S04:E08 - Rarity Takes Manehattan

[Neon Fire 473]

Despite Rarity being my least favorite, I LOVED this episode!  However, it made me really mad she gave away so much fabric.  Sure, her element is generosity but she should have thought about that. D:

Edited January 6, 2014 by Neon Fire

[Sunlight 357]

Despite Rarity being my least favorite, I LOVED this episode!  However, it made me really mad she gave away so much fabric.  Sure, her element is generosity but she should have thought about that. D:

True. I was wondering about that as well, especially since it was so 'one of a kind'. xP She probably should've just snipped a bit off for her, then the whole thing could've been avoided. xD

[Scootadress 361]

Loved the episode but I did not like the whole:Rarity takes full blame. It wasn't just Rarity. They offered services to her if she needed it. When she had asked (and needed it because of the stealing) they ultimately recanted for the musical they wouldn't be going to if it wasn't for Rarity! Twilight asked earlier on "if you need help just call" (or something to the extent) yet they don't get chastised. She needed help and Twilight bluntly asked about their own agenda.Where's the generosity there, guys?

 

Plus-Princess, you have upper hoof. Why does nopony notice that? I mean, seriously, she had a coronation and a guy has the set to tell her off.

 

Other than that, I loved it! I loved the characters and puns. RD just made me laugh and Coco is adorable.

[UltimaX 63]

 

 

No offence dude, but that's just plain ridiculous

 

Sure that may be a bid out of this world right now. But In my radical opinion, It could very much happen.

[rjrgmc28 130]

Well folks, despite the forums being "off the air" over the weekend, it's once again and to deliver my thoughts on this episode as a whole.
 
To quote from my tweet yesterday:
 
"*slow hoof claps* Wow. Just wow. Rarity really, really did shine! A great episode all round!"
 
Where do I begin? This episode was in Rarity's words......fabulous darling!

The main story of Rarity and her quest to make it big in the fashion scene during the Manehattan fashion week was a very interesting one to follow as it's a road I have traveled down myself many times in my life so far when I wanted to achieve my goals in life and was met with obstacles and challenges along the way.

So I could easily relate to what Rarity was going through in her quest to make it big in Manehattan and also the pain that she went through when Suri decided to play the copy card and take her designs as her own.

The song numbers in this episode were mind blowing as always and hearing Rarity sing a solo number (with Mane 6 in tow) for the first time in almost two years really got me toe tapping during the opening musical number and the reprise with Rarity standing in the pouring rain with her mane and coat all soaked got me a tad teary eyed.  

Speaking of teary eyes and warm heartfelt feelings, Rarity went through a lot in this episode emotionally and some of the scenes, especially towards the end with Coco letting it all out and explaining to Rarity what happened was more than enough for me to shed a tear or two.

Another honourable mention in the emotional department is also the scene where Rarity ran out of the backstage area in tears and returning to the hotel, on the verge of losing it all together and then starting to cry hysterically and telling her story of woe.

Apart from that, a fabulous episode all round!
 
Also as a side note, I actually write a more in depth summary and review piece for this episode on my blog if anyone is interested and can be viewed here.

[Sunlight 357]

Loved the episode but I did not like the whole:Rarity takes full blame. It wasn't just Rarity. They offered services to her if she needed it. When she had asked (and needed it because of the stealing) they ultimately recanted for the musical they wouldn't be going to if it wasn't for Rarity! Twilight asked earlier on "if you need help just call" (or something to the extent) yet they don't get chastised. She needed help and Twilight bluntly asked about their own agenda.Where's the generosity there, guys?

Plus-Princess, you have upper hoof. Why does nopony notice that? I mean, seriously, she had a coronation and a guy has the set to tell her off.

Other than that, I loved it! I loved the characters and puns. RD just made me laugh and Coco is adorable.

Reminds me of Tommy Oliver's analysis on the episode. I totally agree with what you said there too. You'd think that if the princess asked to go ahead in line, she could damn well do it. I'm sure if she gave him royal order to let her cut in, he'd just do it. Although, I guess she could still be adjusting to being a princess. Or maybe it's just not in her nature?

