Grumpy Episode Review - Princess Spike

Oh, Spikey-Wikey. Making the worst out of a trivial situation. I guess you'll never learn. Or will you? Princess Spike follows...well, Spike, as he attempts to keep Twilight's necessary rest uninterrupted, while comical events attempt to prevent that from happening. Because cartoon. Or references to a beloved live-action TV show. Let's look.

So here we are at the Grand Equestria Pony Summit. I guess even in Equestria, people disagree politically. Including...griffons? Is Griffonstone part of Equestria? If not, what pony city decided that the best representatives for their city would be griffons? I guess they don't live in Griffonstone, therefore they didn't grow up to be non-trusting pricks like the others. They grew up in pony society, learned how to be more pony-like. Like, hey, Spike. Speaking of Spike, we got four princesses up on stage talking about this summit. Why is Spike there? I mean, maybe he's off behind the curtain, waiting for it to end, but he has NO reason to be up there with the princesses. Although, this makes for interesting foreshadowing. I guess he will end up a princess. And I know they're probably using magic, but it doesn't appear that they are. Where's the microphones? It seems the elevated voices come and go as they please, whenever it's necessary. It's not like we haven't seen technology in this show. It would have been no issue putting a mic on stage. Huh. I feel I've said this before. Good job at least on putting the bags under Twilight's eyes, hinting at the idea she hasn't been sleeping. And Spike gets his turn to address the crowd, and is promptly ignored. Raising another future question. For the future.

So Cadence is tasking Spike with a big job. Keep Twilight undisturbed so she can get some sleep. Screw her bed though. I'd bet that Twilight would feel more comfortable on that pile of books. Spike is confident he can help, and Cadence seems willing to let him. So, to start, this is a simple thing. But Spike gets a little gung-ho when a bird is tweeting way to close to the OPEN WINDOW of the bedroom. Now, I will say this. I sleep where there are a lot of birds chirping in the morning. They're loud, and even with everything closed, they can keep you up. But come on. The bird flies into the window to get even closer. On Twilight's horn. And it doesn't wake her. So clearly it's not that big an issue. Spike's begging works as soon as the bird hears the word "princess". It bows and leaves, flying backwards. So apparently, no-speaking animals can understand language, even by people not named Fluttershy. And they understand the culture as well, because it was smart enough to know that Twilight is a princess, and it respected that enough to leave her alone.

Immediately next up, a croquet match that makes Twilight turn, while the window REMAINS OPEN. Now, I don't understand how this is even a thing. Why is there a group of ponies playing croquet right outside a very important (I would assume) building, on a day where everyone is in town for a giant conference. Even more, why isn't there ANYONE ELSE keeping the peace in this town, keeping all the riffraff off the street? Why does this fall to a baby dragon and not some guards or something? And now chainsaws. A pony chopping down limbs from the dragonsneeze trees. Yep, dragonsneeze. Because that's a thing now. What creature decided this to be a good idea? Clearly a pony who wanted an easy way to keep dragons in line. But, what kind of thing is this? Yeah, it distracts them a little, but there would be far better ways to deal with dragons. Like, I don't know, a "slay dragon" spell. Let Starswirl invent THAT. Also, a lumberjack pony with a Canadian accent. Talk about self-deprecating. Is his name Bear Hugger by chance?

Even more immediately, a jackhammer. Really, I get that this is all done for comical effect, but there is no realistic way all these massive noises would all be taking place on the same street below the same room at the same time. Next up will be a pony named J.D. stopping his brother's loud motorcycle to tell him he's not ok with him boning his ex. I guess a moogle can dream...

Now, it's important to note here what kinds of issues Spike has been "solving" so far. A sporting event, a lumberjack, and a jackhammer. There is nothing wrong with Spike's decisions, but anyone who knows anything about cartoons knows what's going to happen. Next up, we have two ponies, one apparently from Minnesota, who got booked to give speeches at the same time. Spike effectively fakes talking to Twilight, and makes the decision for himself. It's weird though, that Spike's decision to share the room would go over poorly. I mean, it's a summit. Isn't the whole point here to bring them all together? More ponies show up with questions for Twilight. Spike fakes more answers, including one for a seat-stealer, because that's apparently so important that a princess has to get involved. I guess this place doesn't have ushers. Hell, Spike gives a fantastic answer to his problem this time. Oh hey, it's Fancy Pants. Remember him? He was the only guy who was nice enough to Rarity when everypony else was being snooty, stuck-up pieces of trash. Surely he'll stick to that idea here. Spike turns him down, and decides that he can deal with some other things Twilight needs done. Makes sense. She's gotta sleep, and her list is too long, even for her, to deal with. Cadence shows up to check in on Spike. She's worried that the power is going to Spike's head, gives a little worried look as she flies off. Spike gives an evil laugh, and at this point I got confused. Nowhere before this point is it indicated that Spike is doing anything for more than Twilight's sake. A quick turn like that doesn't make any sense. It's almost as if Cadence implanted the idea into Spike's head to abuse the power he holds. So really, it's all her fault if something happens.

