Grumpy Episode Review - Slice of Life

Ok, so I'm not big on fan pandering. At least, I'm not big on completely overt fan pandering. And when it comes to this show, I'm not big on fanmade background character personalities. So when I heard that episode 100 was going to be all about background characters, I just knew I was going to hate it. Besides, these are background characters, most of which we'll probably never see again. One thing that makes this show interesting is watching the characters actually develop. A whole episode based around characters without that would be super boring. One thing I wanted to do with this review was, instead of a play-by-play of the episode, just go down the list of characters and talk about them one by one. At least, the ones I'm aware of. So, here goes:

Matilda and Cranky: Aww, they're finally getting married. Cranky's lifetime pursuit of a lost love finally culminates into the everlasting love of these two donkeys. And since grumpy and cranky kind of go together, I always found myself a little liking of Cranky as a character. And from Matilda, well... We get a little Bridezilla going on, but that's ok. These two are the basis for what falls as a story for this episode, but most of the entertainment comes elsewhere. Still though. Out of the side characters we've seen return so far this season, I think these two have been the most wanted by me.

Derpy: Muffins, really? Ok, whatever. Derpy messed up the invitations. Which means she is more than just a mailmare. Of course, getting a filly to print out the invitations might have been a bad idea. So, Derpy gets her voice again, and... eh. It works ok, I guess. But I can only hear the original voice. She sounds more endearing now though. But the problem is, she isn't clumsy in this episode. That was her whole schtick. Here, she's just more "oo, shiny object". It's a little off putting that the derp-eyes are the only thing consistent about her. And I know what you're thinking. "But that's her fan character, not canon". Nope, we've seen her all the time be clumsy. The Last Roundup being the most obvious example. I miss that.

Dr. Whooves: Or whatever he's being called. The reference is obvious, but what I don't understand is why he's friends with Derpy as much as he is. One's a brilliant scientist (who needs a tailor), the other rather dumb and absent-minded. I was rather amused by him following Vinyl, thinking that her head bobs were nods and that she could actually hear him. Then again, the good Doctor also thought the Lebowski ponies had style. So, he probably doesn't know much outside his experiments. He needs to get out more, man.

Amethyst Star - The town organizer, as she put it, before Twilight Sparkle moved in. Fills in for Pinkie Pie to plan the wedding. You know, she must be pretty bad at her job. Remember, Winter Wrap Up ran behind every single year until Twilight showed up. Also, voiced by Brenda Crichlow. So, where is Zecora then? Makes a very brief appearance this episode, but so far has been next to non-existent for awhile. In an episode about background characters, we get more screentime for the mane 6 than the awesome zebra.

Flower ponies - Way over the top with the fainting. Although, a nice running gag.

Lyra and Bon Bon - "best friend best friend best friend, oh, by the way, I'm a secret agent". Ugh. talk about over the top. I can almost appreciate the idea, given it happens more than once in NCIS. At least it explains her many voices. Also, good to see Andrea Libman playing a relevant character outside Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. As far as Lyra, they really overplayed the "human" thing with the sitting and the bench mention. And the shipping fodder for them is off the charts. Thought we saw enough of that at the gala.

Steven Magnet - Wow. I was not expecting that. Ok, so I was because spoilers, but still. The best man at the wedding. And apparently incapable of surviving without being at least partially submerged in water. Either that or he just really wanted to chill in the tub. Just as campy as before. Saves the day by giving up his moustache (again) as a hair piece for Cranky. Kind of expected it either way though. People have been clamoring for a return of the friendly sea monster since day one, including Lee Tockar.

Octavia and Vinyl Scratch - Oh, here go. First off, Octavia's voice sounds better here than in Rainbow Rocks. In the movie, she sounded like she was 80 years old. Here, she sounds much younger. But, that's not what we're here for. Apparently Hasbro just went all copy/paste on their fandom lives, and put them as roommates. Competing roommates. And Vinyl does everything you've probably seen her do in fan videos. Crank up the base. Annoy the crap out of Octavia. Drive the turntables system down the street. Over a toy shark. I gotta say, the classical music mixed with the bass actually turned out pretty well. Gotta give em credit for that. And I'm ok with Vinyl staying mute, but I was hoping for the name to be used. Hell, the house they're in is even divided in half by colors, to designate the different music styles. Play "spot the other background ponies" on their trip. Button gets a ride in the "driver's seat" with Vinyl. Minuette, Thunderlane, drunk pony. And Twicane for some stupid reason. There you go. This entire episode is one big fever dream by Discord.

Gummy - Even if you can put all the rest aside, this is no longer a kids' show. Not after that internal monologue by Gummy. Which, hey, Lee Tockar again. And I can appreciate this. It's a little reminder of some of the great shows that used voice over. Like Scrubs. And Scrubs. And also Scrubs. I don't care about the rest. It was unexpected, so at least on first viewing, it was entertaining. Though I still don't know what the hell he's talking about.

So, who gets the award for best performance? The musical stylings of OctaviScratch? Special agent Sweetie Drops? The random showing of Cadence and Shining Armor at the wedding? Nope. That belongs to Celestia and Luna, who, for some unknown reason, made it a point to show up at two donkeys' wedding. I love the idea of Celestia disregarding the whole idea of formality and royalty. We've seen it over and over, most notably both times at the gala. She went out of her way to make it as disastrous as possible. We get to see her act like a normal pony at times. Luna, not so much. Her most notable episode has her acting extremely formal, using royal speech, and being feared. After that, she's only really shown up in dreams, guiding young fillies. We don't see her in the real world. Here, we get to see them, off the clock, to put it another way. They're just acting like sisters. Like normal ponies. This is what we need. We need a whole episode of that. SOMEpony forgot the wedding gift.

The bugbear is defeated, everybody is at the wedding, and all is well. Derpy shutting the mane6 out of the wedding hall was hilarious, and I think it showed that the episode was meant to be all about the random lives of Ponyville. I was a little annoyed earlier in the episode, because you could hear Rainbow Dash grunt while they were fighting the beast. But, I figured it was ok, after the door closed. But then, they screwed up, and gave the mane6 the final scene. Bad move. It should have ended at the wedding. Although...I could have done without the super meta "it's not just the main characters that make our story" speech from the mayor. And whoa. What is a CHANGELING doing at the wedding? Waiting for a snack? I don't read the comics, so I can't comment on what goes on with the race there, but the changelings as we know them in canon are just evil creatures who devour love. We haven't seen them since they got forced out of Canterlot. That better be foreshadowing something.

So, who gets the voice award? Ashleigh Ball. It's hard to create a normal sounding voice that sounds nothing like your, well, normal speaking voice. Listen to Bon Bon, and you can hear Andrea Libman. I can't hear Ashleigh Ball in Lyra's voice. Well done.

So, final verdict? It's obvious some people are going to hate the episode. But, it was never advertised as anything other than 100% fan pandering. The problem comes about when some of those fans may have absolutely no idea what all this pandering is. But, for me, it comes out a lot better when you go into something with low expectations. I expected to hate this. But, at least on a first viewing, I found myself chuckling at many things, and enjoying some of the characters. I thought the ending could have been better, but oh well. Just as long as we get more Celestia and Luna being normal.