Also, I swear RD must have had some of the best lines this season so far. Especially how she said how musicals made no sense and then Rarity burst out into song. That really made me chuckle.

[Oofer56 58]

I loved it xD Perhaps people now got what they wanted, Rarity being generous, and having her own ep.

I also found it funny how Rainbow was talking about disliking randomly bursting into singing then Rarity just had to start xD

[Metemponychosis 1,260]

No, because that isn't the message. 

 

That was something she said, but she honestly couldn't have expected them to do the things they did. She's got unicorn magic, but she's not psychic

 

She said that once, I believe, but she also seemed aware that not everyone that she did something for would do something back.

 

It was more of a grateful thing than "that's the only reason I'm generous" line, like you seem to be implying :Di guess 

I guess I worded it in a poor way, but I don't think that. I just want to know if people did think this.

[TorqueEffect 112]

Loved the episode but I did not like the whole:Rarity takes full blame. It wasn't just Rarity. They offered services to her if she needed it. When she had asked (and needed it because of the stealing) they ultimately recanted for the musical they wouldn't be going to if it wasn't for Rarity! Twilight asked earlier on "if you need help just call" (or something to the extent) yet they don't get chastised. She needed help and Twilight bluntly asked about their own agenda.Where's the generosity there, guys?

 

Plus-Princess, you have upper hoof. Why does nopony notice that? I mean, seriously, she had a coronation and a guy has the set to tell her off.

 

Other than that, I loved it! I loved the characters and puns. RD just made me laugh and Coco is adorable.

 

They offered her their services, but she abused their services and didn't think about them, and when Twilight confronted her, she got all bitchy. Sure she may have been the one to bring them all there, but they could have very well went there without her if they wanted to, they just went because Rarity was going, not because Rarity was the only way they could go.

 

Also I kinda agree, I did think about Twilight status being able to get them a Taxi, but that would be completely rude to the people who were waiting, and obviously no one in Manehattan gave 2 craps about Twilight being a Princess (Which is a good thing) because that is just an abuse of power.

 

But I do hope Coco shows up often in future episodes.

Edited January 6, 2014 by TorqueEffect

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

They offered her their services, but she abused their services and didn't think about them, and when Twilight confronted her, she got all bitchy. Sure she may have been the one to bring them all there, but they could have very well one without her considering Twilight's Status, they just went because Rarity was going, not because Rarity was the only way they could go.

Alright, I reckon' ol' ghost here needs to dissect this.

 

I don't think you're taking 2 things into account here; the first being how she reacted afterwards and the second being the emotional, not logical aspect of the situation at hand.

 

She felt extreme remorse; she had a bad day. The product of her art, her passion was being stolen from right out from underneath her. She worked so hard on those dresses, only to have them taken as a result of her own kind-hearted and generous nature. So, she was overcome with anger and was bad to her friends, that part is true. Yet, she realized her own mistakes and left the competition that she would've won because she felt so bad for the way she treated them. Had she stayed, she would've elevated into superstar fashionista status, and she knew that. She just valued her friends more than fame and money.

 

It's only real to react poorly to hurt every now and again; it would've been wayyyyy too G3 had she and her friends worked together to stop the fashion thief. What mattered was she felt bad for how rotten she was as a result to her poor handling of her hurt, enough so to throw away potential stardom for her friends.

 

So, please, don't just look at the negatives of how she was Her positives shined bright in this episode

[Mand'alor Dash 2,224]

This episode may have been far too jam-packed for its own good, but it handled itself well with a good moral, great character development, and an awesome new setting.

 

I'd call this a pretty damn good episode, as Rarisodes usually are.

[TorqueEffect 112]

Alright, I reckon' ol' ghost here needs to dissect this.

 

I don't think you're taking 2 things into account here; the first being how she reacted afterwards and the second being the emotional, not logical aspect of the situation at hand.