Spike's abuse takes the form of a massage and gemstone cupcakes, which is a nice callback to the "M" episode, as I'll call it out of laziness. And a painting of himself as he imagines him, another callback, this time to A Dog and Pony Show. Cadence shows up again and finally convinces Spike that he's enjoying his newfound power. Even though he initially wasn't. And then we see the most unlikely of events occur. A ball from the polo(apparently) match flies over a wall, into the leaning tower of dragonsneeze trees. Creating a domino effect that has one fall on the broken water line, shooting water everywhere. Drowning the castle hall where Spike and Cadence are. Cadence uses her fancy magic that we rarely get to see to stop the water. But the dragonsneeze trees have made their way into the hall, causing Spike to sneeze down the statue of gems that represents each city. It seems Spike can only sneeze left, at least camera left.

Fancy Pants leads an angry mob to Twilight's room, because remember, these were orders by the princess, at least according to Spike. Twilight must be the deepest sleeper ever, because the mob outside and Spike screaming at them from INSIDE the room aren't enough to wake her. But she does wake, refreshed. You know, until she sees the carnage that came as a result of Spike making decisions for her. Spike admits he just wanted to be heard. So really, everything isn't his fault. It's not Cadence's fault. It's the mob's fault, for not listening to him in the first place. Spike tries to make it up by rebuilding the gem statue, and after a speech by him, everybody else pitches in and helps. Spike is given a gift of dragonsneeze, because of course he does, and scene.

A couple things people have noted about all this. One, Spike is not to blame for anything that happened. He was just doing his job, and there was no indication that these things would have had negative effects on the summit. The things he did as an abuse of his power later had no impact on anything at all. A massage and free food wasn't bringing anything down. I mean, yeah, he shouldn't have done it, but it was harmless. Everything that happened in this episode happened because crazy cartoon coincidences. And, to be fair to Spike, he did mean nothing but good intentions on his decisions. That shows a pretty good amount of growth.

Number two is, why trust Spike to take care of Twilight in the first place? Have another princess fill in for Twilight while she rests. Well, this is partially true. There should have been another princess around to make any important decisions in place of Twilight. But, as Spike himself put it, he knows Twilight better than anyone. There is nothing wrong with putting him in charge of something like keeping his friend from waking up. Besides, he is a lot more responsible than the term "baby dragon" would have you believe. He's been on some pretty important missions, ones far more dangerous than "make sure Twilight doesn't wake up". It's not like putting a member of the mane6 there would have helped. Each decision would have had negative consequences no matter which choice was made. Rainbow Dash? She would have been just as reckless as Spike. Fluttershy too, eventually, once everyone pissed her off enough. Rarity might have created some form of earmuff for Twilight to wear, so that there would not have been any issues at all. Applejack would have just threatened anyone with "Bucky McGillycuddy" and "Kicks McGee", and had no problem telling them Twilight was asleep. Pinkie would have, well, Pinkie'd.

Number three is (I can't count), it's all Cadence's fault. Again, partially true. Well, not really true at all. She tasked Spike with keeping Twilight asleep. She should have tasked herself with filling in for her as well. But again, everything that went down did so because of random coincidence. It's not really anybody's fault, not even the mob. Cadence was worried about Spike making decisions, and should have kept a closer eye on him. But she didn't, probably because she thought Spike could handle it and that he knew Twilight well enough to know he could be trusted with it.

So, was this episode good? I don't know. Spike works best when he's not the focus. He's good as the cynical one-liner character. It's also really bothersome that when all these ponies came to Spike looking for Twilight, nobody even recognized him. Not at the summit speech, not as the freaking savior of an entire kingdom, nothing. You could say that, because of Twilight's princess status, Spike is actually the delegate of Ponyville. Fancy Pants is the delegate of Canterlot, instead of Celestia or Luna, so it's entirely possible. He gets ignored because he is that cynical guy standing on the side, and that's where he should stay. Also, this episode, like a lot of episodes, feature only one member of the Mane6. Which is odd because that usually happens to the others, not Twilight. And it didn't really even have her, because she slept most of the time. This felt like an aftershock of episode 100, because it featured mostly side characters and new ones, with just a single speech by Sunbutt and Moonbutt. It was hard to be entertained by this episode, because most of the time I spent it just responding with, "really?" So, yeah. My final opinion of this episode. Really?