The moment I heard about this episode's premise, I felt nothing but dread hearing about it. And watching it for real affirmed my initial fears.
Frenemies
Written by Michael Vogel
Where do I even begin with this? The premise alone is just... stupid. Basically, Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow are forced to work together - because we've never seen the teamwork moral before(!) - partly because they're driving Grogar up the wall with their petty bickering, but mostly to get his Bewitching Bell.
Yeah, much like the "be yourself" message, the "teamwork" message has been done so often you can put this in literally any show or movie. What makes the latter message worse (in this episode, at least) is that it's being taught to a group of dangerous criminals, which basically means "sympathize with bad guys who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever", and that's a harmful message to send to children.
Also, we're talking about a group of villains who nearly wrecked a wedding, kidnapped royalty (Chrysalis), caused a rampage across Equestria (Tirek), and committed treason against Equestria (Cozy Glow)! How are any of them meant to be sympathetic based on those actions alone?!
If we were to translate the implications of this episode into the real world, then maybe we should forgive Hitler for murdering Jewish people. We should forgive Stalin for communistic beliefs. We should forgive bin Laden for causing the destruction of the Twin Towers! We should forgive Adam Lanza for murdering innocent children! We should forgive Harvey Weinstein despite that he's a serial philanderer...! Yes, all the examples I listed are on the extreme end of the scale, but I'm listing them to make a point as to why I treat this bullshit ideology that "every criminal is misunderstood" with extreme contempt.
Yes, there are horrible people in the world, but if they want to change, it's on them entirely. They have to earn forgiveness, they don't just get it on a silver platter. Yes, in a kid's show, forgiveness should be a sweet, charming lesson, but if you apply idealized forgiveness like how Equestria Girls has done to the real world...!
Remember the Thomas and Friends episode Springtime for Diesel? That was how you handle forgiveness in a kid's show. Diesel caused trouble for Daisy and caused her springs to break, and although he didn't want to show it, he felt remorse for his behavior and apologized to Daisy privately. Yeah, she was still upset with him for doing so, but in the end, they still became friends. That was character development for Diesel, who feels a lot more like an anti-hero these days.
Back to Frenemies, and the episode is sluggishly paced. There's very little happening to the point they almost become actual friends, which was sickeningly sweet for the wrong reasons. And again, there is no reason we should sympathize with them because they're dangerous criminals!
Yeah, much like the "be yourself" message, the "teamwork" message has been done so often you can put this in literally any show or movie. What makes the latter message worse (in this episode, at least) is that it's being taught to a group of dangerous criminals, which basically means "sympathize with bad guys who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever", and that's a harmful message to send to children.
Also, we're talking about a group of villains who nearly wrecked a wedding, kidnapped royalty (Chrysalis), caused a rampage across Equestria (Tirek), and committed treason against Equestria (Cozy Glow)! How are any of them meant to be sympathetic based on those actions alone?!
If we were to translate the implications of this episode into the real world, then maybe we should forgive Hitler for murdering Jewish people. We should forgive Stalin for communistic beliefs. We should forgive bin Laden for causing the destruction of the Twin Towers! We should forgive Adam Lanza for murdering innocent children! We should forgive Harvey Weinstein despite that he's a serial philanderer...! Yes, all the examples I listed are on the extreme end of the scale, but I'm listing them to make a point as to why I treat this bullshit ideology that "every criminal is misunderstood" with extreme contempt.
Yes, there are horrible people in the world, but if they want to change, it's on them entirely. They have to earn forgiveness, they don't just get it on a silver platter. Yes, in a kid's show, forgiveness should be a sweet, charming lesson, but if you apply idealized forgiveness like how Equestria Girls has done to the real world...!
Remember the Thomas and Friends episode Springtime for Diesel? That was how you handle forgiveness in a kid's show. Diesel caused trouble for Daisy and caused her springs to break, and although he didn't want to show it, he felt remorse for his behavior and apologized to Daisy privately. Yeah, she was still upset with him for doing so, but in the end, they still became friends. That was character development for Diesel, who feels a lot more like an anti-hero these days.
Back to Frenemies, and the episode is sluggishly paced. There's very little happening to the point they almost become actual friends, which was sickeningly sweet for the wrong reasons. And again, there is no reason we should sympathize with them because they're dangerous criminals!
Final Thoughts
I know there are people who will argue, "Oh, this episode is great because we got a villain-focused episode!" But I counter with what I've said about Sparkle's Seven; episode quality is not automatic based on a unique concept alone. It's the writing that truly matters most.
The teamwork moral is forced down your throat to the point you'd want to barf it back out again (the song didn't help either, nor did it help the villains' petty childishness), and the implications surrounding the characters learning it are horrifying. I know there's people out there who believe there's good in everyone, and that's fine and all, but again, not everyone wants to change.
Even if you take the unfortunate implications out of the equation, Frenemies is a boring, over-hyped slog-fest. I don't know if this is worse than The Mean 6, but considering that both were written by Michael Vogel, why should we be surprised they're as bad as each other?
The teamwork moral is forced down your throat to the point you'd want to barf it back out again (the song didn't help either, nor did it help the villains' petty childishness), and the implications surrounding the characters learning it are horrifying. I know there's people out there who believe there's good in everyone, and that's fine and all, but again, not everyone wants to change.
Even if you take the unfortunate implications out of the equation, Frenemies is a boring, over-hyped slog-fest. I don't know if this is worse than The Mean 6, but considering that both were written by Michael Vogel, why should we be surprised they're as bad as each other?
Rating: Atrocious (-10/10)
The fourth paragraph about the whole forgiveness thing, that is a problem that's not only in this episode, but has been going on with this show ever since season five. And it's especially why I hated shit like the non-canon "Siege of the Crystal Empire" comic, the seasons five, six and seven finales and the MLP movie (or one big reason for the season seven finale and film as that film had tons of problems): Tempest showed no remorse for her actions at all and only turned good/felt bad because her own selfish dream was ruined, not because she felt horrible for what she did or how wrong she was. Same with Starlight, she is just "misunderstood" and stays as a sociopath because everyone adapts to her instead of standing up.
ReplyDeleteI know two things that would have made this episode better: fire Michael Vogel (he's shown lots of times he can't write decent dialogue and stories for beans), and/or ax Cozy Glow's concept, I still can't get over the stupid, literally mentally challenged concept that the most successful villain in the FiM series who was able to steal its magic was an ordinary fucking pegasus CHILD. And how come SHE actually gets punished for her actions whilst most of the other reformed adult villains who show no remorse for what they do, instantly get a pat on the back? At least stuff like Sailor Moon had characters who questioned idealism and such, occasionally saying stuff like "You're being idealistic, don't show sympathy to the enemy", challenged beliefs. We don't get that here.
Quoting some review on "Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy" (an anime that has similarly harmful content/messages), the more I think about this, the angrier I get about how this show makes instant forgiveness/giving it to criminals on a silver platter seem like a rational way of dealing with the world. Simply, it's whitewashing severe psychological problems and situations by covering them up with a sugar coating and painting a fake view on how the world works.
And considering how there were people still trying to forgive certain horrible members of the fandom (I don't even need to mention them), it wouldn't surprise me if they got brainwashed by this disgusting message...