Episode written by Cindy Morrow
Entirely unofficial reflections by sixcardroulette
This is The Shorter Ponywatching. For a really long, in-depth essay
on this episode, check out the full length reflection!
My least favourite episode of the first season, for various reasons (we saw it as the sixth episode thanks to a nonsensical British DVD running order, though – luckily – we were too tired when we first watched it to realise it contains a huge spoiler for Call of the Cutie).
Does that mean you’re in for a couple of thousand words of negativity and carping? Goodness, no, this is still lots of fun; without wanting to become the Pollyanna of the brony analysis community, I don’t believe there are any episodes of Friendship is Magic which are outright bad. Even the ones which I – wholly subjectively – think are, well, less good, the ones I’d put nearer the bottom of my personal pile (and surely mine will be different to yours!) still have plenty of good things to commend them. This one certainly does.
The main reason I’ve found this one less satisfying than other early episodes is that it’s built on sand. The plot boils down to “Spike gets jealous”, insanely jealous at that, and his “rival” is a pet owl whose only dialogue is hooting noises.
There’s a great story waiting to be told about Spike’s insecurities over what happens when he feels Twilight no longer needs him, or whether his inherent dragon nature will overwhelm his sweet personality; this is not that story, but rather a standard-issue “jealousy” plot, and it turns out Spike isn’t the best peg upon which to hang such an episode.
Having set off on a weak footing, Owl’s Well… stumbles along to the finish; there are some cracking gags and some lovely moments, but also a lot of padding, some jarring tone changes, and Spike spends almost the entire episode keeping tight hold of the famed Idiot Ball. It’s a mixed bag of an episode – but this being My Little Pony, even the “weaker” episodes are still pretty good, certainly by the standard of the kids’ TV animation that surrounds them.
Like I said, there are some lovely scenes interspersed with the clunky or random stuff. The opening scenes feature Spike showing his skill as Twilight’s assistant (though he does set fire to a rare book, which will come back to bite him later), as Twilight and Spike get ready for a stargazing picnic under a meteor shower. These scenes are a nice reminder of their pre-show relationship, both at work and as friends; in fact, Spike’s relationship to Twilight is similar to Twilight’s with Princess Celestia (including, unfortunately for Spike, a tendency to have meltdowns when they think they’ve disappointed their mentor).
There’s a great little scene at the picnic between Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo, building (not that we knew it) on Scoots’ hero-worship as seen in The Cutie Mark Chronicles and laying more groundwork for later stories:
Wow, Twilight! You’re lucky to have such a rad assistant. I wish I had someone to do whatever I told them.
Ooh! OOH! Me! Me! Me! I’ll do whatever you want, Rainbow Dash!
Yes ma’am!
That’s your Hearth’s Warming Eve present, Scoots!
Her giddy little grin at the thought of getting rid of Rainbow Dash’s apple core is adorable, and was adorable even when we had no idea who she was or what the hell was going on. (Of course, we never actually see her get rid of the apple core, so it’s entirely possible it’s been kept as the centrepiece exhibit of Scootaloo’s private Rainbow Dash Museum and Archive).
See, there’s loads to like about this episode.
Things move on apace – Twilight takes in a cute owl to help her with night-time chores (any similarity to other highly successful franchises where magicians have cute owl assistants is wholly coincidental), and Spike is immediately threatened by Owlowiscious (I’ve taken the spelling from the Elements of Harmony book!):
Whoa! Dude, that’s creepy.
…even though most of their interactions are pretty limited. Indeed, the episode spends an inordinate amount of time hanging more and more bells on a joke that can’t bear the weight: an owl’s hoot, you see, sounds a bit like the word “who”, and that’s a recipe for hilarity. You know, if you’re a Vaudeville children’s entertainer circa 1916.
Hoo!
Uh… Spike. You know? Assistant Number One?
I’m SPIKE! And who are you? What are you?
(I like the idea that griffons and manticores are commonplace in Equestria, but owls are comparatively rare.)
This bit felt like it was going to carry on for the next four hours until thankfully someone pulled the plug.
And so the two “rivals” start a protracted game of one-upmanship, except Owlowiscious doesn’t actually do anything in the first two acts, and Spike simply gets more and more unhinged for no very good reason. That there’s no good reason is immediately underlined:
What’s he all saddle-sore about?
Maybe Spike feels threatened? Or worried that Owlowiscious will replace him?
Replace him?! Ha! That’s crazy. Spike knows he can’t be replaced!
I get the feeling that was probably meant to be the key at the heart of this episode – if only Twilight had taken the time to spell out her feelings, instead of just assuming Spike knew how valued and loved he was, and how irrational his fears were! – but it’s undermined, because the episode just keeps piling up Spike’s resentment and jealousy higher and higher without ever flat-out confronting either Twilight or Owlowiscious about it.
Firstly, Spike tries to prove his worth, but he’s trying much too hard and ends up making more and more mistakes, particularly when he goes on an extended hunt for a new writing quill. This sequence features a genuinuely brilliant comic bit (the Quills and Sofas store!), and another bit that starts funny (Pinkie Pie rummaging around in her house before proudly resurfacing with… a quince, having forgotten what she was looking for) before it gets overmilked.
It’s all too much for Spike, who – after some harsh criticism from Twilight, having discovered the burned book from the intro – completely flips his lid, hatching a plot to frame Owlowiscious and dressing up like Snively Whiplash from Dudley Do-Right, complete with cape, moustache and evil laugh:
I mean, it’s funny, but it’s also jarring, like the wackier moments of Swarm of the Century dialled up to eleven.
