S07:E04 - Rock Solid Friendship

[Lil' Lovebug 1,041]

Seeing Pinkie's hairstyle change was probably her best part this episode. =/

It is nice seeing Starlight and Maud getting along. Also more characterization for Starlight. Sadly, i missed the entire morning scene cause someone walked into my room and started talking over it.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Lil' Lovebug

[cmarston1 5,959]

I thought that this episode was okay.

I always like callbacks to previous episodes, and this episode had a good amount of those, from mentioning Coloratura (who I hope returns this season), the check joke from A Friend in Deed, and even mentioning how the castle was formed in the season 4 finale, and even Pinkie's cupcakes from Rarity Investigates.

I was also surprised that Starlight was in it, and how she actually bonded with Maud as a friend, that was a pair I never thought I would see ever, yet it surprisingly helped me warm up a bit to Starlight.

I guess she has more chemistry with side characters than the main characters, even though this was a step in the right direction in having Starlight interact with the mane 6. Hopefully the rest of the season can continue helping me warm up to her a bit more.

Also Maud's Pinkie Pie slippers are super cute.

[Lexamena 391]

I liked that episode. Very cute. Pinkie was totally annoying but tolerable. 

[Choros Isorropai 409]

ahhh, I cant vote yet....

I woke from dead sleep with no alarm, grabed remote, changed channel just in time for intro...

Equestria greater than the sleep world is confirmed!

[Lightwing 12,970]

Poll is open for voting, yo.

[weesh 690]

there are two types of annoying episodes:

1) annoying stuff happens

2) annoying stuff happens, and then it is addressed, and becomes a lesson.

Honestly, the redemption of pinkie pie in this one makes this one a lot better.  I'm glad she wasn't awful without anyone calling attention to it, and getting it through her head.

[Castle Bleck 19,356]

Pinkie... had her ups and downs.

 

Maud and Improving!Starlight, however, were spot-on.

[Batbrony 16,055]

Haha, I was right!  Maud was totally digging Starlight, it was just that Pinkie was being WAY too clingy and butting into everything!  Also, really cool seeing the Quarray Eels return after over 4 seasons, that's a fun callback!  Also, also, I forgot to mention this earlier, but Starlight having a secret love of kites is HILARIOUS.

I won't be getting my full review up at this time, but I have to say that all in all, DESPITE Pinkie Pie being incredibly annoying for most of this episode (which I can forgive since it was intentional and had a point behind it) this was a fun episode.  I don't necessarily want Starlight to befriend every single major supporting character in the show now to be one of her BFFs, but her and Maud kinda did work together.  They weren't so much learning a lesson from each other (which is a bit more normal for Starlight and Trixie, the latter of whom has always learned quite a bit about friendship from Starlight) as simply enjoying each other's company in their own way.  Good stuff, I liked it very much.

Also, we got our first Derpy sighting of the season, and it included Pinkie throwing a pizza box at her (followed by Derpy gleefully chasing the pizza box), so color me pleased to say the least.  

[llamalauncher 84]

Maud does standup comedy lol

[Brainstorm 4,108]

I like the fact that Maud met Spike in this episode, but, Pinkie's behavior went a little overboard, but glad to see that see Maud and Starlight became friends. Also, it shows that everyone can make friends their own way.

So, not one of the best, but, it's a start.

[Choros Isorropai 409]

...don't know what to say, I loved it, and though I could follow along with the story as I do (aka 1 or more steps ahead of the show...lol) I will be watching it more than once, for sure!

love DVR!!!, only because it gets ponies... also, shout out to Bolder, he is skilled!

[Batbrony 16,055]

Also, also, also I agree with Starlight... jalapeno-red velvet omelets do sound disgusting. 

[Truffles 2,033]

I knew Ghastly Gorge sounded familiar, and the monster eel confirms what I suspected - it's the same place Rainbow held her pet contest and picked Tank.

Nice callback.

