S07:E23 - Secrets and Pies

[Batbrony 16,088]

Good afternoon, everypony, and welcome back to another edition of "Batbrony Reviews"!  This week, we've got a flawed but still solid addition to Season 7, starring Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in a fun little romp where the insanity and hilarity that unfolds (and the entertainment we derive from it) is probably more important than the lesson itself.  It's a curious episode, not because what it does is particularly unique, because it isn't; in fact, this episode seems to quite deliberately lift from a number of past Pinkie Pie episodes (down to the name title itself if it can be believed, considering the episode is called, after all, "Secrets and Pies" and "Secrets and lies, it's all secrets and lies!" was something Pinkie was quite fond of proclaiming in "Party of One") to the point that it could accurately be described as a spiritual successor of not one, but TWO past Pinkie Pie episodes (and oddly enough, an improvement of one of them).  It's also strange in that most of its execution in its first two acts (and the first half of the third act) are far more satisfying than its actual resolution, which leaves something to be desired.  In any case, while it's hardly one of the more exceptional episodes we've gotten so far in the stellar seventh season of MLP, it is a very fun and likable one all the same, and fun romps involving Pinkie Pie going crazy are always a lot of fun if executed well, which this one is for the most part.  Without further ado, this is "Secrets and Pies"!

Hey now, I'm the one who makes Batman references around these parts!

OK, in all seriousness, this Adam West Batman reference is as delicious as Pinkie Pie's pies look 

So, starting with Pinkie Pie herself, just what two past episodes of hers does this episode draw from, if not act as a continuation of?  Strangely enough, her best Season 1 episode and her worst Season 2 episodes (the latter being my least favorite episode of MLP until "Hard to Say Anything" came out this season): "Party of One" and "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express."  The "Party of One" similarities are fairly blatant right from the start; while her ire in that episode was directed at most of her friends, Rainbow Dash in particular had a hard time avoiding her near the end of the episode, and here we have Pinkie Pie, what else, freaking out as a result of something involving Rainbow Dash.  Her freakout also stems from a supposed betrayal, the difference between the two episodes being that in "Party of One" the betrayal was in Pinkie Pie's imagination and her friends were really just planning a surprise birthday party for her, whereas here, the betrayal was actually real and not something she concocted, even if some of what Pinkie Pie imagined about it was exaggerated.  Hell, even the fact that Gummy acts as Pinkie's confidant during many of her scenes is similar to "Party of One."  As far as similarities to "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express" go, as in that episode, Pinkie Pie has a mystery to solve, and she has to apply logic and sound detective work to figure it out.  The differences between these two episodes is that (1) in "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express" the mystery itself and the fact that it couldn't get solved quicker than it did all stemmed from Pinkie Pie and most other characters in the episode either acting like idiots or stupid, selfish jackasses without any self-control for the simplest of things, and (2) Pinkie Pie didn't need Twilight or anypony else holding her hoof as she solved the mystery, nor did she present idiotic theories about what actually happened to large groups of ponies as though that was what actually happened.  She may have at one point come up with the notion that Rainbow Dash was turning into some kind of demonic entity and blasting her pies with laser eyes, but the only character she shared that with was Gummy, and it was just a part of her bigger theory that Rainbow Dash (based on her findings) really didn't like pies, and had been lying to Pinkie Pie that she liked pies and finding ways to get rid of hers for years (which was actually true).  She may still have been silly and over the top, but oddly enough, Pinkie Pie solved this mystery completely on her own, showing she'd actually learned a lot about applying logic and reason in solving something like this since the idiocy of "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express."

