S08:E09 - Non-Compete Clause

[ggg-2 3,552]

35 minutes ago, Dark Qiviut said:

I already watched it when it was leaked, and my thoughts remain the same. This episode is crap.

AJ and Rainbow Dash were completely OOC here, especially the latter for putting her focus on winning Teacher of the Month over the Student Six's safety while rowing. Thank God FIM's a piece of fiction, because had it be real-life, the school and Twilight might've had their plots sued for negligence.

This episode features easily my bottom moment of the season: Yona nearly drowning. You'd think for a second that Dash and AJ would stop acting competitive with each other, grow the fuck up, and learn to be teachers. Instead, they continue to qualify one of Neighsay's strongest criticisms of the School: AJ and RD act completely unqualified. You two, this isn't Fall Weather Friends; at least you two weren't that close at the time, and the stakes were much lower. Had they remained competent and in character, that canoeing accident wouldn't have happened, and Yona wouldn't have to have her life saved.

The dialogue itself is lousy. Clunky, forced, and painfully unfunny.

To make it worse, this episode feels a lot like filler. After thy learned how their competitive behavior got in the way, they started arguing again, and it was all back to square one.

The only saving graces here are Twilight calling Dash and AJ out for their shit (and threatening to take over the field trip after Yona nearly drowned) and Dash and AJ getting nominated for TotM — them risking that reward will make them think about how stupid they behaved on the trip.

Overall, a major thumbs down.

So, the characters that were shown to have a heated rivalry ever since early season 1, and have been seen trying to outdo one another......are out of character. ......

[baba_booey 4,302]

As someone who's liked every episode of S8 so far, this one wasn't very good.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were extremely obnoxious and felt like they were regressed to how they were in Fall Weather Friends to the point where it was honestly kind of cringey.

I mean, the Student 6 were kind of fun here I guess, but that's about it.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

22 minutes ago, Whomps said:

If you have to drag established characters through the mud to make new characters look good, you’re just gonna make me hate the new characters more instead 

And that's really unfortunate. The Student Six are rally good characters. You don't need to rip off FWF just to make brand-new characters appear better. It cheapens the conflict and hurts the characters.

16 minutes ago, ggg-2 said:

So, the characters that were shown to have a heated rivalry ever since early season 1, and have been seen trying to outdo one another......are out of character. ......

Yes, out of character. In previous episodes, the stakes weren't very high; in FWF, neither of them were all that close. In the episode where the stakes were the highest (Buckball Season), the episode progressively showed how much AJ and RD let competition got into their heads, and they worked to fix it after Fluttershy and Pinkie were burned out. Here, Dash and AJ should've learned that they needed to be teachers and not let their rivalry get into their heads. Even Twilight called them out for this.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Dark Qiviut

[AlbaTross 1,586]

Um...this one is pretty cringey for me.  I even called it from the start that the classmates would learn about teamwork by learning how not to do it.  I think it's kind of intriguing that AJ and Rainbow didn't end up learning not to stop fighting over a stupid teacher of the month award, but this is a lesson they should have learned a very long time ago, like in the first couple seasons.  I would have had an easier time believing it if it was the classmates who were arguing over something, and AJ and Rainbow had to diffuse the situation.  As it stands, I think the friendship school is a pretty terrible one, especially given the quality of some of its teaching staff.

[ShootingStar159 2,155]

Ugh.

If I had to, absolutely had to find one great thing about this episode... I guess I did like the twist where they’re still competing by trying to be gracious to each other. Usually these sorts of conflict try and treat the forced teamwork as a real end goal, and I liked that this episode didn’t do that.

Im still not really sold on these students, there’s just nothing of any real substance to them. They’re fun to watch, but they’re just shells of characters compared to the main cast.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

Quote

TS: Fine, but I'm picking the next activity you two lead — a nature walk. Nopony could possibly argue over that…right? *sneer*

RD & AJ: Right!

AJ: See? We're agreeing already.

*checks watch* Give it time…

[MalekPony 36]

1 hour ago, Dark Qiviut said:

I already watched it when it was leaked, and my thoughts remain the same. This episode is crap.