 

She felt extreme remorse; she had a bad day. The product of her art, her passion was being stolen from right out from underneath her. She worked so hard on those dresses, only to have them taken as a result of her own kind-hearted and generous nature. So, she was overcome with anger and was bad to her friends, that part is true. Yet, she realized her own mistakes and left the competition that she would've won because she felt so bad for the way she treated them. Had she stayed, she would've elevated into superstar fashionista status, and she knew that. She just valued her friends more than fame and money.

 

It's only real to react poorly to hurt every now and again; it would've been wayyyyy too G3 had she and her friends worked together to stop the fashion thief. What mattered was she felt bad for how rotten she was as a result to her poor handling of her hurt, enough so to throw away potential stardom for her friends.

 

So, please, don't just look at the negatives of how she was Her positives shined bright in this episode

 

 

I didn't say there wasn't any positives, in fact her positives outweighed the negatives this time around.

 

But I was just arguing against the point that her friends were the greedy ones, even though they were clearly overworked, and Rarity was just bitchy when confronted. Now granted that is probably how I would have reacted I were in similar circumstances as her. But that doesn't make it right.

Edited January 6, 2014 by TorqueEffect

[chaoticgeek2 71]

I give it a fabulous/10.

Favorite episode of the season so far, I hope we get to see more Rarity episodes and more of Coco.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

I didn't say there wasn't any positives, in fact her positives outweighed the negatives this time around.

 

But I was just arguing against the point that her friends were the greedy ones, even though they were clearly overworked, and Rarity was just bitchy when confronted. Now granted that is probably how I would have reacted I were in similar circumstances as her. But that doesn't make it right.

No, it doesn't make it right, and yes, she was  

 

What makes it right is her later actions to redeem herself, though. Not only does she almost throw away her whole career, but she goes out of her way and gets all of her friends a private performance of one of the biggest musicals in Equestria She deserves to have her acts of redemption acknowledged as correcting her wrongs, because she went above and beyond to make it up to the ponies she cared about so much, and the ones she knew she had been awful to in the first place.

 

So, in the end, it was made right

[Pixel Stick 927]

Well, you all basically covered most of what I was going to say, so here's my bulleted list of things:

 

- Overall, I really liked this episode and think it's the best one of the season so far.

- I didn't like the song all that much, mostly because I felt they hammered on Rarity's generosity so much as to make her look like she's going "Hey, look at me, I'm so generous!"  (That's egoism and altruism, not generosity.) (EDIT: Altruism and egoism are considered opposites - I had the wrong word here.)

- They made up for that with Rarity's odd balance of true generosity, kindness, selfishness, frustration and breakdown throughout the rest of the episode.

- Spike was a punching bag and had no real place in the episode.  I thought this was unfortunate and even distracting.

 

But, personally, the master stroke in this episode came when Rarity offered to have Coco Pommel work for her friend designing costumes.  In my mind, there could not have been a better demonstration of her generosity than giving her own majorly awesome job to a little filly who had just willingly put herself out of work to do the right thing.  It was a win-win for everypony involved (aside from Suri, who can go rot in fashionista hell).

 

Well done, and I agree: Dave Polsky may be hit-and-miss, but this was a definite hit.

No, it doesn't make it right, and yes, she was

 

What makes it right is her later actions to redeem herself, though. Not only does she almost throw away her whole career, but she goes out of her way and gets all of her friends a private performance of one of the biggest musicals in Equestria She deserves to have her acts of redemption acknowledged as correcting her wrongs, because she went above and beyond to make it up to the ponies she cared about so much, and the ones she knew she had been awful to in the first place.

 

So, in the end, it was made right

 

And in my opinion, Rarity's actions to redeem herself were met in full by the rest of the Mane 6's willingness to forgive her and to look beyond her transgressions, something that I think the FiM staff have been very good about in this series.  True friends know how and when to forgive and move on, and the Mane 6 embody this highly desirable trait nearly perfectly.

 

Would that real people could all be like that...

(Edit) Actually, I did think of one other thing that kinda bothered me about this episode: Two rapid-fire "Oh man, we forgot to" moments to get the plot rolling.  First, "Wow, we only have TEN minutes to showtime!?", then "How could I forget the dresses!?"  These moments, especially put together, were reminiscent of "We got the WRONG PONY!??" in Games Ponies Play, but at least this time, they weren't the main focus of the plot and the rest of the plot more than made up for them.