So yes, as should be clear by now, the episode revolves around Pinkie Pie's discovery that Rainbow Dash doesn't like pies (including hers) and has been lying to Pinkie Pie about this for years, and her subsequent reaction to that.  Basically things unfold as you'd think they would if you've been watching this show long enough: Pinkie Pie freaks out when Rainbow Dash throws out a pie she baked for her behind her back, starts digging a little deeper and finds enough solid evidence to suggest she's done this with every pie Pinkie's ever given her, and subsequently freaks out and starts trying to get Rainbow Dash to either eat one of her pies in front of her or admit that she's been lying to her this whole time.  As you can imagine, this involves a lot of hilarious and crazy antics, but strangely enough you quickly realize that Pinkie Pie's not really the antagonist here, nor does she have to learn a lesson.  If anything, I found myself quite anticipating Rainbow Dash getting her comeuppance when she was finally exposed as a liar in this regard (one reason the resolution actually felt a little unsatisfactory), and the fact that the writers showed what started years ago for Rainbow Dash as a white lie/fib spiraling out of control into something neither she nor Pinkie Pie had any control over from the point of view NOT of the one who was telling the lies (RD) but rather from the pony directly affected by the lies (Pinkie Pie) was interesting.  When I think about it, it's a little more unusual for the character lied to to be at the center of a story like this about the negative effects of white lies/fibs that grow out of control than it is for the character doing the lying to be front and center, but I liked how they did it here, especially considering it was Pinkie Pie front and center.  The way she reacts to betrayals, just how crazy and emotional she can become when something like this happens, drove home the fact that, even if Rainbow Dash had good intentions, it still didn't mean that her lying to Pinkie Pie was overall a good thing.  Her lying to her friend hurt Pinkie Pie very much, and made her question the trust she had in RD.  The fact that this was Pinkie Pie being lied to (about whether or not someone was eating her pies, no less) also meant that the episode didn't have to get too serious in its content while still condemning the lie itself.  Overall, I really enjoyed Pinkie Pie here and don't really have anything bad to say about her.  She was fun, her crazy moments were great but the fact that she was right kind of made them even funnier, and at the same time, you couldn't help but understand why she was as distressed by RD's lying as she was; not only is RD one of her dearest friends, but baking in general is one of her favorite things to do and something she takes great pride in.  To find out one of her closest friends has been lying to her for years about eating her pies, one of her favorite things to bake for anyone, was clearly devastating to her, and knowing Pinkie Pie as we know her by now, it's not hard to see why.  Great showing from Pinkie Pie all around, she was the heart of this episode and it was better off for it.

This episode did a great job of bringing out some of Pinkie Pie's more Looney Toon-esque characteristics, especially in some of the cartoony faces she was pulling off

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, I have words for.  Now, having the lie present for the sake of the episode working at all is fine, it made sense.  But at the same time, the lengths she went to throughout this episode to dispose of pies without Pinkie noticing were RIDICULOUS!!!!  I know that oftentimes (even before Pinkie Pie thought she wasn't eating her pies) Pinkie wanted her to eat them in front of her so she had to usually get rid of them right away, but even she herself pointed out later on in the episode that it was a hassle doing that for years.  Hell, she even put her tortoise Tank's health at risk doing so, that ain't cool!  She did this after already taking him to the vet previously for, wouldn't ya know it, getting him sick from feeding him pies she didn't want, so she knew in doing so that she was risking his health... AGAIN!!!  Don't get me wrong, some of the ways she got rid of pies were hilarious (I particularly enjoyed when she tossed her "It's Not Your Birthday But Here's a Pie Anyway" Day custard pie up to a balcony and Shoeshine, upon finding it, gleefully exclaims "Huh!  It's not even my birthday!"), but when you think about it from both a moral and logical POV, there's really no good reason RD kept this up for years.  The only excuse I can really think of is that Rainbow Dash, like Pinkie Pie, is more prone to extreme behavior even for little things, and combine that with the fact that she HATES disappointing anypony, especially her closest friends, I can actually buy that it makes sense that RD would do such extreme behavior over such a little thing as not telling Pinkie Pie that she doesn't like pies for years.  However, the episode made it a little harder to sympathize with RD's reasoning by emphasizing, in its end, a little too much that her heart was in the right place.  The ideal lesson for this episode (and I think this is even what they were going for) is that while many white lies may come from genuinely good places, that still doesn't mean they're good things, and they can still hurt those we love; the problem is that by the end of the episode, the focus is less on the fact that what Rainbow Dash did was wrong, and more on the idea that it's easy for Pinkie Pie to forgive her because her motivations for lying to Pinkie Pie came from a good place and she just didn't want to hurt Pinkie Pie's feelings and wanted to keep seeing her happy at the thought of RD eating her pies.  Even AJ points out that RD failed in that regard in that she still ended up hurting Pinkie's feelings anyway.  But again, the episode focuses a little too much on the "good place" that white lies often come from, to the point that it almost felt like they were straight up exonerating RD for her behavior and even suggesting that there are instances where it's OK to tell a white lie.  Now don't get me wrong, I know that life is grey enough that almost all of us will tell a white lie at some point in order to not hurt another, but the reason I really am not OK with how this lesson was delivered here is because this went from being a white lie to being something that RD was lying about for YEARS.  Lies that are carried on for years are usually over really bad shit that you don't want anyone to know about, so for the episode to even accidentally suggest that that might be OK depending on what the lie is over is, in my opinion, not a good thing at all.  Also, I'm sorry, but the gross out humor that was in the episode's final scene as RD was pledging to Pinkie Pie to eat a disgusting monstrosity of a pie that she'd somehow made was the low point of the entire episode.  It felt completely out of place in a show that largely doesn't very often engage in gross out humor of any kind, it wasn't funny, the pie itself was genuinely distasteful to look at, and it felt like something you'd encounter in, say, Spongebob or The Fairly Oddparents during their later, far inferior seasons when they started delving into really bad, low brow humor aimed at the lowest common denominator.  Overall, while RD was pretty entertaining throughout this episode, especially when Pinkie Pie was trying to get her to crack and admit she didn't like pie, I'm not sure she learned the right lesson (or any lesson at all), and even if she did, the resolution she and Pinkie Pie came to was just... not very satisfying.