AJ and Rainbow Dash were completely OOC here, especially the latter for putting her focus on winning Teacher of the Month over the Student Six's safety while rowing. Thank God FIM's a piece of fiction, because had it be real-life, the school and Twilight might've had their plots sued for negligence.

This episode features easily my bottom moment of the season: Yona nearly drowning. You'd think for a second that Dash and AJ would stop acting competitive with each other, grow the fuck up, and learn to be teachers. Instead, they continue to qualify one of Neighsay's strongest criticisms of the School: AJ and RD act completely unqualified. You two, this isn't Fall Weather Friends; at least you two weren't that close at the time, and the stakes were much lower. Had they remained competent and in character, that canoeing accident wouldn't have happened, and Yona wouldn't have to have her life saved.

The dialogue itself is lousy. Clunky, forced, and painfully unfunny.

To make it worse, this episode feels a lot like filler. After thy learned how their competitive behavior got in the way, they started arguing again, and it was all back to square one.

The only saving graces here are Twilight calling Dash and AJ out for their shit (and threatening to take over the field trip after Yona nearly drowned) and Dash and AJ getting nominated for TotM — them risking that reward will make them think about how stupid they behaved on the trip.

Overall, a major thumbs down.

Do you think Rainbow Dash and Applejack should be punished for what they did in this episode?

[DonMaguz 1,023]

Worst episode ever in my opinion.

That's all I have to say about this one.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

Just now, MalekPony said:

Do you think Rainbow Dash and Applejack should be punished for what they did in this episode?

I would say yes, but getting nominated for Teacher of the Month for being so incompetent (and perhaps winning it later) is good enough.

[MalekPony 36]

3 minutes ago, Dark Qiviut said:

I would say yes, but getting nominated for Teacher of the Month for being so incompetent (and perhaps winning it later) is good enough.

What punishments can be expected for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, to be exact?

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

2 minutes ago, MalekPony said:

What punishments can be expected for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, to be exact?

Don't know, and since this is a fictional world with its own norms, I think they'd do differently. And because NCC ended on a high note, probably no punishment by TS. But if I ran the school, I'd fire them.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Dark Qiviut

[ShootingStar159 2,155]

12 minutes ago, Dark Qiviut said:

Don't know, and since this is a fictional world with its own norms, I think they'd do differently. And because NCC ended on a high note, probably no punishment by TS. But if I ran the school, I'd fire them.

If I ran a school, I’d never hire my best friends so I wouldn’t ever be in a position where I might have to fire them.

Edited May 12, 2018 by ShootingStar159

[MalekPony 36]

Just now, Dark Qiviut said:

Don't know, and since this is a fictional world with its own norms, I think they'd do differently. But if I ran the school, I'd fire them.

Will Applejack still have her farm and will Rainbow Dash still remain with the Wonderbolts?

[Oleks 1,993]

A mediocre episode with an old rivalry brought back. And AJ and RD still haven't learned a thing. I can't say I hated it, because the students - surprisingly for me - were a good part of it, and I'm looking forward to episodes where their characters are better explored.

Also, 2 questions: 1. how many times did AJ lie in this episde? 2. how long is an Equestrian month?

Spoiler

 

[insert your caption here]

 

 

[Ganondorf8 11,281]

I'll admit that this wasn't one of the better episodes of the season and the show in general. I can understand wanting to retread ideas used in earlier season but not if it meant regressing character development. However, it was salvaged in a way with some pretty interesting sight gags. Ocellus' moment where she was floating in midair as one of those Biteacuda's is sure to become its own meme if done correctly. Even I was caught off guard when she did that and I feared it was an enhanced version of a Biteacuda.

[Truffles 2,033]

1 hour ago, ggg-2 said:

This was an okay episode. Not great, not horrible, just.....okay. Breakup Breakdown is next. ......Oh god, shoot me now.

Aw, I loved "TB-UB-D".

