Season 5, Ep. 4 “Bloom and Gloom” – Review and Commentary

(( Alas we have no viable way of getting screengrabs for this episode. If anyone has ideas where to get some, even hasbro isn’t selling the episode XD))

Bloom and Gloom

So here we are, second real episode into Season five! Lets see what they’ve decided to give us to make our brains go “ooo” and “ahhh”!

Those of you out there reading this should know I’m a fan of the show, and my remarks are meant to be in good taste and not meant to bring the show down for the most part!

So we start out in the Cutie Mark Crusaders Treehouse, where we learn that Babs Seed has earned her own cutie mark (scissors oddly enough). They go on to discuss what a majority of us tend to run into when we think about the idea of the CMC is that once you get your breasts cutie mark, your NOT part of the group anymore.

This of course scares Applebloom as no doubt she doesn’t want to go back to being a single string guest star! On the other hand I swear I hear the girls a bit older in their voices, intentionally or not, it’s nice to see progress as I do hate a Static time line.

As Applebloom and Applejack discuss the inevitable conclusions I spoke of above, they settle in for a nice summer’s nap. Now as most of our veteran viewers can remember, we haven’t had a nightmare episode for Applebloom. Previously we had Scootaloo camping and being chased by the headless horse and Sweetie Belle’s episode was the weaker of the two. So of course from a literary standpoint we all must have come to the conclusion by now that this is the third and final one before we either dive into babs or all three in a 80’s style tribute to the explorers dreamscape.

AJ and Applebloom share a lovely moment and AJ’s singing reminds me why I like her voice overall.

So as Applebloom wakes up, a second time through the episode shows several clues regarding the level of reality as it slowly fades away, much like our real dreams do. I’ve always loved when they do that (My favorite episode of all time on Futurama was The Sting for the subconscious work Fry was doing) and this one is no different. AB wakes up and behold she has herself a quickie mark of a Pest Pony! A quick homage to Darth Vader and then our heroine is thrust into her new life as a Bug Control Specialist. She’s given a crash course that might as well be called how to be a Pest Pony in 15 easy lines! The old fellow she’s replacing trains her and he’s off to the good life now that someone else has been given the job. (an interesting take on dirty jobs in this civilization)

The pest in question is called, get this, “Twittermites”. I can’t help but think about how the writers threw that one around describing these. The more spread out they get the worst they get, the more you have the more powerful, ect. It’s an interesting commentary on Twitter itself. Mindless insects that alone are fine and almost cute, but you get ALOT of them they do repairable damage.

THATS one of the points I built this blog for 😛

So a quite cameo of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon leads to Bloom caving to peer pressure again and inadvertently unleasing Twitter on the entire town of Ponyville! Bloom makes her way to a forest area where a mysterious voice offers to help her, and she has it wipe off her mark. NEVER trust mysterious voices kids.

Now much like in real life, Twitter destroys something before it really knows all the facts and Applebloom witnesses the destruction of the farm and..she wakes up. (those of us who didn’t see that coming, please stand up :P)

What was interesting was that Applebloom starts to TRY and fix her mistake but oddly enough, she’s told NOT to even try since she doesn’t have a cutie mark for the job. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this on a subconscious level that we’re watching this on. Does Applebloom truly think you can’t do ANYTHING unless your mark tells you?

So, Round 2, she wakes up, and fragments of her mind seep in and slowly manipulate the “reality” she’s in. Like reloading a save, the entire setup from before plays out and she and Applejack have breakfast this time is more flamboyant.

The dream lampoons the entire thought I had regarding CMC. The moment ONE of them got a mark, it would shatter their friendship entirely. So that of course means we ask the stranger for help again, taking it away. THIS time the other two now have their marks and tell her to go away, much like DT and Silver Spoon would act. The interesting deep level here is we as the audience and thus AB never SEE the marks Scoots and Bell claim to have, leading to the conclusion that it’s not the cutie mark that AB fears the most, it’s the isolation and rejection that may come with it. She doesn’t NEED to see the mark nor would her mind make one up for her, it’s the emotions tied to it.

Round 3, she wakes up again, by this time we’re all aware of the dream so the writers tip their hand. Breakfast is just insane this time and Applejack, much like a poorly scripted bot, says exactly the same thing despite AB now very concerned about the whole situation. A humorous Mix-Mash of AJ, Big mac and Granny occurs and AB screams herself awake for fear of rejection and exile from her family. The subtext here is that as she’s spiraling toward consciousness, her mind’s losing control of making coherent pictures, so Big Mac’s voice comes from AJ, Granny says Mac’s line, and as such she doesn’t notice as structured thinking is slipping from her.

Round 4 she wakes up (yeah right, this is a reminder of the intro to Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare :P) and has HAD it with the entire waking up and not waking up issue, and just as quickly solid reality fades and she confronts this stranger who keeps helping her.

Thankfully since this IS a dream, most veterans watching should know that Princess Luna isn’t far behind (and I do love me some Luna :P) and she sheds some moonlight on the subject. It turns out the stranger / shadow IS Appleblooms own projection of fear. The overall lesson we’re to learn here is in the end YOU tend to be your own worst obstacle.

Then we get a barrage of doors that reminds us of the Matrix and we peak in on Sweetie Bell and Scoot who are having the same issues as Bloom is having. (I love that Rarity gives Bell a 1.0) We see that Luna is watching everyone’s dreams, which is kinda creepy, but oddly comforting. The real question I have there is if she’s awake and watching over Canterlot / Equestria via that ledge and telescope, does she also project herself in two places at once?

So to wrap up the entire issue, Luna decides to bring all three to a Dream version of the clubhouse (which has..ALOT of Rainbow Dash Merchandise) and they decide to make sure that no matter what mark they get when or where, they will of course remain friends.

Overall I give this a 7 out of 10 (bonus for Luna speaking <3) and I think this is a nice book end to our nightmare episodes of the CMC. I can’t wait till once of them get a mark and we see how well in execution the plan works.

Stay tuned for more folks!

0 thoughts on “Season 5, Ep. 4 “Bloom and Gloom” – Review and Commentary

  1. Sounds like a tippy episode. I love the twitter commentary, that site sure can be like an infestation. I think the subtext where they don’t let her help simply because she didn’t have a mark, might be commentary on how we often don’t let people who only want to help do so simply because they don’t have some sort of official recognition. Like immigrants who are denied jobs because of their status.

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