Episode Reviews: Applebuck Season

The fourth episode of the show was the first one to turn the focus onto one specific character, and surprisingly enough, that character was Applejack. Yes, the pony everyone loves to ignore, who barely gets an episode, was the first one to have one centered on examining her character and her flaws. But does it still hold up? Well, let's find out as we look at "Applebuck Season."

TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 1

Episode: 4

Written By: Amy Keating Rogers

First Aired: November 5, 2010

SUMMARY:

It’s Applebuck Season, which is what the Apple Family calls harvesting time. Unfortunately, tragedy has struck Sweet Apple Acres; Big Macintosh has been injured in an unexplained injury, leaving Applejack alone to harvest the entire orchard. Unfortunately, she misconstrues his warning that she can’t do the entire job alone as an insult and a challenge, and declares that she’ll buck every apple out of those trees…right after she and her dog, Winona, save the town from a cattle stampede. After steering the cows away and asking them nicely to not stampede through Ponyville, she is declared a hero.

A week later, a celebration has finally been set up in Applejack’s honor, and she is set up to receive the “Prized Pony of Ponyville” Award. While Twilight tries to make a speech celebrating her, she gets interrupted by some of her friends praising Applejack for offering to help them with their own tasks. Rainbow Dash has AJ helping her with a new flying trick, Pinkie Pie has asked her to help bake treats for when she looks over Sugar Cube Corner, and she’s also helping Fluttershy with the Bunny Census. When the mayor interrupts her, Twilight finally gives up and leaves, allowing the mayor to introduce…

Nopony.

Despite the celebration being in her honor, Applejack is nowhere to be seen. It isn’t until after the announcement has been made that she finally wanders into the party, looking absolutely exhausted and dropping apples everywhere. She yawns, says a few barely-jointed words, and finally just drags the thing off.

Worried, Twilight goes to the farm, where AJ has fallen asleep on her hooves. After learning the whole situation, and that the relatives from the pilot were just visiting and are busy with their own orchards, Twilight offers to help. Applejack, unfortunately, is so stubbornly obsessed with her personal pride that she refuses to accept Twi’s help, or to cancel any of her other obligations, despite her vision getting blurry.

Later that day, Applejack arrives late to help Dash, who has come up with a plan to get some extra takeoff speed: have Applejack jump onto the other end of a seesaw, catapulting Dash into the air faster than she can fly by herself. Unfortunately, AJ’s sense of perception is so off that she keeps missing the jump, and when she makes an attempt to just push the other side down from the ground, all she ends up doing is getting Dash knocked off her hooves on her side of the contraption. Even worse, this is the one time AJ hits the mark, sending the hapless Dash careening into Twilight’s balcony.

Twilight comes by again, only to discover that AJ is now having trouble hearing things. After a frustrating conversation, AJ refuses help (and kelp) and goes to assist Pinkie. After passing her off as the best baker in Equestria, Pinkie starts reading directions for muffins from a cookbook while AJ stands behind her and puts the ingredients together. With her hearing problems, however, Applejack mishears every ingredient, ending with a mess of potato chips, worms, lemons, and soda pop. Pinkie hands out the muffins as part of a free promotion…and a short time later, everypony who bit into one is now in the emergency room, including Pinkie.

Now even more frustrated, Twilight heads back to Sweet Apple Acres, but Applejack’s sleep deprivation has left her belligerent and short-tempered. Ignoring Twi’s advice again, she and Winona head up to help Fluttershy round up the new baby bunnies so they can be counted. Unfortunately, in her state, she ignores Fluttershy’s instructions to keep things calm and ends up scaring the bunnies into the world’s most adorable stampede, devouring everypony’s garden and flowers in the process.

Twilight can take no more, and marches back to Sweet Apple Acres to tell AJ to accept some help already. AJ, however, has finally finished her task, and gloats about how awesome she is…until Big Macintosh shows her that she’s only finished half the trees. At long last, AJ can take no more, and she collapses in a heap. When she comes to, she finally accepts her friends’ help, and with all six working together, the harvest is done on time.