Well that's certainly... terrifying.  But not quite as terrifying as...

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... seriously, what is this even doing in MLP?  This kind of humor, at least at this kind of level, feels SO out of place in this show! 

How they kept themselves from throwing in something about Soarin and pies I have NO idea, the writers really missed a golden opportunity to make a great joke there!  I'm sure it was just an oversight, but still, too bad they missed out on that one

OK, it may be bad for his health, but in all seriousness that's bucking adorable and I want more 

The second best member of the Mane 6 here was, surprisingly enough (considering she wasn't in that much of the episode), Applejack!  She was only in about four scenes (only two of which she contributed much to) but they were quite funny appearances.  I think what made her really work here is that in most of her scenes she was playing opposite Pinkie Pie, and that afforded the writers the opportunity to have her whip out some really dry, sardonic humor, which really contrasted Pinkie's over-the-top, erratic behavior.  Her stumbling into Pinkie's party cave and onto a slowly-going-crazy Pinkie Pie was quite hilarious in and of itself, especially in her reactions to Pinkie Pie's interrogation as to whether or not she'd ever seen Rainbow Dash eat any of her pies, and later in the episode, she seemed to be the pony most aware (besides Pinkie Pie herself) as to how much RD had bucked the pooch by just not telling the truth in the first place (glad to see that AJ is still very much the Element of Honesty).  She even seemed unsatisfied to some extent by how everything resolved, sardonically exclaiming that she could've told RD in the first place just to tell Pinkie Pie the truth.  Overall, it was just fun seeing AJ in a fun supporting role that really relied on her drier sense of humor.  Twilight was present a little bit too, but mostly just to tow along with AJ, and if anything her presence with Applejack for most of the episode (especially towards the end) seemed mostly to reinforce that these two are still probably the most mature (emotionally at least) members of the Mane 6.  Twilight's still the center of the group that holds it together and Applejack is the best member of the group for helping the rest stay grounded and level-headed, which Twilight herself often needs the most if she's starting to panic when things start getting out of control.  When they're both acting grounded and mature, you just get the sense that both of them get this and really appreciate that aspect of the other's behavior, the fact that they are the least likely of their friends to lose their heads over something.  That's not to say they both haven't lost it at times (especially Twilight), but when they're grounded, boy oh boy are those two levelheaded.