Though isn't Ghastly Gorge not all that far away from Ponyville, anyway? 

You know, if Maud wants a friend that doesn't want to talk about her feelings, she should become friends with Ember. 

 

I liked this episode, though I agree Pinkie was a bit much to handle this outing. However, considering her overzealousness and excitement was believable since it was involving her sister finally being in town with her, I didn't mind it as much as I might of.

Pinkie's crazy attempts at getting Maud to stay reminds me of some superfans who get so obsessed with their favorite celebrities that they drive them away and/or get them blocked.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Truffles

[BastementSparkle 20,326]

Pinkie was a bit annoying this episode, I get that was kind of the point, that she was being overbearing and not letting Maud makes friends her own way, but I think it got a little overboard. But, she was called out on it and did learn her lesson at the end, so it's not an unforgivable problem in my eyes. The Maud/Starlight stuff was just great though, that's not a pair I ever expected but they actually work pretty well together. Starlight's love of kites was...new, I like it. Good to learn a bit more about her, and see some extra depth to Maud as well.

 Also, Rarity crying over those Jewels being common made me laugh, Jewels seem to be incredibly common in Equestria already, they're all over the place, yet ponies still sometimes act like they're rare.

[PoisonClaw 8,164]

I really must give credit to Maud's VA, Ingrid Nilson (who plays all three of Pinkie's sisters) for being able to act in such a deadpan way, but still be able to get amotion across. It was nice watching Starlight and Maud interact, and I liked the multiple callbacks like Rarity mentioning Rara, Pinkie mentioning how Twilight's castle sprouted from the seed from the Tree of Harmony and a few others. I was also surprised to see that Starlight has a hobby outside of magic, and it's kites of all things.

Unfortunately, Pinkie really threaded the line between hyper and just plain annoying this episode. I don't hate Pinkie, but she's a character that is really easy to go too far with to the point it stops being endearing, and to her credit she was far from her worst like in Filli Vanilli.

Overall, this was an alright and enjoyable episode, and Pinkie did at least settled down near the end. Plus her impression of Maud was so spot-on it was hilarious.   

Edited April 29, 2017 by PoisonClaw

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,465]

Pinkie just had to be annoying one last time to close out the episode. That was this episode's major flaw; Pinkie was just annoying. I get it, she really wanted Maud to stay, but did all of that have to make her an idiot? Maud was...well, Maud. Basically just okay at best. More characterization is nice but she still isn't much of a character. Surprisngly to me, Starlight was the best part of the episode and I wasn't expecting her to even be in it. Her interactions were good and I liked that she played a good role.

Beyond that though, I found this episode to be below average. Not exactly one I will revisit any time soon.

 

[Goat-kun 2,527]

I know Pinkie wants to cheer on her sister but this is getting old and annoying. And they reduced Pinkie's IQ while increasing her pitch again. Plus Starlight is in. -1/10

 

Whelp, time to watch some animu to wash this stain out of my memory. I heard Re:Creators have a dope concept. Cya in an episode that doesn't degrade main characters to push a narrative.

 

P.S: if any ficfoals got wet from crystal essence entrapment. It doesn't work. The pony villain died in late winter in the simulation.

[PinkiePie97 913]

I thought it was alright. I did think it was nice that Starlight and Maud became friends. However, I wasn't too fond of Pinkie Pie in this episode. You can probably tell by my username that I normally like her, but in this episode, I thought she was getting too carried away. I know it's like her to get carried away and I usually find that to be amusing, but I wasn't really amused this time. I do like that she realized she was going too far in the end, though.

[Compeador 101]

so they officially begin to ship maud X starlight and maud even helped the badass starlight to enslave the town...what the heck is this 

[ph00tbag 108]

I'm really digging this episode, so to speak.