At the end, Twilight writes a letter about the experience, and gives the lesson: there’s no shame in asking somebody for help. After a long harvest, the ponies rest and enjoy some apple juice…while Spike finishes off the muffins he dug from the trash.

REVIEW:

“Applebuck Season” is the first episode I saw that I completely and utterly enjoyed from start to finish when I was first working through all the episodes. Not only did it give everypony (besides Rarity, sadly) something to do, but it also made me really like Applejack after her disappointing appearance in the pilot and just okay role in “Ticket Master.” I really couldn’t wait to see another great episode starring her. Darn shame I didn’t get one until SSCS6K, but that’s another story.

The opening establishes the main problem of the episode, and also gives us some relationship information between AJ and BM. Big Macintosh’s role in the family is quickly established as the older, more sensible sibling, compared to Applejack’s stubbornness and hotheadedness. Granted, the way he phrased his objection to her trying to clear the entire orchard by herself could have been done a bit better, but when you can only speak in a monotone, you do what you can. The cause of his injury is never explained, but the common belief is that it’s because he had to wear one of Granny’s girdles as part of a bet mentioned in “Ticket Master.” I don’t know if that’s true, but the reason why isn’t important. It’s just a plot injury to keep him from helping AJ, thereby rendering the episode a moot point.

The cattle stampede helps establish AJ’s character as a cowpony. Up to this point, all she did was wear a cowboy hat, talk Southern, and kick trees. Here, she lassos cows, controls the herd’s path, and helps steer them away from the town. We also get some good moments from the ponies, such as Pinkie Pie vibrating to the ground shaking just so she can hear her voice be silly and Rarity’s dramatic reaction to their oncoming doom. Oh, and cows talk, too. And are kept in barns, as we later see. As are sheep…

The celebration scene is mostly there to set up the rest of the episode’s madness. It’s amusing to watch Twilight get interrupted constantly, and I loved the little speeches the three made. Rainbow Dash just butts in there and makes her “So awesome!” face before being pushed off. Pinkie pops up from under the podium to announce that she’s taking over Sugar Cube Corner for the first time, and when asked what that has to do with Applejack, blinks blankly for a few seconds before coming up with an answer. And then there’s Fluttershy, who’s so awfully polite about interrupting her friend’s speech.

And then we see AJ, and we know just what kind of wacky hijinks we’re in store for. Her sleep deprivation is set up very quickly, with her face looking like it’s falling off, her falling asleep on her hooves (a nice touch, since that’s how horses generally sleep), and her and Pinkie making faces in the trophy’s reflection. The casts’ reaction was also amusing, especially with Rarity focusing on her hair and not the rest of her. Of course, since this is season one, Twilight’s the one who goes to investigate.

I won’t lie, looking back on the episode, the scenes at the farm are very, very repetitive. Twilight arrives, says AJ needs help, AJ says no, end scene. There are, however, some things I did enjoy. I liked Twilight’s teleporting, even though it never appears again until the second season. I’m happy that they actually explained what happened to the rest of the family, since otherwise it would have been a pretty big plot hole. I liked their conversation the second time, as well as AJ getting stuck upside-down the third time.

These scenes, however, also help set up exactly what symptom of sleep deprivation, overwork, and downright insanity the cast will be dealing with next. The first time, it’s double vision, which is shown when AJ mistakes Twilight for three ponies. The second time is to set up her hearing comprehension issues, with her mistaking everything Twilight said for something that sounds similar until she’s practically shouting at her. And the third time, it’s to bring up her grumpiness and irritability. And just before she collapses, it’s pretty clear she can barely move her body at all anymore.

If you don’t mind the series assaulting the laws of physics (and I don’t, since they only get in the way), Rainbow Dash getting catapulted is a very funny scene. AJ repeatedly slamming into the ground is amusing enough, especially with the different ways she lands, but what sells this one is Dash’s reaction to all this. She’s the only one of the three who (rather bluntly) questions why Applejack is having so much trouble if she’s supposed to be “Ponyville’s best athlete.” (How ironic, considering what happens nine episodes from now.) And of course, Team Dash getting blasted off again and crashing into Twilight’s balcony is a quick, dirty, and funny way to notify her that yes, Applejack is still not doing well.