Applejack: she has no time for anypony's bull shit 

Finally, this episode went to a surprisingly large amount of locations, and we got to see a lot of major or minor supporting characters (mostly during Pinkie Pie's investigation) including the Wonderbolts, Dr. Fauna, Cheerilee, and many, many more.  As far as another way in which this episode contrasts "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express" for the better, the sheer number of locations made Pinkie's investigation far more fun and interesting to follow than the one in that dreadful episode.  That episode has, after they board the train, ONE SINGLE LOCATION, and it's not a particularly interesting one to even look at.  In contrast, this episode went to (1) Sugarcube Corner, (2) the Wonderbolt Academy and Training Grounds, (3) Pinkie Pie's Party Cave, (4) Dr. Fauna's Vet Clinic, (5) the Ponyville Schoolhouse, (6) Rainbow Dash's Cloud House, and (7) various locales and streets throughout Ponyville!  Yeah, not hard to see which was more fun to follow, especially when some locations were visited multiple times.  There was also a wide variety of humor dotted throughout, from Pinkie Pie's insane brand of humor when she starts breaking down and going crazy, to Applejack's drier sense of humor, and even a whole lot of physical humor, most of which worked (aside from anything having to do with that ridiculous pie at the end of the episode).  All in all, what did we get?  Just a really fun episode which, while hardly perfect, was still very entertaining.  The most interesting thing about it wasn't its flawed lesson, but rather simply the fact that it not only had so many callbacks to "Party of One" and "Mmmmystery on the Friendship Express," but actually improved on that second episode as well, fixing a ton of flaws from it.  It's hardly one of the best episodes we've gotten this season, but as far as breaks from the litany of exceptional episodes we've gotten this season go, this was one of the more entertaining ones, and definitely not a bad final episode of the season for Pinkie Pie, not at all.  I had a lot of fun watching it, and I hope most of you did as well!  That's all I've got for ya today everypony, until next time this is Batbrony signing off.  I'm off!!! *cue dramatic exit*

[Denim&Venöm 21,285]

Good episode. Bad pacing. 

The gags weren't repetitive to me. If anything I actually had to pause after cause I was laughing so hard. And RD just kept impressing me with her ability to dispose of the evidence. 

What I didn't like was that the reveal and ending were so rushed and flat. I was half expecting Dash to actually be allergic to pies, or have diabetes, but be too cool to admit it. But nope. Simply doesn't like them. And that confession is 'dramatically' done in front of AJ & Twi, but not Pinkie? And the gross out pie? Was it really necessary? Now I feel like taking a bath after watching that. 

I get the moral they were going for. Just be honest with your friends, but also surprisingly included, understand their point of view. 

And was I the only one a bit let down that they didn't have Dash state what she would like other than pies? 

Good first 20 minutes. But the final act left a bitter aftertaste. 

 

[Sh Pie 65]

This was a pie-tastic Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash focus episode. Pinkie comedy at its finest. I like pies. Apple, blueberry, raspberry, custard, lemon meringue, pie flavor, lots of pies are delicious! Rainbow Dash must be in the 1% of Equestria that doesn't like pies. Pinkie's conclusion jumping almost seemed plausible. The "It's not even my birthday!" pony was pretty humorous and the doc's "animals can't digest pony food" is mindblowing considering Fluttershy classified everypony as an animal in a previous episode. Are ponies ponies or animals, which is it?

Rainbow Dash was wrong for lying but at least the pies she discarded were enjoyed by the other 99% and her heart was in the right place. They were white lies intended to make Pinkie happy to make her friend happy and that made Rainbow happy even though she didn't like pies.

They were.... white pies! Get it?

She made a strong gesture at the end attempting to eat the trash pie to show she's willing to eat Pinkie's pies if it made her happy. Pinkie stopped her since it hurt her to see her friend force herself to eat something she didn't like. I thought the episode had the right balance of comedy and touching moments and overall probably one of the best episodes this season.

[Violet Bookish 350]

I really liked this episode. It had some fantastic development between Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, some awesome visuals, and it had a creative idea around it I wasn't expecting. However, I wasn't the biggest fan of Pinkie's humor in this one. The humor consisted mostly of Pinkie Pie freaking out because she saw Rainbow Dash not liking her pies as malice against her. It makes sense yet her humor and behavior gets dangerously close to her behavior in Party of One which makes Pinkie feel a tad bit bland in this episode. It makes sense why she'd act this way but we've already seen her act this way so I didn't find much interest in it. But, to be fair she doesn't get as crazy as she did there which does show some development on her part though I only found myself chuckling at Pinkie a few times and the other jokes were just lost on me. But, she's still funny and in all honesty what really made me like the episode was the bond between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie and well, Rainbow Dash.