Anyway, Spike’s crazy plan – to dismember a toy mouse, complete with ketchup and feathers everywhere – is interrupted when Twilight catches him in the act, leading to another funny scene where he’s forced to just go ahead with it and pretend it’s working anyway, before Twilight, furious, tries to snap him out of it:
SPIKE! I don’t know what upsets me more – that you deliberately tried to set up Owlowiscious, or that you actually thought this pathetic attempt would work! You’ve let your jealousy get the best of you, Spike. I am truly disappointed. This is NOT the Spike I know and love!
It feels… a little wrong. While Twilight is right to admonish Spike for being silly, no real harm has been done, and she seems a touch insensitive considering Spike, her oldest friend, is acting massively out of character and that the Owlowiscious situation is clearly bothering him; conversely, Spike’s reading of Twilight’s last line is a fairly radical interpretation of the text:
Everything wrong with this episode in a nutshell. It was around this time on first viewing, I remember, that I started to get a little fed up with everyone acting like an idiot for no reason except to move the plot from A to B.
So, Spike puts the idiot ball in his knapsack and runs away from home.
The rest of the episode feels like it could come from any run-of-the-mill Saturday morning adventure cartoon – Spike accidentally wanders into a giant dragon’s cave, is almost barbecued, Owlowiscious and Twilight come to his rescue, and there’s a chase through the forest to safety. I think that’s the issue here – but it’s also the extent of the issue. It’s not bad, it’s just not extraordinary. The dragon battle and the chase scene should be thrilling, but they aren’t; there’s no real sense of peril, and the chase scene (which probably looked stunning at the storyboard stage) is just a perfunctory sequence with lots of black and purple:
There is a lovely reconciliation at the end between Spike and Twilight, the former admitting he went much too far, the latter admitting she should have been more sensitive to her oldest friends’ feelings, before Twilight lets Spike write the obligatory letter to Princess Celestia setting out the week’s moral:
So, that was that. Did I enjoy it overall? Yes, and more so on subsequent viewings; still, this has always been one of the less popular episodes with my family, in that while we rewatch old episodes all the time (like, once or twice a day, pretty much every day) it’s rarely the one the children choose.
I think it’s just that it’s all so uneven – the overall tone, the quality of the jokes, the pacing, the characterisation, they all bounce all over the place. A Spike episode is very welcome, and having him doubt his place at Twilight’s side is a good concept; Spike clearly conflates his role as PA (i.e. what he does) with his role as Twilight’s old friend, beloved confidante and life companion (i.e. who he is), and that’s fertile ground which drives a lot of the issues here. But the overall jealousy/rivalry story idea wasn’t the best (Spike has always been shown to be fundamentally a good guy, so seeing him acting firstly extremely vain, and then paranoid and vindictive, felt uncomfortable), and the script feels bumpy, as if the episode was without a really clear and confident vision of where it’s going.
See, jealousy needs a rival, and the one Owl’s Well That Ends Well serves up is a vacuum. That needn’t be a fatal flaw, as the episode could then be about Spike’s own insecurities rather than anything real – and that’s presumably what the writers were going for, but it’s so disjointed (they also find room to cram in that tiresome recurring Vaudeville routine, plus a lengthy largely-silent sequence where Spike dresses up as a literal moustache-twirling villain, and two tacked-on action scenes involving a battle with a giant dragon and a high-speed chase through a dark forest) that there isn’t really time for Spike to gradually unravel as his paranoia gets the better of him, he just sort of snaps.
Mind you, if his breakdown isn’t really well-explained, it’s certainly well-depicted (I imagine Cathy Weseluck had a blast doing this one). It’s also beautiful, making better use of shading and light effects than any of the episodes we’ve seen so far:
…and while the underlying plot is too contrived to really work, and the “hooting” thing should have been taken out after the first table read (seriously, even my children weren’t amused by that), there are still more than enough good things about this one to make it worth watching at least once.
It’s hard to pick one, as the best scenes in Owl’s Well that Ends Well are either very short, or interwoven with less good material. Rainbow and Scoots’ little interaction is sweet, as is Twilight and Spike’s eventual reconciliation; Spike’s visit to the store is funny, as is his being caught by a stunned Twilight mid-caper trying to stitch up Owlowiscious.
But I have to go for a little moment from the second act that really made me laugh. Spike is up a tree, listening frustratedly as the Mane Six coo over Owlowiscious (Rarity even makes him a little copy of the special jewel-laden bow tie she gave Spike earlier in the episode). The staging of the shot makes it look like Spike is out of earshot, but when he does his little impression of Fluttershy:
…the ponies all immediately stop what they’re doing and turn to look at him for an explanation, leaving him to furiously backpedal:
Just a small moment, but a small moment that feels like My Little Pony, so I’m voting for that.
You knew this was coming, right?
Sorry, junior – all out of quills until Monday.
(perfectly timed beat)
Though I’ve found more to like about it each time I’ve seen it, the fact remains Owl’s Well… is still my least favourite episode of the first season; despite some lovely moments and a genuine keeper of a gag in “Quills and Sofas”, the poor concept and often mishandled execution mean it ends up bottom of my personal Season 1 pile.
Does that make it bad? Shoot, no. The context is everything. So it turned out not to be vintage My Little Pony exactly, but rather to be just another decent enough episode of a fun kids’ TV cartoon? Well, we’ll never turn down one of those.
Disappointing by the show’s own high standards – but context makes good stuff shine, and even at its “weakest”, My Little Pony is definitely Good Stuff.
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