 

As for this episode, it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. (Maybe that's what helped?) Sure, AJ and RD were stupid and regressed to the point of almost being one-dimensional characters (the only thing that saved them from that fate is they realized what they were doing halfway through the episode and tried to be sneaky about it) and I can see how it would rub fans of theirs the wrong way. For example, I wouldn't like it if Spike were suddenly greedy again for an entire episode. Or Starlight thought mind-controlling magic was the best course of action. Or Fluttershy still acting like a doormat for 90% of an episode. You get the point.

But the students really did save the episode from being an exercise in utter tedium. They were fun. They saw what was going on and tried their best to short-circuit the conflict. It was similar to how they came together in the premiere. The episode itself seemed almost like an attempt at self-parody. For example, when RD asks excitedly about the rafting record, she gets nothing but crickets from the group and Gallus follows up with an indirect implication that her over-competitive nature is just plain stupid. And throughout the episode the students make multiple facial expressions showing how very much they are tired of AJ and RD's shit, which seems to sum up both the situation and the episode as a whole.

Clearly, though, since the episode is not proving very popular, if it was an attempt at self-parody of RD and AJ's long-standing rivalry, then it failed miserably. For myself, when the bad things happened (like the drowning) I didn't feel like there was any real danger because among the students, they had 4 flyers, 2 shapeshifters and 1 fire-breather. That should be plenty to get them out of any messes their professors got them into. And it seems like Twilight was never far behind and was aware the whole time of how it would turn out. I suppose that could be a knock on Twilight, however, since it feels like she's following in the hoofsteps of Celestia where she used the defeat of somepony as evil as Sombra as a mere "test."

I did like Twilight being assertive for a change. She was ready to put AJ and RD in their places halfway through the episode. And I also like how she was clueful in the end to guess what really happened.

So I guess what I'm saying is this one is going to be like the Feather Bangs episode for me - a guilty pleasure. It's bad - don't get me wrong - but it's so cringeworthy and self-aware of it's cringiness that it makes it all bearable. Compared to "Honest Apple" or "The Cart Before the Ponies", this one stands head and shoulders above those episodes. (Though that's not saying much, lol.) In fact, given a choice I'd rather watch this episode again rather than "The Maud Couple" or "Fake It Till You Make It" because I wasn't bored like I was with those two. Thus it's sitting firmly in 3rd spot from the bottom of S8 episodes so far. And I agree with @Dark Qiviut - this episode surprisingly doesn't deserve the lowest spot in the S8 list. (That near-to-bottom positioning doesn't say much, either, though - lol.)

 

Some misc comments:

It was clear they didn't want to have to pay Cathy Weseluck or Tabitha St. Germain since they appeared but didn't get any lines. Spike's muteness was particularly jarring since I was expecting at least a grunt or two while he was lifting the book. I guess it's a breach of contract to re-use existing recorded material for a new episode?

Heh, Pinkie was the voice of reason for once and telegraphed the real solution to the problem right at start of the episode. Speaking of Pinkie, I am surprised she isn't up on that wall along with Fluttershy. You would think a zany teacher would be a shoo-in for TotM at least some of the time. On a similar note, I wonder what Rarity is doing wrong that has her completely off the board? I know Fluttershy is popular and all, but to tell you the truth, I personally like a teacher than has more to their personality than just being "kind", and Fluttershy doesn't seem like she'd be one to crack jokes or think outside the box to make the material interesting like some of the other ponies would.

LOL, Yona is hard core - she doesn't need a hammer to pound nails!

"Slow and steady" - ugh, I hoped I wouldn't have to ever hear that quote again from AJ. I guess the writer also used "The Cart Before the Ponies" as a ref for writing this one. =P

AJ, no one builds a shed roof separately and lowers it onto the main structure. That's just silly.

That scene of the raft smashing and it fading to black. That was unintentionally(?) dark. More than one viewer felt like everyone died right then and there, including myself.

I'll bet Yona enjoyed headbutting AJ And RD. How many students ever get to kick their teachers butts and get rewarded for it? XD

Leave it to Smolder to be the one smart enough to simply fly and get them un-lost. Dragons rule.

AJ lied about the backtracking being "part of the plan." Element of Honesty, indeed!