This episode also introduces us to Sugar Cube Corner and the Cakes, although their names haven’t been established just yet. We also get some hints at the relationship between the Cakes and Pinkie, as they double-check to make sure she won’t, you know, burn down the store or anything, but since AJ is there, they allow the two of them to do their thing. The baking scene, while funny in just how badly Applejack manages to misinterpret Pinkie’s words, does leave me with one question: why doesn’t Pinkie just look at all the stuff dumped in a bowl? After all, you still had to mix before you pour. Or better yet, why doesn’t she just turn around?

In any case, it’s pretty obvious where this goes. The hospital scene is nice in just how many ponies are now utterly sick because of Applejack. The “baked bads” joke is an amusing enough pun, but personally, I liked the joke about Spike liking the worm-infested muffins the most. By the way, horses can’t vomit. Then again, horses can’t eat chocolate, drink cider, or do 99.99% of the things we see in this show, so that’s a moot point.

The bunny stampede is the one I liked the least, but I still enjoyed it. It’s the same basic gag again (Fluttershy tells AJ to be gentle, she doesn’t listen, horror ensues), but there are some really good touches to it as well. It introduced us to the “Flower Trio” of Roseluck, Daisy and Lili, who will make return appearances and repeat the same joke in numerous other episodes. The bunny stampede is interesting in how it’s treated; while still given an over-the-top reaction, having a bunch of rabbits devour the plants, flowers, and garden your species needs to eat and make a living is a genuine issue.

And then we get the last scene between Twilight and AJ, kicked off by this lovely bit of alliteration:

Of course, this is met with the reveal that, at long last, Applejack has finished the entire orchard by herself. This being an edutainment show, her gloating is met with Big Macintosh teleporting off-screen to show her the other half of the orchard. This entire sequence is done very, very well, and is finally the kick in the teeth needed to get AJ to collapse and ask her friends for help. Granted, it could have been done without the begging, but then again, she’s at her absolute lowest point here; she’s exhausted herself over the course of a week, and literally cannot muster the strength to continue.

The closing scene of the five working together to finish the harvest is one of those warm and fuzzy endings that I enjoy. It’s always nice to see the five actively working together, even if, according to the Japanese fans, Twilight is so totally cheating by picking a dozen trees worth of apples using only her magic. I also liked the part where the apples seemed to just fall into Fluttershy’s basket without her even bucking the tree; apparently The Stare is so powerful that it even affects trees. The bit with AJ serving them apple juice is a somewhat sappy – but still loveable – ending, even if the metal tray changes into a wooden table between cuts. And of course, we end with Spike still eating the baked bads. Not exactly the joke I’d go out on, but it works.

CONCLUSION:

“Applebuck Season” is one of my favorite early episodes, and an important one in terms of the fandom. This episode gave us Rainbow Dash’s scrunched-up face, Sugar Cube Corner and the Cakes, Derpy liking muffins, the Flower Trio, Twilight being able to control her teleporting (the last episode had it happen by accident), and of course, helped solidify AJ’s character. While the pilot went over her in brief, it never felt like she was given a whole lot of depth at that point. Here, we see that she takes her commitments with the utmost seriousness, is stubborn as a mule, and has a number of other talents that will come into play over the course of the series. I liked a lot of the jokes, I loved watching AJ slip into madness, and I liked the character bits between her and Twilight.

There are some issues. The episode itself is fairly repetitive, following the same formula three times before finally ending. There are some reused shots, such as Dash looking over the cattle and bunny stampedes in the exact same way. And like a lot of the early episodes, the narrative places exploring the characters over the content of the episode. Still, it’s a good episode, and the best one to focus heavily on Applejack to this point. (She was almost an antagonist in “The Last Roundup,” and her other episodes so far have had her share the focus with the rest of her family and, in one case, Spike.) So if you want to see where some of our most iconic memes came from, this is a good episode to watch. If you want to just be entertained for twenty-two minutes, then it’s still a good one to take a look at.