Thinking Over MLP:FIM Season 3, Episode 4

Thoughts on S3E4: One Bad Seed

As usual, this thing is going to be comprised of opinions and spoilers.  In particular, this episode deals with a rather hotbutton issue (bullying), so don't jump down my throat if you don't agree.  You can disagree, just be civil about it.

The Big Thing

Let's get this out of the way: everybody has different stances on the issue of bullying and how this episode handled it.  Here's mine: I think it handled the issue about as well as it could, given that it's a show directed at children with only 22 minutes to work in.  It obviously didn't cover every aspect of the issue in detail, but there was really no way it was going to.  I know Babs has gotten some crap for being nasty in the episode, but honestly, I think the writers did a good job of making her sympathetic nonetheless.  

I know the episode has gotten some complaints about how "Babs got off scot free because she was bullied and the episode is saying that if you've been a victim bullying is justified!"  I don't think this is the case.  At all.   In fact it's pretty much the exact opposite of what the episode is saying.  The whole episode is about the problems caused when victims of bullying perpetuate the cycle of abuse, and how to keep it from continuing.  Babs' background isn't an excuse for her behavior, but it is an explanation, and the show never treats her actions as a good thing, or something that isn't her fault.  I know some people aren't happy with the fact that she didn't get punished, but I don't think it's that big of a problem.  She learned her lesson, realized she had behaved badly, and stopped.  At that point the only reason to punish her would be purely for retributive purposes, which is something the show in general probably wouldn't support.  

So for everybody who finds her totally unsympathetic and unlikeable, just think about this from her position for a moment.  She's been bullied back home, badly enough that she had to leave town to get away from it, and her body language makes it pretty clear that she's uncomfortable about the fact that she's a blank flank (she covers her flank with her tail whenever it comes up).  So she leaves Manehattan for Ponyville, only to be ambushed by three ponies who have zero respect for her personal space, and refuse to talk about anything else other than their cutie marks (which again, seems to be a real sensitive issue for her) and it's clearly making her really uncomfortable.  Then she finds out that they're the usual targets of the local bullies, and by hanging out with them she's going to be the victim again, which is the exact situation she left home to get away from.  I think it's understandable (not right, but understandable), that she'd side with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon so that for once in her life she wouldn't be on the receiving end. Following this up, her time as a bully comprises maybe a week of her life, tops.  She acts up for a brief period of time, realizes she's become what she hated, and stops.  It isn't a habitual pattern of behavior for her the way it is for Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon.

That said, it would have been nice if the show had briefly addressed a few other things; namely Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon getting some sort of comeuppance beyond falling in the mud, maybe giving Babs at least a scolding or something, and punished the CMC for the stunt with the float.  But yeah, overall I think it did a decent job of showing the whole Cycle of Abuse thing, and handling the resolution with a bit of finesse rather than "Oh fine let's tell Applejack" and having that solve the whole thing.  It's also a nice  touch how they incorporated the idea that telling an authority figure is a valid approach to the issue without saying that it'll automatically solve everything (it may have in this particular case, but it doesn't imply it's a perfect solution).  In short, the episode certainly doesn't cover all the possible nuances of the issue, but that's only because the issue is so complicated that it would be almost impossible for a 22 minute show to address everything without totally sacrificing characterization and humor.

Plotting

The episode falters a bit here.  For the most part it proceeds well, but there are a few cases where it jump cuts so rapidly that it feels like it's lacking transitions.  For instance, the song is awesome and catchy and probably the best song of the season so far, but it comes out of freaking nowhere. One minute the CMC are discussing amongst themselves how to deal with Babs and then BAM MUSIC VIDEO.  Granted it's a useful montage for showing how her bullying is affecting them, but at the same time a five second transition would have kept it from feeling like it was just dropped in.  The sequence was great, but it felt a bit disconnected from what came immediately before and after.

Another minor pacing issue is the CMC's plot to embarrass Babs with the sabotaged float.  I have no gripe with the plan itself; it's in-character, fits the plot, and allowed for an A-Team shout out, but at the same time it felt a bit rushed.  I know the CMC have developed since season 1, but the idea that they could built a professional-quality parade float in the course of one night felt like pushing it (especially when they couldn't build a table in season 1).  Extending it to showing them working on it for a few days would have helped not only the pacing issue, but also illustrated their mindset better, and shown just how far they were willing to go to humiliate Babs in front of the town, which would have made their "What have we done!?" moment fit a lot better.

Characterization

For the most part the episode is pretty effective here.  Aside from all the subtle body language that Babs displays in the opening scenes, this episode FINALLY gets around to starting to differentiate the CMC a bit more.  There's actually a bit of tension within the group when Sweetie Belle wants to tell Applejack and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom refuse.  It isn't much, but it shows them actually bouncing off of each other a little rather than being on the same page all the time.

As for Babs, the episode does a decent job of establishing her basic personality, but it's rather unfortunate that we don't get much of the nice Babs at the end; it would have made her more sympathetic and left the audience more to remember her by, as the most memorable parts of the episode are about how mean she is.   Another thing I think would have been nice would have been to incorporate Applejack into the episode a bit more.  She's directly related to the plot, but doesn't do a whole lot outside of the opening and closing scenes.  Her involvement is so minor that she almost feels like a plot device.  Sticking a scene in the middle of the episode where AJ asks how Babs and Apple Bloom are getting along, only for AB to act as if everything is going great would have not only given AJ something to do, but it would have made her seem less oblivious by giving an explanation for why she wouldn't think things were wrong: she doesn't think Apple Bloom would lie to her about something like that.

Humor

On the whole, I think the episode did pretty well here.  The song had some great sight gags, the whole A-Team montage was great (especially the cutie mark fakeout.  Poor Scootaloo), and joke with Spike following his nose only to be stopped by Pinkie was really good.  More importantly, it's good that the writers were able to give the episode some levity without going t0o far in the other direction.  The subject matter is fairly serious, and they included just enough humor to keep things from getting too depressing, but not so much that it felt like they were making light of the issue.

Overall

In the end, I found the episode pretty good.  It's not particularly groundbreaking and has its fair share of kinks (especially in terms of pacing), but it handles the characterization well and while it doesn't really examine the issue in as much detail as it could, it still handles it competently.  It's not a stellar episode, but as far as I see it, it's hardly terrible either.  It lands squarely in "good, but not great" territory.