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MLP:FiM 2x21 "Dragon Quest"

Episode Grading

  • A

    Votes: 5 50.0%

  • B

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • C

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • D

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • E

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    10
Kemaiku

Kemaiku

Admiral
Admiral
Spike goes on a journey of self-discovery by joining the “Great Dragon Migration.” But does a rough and tumble gang of teenage dragons really hold the key to the questions Spike has about his identity?

Wow, looking the Wiki entry, the plots for the remaining episodes of Season 2 are up, getting close to the finale already.
 
Yup. We now know the titles and synopses for every remaining episode this season. Kinda freaky how fast time flies. What will we do over the summer without ponies? (Rewatch all the episodes, probably.)
 
This episode was...okay. Unlike last week's, where Spike's antics came off as a bit off-putting and overshadowing the main plot, he was not annoying this week. But, the episode as a whole, while not awful, was not amazing either.

- The teaser, on the other hand, was pretty funny. You can see Fluttershy's characterization from "Hoof Down" is still in effect, and leads to a very funny exchange with Rainbow Dash. The way she calmly opened the window was another nice touch in this scene.
- Loved the chorus of "we know"s to Rainbow Dash's claim of doing many "nutty things."
- Another good bit of dialogue: "We're following him, right?" "Of course!"
- The second act kind of dragged for me...didn't really care for the male dragons for the most part. What saved this act from being a complete drag (heh heh) was the ponies in the made up dragon.
- The throwaway gag about "Crackle's cousin"'s resemblance the dragon costume was hilarious.
- The baby phoenixes (sp?) lead to some mildly funny cartoon gags as well.
- "Fighter" Rarity was really funny.
- As always, William Anderson provided some epic action-beat music.

Episode Rankings (Subject to Change on Future Viewings) -
(A) The Return of Harmony, Lesson Zero, Luna Eclipsed, The Mysterious Mare Do Well, Sweet & Elite, Secret of My Excess, The Last Roundup, Read it & Weep, Hearts and Hooves Day, A Friend in Deed
(B) The Cutie Pox, Baby Cakes, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, Putting Your Hoof Down, It's About Time
(C) Sisterhood Social, May the Best Pet Win, Hearth's Warming Eve, Dragon Quest
(D) Family Appreciation Day
(F) None So Far
 
Not sure how I feel about this one. It held my interest throughout and didn't drag or seem ill-paced, but it also didn't blow me away. The teenage dragons were kind of, not annoying per se, but somehow wrong. To conventional, or something. The episode establishes how foreboding and unknown dragons are, there's all that epic build up of Spike following the migration, and then they turn out to be bog-standard, English-speaking jerks. Okay.

The ponies disguised as a dragon was great. And it's interesting that Rarity has a great deal of affection for Spike, but it all seems to be patronizing friend-zone stuff. Poor Spike.
 
Rarity knows,in the end, that it would never work out between them. For one thing, when Spike grows up... I'm... going to leave it to your imagination.
 
I loved fighter Rarity, too. She was pretty scary. The Phoenixes were awesome. I wonder whether the baby Phoenix will feature regularly from now on. The Sparkle's cousin thing made me crack up. There were lots of other funny lines and scenes so I enjoyed this episode a lot.
I did expect Celestia's destroyed letter to clear some of Spike's questions up at the end of the episode, though. It's weird to make it part of the episode and then leave this thread hanging. I also expect those question to come up again in the future.
 
It was a good episode, plenty of nice moments, and answered a few (quite few but still) questions here and there.

The red dragon from Dragonshy returns, and "Crackle" was a LOL moment, the dragons have their own Derpy.

So...are Rarity and Spike actually an item now? Rarity was definitely acting like his girlfriend the entire episode.

I loved the Phoenices, they even have little flame pattern eggs, the babies were so cute.

So many Flutterdash fanfics crushed :lol: but after Dragonshy I thought she would have been ok with it, this season has seen a lot of personal development dumping which is unfortunate.

But we got lots of Dashie so I'm good. And was it just me or have they added another sound effect to Twilights spells?
 
@Count Zero: That's one thing I meant to comment on and forgot. The letter seemed like a Checkhov's Gun, so I was very surprised when it was never fired.

@Chem: you must have had some weird girlfriends, because all I saw was Rarity treating him at best like a baby brother, or maybe a favorite pet. Whatever it was, it seemed kind of condescending.
 
Chemahkuu said:
Gep Malakai said:
@Chem: you must have had some weird girlfriends.
Click to expand...

Well yes but that's beside the point, she was just being much more affectionate. I thought it was a "toned down for kids" way of showing it.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I agree she was showing him a lot of affection this week, it just struck me as the wrong kind of affection for them to be an item. It's not like the show has ever shied away from showing Spike going all googly-eyed when he lusts after her, after all.

Oh, yeah. And remember when we were all wondering where Spike was during Twilight's Canterlot birthday party? So were the animators, it seems. From the shelf of photos at the end of the episode:

picture2kzt.png
 
The photos are a little weird. His egg was destroyed in the hatching and then, turning huge. Twilight was only a filly, and still in Canterlot.

The photo shows a teenage Twilight in the library, with baby Spike and part of his egg as if he'd just hatched.
 
Gep Malakai said:
Not sure how I feel about this one. It held my interest throughout and didn't drag or seem ill-paced, but it also didn't blow me away. The teenage dragons were kind of, not annoying per se, but somehow wrong. To conventional, or something. The episode establishes how foreboding and unknown dragons are, there's all that epic build up of Spike following the migration, and then they turn out to be bog-standard, English-speaking jerks. Okay.

The ponies disguised as a dragon was great. And it's interesting that Rarity has a great deal of affection for Spike, but it all seems to be patronizing friend-zone stuff. Poor Spike.
Click to expand...

Well, the dragons we saw were teenage dragons, not full grown adults, so they'll likely change significantly as they age. Spike's still a baby dragon, and so he would connect more with younger dragons than the admittedly mysterious older dragons.

As for this episode overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Terrified Fluttershy's wild rush to the window only to meekly step out was hilarious, as was Dash's kicking Rarity for denigrating her plan. :lol:
 
I think I understand Spike's conflict here. He's a dragon and has no idea who he is. He's like... to use a Star Trek way of looking at things, he's kind of like a Klingon who didn't know his parents, raised among humans. But rather than being exposed to the culture he might have had, he's only been raised to know the culture he's in.

As for a bit more on the episode, the letter from Celestia may have been about Twi's brother. :D
 
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