 

But still, you'd think by now the Mane 6 would have learned how to be a little more careful about such things...

Edited January 6, 2014 by Pixel Stick

[Sunny Fox 5,950]

 

Out of curiosity...

 

Did it bother anyone that Rarity's message is not actually "be generous for the sake of it" but "be generous because if you are, others will be to you too"?

 

I deal with this possible misunderstanding in my review:

 

"That is what makes Manehatten so splendid and amazing... you do something nice for somepony, and then you never know when they'll do something nice for you!"
This line in particular could possibly be misunderstood or taken out of context. Rarity is not saying she is only generous because of what she can get out of other ponies. She is making an observation that the good fortune of getting tickets for her friends came about because she did something generous for someone else, and that incident is typical of Manehatten. And then she shared that blessing with her friends. Besides which, it's really just a restatement of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's not quid pro quo, or giving a favour in order to receive a favour. She certainly couldn't have foreseen that she would need a taxi, and decided to help the cabbie because he would help her later. She didn't even need to ask for help, it was offered. As for the song, it shows a number of ponies whom she helped, who never returned the favour. So she isn't going around being generous to get things in return, but she acknowledges that it's nice when it happens. As Rarity sings, it's her way of life to give freely to others.

Edited January 6, 2014 by SolarFox

[Bucky McGillyCuddy 956]

Anyone else have a favourite new pony?

There's hope for Manehattan ponies yet.

[Motion Spark 7,807]

This episode is the best of the season so far.

 

First things first, let's talk about the city. I'm very glad that a Rarity episode was featured in a location that was never visited before. The only glympses we had of Manehattan was on Applejack's past and they weren't nearly as close as we saw on this episode. The city is absolutelly gorgeous and it resembles very well the real New York. I really like the cabs mania showed in the episode because it shows the busy urban life of the real city as well.

 

However, I felt that this one was having a much serious tone to it, that the usual comedy of MLP was barely there. I have no problem with that, but it just felt different to me because I'm used to another kind of thing when I watch MLP. Even so, I adore story based plots and I felt this one to be so very emotional and it's always fun watch the different sides of the most complex pony of the mane6.

 

At first sight, I felt that Rarity's generosity was being a little forced and I thought that this episode was to show that Rarity is indeed generous because people often complain about Rarity not being generous like her element, and since writers are having a close connection with bronies I wouldn't be surprised.

However I've got carried away by the story, that after thinking about it and watching review videos of the episode I can see that the episode was focused just on that, generosity. I know it sounds kind of dumb on my part because the song was called 'Generosity' but for the life of me, I got caught up by the amazing story, that giving way to much space to Rarity's generosity seemed odd to me. I would have liked it to be more casual and not so obvious.

 

But it makes sense, because ponies in Manehattan are known for not being nice to each other, something I didn't pay attention to, and when Rarity and the other ponies arrive, they just start spreading all that Ponyville charm all around the city.

It's always fun to see new background ponies, and actually we haven't seen them in a while, the introduction of these characters where interesting and I can't help but to adore Coco Pummel, she's so cute.

 

Now, what a way to end the episode, with a very insteresting cliffhanger, and I'm pretty sure that this episode has more depth than we actually think. That rainbow glow on Rarity's eyes seemed very odd to me and that 'present' that Coco gave to Rarity was very strange too, I'm very sure that that wasn't an ordinary thread, considering the episode was focused on Rarity's element, now that the elements of Harmony are gone, back to the tree of Harmony I'm having the slight idea that the remaining ponies will have similar episodes showing their elements at the fullest while being given an 'strange' by somepony changed by their element, in this case, Coco was changed by Rarity's generosity.

 

my head hurts x_X

[Galen 1,354]

Out of curiosity...

 

Did it bother anyone that Rarity's message is not actually "be generous for the sake of it" but "be generous because if you are, others will be to you too"?