This episode showed why I love Rainbow so much and why I particularly really like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie as friends. I used to hate Rainbow Dash as I saw her as arrogant, big headed, and rude. However, as the show progressed we got to see more sides of Rainbow that I really enjoyed and I realized that's really not all to her character and those are simply flaws of hers. Rainbow Dash is also very loyal to her friends and caring. In this episode, we see her go to such great lengths to make Pinkie Pie happy that it was honestly both funny and heartwarming. This episode really highlights how caring she is for her friends and why I like her so much. However, this also shows how close Rainbow Dash is to Pinkie Pie. Ever since Griffon The Brush Off I've always thought Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were pretty close friends. However, it's always nice when the chemistry between the two is displayed in the episode. The last episode they did this in that I can remember was The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone, a Rainbow Dash and Pinkie episode I enjoyed because we got to see their relationship develop. I also really liked this episode for this reason and thought it was a great Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash episode.

So, overall I really enjoyed this episode. While Pinkie's humor may have been lost on me sometimes she was still funny and enjoyable and I really enjoyed Rainbow Dash's character in this episode, seeing Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie's relationship develop, the concept was creative, and this episode had some wonderful videos. So overall I'd give this episode a 9/10.

On 10/15/2017 at 1:54 AM, Varrack said:

Moral of this episode: Doing anything in the name of caring what other friends think is justified, even if it's lying to their faces.

 

I don't feel like it was like that at all. Rainbow Dash was simply trying to make Pinkie happy but in the end she realized she should have just been honest and Pinkie realized that she wants her friend to be happy, and if that means her not wanting to eat her pies because she doesn't like pies, she should accept that and be considerate of her friend. The huge gross pie I believe was a representation of how bad pies were to Rainbow and it helped Pinkie realize she didn't want her friend to eat something they found gross for her sake and to make her happy, so I feel like in the end it actually went against what you said the moral was.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Kreamer

[SparklingSwirls 21,607]

I agree with everyone who says the conflict was too dragged out. I got sick of the Rainbow Dash and Pinkie back-and-forth about halfway into it. Maybe the resolution could have been a bit longer, or maybe AJ and Twilight could have gotten a bigger part. 

This episode made me hungry for something sweet . Though I'm not much of a pie person myself!

[BlinkZ 1,151]

I'll be honest, when i read the sypnosi my fir though twas "that sounds like some fanfic not a episdoe.  It meh for me. PInkie antics have kind of lost a luster. just tae certina moment to make me laugh at pinkei these days caus i'm use ot the 'random' parts

[Guest]

I dunno, I really liked this ep. Kommisar Pinkie Pie is a pretty funny characterization, but it's really hard for Pinkie to be anything but lovable. 

It could really have been about anything and I would have liked it, I'm biased.

[MalekPony 36]

On 10/14/2017 at 2:59 PM, Dark Qiviut said:

This one stunk. Badly.

1. Pinkie's characterization is easily the worst of the season. For so long, she genuinely fell for Dash "look-at-that!" trick and believed Dash enjoyed her pies. Pinkie, you're usually great. You became a mega-idiot here.
2. The entire story is a stretched-out, paper-thin ripoff of Party of One. The only true difference is Pinkie didn't become super deranged.
3. Rainbow Dash (as wrong as she was for lying and betraying Pinkie's trust) had to undergo the same, clichéd shtick of having to be taught a lesson. To the point of punishing herself to teach a lesson.
4. Almost every joke sucked. Each of them can be placed in one of three categories:
   1. Stretching for far too to the point of thin. After the first time, Dash's "look at that!" and all other variations got old. Fast.
   2. Degrading characterization. Dash was OOC for feeding Tank her pie. If she's a smart, responsible master, she wouldn't poison him in desperation to get rid of her pie. The fact she did it twice is even worse! As someone who takes care of two cats and sees them as my children, it really pissed me off!
   3. Disgusting. Pinkie's exaggerated, big-lipped face; the detailed fatigue in her eyes; and that detailed dumpster were completely disgusting. The worst here, the dumpster pie, is in exaggeratedly gross detail and pure nightmare fuel. One of the worst jokes of the series.

