An episode a day

[Gentian]

S1E9, Bridle Gossip. Or what I suspect the running title was: "Rarity really hates zebras". While nothing particularly groundbreaking or amazingly special, I just found this to be another cute enjoyable episode with good characters. Apple Bloom in particular of course stands out, she's really great in this one I find, taking responsibility. It may have the overdone "don't judge a book by its cover" lesson, but at least this time it was done with an enjoyable gimmick with it, the poison joke, again keeping it with a simple SOL that doesn't really have too much else to it. May not be one of my favorite S1 episodes, but it shows off what's good in the season, so to say I think.

This is a good episode, and Apple Bloom really shines in it. Many of the little jokes are memorable, too. Flutterguy, Hairity (sorry) and Flaccid Twi. There's no way the animators weren't nudging each other and giggling like tween boys who just found a playboy in the trash on that last one.

Aside from that, though, the social aspect of this one kind of bothered me. The way the ponies treated Zecora raises uncomfortable questions in my mind about how they would react to a human in their midst. A zebra at least looks like a pony, albeit an exceptionally garish one, but Homo Sapiens doesn't bear even a passing resemblance. Then again, humans may be so different that we rocket down one side of the uncanny valley and right up, up, and away on the other.

Even leaving that aside, though, it also shows an unhealthy (and inaccurate) devotion to group-think which Twi tells me the ponies don't usually exhibit.

Oh well, with all else the writers get wrong, that's easy enough to overlook.