Mlp Castle Sweet Castle Review

So erm... that episode was a thing...

After some thought the one way I would describe my thoughts on this episode would be that they took 5-6 mins of content and stretched it over 20. This episode just feels so underwhelming because I just find it so hard to find anything of substance to even hold onto.

Normally I speak about things like the characters, plot, pathos, themes and whatnot but most of these things feel almost completely empty.

The story of this episode feels really simple. Set up the reason to decorate, fail to decorate, fight a little, then rush to succeed at decorating, all whilst Twilight is kept busy. In the long and short of this, the episode is all about decorating the crystal castle... woo thrilling stuff..

With a story so boring it makes it really hard for me to see any appreciable pathos or morals in this episode. I mean they really could have tried to do something about feeling at home and the loss of our old one... but they didn’t really. By making this ‘decoration the episode’ and by sending the one most relevant person off to the spa, it all makes this story feel really empty because the journey is more about DiY than it is about Twilight and her feelings about her past or present home.

The the way they handled the characters in this story also felt run of the mill. It’s hard to explain exactly how it feels this way, but everyone and everything just turned out to work as the plot demanded it.

Luckily Twilight just happened to have a reason to start off the episode, she then was taken out of the picture until the end. Oddly enough all of the M5 each had an encounter with Twilight that all luckily lead to same obvious conclusion (also luckily each case just happened to relate to their particular shtick). All of the M5 fail and in quite the same way (each just assuming that their shtick would work... because... the plot says so). etc etc...

It just feels like we are going through the motions. Nothing unexpected happens and everyone always acts according to their stereotype. For example, almost everything Fluttershy does is related to animals, she was cleaning animals, she brought in animals to the castle and in the end she made stuffed animals. She is basically just a gimmick character, if she has to fill in any blank just type something animal related and that’s it.

In terms of writing style this episode feels so low key and basic. For example I found the way they showed Twilight to be avoiding the castle to be really blunt and in your face, but it still took them around 5 minutes before they moved on from this point. Even typically high notes like the song felt really underwhelming, looking past how redundant the songs generally were, they weren’t that memorable (except for how weird RD’s singing voice sounded).

My gut has two sneaking suspicions about this episode and the show in general.

First I suspect that this episode was made in reaction to the fandom, specifically about those who bemoaned the loss of the treehouse. However I feel that this episode was as about as successful as Twilight learning to fly when it came to catering to the fans.

Secondly this new season seems be starting a trend of underwhelming stories and very safe, inoffensive (but patronizing) storytelling. It is still early days but I get the feeling that this show has been made even more kid friendly.. and I don’t mean that in a good way, I have the feeling that this new season seems to be made very much for the very young kids...