The only redeeming values here are Pinkie's imagination creating the evil Dash in her memory, Twilight and AJ, the moral itself ("Better to be honest to your friend than hold onto a lie so long"), and Pinkie waking up Dash.

No, it's not awful, but it's bad. It joins Infamous & Mistake-in-Storytelling (an objectively worse episode than S&P) as the second bad episode this half. So far, easily Hamilton's worst in the series.

So who do you think should be punished? Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie?

[Castle Bleck 19,523]

3 minutes ago, MalekPony said:

So who do you think should be punished? Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie?

 

Personally, I say Rainbow Dash -- she did get careless with Tank's health, after all.

[Megas 28,368]

18 minutes ago, MalekPony said:

So who do you think should be punished? Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie?

Neither, the episode was dumb, but I always felt the episode knew it was dumb(just look AJ’s face throughout the last few minutes). It’s dumb but fairly innocent/inoffensive 

[MalekPony 36]

3 minutes ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

 

Personally, I say Rainbow Dash -- she did get careless with Tank's health, after all.

Oh and not only that, but she also lied to Pinkie Pie and betrayed her trust!

 

Call me angry and immature, but I honestly think RD should be shunned, hated and ostracized by everypony in Ponyville for the way she lied to Pinkie and put Tank's health at risk and I think Spitfire should also kick Rainbow out of the Wonderbolts for what she did. Her parents as well as Scootaloo are sure to have some choice words with her about her actions as well.

[n1029 230]

11 minutes ago, MalekPony said:

Oh and not only that, but she also lied to Pinkie Pie and betrayed her trust!

 

Call me angry and immature, but I honestly think RD should be shunned, hated and ostracized by everypony in Ponyville for the way she lied to Pinkie and put Tank's health at risk and I think Spitfire should also kick Rainbow out of the Wonderbolts for what she did. Her parents as well as Scootaloo are sure to have some choice words with her about her actions as well.

Ok then, you're angry and immature. 

Seriously, get a grip. She realized her mistake on her own and made an effort to make up for it. And considering all the pies the Ponyville townfolk got out of it I doubt they'd be too upset.

Also, I think in this universe where pets are shown to have a modicum of agency and intelligence I believe some of the responsibility has to lie on Tank for eating the pies, the second one which Dash didn't actually make him eat if not the first. That he swallowed it whole and had a smug grin on his face afterwards is indicative that he wasn't too concerned himself.

 

Edited October 31, 2017 by n1029

[MalekPony 36]

2 minutes ago, n1029 said:

Ok then, you're angry and immature. 

Seriously, get a grip. She realized her mistake on her own and made an effort to make up for it. And considering all the pies the Ponyville townfolk got out of it I doubt they'd be too upset.

Also, I think in this universe where pets are shown to have a modicum of agency I believe some of the responsibility has to lie on Tank for eating the pies, the second one which Dash didn't actually make him eat if not the first. That he swallowed it whole and had a smug grin on his face afterwards is indicative that he wasn't too concerned himself.

 

Oh dear, I apologize and am deeply sorry for the way I mistreated Rainbow Dash with a huge punishment. I guess I let my anger and hatred for her actions cloud up my mind, but I guess I'm gonna have to start being calm and mature about any mistakes that a pony would make.

[Castle Bleck 19,523]

5 minutes ago, n1029 said:

She realized her mistake on her own and made an effort to make up for it. And considering all the pies the Ponyville townfolk got out of it I doubt they'd be too upset.

 

Hence why I'm not calling for the torches-and-pitchforks treatment.

 

That, and this episode did make me laugh.

[takai 1,060]

Comedically, this was a very strong episode I think. Almost every single joke hit. I also liked the feel of this episode; it felt like a season one or two episode, and that's a very good thing. However, I feel like the resolution was a little iffy. I mean, RD blatantly lied to Pinkie for years. Even though she didn't want to hurt Pinkie's feelings, it doesn't excuse the fact of lying. You know what they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think this is one of those rare episodes where Pinkie's dialogue is actually moderately strong. One example is the line "Is that crust or concrete?" that I really liked. Overall a good episode that has a resolution that leaves me with some mixed feelings.

