S07:E07 - Parental Glideance

[Lukington17 40]

I just watched this one again, and I don't know what the hell I was on about earlier; the Wonderbolts are fine...  still one of my favourite episodes.  Rainbow's Element of Loyalty rang true with her parents in the end, which is why her outburst was so out-of-character, and she realised that herself minutes later.   Cute how the protected little sis (Scootaloo) became the advisor.   With the Mane Six appearing less and less in each episode (It Isn't the Mane Thing About You was a cute recent one), it seemed at times like their story arcs were pretty much completed - with that in mind, it was so nice to see a whole new aspect of Rainbow's character development.  

[Pastel 7,627]

Loved it! 7 seasons to finally see Rainbow Dash's parents (although they had one cameo before?), as well as her childhood home.

A very funny episode, like the door joke, or that sneaky Scootaloo saying "A lot of ponies would like the same parents as you, RD. Me..." and actually she doesn't talk about her parents at all.

 

Edited September 28, 2017 by Blobulle

[PinkiePie97 913]

19 minutes ago, Blobulle said:

although they had one cameo before?

I'm not sure who those are, but they aren't her parents.

Edited September 28, 2017 by PinkiePie97

[Pastel 7,627]

28 minutes ago, PinkiePie97 said:

I'm not sure who those are, but they aren't her parents.

Yes, maybe it's a continuity error, because when I first saw that scene, I was pretty sure that stallion was Rainbow Dash's father...

Edited September 28, 2017 by Blobulle

[Ivan The Adorable 304]

Slowly making my way through the season this late in the game and oh my god, I love Rainbow Dash's parents so much. I love that they're such nerds for their daughter.

Struck a kind of real chord with me in this episode too. My parents were quite binary towards me growing up with one always so supportive like this that it was suffocating and the other never good at expressing any sort of congratulations, so I'm like 100% in tune with every character in this episode, lol.

While I'm commenting, the structure of some of these Season 7 episodes feels very different to me than the show has been in earlier seasons. Like stuff kind of happens until a conflict arises and then it's resolved in stride with a longer wind down instead of a conflict being set up immediately as the focus of an episode and building up to a conclusion.

That aside, I don't think I disliked a single thing about this episode. I was smiling throughout the whole thing. Also glad to have an episode where I didn't feel like the Wonderbolts were kind of dicks at any point.

[n1029 224]

I like to think of the final scene of this episode as RD lovingly demonstrating to Scootaloo that there is a line where support becomes too much. Scootaloo is smiling at the end but I'm pretty sure she's realized she wouldn't want to deal with this every day. I think all of them came to a mutual understanding that it needs to be toned down.

Edited October 20, 2017 by n1029

[King of Canterlot 9,588]

I completely missed that in one scene in the Wonderbolt's locker room, they show Thunderlane flying near a one of the lockers. If I had seen that little hint they dropped then to let us know that he had become a Wonderbolt, then I wouldn't have been so darn confused about why he appeared as a Wonderbolt in "Marks and recreation". 

[Nye 1,652]

Rainbow Dash’s parents are super fans! 

[NathanW200 306]

I loved how Rainbow Dash's parents react when they first discover she's a Wonderbolt the looks on their faces were historical  

[MAIKUN 262]

On 07/05/2017 at 3:44 PM, The Nth Doctor said:

Also, Scootaloo confirmed orphan, or at the very least has unsupportive/distant parents

I knew it. Scootaloo was an orphan all along....

[Mortar 143]

Funny, I never thought about Dash's parents, but it was cool seeing them.  When Scootaloo made that vague reference about not getting support from her parents, I was hoping we'd finally get some background on that; rather disappointed that didn't happen.

I'm just now watching S7, so if something new happens in this regard, don't tell me.

[Senko 459]

Nice episode with a lot of cute and sad little touches most already commented on. Still I just had to say that ending with scootaloo being held up in front of the stomping class with the look on her face of "This is so embarassing but I never want it to stop." is just so adorable and I do hope she's gotten some surrogate parents/grandparents who'll give her the support she desires even if we only see hints of it in the background. I also agree her fanfillying (I like that term) at the start was adoreable both the expressions, jumping around, tail wagging and the way her delighted squeal at meeting Rainbow's dad actually went up to a higher pitch when she realized she was also meeting her mum. Fun the crusaders seem to be growing up as well since when they first got introduced a Catapault to cloudsdale would have been embraced by all of them. Here not only do the other two suggest safer alterantives but Scootaloo actually listens to them and is in the middle of agreeing when the catapault goes off.

