from being Celestia's student.

 

If she didn't, you would have to wait until the end of season 8 when she becomes an alicorn.

[Thrond 3,263]

9 hours ago, Jeric said:

I agree that what she did was unhealthy, but not at the point that one can say that it is unthinkable someone would do what she did. Ultimately she is guilty of repressing her anger and not communicating. Far removed from purposely fiddling with ponies free will. 

Celestial Advice also did something interesting. It compared Starlight's graduation and possible departure with Twilight's assignment to Ponyville. Im fact, it went out of its way to reinforce this point. Prior to Celestial Advice, I hadn't considered the flexibility of Twilight's own path and how there weren't neat dividing lines. 

A case can be made that Starlight may actually be undergoing an exponential growth that exceeds Twilight's own growth. After all, Twilight did have Lesson Zero after Celestia decided Twilight reached a point that she needed to go elsewhere, and I consider that on par with what Starlight did last season to her friends. 

Now we're are at a point were she learned to communicate her disatisfaction. Normally we are presented with the character unaware of their own flaw in the episode until they learn a lesson. That isn't the case here. Starlight made it clear that she had created outlets for her anger.  We learned that she is possessed of a rare gift ... awareness of her own flaws. She is guilty of trying a wrong technique to address it. 

What I'm saying is, there is nothing in that episode that suggested she isn't learning or even ready to go mostly solo. What I did see is initiative that I rarely see among mature adults in the real world. 

If Rarity wasn't already my locked in favorite, Starlight would have taken the crown with this episode. 

 

4

I think what continues to irritate me about Starlight is that her distribution of episodes hasn't really let us get to know and like her in any other capacity than "she lacks forethought," "she mind controlled Twilight's friends that one time," and "but she's getting better." I agree that this was a step up; she's actually thinking about how her responses affect others, and her mistake this time around, while dangerous and irresponsible, doesn't show a lack of consideration for others like "Every Little Thing She Does" did. But we almost never see Starlight in any other context, her understanding of how to deal with emotions in a healthy manner still seems severely underdeveloped, and I guess I just feel like her character arc is going by too fast. I'm really not on board for "an exponential growth that exceeds Twilight's own" - her arc already feels like it's missing steps, and if she continues on that path, I feel like she'll never settle down long enough for me to actually find her growth satisfying.

But I think what really gets me about this particular episode is that the second Twilight leaves, Starlight proceeds to screw something up. It's the context which gets me, and there's even a montage which contrasts the strong friendship of the mane six to the dysfunctional one between Starlight and Trixie, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to take from that aside from that Starlight still has a really long way to go. "Lesson Zero" was an anomaly for Twilight; "All Bottled Up" is just another Tuesday for Starlight. And really, I'm not entirely against that idea as long as the show doesn't then try to play her as having "graduated," as long as she doesn't get unhealthy praise for hiding her issues, and as long as we see her do anything else. Either an episode where she's left alone without screwing everything up or even a single lighthearted comedy episode involving her would help a lot for me. Even in the S6 finale, she spends most of the running time avoiding taking any initiative because she's afraid of herself, and now I only feel like she's proven herself right. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by AlexanderThrond