Fillies, gentlecolts, and foals of all ages, welcome once again to another edition of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic recap/review. It’s time once again to look at everypony’s favorite speed freak, Rainbow Dash. Now, she’s had her hit and miss episodes before, so how did she fare this week? Well, with the often missfiring Merriwether Williams penning this episode, I’m not coming in with the best mindset. But, that opinion could still change as we take a look at Rainbow Dash’s adventure in the “Wonderbolts Academy”
Rainbow Dash gets the chance of a lifetime
We open the episode as the mane six are frantically waiting for a letter for Rainbow Dash (Well, actually the only one who’s frantic about it is Pinkie Pie). The letter is to see if Dash will be invited to go to Wonderbolt Academy for the week. And lo and behold, the letter she gets is an invite to join the academy for the week.
Dash is among several other pegasi in training (Including that muscular pegasus from “Hurricane Fluttershy). Their drill instructor is the Wonderbolts leader Spitfire, who ensures the cadets that this will be no cakewalk.
Also among the cadets is a pegasus who looks somewhat similar to Dash, and seems to have a bit of her famous ego as well. The two prove to be equally matched in speed. The new pegasus introduces herself as Lightning Dust.
Double Dash?
Meanwhile in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie is frantically waiting for a letter from Rainbow Dash, despite it being only a day or so since she left. However, despite the best attempts from her friends to get her to leave the mailbox, Pinkie remains ever diligent, waiting for a letter from Dash.
Rainbow Dash and the other recruits continue their training from Spitfire, as she makes them use a device called the Dizzitron, which will test out their abilities while dizzy. Dash makes the best speed, but Lightning Dust, who appears to be the more reckless of the two, sets the speed of the Dizzitron to its highest, and comes 2nd to Dash in speed. The rest of the training will be done in teams, with a lead pony, and a wing pony. Despite Dash’s hopes to be a leader, she ends up being Lightning Dust’s wing pony.
Lightning Dust is 20% Reckless-er
Despite the duo being the clear best team, it begins to show that Lightning Dust is a far more reckless pony. She not only causes Rainbow Dash’s wing to get injured during a capture the flag competition, but later ends up hurting the rest of the cadets by just plowing right through them.
Back in Ponyville, Pinkie is still at the mailbox, waiting for an answer. Twilight suggests that Pinkie sends a care package. But Pinkie has the better idea of sending a care package herself out of fear that the package will get lost, or sent to the wrong Rainbow Dash, and that she won’t be easily remembered by Dash.
Pinkie Pie has gotten very neurotic lately.
Leader Dash
The final test of the episode involves the cadets getting rid of clouds. Lightning Dust decides that it would just be easier to create a giant tornado that would get rid of all the clouds faster. However, it ends up being too powerful for her or Rainbow Dash to handle. And in a great case of unfortunate timing, Rainbow Dash’s friends show up, only to have their balloon caught up in the twister. She manages to rescue them from imminent death.
However, Lightning Dust is unapologetic for her actions, believing that it doesn’t matter how reckless you are as long as you’re the best, and the best are worthy of being a Wonderbolt. When Dash tells the situation to Spitfire, she ends up agreeing that mentality of Lightning Dust’s is the right way to go. Dash doesn’t want any part of this, and quits the academy. But before she leaves, Spitfire has a change of heart, and says that being the best shouldn’t come at the expense of others. Dash is made leader, Lightning Dust is kicked out of the academy, and Pinkie never gets a chance to give Rainbow Dash her care package.
So, that was quite the academic episode. But it’s time to test out how well it was with the pros and cons.
PRO
I’ve really turned the corner on Rainbow Dash lately, and this episode continues my belief that she’s the most developed character in the series. Yeah, she still has her legendary ego, but it’s toned down to the point that she understands that doing the right thing doesn’t have to involve arrogance or cockiness. It’s things like that that make me enjoy how well the show handles character evolution.
Pinkie Pie shined once again. Having her as a sort of B plot for the episode really helped it flow for the most part. Pinkie has been pretty flawless all season, and this is another example of why.
The muscular pony was back , and as always, he’s just the most awesome pony ever.
YYYEEEAAAAH!!!
CON
I didn’t care for Lightning Dust. Mainly because she just came off as more of what Rainbow Dash used to be instead of being an original character that we could be invested in. She just ends up being pretty forgettable, and honestly I couldn’t care less if we ever see her again.
Spitfire’s new voice is kinda off, and I wasn’t too big a fan of it to be honest. To be fair, at least it’s better than most of the poorly consistent side character voices.
When going into this episode, I kind of hoped we would see other members of the Wonderbolts, or learn more about them. But other than Spitfire, none of the regular members were around. No Soarin’, no Fleetfoot, no pony at all. I want to learn more about these characters and what makes them great, and that sadly wasn’t around in this episode.
Our old friend Merriwether Williams is writing this episode, and yet again she delivers a flat episode. Once again filled with rather callous characters, and makes characters hard to enjoy. She continues to be the biggest weak link of the writing crew, and has the hardest time gelling with the flow of the show compared to newer writers.
And in the end, it was just a bland episode. Other than an okay moral, nothing really memorable happened. Which makes for a major letdown in an episode plot we’ve been waiting to see for a while now. A real shame.
“Wonderbolts Academy” is an okay episode, albeit pretty weak in a lot of areas. The writing could have been handled better, the overall story was rather bland, and a lot of characters either just there, or lacking in any reason to care about them. This really wasn’t the first major experience with the Wonderbolts we were hoping for, and that makes it the weakest episode of the season so far.
RATING: 6 out of 10
Next week, hold on to your apples. It’s an “Apple Family Reunion”. When Granny Smith gives Applejack the responsibility of running the big family reunion, can AJ handle the job? Find out in seven days.
Until next week everypony!