Yona's pupil resizing is so darn cute when she tries to stay awake while AJ and RD build their competing bridges!

Rainbow Dash forgets to fly again when her bridge collapses, and giant-boulder-kicking AJ suddenly can't break vines or branches.

AJ's vine bridge actually was a better idea - the brittleness of that branch bridge reminded me too much of the concrete post-tensioned footbridge collapse at Florida International University a few months back. Dumb. =P

Gallus' "Leave them hanging?" line is the best one of the episode.

[ggg-2 3,552]

19 minutes ago, Truffles said:

Aw, I loved "TB-UB-D".

Breakup Breakdown reminds us that SugarMac is still a thing that exists. And the less i'm reminded of that horrendous Hard To Say Anything, the better.

[DonMaguz 1,023]

Alright, after a rewatch I actually have a few things to say about the episode.

- Pinkie is funny again without being annoying.

- The student 6 keep improving, even Gallus and Sandbar who were kind of dull to me at the premiere had great lines and moments.

- Yona is beyond amazing in this episode, Ocellus in her big biteacuda form was also great.

Despite those really good things, they won't change my mind on my (almost null) enjoyment of the episode as a whole.

[FlareGun45 2,221]

If you look on Equestria Daily, you'd see ALOT of hate for this episode! I didn't think it was THAT bad! Yeah AJ and Rainbow were very immature for their own nature, but the Student Six were amazing in here! It's like they don't even need their teachers. However, they should have an episode later this season where the Student Six actually learn something from their teachers without making the teachers look too OOC.

[The Nth Doctor 661]

The only thing AJ and RD are competing over is the idiot ball.

It's clear that the new writers haven't seen any of the old episodes, and if there's old writers returning...well...

I mean, I get that it's aimed at a demographic a third of the age of most Bronies, but good lord...

 

[Truffles 2,033]

13 minutes ago, MegaSean45 said:

If you look on Equestria Daily, you'd see ALOT of hate for this episode! I didn't think it was THAT bad! Yeah AJ and Rainbow were very immature for their own nature, but the Student Six were amazing in here! It's like they don't even need their teachers. However, they should have an episode later this season where the Student Six actually learn something from their teachers without making the teachers look too OOC.

Not just there. Looking at the voting results above, this is the only episode this season that has no "loved" votes at all (so far) and a large number of "hated" votes. Yikes.

[FlareGun45 2,221]

11 minutes ago, The Nth Doctor said:

The only thing AJ and RD are competing over is the idiot ball.

It's clear that the new writers haven't seen any of the old episodes, and if there's old writers returning...well...

I mean, I get that it's aimed at a demographic a third of the age of most Bronies, but good lord...

 

Not all the new writers! Nicole Dubuc (even though she had the CMC books and the S7 finale), Brian Hohlfeld, and Kaita Mpambara did really good in their respected episodes! It just depends on the writers really. Each writer should take a test before they start writing episodes. I think that's what I might do with my writers. Now I'm just talking now, I'm not saying I'm actually doing it!  

[RDDash 19,163]

I am really happy for Fluttershy receiving the best teacher award, but I share the sympathy to the students for AJ and Rainbow Dash teaching them, especially when they can't agree with each other. Had to say that I am really interested to see Neighsay teaching class, just for fun.

Edited May 12, 2018 by R.D.Dash

[Twilight Luna 31,340]

We’ve already seen this rivalry many seasons ago. It’s called character progression, not regression. This was seen miles away and was very cringe inducing. At least Twilight stepped in and tried to do something about it. The only saving grace of this episode was the student 6. 

Edited May 12, 2018 by Twilight Luna

[Barnstormer 112]

I haven't been on this site in forever, but this episode was bad enough I felt the need to vent just a little...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt the cringe was strong with this episode.

It also surprises me that the writers seem so willing to rehash old issues that were (or should have been) solved long ago with older characters, when they've *barely* explored anything with the new characters.

That said, I was unsure of the School 6 at first, but they're slowly growing on me the more I see them (some more than others...Gallus can go shove his beak in a dirt pile, the prat XP).