I'll be honest; in Maud's first appearance, I found her rather tiresome. She was impassive, not just to a fault, but to a point where literally nothing about her was effectively conveyed. I've always drawn comparison, myself, between Maud and Daria Morgendorfer. The thing about Daria is, she's not really impassive, she just reacts in muted, unexpected ways. When an event occurs, there are small changes in her expression, but the active, emotive responses of everyone else make it feel like nothing is really happening to Daria. Maud is explicitly supposed to have this kind of role in the story of episodes about her, but her expression never changes. Her voice is similarly uninflected. From an animation perspective, I get it--key frames are more work than repeated frames. Why put in a new key frame that will really only be noticed by nerds, when you can just keep the face the same and only lose the nerds that want a little bit more. But it ultimately makes the character less compelling.

This time around, though, things are different. Maud's face is more expressive, if quixotic and subtle. Her jokes are more clearly Daria-esque jokes, and it's good to see her interacting more actively.

Starlight is perfect for Maud, and I think helps with Maud's unreadability by providing a lens to put her into focus. Just as Daria's character was inscrutable without a Jane to tell the audience what not to take seriously, Starlight begins to learn where she needs to inject her own sense of humor to play off Maud's parched irony in the episode. I hope we get a lot more of this pair, because I have loved the dynamic since I first watched Daria. I'm especially eager to see Maud play off of Trixie's obliviousness.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

Interesting episode...Pinkie sure does interfere...which...I can understand...and Limestone...ugh...I've had a vendetta against Limestone...

Great lesson about how we do stuff our own ways. You don't always have to follow a certain rubric to get to know a person, it's all about that discovery, that moment when something clicks and then there goes the friendship rocket. 

[Kevin 160]

Now that was a great episode! If there's only one complaint I can make it's that Pinkie was too overbearing in trying to get Maud to make friends. Hasn't she learned her lesson from "A Friend Indeed"?

Maud's humor and personality is why I love her character so much. She's the polar opposite of Pinkie, yet they work wonderfully off one another, and their interaction is one of my favorite duo character interactions in the series because it always makes for some great laughs.

One thing I find odd is Starlight's sudden interest in kites. It felt like it was forced in just to get an interest going. Speaking of Starlight, given her interaction with Trixie, would I love to see Maud meet her just to see how they'd interact together! It'd make for a good laugh!

On a minor note, it's great to see the entire Pie family make an appearance. Even some of the backgrounds ponies got a bit of a showing with a Lyra name drop which was a nice surprise.

One last thing, I found that cave area with the waterfall fascinating and I hope they explore that location more in the future.

[Photon Jet 5,491]

This was a brilliant episode and I'm glad to see Maud Pie again! Also, there were some great Pinkie Pie moments that made me laugh. There was this one scene which made me laugh out loud. Still, I think Pinkie Pie was trying to force Maud Pie to stay in Ponyville and become friends with Starlight too much because she didn't want her sister to become lonely.

 

Overall, this is a must-watch to everypony!

[Truffles 2,033]

27 minutes ago, cmarston1 said:

,I always like callbacks to previous episodes, and this episode had a good amount of those, from mentioning Coloratura (who I hope returns this season), the check joke from A Friend in Deed, and even mentioning how the castle was formed in the season 4 finale, and even Pinkie's cupcakes from Rarity Investigates.

Excellent job finding all those callbacks! I'm going to be busy now going back and looking for them and the original episodes they reference. XD

 

17 minutes ago, RareBase said:

 Also, Rarity crying over those Jewels being common made me laugh, Jewels seem to be incredibly common in Equestria already, they're all over the place, yet ponies still sometimes act like they're rare.

It's amazing Spike isn't as big as a house with that gem cave being in town. It seems like you can kick a rock and even more gems will fall out. I guess he's saving them for Rarity to use, but now that she knows they're very common she might not want them anymore. This could be a growing problem for future Spike. XD

Edited April 29, 2017 by Truffles

[Castle Bleck 19,356]

I especially liked what Maud chose as her new "house."

 

Maud: "...I call it Shangrock-La..."