One other detail I liked was the young Rainbow Dash wall of pictures one with braces, one of a baby Dash trying to fly out of her high chair with straps holding her down and the two in the middle one showing a baby Dash on a line which leads down out of picture and apparently to another pic of a teen Dash all tied up in the same type of line.

Also nice to see how the wonderbolts interact with someone after they've passed the military hazing they put new recruits through and poor Spitfire getting her tail cut in half like that.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Senko

[Chronicplane 58]

RD's Parents where awesome, they're such nerds lol. Definitely one of my favorite episodes of S7.

[bigbertha 410]

On 5/20/2017 at 11:58 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

I honestly thought that this episode was being set up as a lesson in parental moderation - that parents can, and should, support their kids without profusely praising every little thing they do. And to that end, Rainbow's parents would be an extreme example that essentially everyone would agree is taking things too far. Then Rainbow's parents could learn the lesson and be corrected to a more happy medium. Instead, after much of the episode seems to build a case for Rainbow's parents being excessive and obnoxious, and Rainbow justifiably snaps and yells at them, the rest of the episode then goes on to denounce Rainbow for being upset at her parents and "taking them for granted", and Rainbow essentially immediately and completely feels guilty and sorry and has to make it up to her parents (and Scootaloo). Meanwhile, Rainbow's parents seem to display almost no concern or introspection about their excessive behavior, and there's only at best one indirect acknowledgement that Rainbow's parents might at all be at fault.

This explains why the third act is garbage, but I also hate the rest of the episode. It's just Rainbow's parents acting annoyingly. Seeing how much they obsess of Rainbow isn't charming or funny, it's creepy. And Scootaloo sees no problem with anything Rainbow's parent do. I don't find anything here to be funny. I don't know how anyone can see Rainbow's parents as anything but creepy.

Score: 0/10

 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

This is honestly one of my favorite episodes of the show. It has such great amount of nuance and heart present. Plus, the Wonderbolts weren't total jerks.

9 out of 10.

[qwerE 95]

I didn't like this episode. It wasn't boring, but I didn't like the moral. What Rainbow did wrong was that she didn't tell her parents how much she hated their excessive public support, before she blew up. Other than that, it was fine to hate what they were doing - not everyone likes public attention. What they were doing was cleary obnoxious to anyone, especially when they cheered for RD in the Wondervolts show. Everyone around RD's parents looked like they were intimidated by their shouting. It's not weird to be embarrassed by your parents if they are being rude to everyone. 

I don't think promoting behaviours like that of RD's parents was the objective of this episode. I think the writers tried to tell parents that this is going too far by portraying RD's parents as being clearly obnoxious, instead of explicitly criticizing them in the story. This is not how the moral should be told, though. In the end, RD's parents didn't change and the core problem remains unresolved. To me, that doesn't seem like a good way to finish the episode.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

On 9/29/2017 at 12:58 AM, Ivan The Adorable said:

Slowly making my way through the season this late in the game and oh my god, I love Rainbow Dash's parents so much. I love that they're such nerds for their daughter.

Struck a kind of real chord with me in this episode too. My parents were quite binary towards me growing up with one always so supportive like this that it was suffocating and the other never good at expressing any sort of congratulations, so I'm like 100% in tune with every character in this episode, lol.

While I'm commenting, the structure of some of these Season 7 episodes feels very different to me than the show has been in earlier seasons. Like stuff kind of happens until a conflict arises and then it's resolved in stride with a longer wind down instead of a conflict being set up immediately as the focus of an episode and building up to a conclusion.

That aside, I don't think I disliked a single thing about this episode. I was smiling throughout the whole thing. Also glad to have an episode where I didn't feel like the Wonderbolts were kind of dicks at any point.

They might honestly be the second best set of parents in the show behind Pear Butter and Bright Mac.

[Moony the Cat 3,695]

I find the expressions in this Episode really awesome and all in all i liked this Episode. Yeah, i have not much to say about this Episode.

[bigbertha 410]

This episode seems to not understand the difference between supportive and being way too supportive. Supportive parents congratulate their children for accomplishments and tell them they can do better when they fail. They set boundaries for their kid by giving fair punishments when their kid does something wrong and teach them to be humble by not praising them too much. They watch quietly during performances and cheer only when it's appropriate. Super over the top parents, on the other hand, praise their children for everything they do, even when they fail, and constantly cheer and scream even when it goes into being disruptive. Their child never learns that they can be wrong since the parents don't give punishments, and the kid ends up with huge egos who always need praise. 