[TBD 17,276]

A good modern lesson there.

[Envy 6,483]

You know, I liked the ending and I liked the lesson of this episode.

The problem is that the rest of it was very painful to watch. It was a whole lot like "Party for One"... Except that episode felt entirely relatable. On the other hand, In this episode Pinkie Pie has really devolved beyond being relatable. As much as I can understand she takes her pies seriously, and she has put in a lot of work for Rainbow Dash, the very simple fact that Rainbow Dash doesn't like pies and that it wasn't anything personal was established by Pinkie Pie early on in the episode. That should have been where she stopped and went "Okay, Rainbow Dash is lying to me, that's not cool!" Instead, she goes off to demonize Rainbow Dash as someone who hates her pies personally just because and is mean. And then she goes crazy and turns super pushy, and it just made me cringe.

Sure, I understand that some dramatization from Pinkie Pie is necessary. But I felt like it was just too much here. She didn't feel like someone who was relatably paranoid in a cartoony way (which is what Party for One did so perfectly), she just felt like a cartoon caricature in entirety.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Envy

[FizzyGreen 910]

That was a pretty funny episode. I really liked pinkies overly accurate and redundant investigation and how everyone took it seriously was brilliant ^^

I also liked the conflict, seems relatable and the ending was cute. I liked it!  Almost deserves a 5/5 for what it is... but... hum... yeah for what it is it is pretty solid. But it is just not that much. Not really much is happening. So it gets 4/5

[Nye 1,652]

I really like that pie. Wait... where’d it go?

[NobodyAnymore 1,850]

I just find it funny how Rainbow Dash goes through the equivalent of extreme Pinkie Pie measures to get rid of the pies

[Allen 1,401]

Great episode!  Pinkie Pie delivered some pies to Rainbow Dash, but did Rainbow Dash actually ate those kind of pies that Pinkie Pie gave to her? Rainbow Dash says that those pies are delicious but she pretended that she ate the whole thing by not eating the pie but she threw them to somewhere else. Those pies are kind of delicious for other ponies who wants to taste that.

[Phill 1,287]

A very bad and cringy episode. Pinkie was more disturbing than funny here. The only thing I liked was Evil Rainbow Dash

[Senko 459]

So now we know two foods the mane 6 don't like. Rainbow Dash doesn't like pies of any type and Twilight's afraid of Quesadia's because they're so . . . cheesy. Interesting I wonder if the other girls have foods they don't like?

Some other fun little details about Dash here first that she doesn't like washing and second she's built tank an entire room in the basement of her house which is sweet. Also she looks adorable with bed mane.

I wonder how that rainbow crust would taste although honestly if I had a friend who kept giving me multiple pies on multiple occasions throughout the year I'd probably get sick of them as well, wonder if Pinky was more concerned about the lies or the fact said lies invalidated her record of what Dash liked?

We also find out hamsters at least can't eat Pony food although if Pinky's food is an example its probably because it contains 500 times their yearly sugar allotment. As for that Pie at the end I wonder if Dash deliberately made something to punish herself or if she is just that bad a cook since even she didn't know what went into it.

[Connie 329]

Possibly one of the dumbest episodes that have ever come out of the series.

[bigbertha 417]

I hate this episode. It feels like "Party of One", except that episode had season 1 Pinkie, who is far more tolerable than modern Pinkie. It also had jokes that didn't all fall flat of their faces and a story that wasn't completely nonsensical. 

Pinkie in this episode is the worst she's ever been. Worse than "Filli Vanilli" and worse than "Rock Solid Friendship". Aside from evil Dash, none of the jokes work. The story is based on something that makes no sense. Apparently, Rainbow Dash hates pie and has been hiding it from Pinkie for who knows how long. The fact that nopony has noticed this up to this point just breaks my suspension of disbelief. I'd be more forgiving if the episode was funny, but this is one of the least funny episodes of the show. This is just obnoxious and stupid the whole way through.

Score: 0/10