 

Not really. I think the message here has to do with karma, how kindness and good deeds can increase your good fortune and that you can get back what you give, should you give unconditionally and without expecting anything in return. Rarity did a lot of that in this episode, such as giving the baggage handler diamonds, and we all know how Rarity loves diamonds more than anything. That goes a long way how generous Rarity is, if not more so compared to when the show first started. The underlying message is the reason I think this is possibly one of the best episodes in the entire series, not just the season

[hawkflame 3,310]

 

 

 

 

I deal with this possible misunderstanding in my review:

 

"That is what makes Manehatten so splendid and amazing... you do something nice for somepony, and then you never know when they'll do something nice for you!"

This line in particular could possibly be misunderstood or taken out of context. Rarity is not saying she is only generous because of what she can get out of other ponies. She is making an observation that the good fortune of getting tickets for her friends came about because she did something generous for someone else, and that incident is typical of Manehatten. And then she shared that blessing with her friends. Besides which, it's really just a restatement of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's not quid pro quo, or giving a favour in order to receive a favour. She certainly couldn't have foreseen that she would need a taxi, and decided to help the cabbie because he would help her later. She didn't even need to ask for help, it was offered. As for the song, it shows a number of ponies whom she helped, who never returned the favour. So she isn't going around being generous to get things in return, but she acknowledges that it's nice when it happens. As Rarity sings, it's her way of life to give freely to others.

 

 

I agree.  I think it's more of a case of "What goes around, comes around" but in a more positive sense.  The good thing about the spirit of generosity is that it's infectious, and the whole episode was about that spirit.

 

And when she does demand/guilt trip her friends into repaying her generosity when they're helping her make the dresses, it's her just being caught up in her emotions.  The harsh and bitter "reality check" she got from Suri about how it's "every pony for herself" twisted her idea of generosity as something that needs to be repaid or cashed in.  I wouldn't take that scene as how she actually views generosity most of the time.

[Sunny Fox 5,950]

Everyone focuses on Rarity's bad behaviour (I'm not denying it happened, of course) but what about the others, Rainbow Dash, for example? The Element of Loyalty being ready to ditch a tough task they volunteered for to go see a show the very pony they are abandoning managed to get them in to see. Not very cool.  -_-

[Spartan 433]

I finally saw this one.

 

Rainbow and AJ seemed out of character, but whatever. Not my fav, but deffently a good one next stop, Rainbow Falls.. right?

[hawkflame 3,310]

I finally saw this one.

 

Rainbow and AJ seemed out of character, but whatever. Not my fav, but deffently a good one next stop, Rainbow Falls.. right?

 

Next one is Pinkie Apple Pie, then Rainbow Falls.

[FlitterCMC 8]

I really enjoyed this episode, it showed us both the good and bad of Rarity.

 

She's not good at coping with stress, she took it out on her friends, but she also redeemed herself and was willing to work off a long haul job to make sure they all got to see the show they wanted to see.

Edited January 6, 2014 by FlitterCMC

[DiscordAnarchy 770]

Everyone focuses on Rarity's bad behaviour (I'm not denying it happened, of course) but what about the others, Rainbow Dash, for example? The Element of Loyalty being ready to ditch a tough task they volunteered for to go see a show the very pony they are abandoning managed to get them in to see. Not very cool.  -_-

 

Rainbow Dash is loyal to her friends when it is actually worth while. Just because she is the element of Loyality doesn't mean she is going to bend over backwards for every single little thing. But if it is something that is life or death, she would lay down her safety for those she loves but if she is deciding between something she wants and hard work, she'd choose what she wants. She's loyal but that doesn't break her personality of being somewhat selfish and lazy also.

 

Also

 

Me thinks many people are expecting too much out of Twilight as a Princess. I do not believe the rest of Equestria sees her in that light just yet. She has never proven herself to anypony else outside of the Crystal Empire or Ponyville. We have no idea if the rest of the world knows about her being a Princess nor do we even know if they care. Just becaus she is a princess, she has no empire, no castle, no heritage. It's like being a prince of some 3rd world country. You may be royality because of your status at home but you are still no one to the rest of the world.