Rainbow's parents are clearly shown to be super over the top and we've seen in multiple episodes like 28 Pranks Later and The Mysterious Mare Do Well that this has had a really bad impact on Rainbow, and yet the episode says that her parents' actions are perfectly fine and that Rainbow is wrong for calling them out. Sure, maybe she went too far (but I don't even think that), but the episode doesn't guilt Rainbow for going too far; it guilts her for calling them out in the first place. That is scummy. And then Scootaloo says that she'd want parents like Rainbow's and that's where the episode's misunderstanding is shown the most. Scootaloo doesn't want parents like Rainbow's. She wants normal supportive parents. If she really wants parents like Rainbow's then that's very disturbing.

Nothing about the episode makes me think that Rainbow should just appreciate her parents as they are. They collect old diapers, bitten apples, and broken vases. That's not normal support. That's obsession. Yet Rainbow is painted as in the wrong when she complains about her parents actually disrupting her Wonderbolts practice. If the episode is going to say that Rainbow's parents don't have to change, it should justify it. I shouldn't be feeling catharsis when Rainbow blows up at her parents. I should feel that Rainbow went way too far and that they were just well meaning parents, but no. Her parents seem so unaware of how crazily obsessed and disruptive they are that I think they needed to hear all of what Rainbow said to get the point across. Yet even that doesn't work since the ending makes me think that Rainbow's parents are going to continue to be like this. Hell, Rainbow is seen joining in with them at the end. So in the end nothing was accomplished aside from making things worse. I have no idea how this episode was made as everything about it is wrong on a moral level.

Even ignoring how morally terrible this is, the episode still sucks. Rainbow's parents are so creepy with their obsession that the first act is uncomfortable to watch. And the rest of the episode has Rainbow's parents act obnoxiously so I get just as frustrated as Rainbow. And Scootaloo doesn't help in the slightest, disturbingly not finding anything wrong with Rainbow's parents and actively guilting Rainbow into forgiving them.

This is a broken episode. Both morally and story wise. It isn't funny, it's annoying (with a lot of screaming and squealing), and overall nothing here works. This is garbage.

Score: 0/10

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

I think this might be one of my favorite episodes in the series.

[Rushing cash 824]

It took 7 seasons but we finally met RDs parents, and I loved them! It was nice that they made a good reason to why they did not show up earlier(however, how did they not heard about it sooner? Was it not announced to the public at all?). We got to know more about dash and scootaloo, we got a glimpse of dashs life as a filly, her interactions with her parents and even a realistic explanation of her character, attitude and how she grew up into it. Scootaloo confirmed to have neglecting parents(or guardians) or something of that sort. I thought the moral was okay, it could have been done better but I like what they tried to tell, and her parents understood that they were too invasive and should tone it down, so the conclusion was satisfying for me. The only thing that bother me is the flashback with some of the wonderbolts and lightning dust and it just doesn't make sense, so my explenation is its in scootaloos imagination and not a real flashback.   

9.5\10, this episode is really great, had so much in it with great character moments and the way it was told was very enjoyable!

[dashie2020 86]

So this episode is overall really great, but there is one HUGE flaw.

 

It started off with Scootaloo going to Cloudsdale. She bumped into Rainbow Dash's parents. It was all really nice, although Scootaloo's screaming went on for a bit too long. True, that was just there for comedic effect and whatnot, but I just wanted it to end.

 

The parents, while very nice, were also quite... Odd. It was just weird how they would literally save diapers because "She was wearing them when she said her first word!" or whatever. But anyway, back to the important stuff.

 

When Scootaloo told the parents, and it turned out that they didn't know, I knew exactly how it was going to turn out. They were 100% going to embarrass her. I knew exactly how Dashie was feeling when the parents were cheering during Wonderbolts practice. Luckily for Dashie, Spitfire didn't punish her, which was good because I swear that she would have gotten into trouble if this episode had been like 95% of books and cartoons.

 

The next time they came to cheer her on, it was 100 times worse than before. This time, they literally had fireworks. That was not a good move by the parents, that could have messed up the whole thing, in fact, I think that it almost did. It was all a nice idea, though. And then the next scene.

 

When RD's parents started to get really annoying, she just snapped at them. Honestly, it was sort of justified for her to tell them to stop. I imagine that she would have gone over that with her parents before. Dashie wasn't perfect in that scene, though. She started to get extremely aggressive towards her father and her telling them to get out was not a good move. However, the massive flaw with the episode was that they tried to paint Rainbow Dash as the only bad guy. The parents were being obsessive and needed to know to stop. True, it's great having supportive parents, but they took it waaayyy too far. It would get really annoying having that happen to you.

 

Then Scootaloo gave her thoughts on the matter. After a few more minutes of the episode her reaction made sense, but seeing Rainbow Dash's reaction to that almost made me feel bad for her. I must say, Dashie handled the whole situation after that incredibly well.

 

She started off explaining to Scootaloo why she acted in the way she did, while showing how bad she felt for doing that. I have mixed feelings about the cameo appearances, but I will talk about that later. Scootaloo then explained the good things about RD's parents, and that she had the opposite problem. What was implied was really sad. Also, it was good to see Scootaloo teaching Rainbow Dash something, because it's usually the other way round. They really do have a good friendship.

 

 

What was weird, though, was the set of examples she gave RD. "Best Carrot Eater Under Three" was really funny. When Dash realized that her parents made her "awesome, amazing, confident, awesome, and awesome", she decided to make up for her yelling at them. That was a nice thing for Dashie to do. What happened next, was Scootaloo's report. I will say that the moldy sandwich was funny, but are we just gonna ignore the fact that there was an old diaper in there as well?! Rainbow Dash and her parents cheering at the end was quite good. I loved Scootaloo's reaction, like "This is so... Embarrassing!". That part made me happy, actually. But it is really sad that she didn't have any parents to cheer her like that. Now let's go on to the cameos.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of having Spitfire cameo. It just... Breaks the continuity. I like to assume that she wasn't really there, she was merely just there as a placeholder in Dashie's memory. Same goes for Lightning Dust, but that cameo wasn't quite as bad. The one that I found really sad, however, was Derpy Hooves. She started off as #1. Then she went down to #2 or #3. Then, as her eye problem got worse, I assume that that would make it harder for her to do well in the competition. 

 

 

But let's get on to the rating.

 

Humour: 10/10 (+20%)

Storyline: 8/10 (+24%)

Execution: 8/10 (+40%)

-2% for very minor errors.

Overall: 82%

[Windy Breeze 15,175]

I love it when Rainbow Dash accidentally cuts Spitfire's tail and gave her that concealed glare. 

[Thrond 3,257]

I like this but I genuinely think the moral it's trying to tell completely ignores the things that make it so great. I like how the other Wonderbolts seem charmed by Rainbow's parents, because it's a great counterbalance for all the crazy things the parents do. You can tell exactly why Rainbow would be annoyed, but you can also tell that they mean well and aren't bothering anyone else. So why should we judge Rainbow for getting mad? Early on, she tries to ask them to keep it down, and then they don't. Of course she would explode; clearly she's been getting nowhere with them. The parents briefly saying that Rainbow's little private show was "embarrassing," when they clearly loved it, isn't enough, especially it's followed up with Rainbow joining her parents in cheering on Scootaloo. There's so much to like here. Rainbow's parents are lovable, Scootaloo's interactions with them are very cute, and having Scootaloo call Rainbow out is a really smart storytelling decision. Of course Scootaloo, whose parents constantly neglect her, would be envious of Rainbow Dash. But this is the opposite extreme, and if Rainbow's situation is way better than Scootaloo's, it's still clearly not ideal. This episode deserved an ending with the same nuance as everything before it. 

Other notes:

• "You had a goal, and... you achieved it!" - Bow Hothoof, expressing exactly the same emotion that I feel about Rainbow's Wonderbolts arc. 
• Given how powerful Scootaloo's role in this is, it's disappointing that they made her home situation seem so... comfortable in "The Last Crusade." Kinda doesn't make sense with "I never thought I'd be the best at anything, because nopony ever told me." I still don't agree that she should have been an orphan, but it's all the more conspicuous that she didn't resent her parents at all. 
• "I love them very much, and we're really close, but there's a reason I didn't tell them I'm a Wonderbolt!" - Rainbow is unusually sensitive in this episode. I think she would have shouted at her parents earlier, but she had to keep telling herself that no, they're being supportive, that's a good thing, right? This episode packs in a lot of nuance for such a one-sided moral. 

[HedonismBot 217]

On 4/7/2020 at 10:32 PM, AlexanderThrond said:

• Given how powerful Scootaloo's role in this is, it's disappointing that they made her home situation seem so... comfortable in "The Last Crusade." Kinda doesn't make sense with "I never thought I'd be the best at anything, because nopony ever told me." I still don't agree that she should have been an orphan, but it's all the more conspicuous that she didn't resent her parents at all. 

Not to mention the fact that she saw nothing wrong with the behavior of Rainbow Dash's parents, which raises some unfortunate implications. Either Scootaloo has no concept of appropriate and inappropriate ways of expressing love, or she was so jealous of somepony having parents who actually parent that she was blinded to what should have been major red flags.